North Country Man

She said, “I guess that does it,” as she walked toward him, leaving the engine running.

Running wild. Like Noah’s appetite.

Her kind of satisfaction he didn’t need. He’d been battling one of his cravings all evening, but only after he’d fed and watered and bandaged his menagerie had he finally given in and made the three-mile walk to the convenience store. Henry Jussila had been there, licking his chops over the liquor bottles. Wild Rose had watched the old lumberjack like a hawk, barely acknowledging Noah as he’d gotten what he needed and left her a couple of dollars. Wild Rose wasn’t like the rest of the local busybodies; she didn’t ask too many questions in the name of the small-town friendliness that had always felt more like gossip to Noah—even before he had something to hide.

“So…” The city woman crossed her arms over her chest like she was cold, though the weather was in the fifties. It had been a warm April, melting the snow by the first of May. You couldn’t ask for more than that. “Thank you for the push.”

Noah nodded. “No problem.” For the first time in a long while, he wanted to say more. But after so many months living alone with no one to talk to but wild critters, it seemed that he’d lost his knack for conversation.

“You live around here? May I—” she took a quick, nervous breath “—offer you a ride?”

“Scrap’s never ridden in a car.”

Incredibly, her eyes got larger. “Oh, right. The bear.”

“But if you’re game,” he said, only to tease her.

She swallowed. “Sure. Why not?” Scrap was in the bushes, sniffing at the rabbit trails. “I’ve never chauffeured a bear cub before. Should he misbehave, the car’s only a rental.”

Noah laughed, surprising himself with how good it felt to have something to laugh about. Strange that his amusement should come in such an unexpected package. “That’s okay. You couldn’t take a car like that where I’m going. I live in the woods, off the beaten path a ways.”

She glanced toward the trail that led into the forest. Her eyes widened as if the path were as fraught with danger as the Chisholm trail. When she looked at him, her stare was direct but not uncomfortable. Ever since he’d come back to Alouette, battered, busted and burned, he’d endured enough curious stares to last him a lifetime.

She doesn’t gape because she doesn’t know, he reminded himself, running a hand over the lower half of his face. The beard was an obvious attempt at camouflage. A mistaken one. Even in his isolation, he’d heard enough of the rumors to realize it had only upped his curiosity factor with the townsfolk.

“Then you’re an honest-to-goodness backwoods-man?” The twinkle of whimsy returned to her eyes. “Like the ones in Tall Tales of the North Country?” She shrugged. “I picked up a rather outlandish paperback at the airport.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I’m in awe.” A wide smile transformed her somewhat plain face. She had character and smarts—he’d seen that right off—but her natural smile and the quirky sense of humor that accompanied it made her seem less serious and more attractive. Almost pretty. He thought she needed reason to smile more often.

Like he had any right to give advice on the subject.

“Don’t be. I’m not Paul Bunyan.” Noah dropped his hand to his belt. Tourists tended to consider the natives of Upper Michigan quaint in an uneducated, unsophisticated way. He wasn’t willing to be the source of their entertainment. All he wanted was to live his life as simply, decently and privately as possible.

Which didn’t allow for women with wide eyes, wide smiles and wide, curvy, made-for-a-man’s-hand hips.

Her eyes, having followed the direction of his lowered hand, became dark and serious again. “Then I’m off.” She spun on her heel and walked briskly to the car, all business. The way he’d thought he preferred it, right? “According to my map, I should be within a mile or two of Alouette. Is that right?”

“You’re on track,” he said, sorry for her departure all the same. It was only his loneliness, he decided. There were better cures. For one, he could pay his folks a long-overdue visit as soon as they got back to town. Maybe even drop in on old friend or two. It might be time.

“Well…” She paused beside the door for a moment, seeming to search for a suitable expression of gratitude. “Thank you,” she said, simple and sincere, a woman after his own heart. Which was strictly a manner of speaking, he reminded himself.

“Welcome.” He sounded suitably gruff, even though he wanted to ask her name or her destination. It was safer not to. This way, they’d never meet again.

For the sake of his peace of mind, that was best.

She slid behind the wheel and he closed the door after her, the soft thunk overriding the moment when she might have said something more. Behind the glass, she blinked at him, her lips slightly parted. Get going, he made himself think so she would read the sentiment on his face and take him for no more than a grouchy backwoods hermit, a role he’d filled well for the past two years.

Her glance dropped again to his belt, and she turned resolutely away, putting the car in gear with a sure thrust of her hand. She peered over the hood, tapping the horn for warning. Scrap was still snuffling at the underbrush, so Noah gave her a wave to send her on her way.

She went, not looking back except for one quick flash of her eyes in the side mirror. They were blue, he saw, deeply blue as a spring-fed lake on a sunny day. His body stirred with renewed interest, but he tamped it down, telling himself the pretty color of her eyes didn’t mean jack. Hell, he could look at the genuine thing fifty yards outside his cabin door. He sure didn’t need to get tangled up with a woman because her eyes were clear-lake blue. Nor because her smile was soft and her heart was courageous and her body was the generous sort that could keep a man warm at night.

CHAPTER TWO

“THESE DIRECTIONS are ridiculous.” Claire double-checked her notes before tossing them aside and edging the car toward what might—or might not—turn out to be Bayside Road. There were no road signs to speak of, but her instructions were to make a sharp right at the Berry Dairy ice-cream cone stand and continue up the hill till she came to the Neptune gateposts. “Whatever happened to street addresses?” she wondered, turning the wheel hand over hand.

Alouette was a nice little town, she’d give it that. Picture-postcard pretty in the daytime, she suspected, when spring sunshine would glance off the dancing waters to brighten the bayside business district of red-and cream-colored brick and stone buildings.

But for now the town was dark and silent. At the marina, black-as-midnight waves slapped at the hulls of boats that had been battened down with sails tightly furled. Even so, it was surprisingly easy for Claire to imagine herself there, sipping coffee in a café that overlooked the harbor. Idling away her time. Doing nothing.

She sighed.

The road to Bay House rose steeply through another thick pine forest. Interspersed with a few maples and birch, the trees densely carpeted the hillside, making the twining roadway seem insignificant in comparison. Claire was beginning to understand that this was a land where nature always overpowered humankind.

She was glad to see that paved driveways had been carved out of the wilderness. Lawns even—vast stretches of them, lit by old-fashioned globe streetlights. The handful of houses she glimpsed through the trees were more handsome and substantial than the humble frame bungalows she’d seen down below. She shifted behind the wheel. Given the upscale neighborhood, Bay House might yet turn out to be a prospect.

At the top of the hill she found the Neptune gateposts—matching sea-god statuary set atop red stone bases gone green with moss and twined with vines. The connecting wrought-iron fence was clogged with a tangle of shrubbery and trees that obscured her view of the house. The gate, an elaborate construction running to rust, stood open, one side pulled halfway off its hinges and dipping lopsided into unmown grass.

“Here I yam,” Claire announced as she always did, clicking to low beams as she drove through the gate. “All that I yam.”

It was a silly saying that had become habit, one she’d begun with her first assignment for Bel Vista. She’d been sent to a ritzy Cliffwalk mansion in Newport because the owners were going bankrupt and the property was available at a bargain-basement price, a “cheap” three mil or so. Coming from modest Midwestern beginnings as she had, she’d been awed and intimidated by the grandeur of how the other half—make that the upper two percent—lived. Although not all her subsequent assignments were as swank, reminding herself that she was worthy exactly as she was helped tame her butterflies.

At a glance she knew that Bay House, rising before her on a grassy knoll, was not so grand, though it was a mansion. The bed-and-breakfast was plentiful in size, made of red sandstone in the Victorian style with several wings, steep peaked dormers and even a turret, its witch-capped roof thrust high against the diamond-laden sky.

A pair of wrought-iron lampposts flanked the walkway, but they were not lighted. The only illumination provided for guests was the dull glow of a solitary fixture shining beside the front door. Saving on electricity?

Claire drove once around the circular driveway, then parked in a paved area alongside several other cars and a well-used pickup truck. She got out, making a mental note of the charming carriage house set back among the trees that bordered the neighboring property. Wondering about the commercial zoning ordinance, she peered through the branches, studying the house next door. A purring black sports car arrived, headlights briefly illuminating the home’s immense white facade. A well-dressed but rumpled man in his mid-thirties lurched out of the car. Claire lifted a hand to wave—never too soon to be friendly with neighbors who might object about Bel Vista moving in—but he threw her a sour, slit-eyed glare and disappeared inside.

“Okay for you,” she said, shrugging. She ducked inside the car to slip the keys from the ignition and reach for her purse.

Her palm landed flat on the passenger seat.

Where was her purse?

“Oh, no,” she moaned under her breath, shooting from the car to check the back seat and trunk. A futile effort. She remembered dropping the purse when that Grizzly Adams character had emerged from the underbrush. Between the shock and distraction and her somersault with Scrap, she’d forgotten all about it.

Good going. What now?

She stared at Bay House, exasperated with herself. The building remained dark and quiet—no sign of a welcome. Well, then. She’d try checking in, and if they wouldn’t take her at her word and demanded identification, she’d have to backtrack in search of the purse. In the meantime, it wasn’t likely anyone would stumble across it on such a little-used road in a sparsely populated area.

“Hoo.” Claire blew out a disgusted breath while hauling her baggage from the trunk. The prospect of facing the wilderness again was disheartening when all she wanted was civilization and its creature comforts.

No other creatures need apply, she silently added, thinking of her rescuer and his bear cub. She had plenty of decisions to make without a big, male, Sasquatch-like creature complicating matters. Even one who had rock-hard muscles and a whimsical sense of humor.

With a piece of luggage in each hand, her computer satchel slung over one shoulder and her carry-on over the other, Claire headed toward the house, automatically taking in its architectural details. Bay windows with leaded mullions, carved stone designs, copper gutters and drainpipes—all very impressive. The place was in dire need of upkeep, but the basic structure appeared sound. Heaven only knew what nasty surprises lurked within. She was experienced enough with reno budgets to know that hidden problems in an older building could double or triple the initial estimate.

A wide front porch stretched from the tower past a bay window. The front door had a knocker and a doorbell, but she tried the blackened brass knob and found it open.