Callie, Get Your Groom

Mike took a deep breath. “That was a compliment…and you’re not staying with Donovan.”

“Some compliment. How would you like me to say you’re a nice man?”

The question threw him. Certainly, it was death to a man’s ego to be called nice. Nice was boring. Nice was a sucker’s description. As soon as a woman called a man “nice,” he could hear the death knell coming. A man wanted to be big, bad and a little dangerous.

Not nice.

Damn. He’d never imagined a woman would feel the same way, especially Callie.

“Okay, you’re not nice.” Now that hadn’t come out right, either, and he could guess what she’d say about his awkward attempt to apologize.

“Thank you.”

Contrary to his expectation, she sounded genuinely pleased and Mike rolled his eyes. Women. He was better off with his planes and the grumpy old moose who fed behind his house every evening.

“Shouldn’t you show me the office?” Callie asked as he started the engine. “It’s located here at the airfield, isn’t it?” Despite her question, she yawned and settled back against the seat, closing her eyes as she did so.

He hesitated. They really needed a warm body occupying the office—to answer the phone if nothing else—but her flight had left Seattle at one-thirty the previous morning. Under the circumstances he wouldn’t have expected Elaine to jump into work immediately, and the same applied to Callie. On the other hand, it would be nice to have an excuse to put off the inevitable. Callie living in his house? It gave him a queasy sensation of looming catastrophe.

“I’ll show you the office tomorrow. You probably need some sleep,” Mike said finally. Before your date, he added in his mind. Sheesh, that really irritated him. Donovan should have shown some consideration for their new employee.

Employee? Yeah, that’s how he could treat Callie. Like an employee, even if she wasn’t. Not really. She was doing a favor for Elaine, which translated into a favor for him. Still, it was all very disturbing.

“Callie?” he said.

She opened her eyes. “Hmm?”

“Why didn’t someone phone me? To explain you were coming instead of Elaine?”

“It was all decided at the last minute. Besides—” her sleepy smile flashed at him “—we thought you’d get all blustery and say no.”

Of course I’d say no, Mike growled inside his head.

He would have guessed Elaine’s game right off…namely, that his baby sister was trying to fix him up with Callie. The thought made him wince. He didn’t want to get married. He spent most of his time away from home, flying cargo or tourists around the state. A free and easy life, that’s what he wanted—no wife nagging him, asking why he wasn’t home when the plumbing burst or the kids got the measles.

Mike killed the engine and twisted in his seat. “Look, Callie. I think Elaine is trying to do some matchmaking.”

A knowing grin curved her lips. “Of course she is, but don’t worry about it. I’ll keep out of your way, and you keep out of mine.”

“Then you’re not…” He paused, unsure of how to phrase his question.

“I might look for a husband,” Callie said thoughtfully, “but you’re safe.” She yawned again and wiggled in her seat, making him aware of every inch of exposed skin above and below that ridiculous tube top. “Elaine can plot all she wants. That doesn’t mean we have to go along. I mean really, the two of us together? It’s absurd.”

His brows drew together in a scowl. Everything Callie was saying should make him feel reassured and comfortable with her. Only, it didn’t.

“Why absurd?”

She chuckled and curled her legs beneath her. “I don’t know…you’re six-two and I’m five-four. We’d look silly together. Besides, we’ve known each other forever. No thunderbolts here.”

Her lingering smile annoyed him even more. How could she say that? They’d barely spoken since he’d moved north. After college a few hurried hellos and goodbyes were the sum of their so-called friendship since he’d left home. There hadn’t been time for thunderbolts.

Not that he was interested. His curiosity was purely academic. Actually…his curiosity was masculine—no guy liked to be dismissed by a woman, no matter what the situation might be.

All at once Callie gave herself a little shake and sat up. “Now that we have that settled, I was wondering…You made it sound as though I won’t have any time off. This isn’t a seven-day-a-week job, is it?”

“Er…no.” He relaxed. “Unless there’s an emergency, you’ll have a standard schedule—five days on, two off.”

“Oh, good. I want to do some sightseeing, maybe even climb a glacier. And I understand there’s a lot of hiking around here…even in the immediate area. Do you think I’ll see any grizzlies? I’d love to see a polar bear in the wild, but I guess they’re only around the Arctic ice cap. I’ll have to go farther north to see them.”

Subtle tension crept back into Mike’s body. Why couldn’t his sister have come instead of Callie? Elaine wasn’t curious about fifteen-hundred-pound bears, and she’d been to Alaska often enough that sightseeing wasn’t a high priority.

“You shouldn’t go hiking by yourself,” he said shortly. “It isn’t safe.”

“I wasn’t planning to go by myself.”

Mike sighed. “I don’t have time for hiking, Callie.”

“That’s not a problem…you weren’t invited.”

Her obvious lack of interest made the rejection all that more stinging, though why he felt rejected he couldn’t have said. He glanced at her as he started the engine. While visibly sleepy, she gazed eagerly at the scenery as they pulled onto the gravel road that led into town.

Mike cleared his throat. It was pointless to be so unsettled. This was good old Callie, even if she did look like a beach babe from sunny California. “We don’t have any hiking clubs, kiddo. And the tours are pretty expensive.”

“I don’t need any tours.” She gave him a sunny smile, apparently forgiving him. “Donovan is taking me to the Kenai Wildlife Refuge and—”

“Tonight?” Mike almost stomped on the brake so he could shake some sense into her. “You didn’t buy that line, did you? We might have longer hours of daylight up here, but it’s a long drive down and you couldn’t possibly visit the refuge so late.”

“Of course not,” Callie said patiently. “We’re going on the first day we’re both available. Tonight we’re just going to dinner.”

Mike grunted.

She patted his arm. “Not feeling well?”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s good. Anyway, Travis Black said he loves hiking and he’ll follow me anywhere. But I think he was just being polite.”

Another line, Mike thought sourly, though Travis was an expert wilderness guide. “How did Travis get into this?”

“On the radio. He asked Donovan to describe me, and when Donovan said I had buck teeth and was wrinkled like a walrus, Travis immediately offered his services in showing me around. I don’t think he believed Donovan about the teeth.”

I wouldn’t, either.

Donovan had been protecting his turf—one look at Callie’s skimpy tube top and he’d gotten the complete wrong impression about her. But while Mike couldn’t do anything about his two partners’ social calendars, he could certainly ensure Travis’s days off didn’t coincide with Callie’s. Travis wasn’t a partner—not yet.

“Of course, Ross McCoy offered to fly me across Prince William Sound so we can climb Worthington Glacier. That’ll probably be a two-day trip,” she mused. “But he said he knows a nice place we can stay in Valdez.”

“Really?” Mike felt the urge to loosen his collar, when all he was wearing was a black T-shirt. “When did you talk to Ross? The radio?”