Stand-In Mum

Searching for breath, unable to form a word yet, Ike could only shake his head in reply. No wonder she’d looked so upset. She thought her best friend’s husband was hitting on her. The very thought of Shayne ever doing anything remotely improper was utterly amusing to Ike. Shayne was as good as they came. The man would die as soon as look at another woman in anything but a professional capacity. His heaven began and ended with Sydney, and Ike envied his friend more than a little. It was something he’d never experienced himself.

“I’m sorry, Marta.” Sydney struggled to catch her breath. The last thing she wanted was for Marta to think she was laughing at her. “This is my fault. I never sent you photographs of Shayne. The ones from the wedding were lost,” she explained with a trace of sorrow, “and I never got around to getting a new camera after the moose stepped on mine. Long story,” she added quickly in response to the questioning look on Marta’s face. She placed a hand on Marta’s shoulder, silently entreating her not to be angry. “I’m really sorry. I guess when you saw him with me—”

Tactfully, Sydney avoided referring to Marta’s comment about Ike’s looks. And when you came right down to it, she thought, Ike and Shayne did look a great deal alike. Both men were tall, both had dark hair—although Ike’s was darker—and both were as handsome as any woman could pray for. She could see why Marta had made the mistake.

“I just assumed he was Shayne,” Marta concluded for Sydney.

That still didn’t excuse the man for kissing a stranger as if she were his long-lost love, Marta thought ruefully. Her body temperature still hadn’t returned to normal. But now it was annoyance, rather than any physical response, that was the cause.

Turning, Marta stood waiting for enlightenment. “Who are you, anyway?”

“A very blessed errand boy, darlin’.” With a flourish, Ike bowed grandly. The engaging grin he flashed shot straight into her like a bulb exploding in a dark room when the light switch was first thrown.

“Shayne couldn’t make it,” Sydney explained quickly. “He had a medical emergency at the last minute, and he absolutely didn’t want me flying alone.”

There’d been no choice, really. Shayne was at the Inuit village, taking care of their housekeeper’s youngest grandson, who had suddenly come down with pneumonia. That was the only reason he’d reluctantly allowed her to fly to Anchorage instead of piloting the plane himself. Sydney was the only other pilot in the area—thanks to his lessons—and there was no way she could come to meet Marta’s plane if she didn’t fly in herself. There was also no way she would have allowed Marta to land without someone being there to meet her. As it was, she and Ike had been late in arriving because of unexpected turbulence.

“Marta, this is Klondyke LeBlanc, Shayne’s best friend and owner of the Salty Saloon,” Sydney added. “He was kind enough to fill in for Shayne and come with me to the airport.”

“Part owner,” Ike amended. The other half belonged to his cousin, Jean Luc, who had been dragged into the business venture almost against his will. But Ike had thought it a sound investment, the first of several eventually, and he had wanted Luc to share in the profits. And the future.

As if they hadn’t just kissed with more passion than propriety only moments earlier, Ike politely held out his hand to Marta. “My friends all call me Ike.”

Her lips forming a reproving frown, Marta placed her hand in his with all the feeling of a woman coming in contact with a reptile. A poisonous one at that. The last thing she wanted right now was a new friend whose kisses tasted like sin served up on a silver platter. There was already far too much on that platter for her to deal with at the moment without adding another complication.

Marta inclined her head, distant but polite. “Hello, Mr. LeBlanc.”

He read her message loud and clear. But living in Hades all his life, Ike had never been one to be intimidated by frost.

“Oh, don’t be that way, darlin’. After all, you were the one who kissed me—at least at first,” he added gallantly. His brown eyes were fairly shining with unsuppressed amusement. “I just enjoyed the ride. Can’t fault a man for that.”

Her eyes briefly locked with his.

“Yes,” Marta replied mildly, showing no emotion whatsoever, “I can.”

Sydney wasn’t fooled. She knew that beneath Marta’s polite exterior, her best friend was seething. This was not an auspicious beginning, but there definitely was hope. Sydney had her work cut out for her. She threaded her arm through Marta’s and looked over her shoulder at Ike.

“Why don’t you see about getting Marta’s luggage for her, Ike?” She nodded toward the luggage carousel, by now completely depleted except for two suitcases she recognized as Marta’s. “Don’t worry,” she assured Ike with a smile that was nothing short of conspiratorial. “Marta could never hold a grudge.”

Marta merely smiled. Oh, yes, she could, Marta thought, if she was humiliated. She hadn’t come out here to deal with some strange man, especially a good-looking, unattached Don Juan.

“You’ve been away for a year,” Marta reminded Sydney, her smile enigmatic.

Time made no difference. Sydney knew Marta’s heart.

“Some things,” Sydney allowed with confidence, “never change.”

And other things, Marta thought, unconsciously glancing back at Ike and his wide grin, did.

Chapter Two

“You look a little pale, darlin’,” Ike said, frowning. Flying was second nature to him, but obviously not to the woman all but nestled beside him in the tight space that comprised the Cessna’s back seat, her face whiter than the pristine snow that lay several thousand feet below them—and growing steadily whiter. Her breathing was beginning to sound shallow.

He wondered if she was claustrophobic. Ike remembered seeing the same pallid color on his uncle, who had been claustrophobic. After being trapped in a cave-in at the mine, the man had never been quite right in his head until the day he died.

Following his instincts, Ike reached for Marta’s hand and took it in his. Jerking, she turned away from the window she’d just glanced out of and looked at him. Her eyes were wide and a little wild, but mostly they were accusing. He covered the hand he held with his other one.

Marta pulled her hand away from him. Fighting for composure, she took a shaky breath. It didn’t help. The plane’s rattling noise sounded like a death knell. Knees locked, Marta moved forward on her seat, her eyes fastened to Sydney’s profile. How could she look so calm? Couldn’t she hear the noise? Or could that horrible sound possibly be normal?

She fervently prayed that it was.

“No offense, Sydney, but are you sure that this thing is going to be able to hold together long enough to get us back to your place?”

She’d been horrified when she first saw the plane and was reminded that there was no other way to reach Hades this time of year. But she had tried her best to appear unfazed by the ordeal she faced.

Being engulfed by the ordeal was another matter.

Momentarily turning from the view of the perfect sky before her, Sydney flashed Marta an encouraging smile. Poor Marta. She could remember her own first reaction to Shayne’s plane. She’d been sure they were going to die before she ever got to Hades. But the plane, for all its unique noises, was as sound as the little foreign car Marta loved so well.

Sounder, Sydney was willing to bet. Shayne had just gone over it with a fine-tooth comb last weekend in one of those rare islands of time that usually eluded them. He’d pronounced the craft safe enough for her to use.

Which was good, because Sydney loved flying. To her it was like becoming one with the air—the closest thing to gliding through the clouds on her own power, unencumbered. It was a rather nice feeling these days, considering the weight she was carrying around when she walked.

“Don’t let the noise fool you,” she told Marta gently. For emphasis, Sydney patted the dashboard. “This is a very sturdy plane.”

“It sounds as if it’s about to rattle apart at any second.”

“All small planes have their own melody.” Sydney shifted back around in her seat. “Distract her, Ike.”

Now there was an instruction Ike would have loved to follow. But he seldom went where he wasn’t welcome, and Sydney’s friend did not look welcoming. Yet. “Much as I’d dearly love to comply, darlin’, I don’t think your friend wants to be distracted by me at the moment.”

If it hadn’t been for Alex messing up Marta’s life so badly, Sydney thought, mentally calling down curses on the other man’s unworthy head, Marta would have been more than receptive to Ike and his easygoing charm. It would do Marta a world of good to be around someone like Ike. Whether by a word, a look or something far more intimate, Ike had the gift of making women of all ages feel special.

But Alex Kelley had done a number on her friend, taking her heart and using it as a basketball to be played with anytime he was on home court. His faithfulness lasted as long as his attention span, which, as Sydney recalled, had never been very great. The breakup had happened shortly after she’d left Omaha. Sydney wished she could have been there for Marta. Despite everything, she knew how hard it must have been for her to end the two-year relationship, especially after investing so much of her heart in it.

Because of him, Marta had sworn off any and all men, which was a crying shame. Marta had a huge heart and a great deal of love to give. To the right man.

“Don’t worry about me, Sydney. I’m all right.”

Marta would sound far more convincing if her voice wasn’t shaking, Sydney thought. “We’ll be there before you know it,” she promised.

Too late for that, Marta thought nervously. She was trying very hard not to look down, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The snow looked so soft, but it wouldn’t be if they fell out of the sky.

With the window on one side and Ike on the other, there was nowhere for her to look but straight ahead. At oblivion. That didn’t help, either.

Marta moistened her lips with the last bit of saliva she had. Her throat felt as if it were closing up. “Are you positive there isn’t any other way to get to Hades?”

“Positive.” It was Ike, the native, not Sydney, who answered. “At least, not in the winter.” It was one of the things that had driven so many people, including his own sister, Juneau, out of Hades. The isolation. “The snow blocks the roads for weeks at a time. We become our own little world out here.”