Against the Wild (3 page)

“Fifteen minutes by plane.”

“And you also just happened to forget to mention you had a daughter?”

His amusement slipped away. “Emily won't bother you. You won't even know she's here.”

“How old is she?”

“She's eight.”

Lane started walking rapidly up the path, and Dylan fell in behind her. As she reached the front door, he caught her shoulder and turned her around. “I didn't tell you about Emily because it was just too complicated.”

Those green eyes were spitting. “Since when is talking about an eight-year-old girl too complicated?”

“Emily isn't like other kids. She's . . .” He swallowed. “The problem is, Emily doesn't talk. Not a word. Hasn't said a damned thing since her mother left us three years ago.”

Silence fell, then Lane revved up again. “Have you taken her to a doctor, a specialist, someone who might be able to help her?”

He was starting to get mad himself. “What do you think I did? Just pretended she was okay? I took her to every specialist I could find. Seattle. San Francisco. Even Chicago. The doctors ran tests, prodded and poked her till it drove me half crazy. When the tests all came up negative, I took her to a string of psychiatrists.”

“And?”

“And in the end they all agreed. Emily was in her quiet world because that was where she felt safe. There was nothing physically wrong with her. Nothing anyone could do.”

“So you're saying the reason she doesn't speak is because she doesn't want to.”

“Basically, that's right. No one but Emily can break the spell she's put herself under. So far it hasn't happened.” Maybe it never would. He didn't want to think about that.

Long moments passed. They were staring at each other, both of them still angry. He should have expected the blowback. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn't mentioned Emily because he was afraid Lane wouldn't come.

“Where were you living when this happened?” she asked.

He sighed, suddenly weary. He hated talking about Emily, hated feeling so helpless. It was the reason he mostly stayed away from her.

“We lived in Juneau at the time. I've got two brothers, Nick and Rafe. All three of us live in Alaska. We're spread out pretty good, but we were raised in Anchorage, and Alaska's our home.”

“What does Emily do about school?”

“Mrs. Henry homeschools her. She doesn't have a learning disorder—she just doesn't speak.”

Her gaze softened and she reached toward him. Before she made contact, she let her hand fall away.

“So you're staying?” he asked when she didn't say more.

One of her burnished eyebrows went up. “As you said, I'm sure your daughter won't bother me. I'll hardly even know she's there.”

He just nodded and started walking, feeling a sweep of relief. She was here, and at least for the moment, she was going to stay.

He led her up onto the porch. Outside the ornately carved front door, he gripped the big iron handle, turned, and stepped back out of the way, allowing Lane and the dog to walk past him into the entry beneath a heavy wrought-iron chandelier.

“Oh, my God, Dylan! It's . . . it's spectacular.”

He released the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. “You'll make it even better.”

She looked up at him, green eyes sparkling. “You bet I will.” Then she smiled. “Thank you for bringing me here. Oh, I can't wait to see the plans for the remodel. I can hardly wait to get started.”

Her excitement was contagious, vibrating through her and into him. His pulse began to pound and desire curled through him. He'd wanted Lane Bishop since the first time he'd seen her, all that fiery hair, sweet curves, and a face that could grace the cover of
Vogue
. Now that she was here, he wanted her even more.

Instead, he took a step back, giving them both a little space.

“Welcome to Eagle Bay,” he said and led her farther into the house.

Lane was exhausted. She was always tired after traveling and plane changes, and then that amazing plane ride to the lodge. And there was Dylan himself. The man was even more imposing than she remembered. Imposing, impressive, commanding. Also daunting and slightly overwhelming.

She hadn't missed the scorching looks he'd cast in her direction, the way those incredible blue eyes slid over her, taking her measure.

In L.A., during the few brief times she had seen him, he hadn't made the slightest effort to hide the desire he felt for her. She had tried to hide her attraction to him, but clearly it hadn't worked. She had finally agreed to come, accepted the job in Alaska with her eyes wide open.

And yet she hadn't been quite prepared for the heat that sparked between them the minute she had seen him walking toward her at the airport.

She needed time. She wasn't the sort of woman who could jump into bed with a man she barely knew. She needed to get to know him, feel safe with him, trust him. If she decided to act on the attraction she felt for him, their affair would be brief, just the few weeks she would be in Alaska—she was prepared for that.

But she wanted the time she spent with him to be more than just sex. She wanted them to wind up at least as friends.

They walked through the great hall toward the family wing of the house, stopped in the hallway outside the kitchen.

“Lane, this is Winifred Henry. She's the lady who takes care of us.” He smiled down at the woman, who stood several inches shorter than Lane. “Believe me, we couldn't get along without her.”

A wide, welcoming smile bloomed on Winifred Henry's round face. “Welcome to Eagle Bay,” she said, repeating Dylan's earlier greeting.

“Thank you. I'm excited to be here. It's a wonderful project.”

One of the woman's gray eyebrows went up. “Yes, but it's also our home.”

Lane didn't miss the note of warning. Whatever she did, she needed to make sure it was a comfortable place for a family to live. “I promise I won't forget that.”

Mrs. Henry seemed to relax. She was in her early sixties and twenty pounds overweight, with thick gray hair pulled into a knot at the back of her head and plenty of wrinkles. She looked as if she had lived her entire life in the wilderness and it was exactly where she belonged.

The older woman's gaze ran over her, seemed to take in her fatigue. “I know you're anxious to see the lodge, but I wonder if you'd like to get settled, rest a little first? Dylan can show you around when you wake up.”

Gratitude swept through her. “That would be great.” She looked up at Dylan. “If you don't mind, I'd like to be fresh, maybe take some notes as we go through the lodge.”

He smiled. “Take all the time you need.”

Lane followed the stout, gray-haired woman to an upstairs bedroom in the family wing next to what appeared to be the master suite. She wasn't sure if that was an accident or part of a plan. Her suitcases were already in the room, she saw when Mrs. Henry opened the door. She hadn't met Emily. Perhaps at supper.

Closing the door behind her, she crossed the room to the window, looked down to see Finn outside in a big, fenced-in side yard he seemed to have fallen instantly in love with. In the corner of her room, she spotted an old blanket put there for him to sleep on when he was in the bedroom.

With a yawn, she unpacked and put away her clothes, then slipped out of her travel-stained slacks and sweater and pulled on a pink fleece robe. The June days were sunny, with daytime temperatures in the low sixties, but the nights would be chilly.

Padding across the room, she climbed up on the high, queen-size bed made of the same golden pine used to build the lodge. The dresser and bedside tables were pine. A hooked rug warmed the wide-plank floors, and the mattress was covered with a handmade quilt patterned in dark red and forest green. Lane found the room charming.

The residential wing of the house had been remodeled a few years back, Dylan had told her. Which accounted for the en-suite bath. Nothing fancy, but according to Dylan eventually this wing would also be redone.

Making herself comfortable on top of the covers, she fluffed the pillow and closed her eyes.
Just a few minutes
, she told herself.

Lane didn't remember sleeping for more than an hour, but when she jolted awake, she remembered that she had been dreaming.

Something strange, she recalled with a frown, something about a raven and a cemetery.

Shaking her head at the oddity, she climbed down from the bed. She didn't dream often, but as she hurriedly dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved light blue T-shirt, it remained strangely clear in her head.

A glance at the digital clock on the bedside table said it was 8:00
PM
. Hurrying down the stairs, she spotted Dylan as she reached the bottom, his amazing blue eyes swinging in her direction as if he had some secret radar where she was concerned. Her stomach contracted at the smile on his handsome face.

“Feeling better?” he asked, walking toward her.

“I didn't mean to sleep so long. I hope you didn't wait to eat supper.”

“This time of year we usually eat a little later in the evening. I'll let Winnie know you're here and probably starving.”

She
was
hungry, she realized. Ravenous, in fact.

“Well, you're looking rested,” Mrs. Henry said, smiling as Lane walked toward her.

“I hope I didn't keep everyone waiting.”

“Not at all. We all work late this time of year.”

“In the winter we've only got a little over seven hours of daylight,” Dylan explained. “This time of year, it doesn't even start getting dark until after ten. Shall I show you the house while Winnie gets supper on the table?”

She glanced toward the older woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Heavens, no. You just go along with Dylan, let him give you a tour.”

“Maybe I should get my notepad.”

“Not tonight,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Tomorrow, you can take your time, look the place over top to bottom.”

Lane smiled, liking the idea. “All right.”

As Dylan started leading her away, she got a whiff of his cologne, something woodsy that made her think of a forest and clean sheets. Her heart was beating a little too fast, she realized and eased her hand away.

She walked beside him up one of the staircases at each end of the great hall. Then he turned and they crossed an open balcony above the room and made their way to the guest wing.

“There's an extra room up here that won't work as a bedroom. I was thinking maybe a study for the guests.”

She glanced at the construction in progress around her. “Or maybe a library.”

“That might be a good idea. Or a combination of the two.”

They continued on into the upstairs portion of the guest wing, where most of the remodeling was being done. The crew had been hard at work, tearing out walls in some areas, rebuilding them in others.

“The rooms were good-sized to begin with,” Dylan said, “but some of them didn't have a bathroom originally so we're adding those, and all the heating and plumbing is being redone. We need a couple of suites, and I want some of the bedrooms to have adjoining doors for families who bring their kids.”

She started to ask him about his daughter, but decided to wait, see if Emily came down to supper.

The lodge was big and it was old and it was beautiful. Everything about the place charmed her: the hand-hewn logs perfectly notched together, the three-foot irons in the huge rock fireplace, the wide-planked floors.

“You've taken on an amazingly expensive project,” she said as they walked along.

“Don't I know it. My dad was kind of an adventurer. He moved our family here from Texas when we were just kids. But he retained his interest in the family ranch. Dad passed away a few years back, then his brother, Jim. When Ty's dad, my uncle Seth, the last of the brothers, died, we sold the ranch—at least most of it—and the proceeds were split among the heirs. Along with the money I've saved over the years, it's more than enough to remodel the lodge and do pretty much anything I want.”

“Lucky you,” she teased.

Dylan glanced away. “Yeah . . .”

Lane realized he was thinking of his little girl, mute since her mother had left, and wished she could call back the words. She reached out and touched his arm, felt a quick charge of awareness. When Dylan swung his scorching gaze in her direction, whatever she'd been going to say died on her lips.

“Supper's on!” Mrs. Henry called out, ending the moment, thank God.

“We'd better go eat before the food gets cold,” Lane said, forcing herself to smile.

“Yeah.” But his gaze held hers for several more seconds before he took her hand and they started back downstairs. The kitchen and breakfast nook were behind a wall that separated them from the dining area, which sat at one end of the great hall.

“We usually eat in here,” Dylan said, leading her into the kitchen and over to the long pine table that dominated one side. The scent of roasted meat, vegetables, and freshly baked biscuits filled the air.

At the far end of the table, a little girl with big blue eyes, and chin-length dark brown hair cut in a bob sat staring out the window into the side yard. Her attention was riveted on Finn, who was sniffing around, getting to know his territory.

Lane noticed the deep breath Dylan took before he led her to the end of the table. “Emily, honey, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. Her name is Lane Bishop. She came up from California to help us remodel the lodge.”

The child turned to look at her but didn't say a word.

“Hello, Emily,” Lane said gently. “It's very nice to meet you.”

Nothing.

Dylan's shoulders looked tense. Lane's heart went out to him. “That's Finn outside,” she said. “He's my dog. You'll have to meet him, too.”

The little girl's features brightened. She didn't speak, but she was definitely curious about Finn.

Mrs. Henry began setting platters of food on the table as Caleb Wolfe walked into the kitchen along with the brawny, red-haired man who had helped Dylan down at the dock. He had a ruddy complexion and a friendly smile. He cast a quick glance at Winifred Henry before he walked up to the table.

“Paddy, this is Lane Bishop,” Dylan said. “She's an interior designer. She's here to help us with the lodge.”

He reached up to touch an invisible hat that wasn't on his head. “Pleasure, ma'am.”

“It's just Lane. It's nice to meet you, Paddy.”

They all found places at the table. Taking a seat across from Emily, Dylan pulled Lane down on the bench beside him. Caleb sat next to Emily on the opposite side, and once everyone, including Mrs. Henry, was seated, heaping platters of steaming meat and vegetables were passed around. Biscuits followed, with slabs of butter and what appeared to be homemade berry jam.

The food was delicious, the conversation easy and relaxed. Still, it was unnerving to feel Dylan's hard body brushing against her, the heat of his thigh against hers. Her hands were a little unsteady as she passed a big bowl of corn, and she saw him watching her, his thoughts only too easy to read.

Or perhaps they weren't. Maybe she was the only one who knew what he was thinking because her thoughts ran close to the same.

Dylan fought to ignore the press of Lane's thigh against his. He shifted away from her a little, hoping to control the arousal it wasn't the right time to feel.

“How was your nap?” Winnie asked Lane about halfway through the meal. “I hope your room is all right.”

“It's a lovely room,” Lane said. “And so quiet. I slept longer than I meant to and more deeply than I have in a while. I remember having this dream. I don't usually recall them, but this one was odd and particularly vivid.”

“I remember mine sometimes,” Winnie said, “not very often.”

“As we were flying up here,” Lane said, “we talked about Yeil. The Alaska Native village? In the dream, I was watching some kind of ceremony. That's probably why I had the dream.”

“Probably,” Dylan said.

Lane flicked a glance at Caleb, who was digging into a slice of roasted meat as if he hadn't had a meal in weeks. “Klink-its? That's how you say it, right?”

Caleb nodded, finished the bite he had taken. “But it's spelled T-L-I-N-G-I-T-S. Indians are really into dreams, you know? They think they hold special meaning. So what was it about?”

“You know how weird dreams can be. This one had something to do with a festival of some kind.”

“What makes you think they were Tlingits?” Caleb asked.

“I'm just guessing. They were wearing these funny blankets and odd-looking hats. I saw a picture like that on the wall at the airport. I'm sure that's part of the reason I dreamed about them.”