Alaskan Fire (18 page)

“You could work on your
technique,” Jack suggested.  “Your arm didn’t quite get the loft I was looking
for.”

Blaze narrowed her eyes at him
and shoved the point of the shovel against his chest.  “You think this is
funny?”

Jack glanced at the sun.  “I’m
guessing it’ll probably take you five to six hours.  If you start now.”  He
dropped the feather’s box into the dirt at her feet, then turned and walked off
toward the shop.  Over his shoulder, he called, “Oh, and you’re gonna want
gloves, to keep your soft, city-slicker hands from getting blisters.”

Blaze threw the shovel at him,
but it fell humiliatingly short.  Jack laughed without even turning.

Scowling at his broad back,
thinking about how much she’d like to see it peppered with birdshot, she
returned her attention to the shovel.  Snarling, she picked it up and started
digging again.  She ignored his warnings about blisters—she hadn’t seen
him
use gloves—and put all of her concentration into prying out the next clod so
she
wasn’t
thinking about how much she wanted to pound the shovel into
his fat head.

She had gotten about four feet
down in two hours when she heard another big engine from the heavy machinery
lot start up, putter, then die.  She chuckled to herself and kept digging.

She heard him try a dozen more
times, and each time it died, she cackled inwardly.  “Some mechanic!” she
shouted into one of the quiet moments in between cranks of the engine.

If Jack heard, he didn’t respond,
but the pause in between starts was longer this time.  When he finally turned
the engine over again, it roared to life and fell into a low, healthy putter.

Asshole,
Blaze thought.

The engine revved and she heard
something big move forward, slowly coming out from behind the shed and the
shop, making the trees themselves rattle.

Blaze ignored him.  Her hole was halfway
done, and when it was finished, and she’d stuffed the feather down there and
covered it up, she was going to go back, sit down in front of the fire, and
spend the rest of the day reading in front of him.

The sound of the engine
increased, however, until it grew so loud that Blaze
had
to look, to
make sure that it wasn’t running her over.

Her jaw dropped when she saw the
enormous John Deere backhoe slide into position beside her.  Over the roar of the
engine, Jack shouted, “Manual Labor 101—Never Do Any More Work Than You Have
To.”  He then hit the hydraulics and the bucket scooped out in a single load
what Blaze had struggled to accomplish in almost three hours.

As Blaze started to shake with
fury, he dug out four more scoops, dropped them aside, then swung the bucket
out of the way and switched off the engine.

Hopping down, he cheerfully said,
“All right, tootz.  Let’s see that feather of yours.”

Blaze hurled a clod of dirt into
his face, paused just long enough to watch it explode upon his brow, spun on her
heel, and stormed back to the lodge, so angry she couldn’t even speak.

She was dragging her duffels down
the porch steps, heading toward the trailer of the 4-wheeler, when Jack
finished with the backhoe and returned it to the lot.  He came walking around
the shop frowning at her.

When he got close, he tossed the
empty metal case onto the trailer in front of her.  “Where you think you’re
going?” he growled.  He still had a smear of dirt in the hairline of his right
temple.

“Away,” Blaze said, dropping the
last duffel onto the trailer.  She reached into her pocket and yanked out her
cell phone.  She started dialing Bruce Rogers’ charter service, but before she
could punch out the full number, Jack snatched the phone from her and snapped
it in half.  Then in quarters.  Then he tossed it into the lawn.

“Get back in the house,” he
growled.  Like he was talking to a hormonal teenager.

Blaze stared at him, then stared
at her broken phone.  “That’s
assault
,” she finally snapped.

Jack snorted and continued past
her, stopping to pluck the key out of the 4-wheeler’s ignition on the way by.

“You
asshole
!” Blaze
screamed, watching him tuck it nonchalantly into his pocket.

When he only laughed and
disappeared inside the hastily-patched back door, Blaze had to grab the trailer
to steady her rage.  She had never been so angry in her entire life, and had he
not already broken her gun in half, she would have yanked it from her pack and
shot him.  In the knee.  Then the foot.  Then the head.

Instead, gunless, phoneless,
Blaze slumped onto the trailer and stared at the broken remnants of her
lifeline to the rest of civilization.

Some time must have passed,
because Jack came out onto the porch to lean against the doorway.  “I boiled
some eggs,” he called, biting into one.  “You hungry yet?”

“Go suck on a revolver!” Blaze
snapped.

She heard his chuckle as he
ducked back into the lodge.

She hated him.  She hated every
perfect inch of his sculpted body, wanted nothing more than to punch his pretty
teeth in.  Blaze looked down at her hand.  It was huge, for a woman.  For a man
of her size, though, it was tiny.  Smaller than Jack’s.

The worst of both worlds,
Blaze thought, disgusted.  She closed her fingers, made a fist.

The trailer rattled as Jack sat
down beside her, his body almost touching hers.  After a moment of silence, he
set something heavy in her lap.  Blaze looked down, saw the strange red wrench,
and fought the urge to throw it to the ground.

“That’s a monkey wrench,” he
said.  “It’s used for tightening pipe.”  He set another one in her lap, this
one silver.  “That’s a channel-lock.  Good for getting a grip on something to
give it a good twist.  See the head there?  See how you can adjust it?”  He
pointed.

Blaze’s vision blurred as she
looked down at the two tools.  She quickly wiped an arm across her face and
buried her cheeks in her shirt, feeling the first wave of exhaustion hit her
like a hammer to the brain. 
I will
not
cry,
she told herself,
breathing slow, deep breaths through the flannel, horrified at the idea of Jack
seeing her in that state.  Once she’d gotten herself under control again, she
lowered her arm.  “Just go fuck off, all right?” she whispered.

But he settled a tiny, knobby
hammer onto her lap.  “That’s a ball-peen hammer.  Good for pounding out dents
and little things like that.  Good with an anvil.”  He added another silvery
tool onto the pile.  “That’s a socket wrench.  See this here?”  As she watched,
he removed the round head and, plucking a smaller one from the pile beside him,
exchanged it.  “You can change the sockets to fit any size nut or bolt.  Good
for getting into tight spaces where you don’t have much room to maneuver.”

The wave of despair came back,
burning her eyes like wet coals.  Blaze sniffled, barely able to see the tools
through her tears. 
Dammit
, she thought, as the soul-deep fatigue
started to sink in.  Aside from a brief cry for her father, she hadn’t shed a
tear in
years
, and here this sonofabitch had her weeping like a school-girl. 
And there was no helping it, now.  She’d felt it already reach that tipping
point inside.  In half an hour, she was either going to be in bed, asleep, or
collapsed on the damn trailer, utterly helpless.

Oblivious, Jack cleared the tools
off her lap, then held up another.  “Vice grips,” he said, working the handles
so that the toothed mouth worked like a hungry puppet.  “Good for getting a
hold on something and not letting go.”  When she didn’t respond, he gently
lowered it into her open palm and wrapped her fingers around it.  “Adjustable. 
Little screw in the bottom raises or lowers the teeth.  Go ahead and try.”

Blaze looked up from the tool,
meeting his gaze.  She felt her tears overflow from the motion of her head, making
it run down her cheeks.

He looked up at her, his green
eyes wide, his mouth open.  He seemed caught by her stare for several moments
before he cleared his throat embarrassedly and looked back at the little stack
of tools he’d lowered to the trailer beside him.  “There’s more,” he said,
running his big hands over the pile beside him.  “I’ll give you a few more each
day.”  He was silent for a long minute.  Then, “I really am an asshole, aren’t
I?”

Blaze wiped her face again and
looked away.  Her gaze fell on the bulldozer, still parked where she’d left it,
forty feet into her new pasture.  She’d abandoned that project around the same
time she realized the sun had wrested her dreams away from her.

“Blaze?” Jack said softly.  When
she couldn’t find the words to answer him, he swallowed hard.  “I’m trying.  I
really am.  Every night, I think about it before I go to bed.  I still got ‘til
next June.  I’ll figure it out.”

She set the vice-grips onto the
trailer beside him and got to her feet.  “I have to go to bed now,” she
whispered.  “I’ll see you in the morning, Jack.”  She didn’t wait for his
response.  She crossed the yard, went inside, got undressed, and slipped into
bed even as she felt herself slide into another coma.

He’d made her
cry
.  Jesus,
he wasn’t trying to make her cry.  He’d just been trying to do…what?  Prove
that she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was?  Prove to her he wasn’t
stupid?  So what if he never went to school?  He had plenty of smarts in other
stuff.  It wasn’t like books were what was important in life, anyway.

And Hell, she
had
tried to
make him feel stupid, and after he’d tried to break the ice by letting her in
on his horrible little secret.  That was
her
fault.  So he couldn’t
read.  Big deal.  There were plenty of people who couldn’t read.  She shouldn’t
have rubbed it in like that.  She’d been
asking
for an
attitude-adjustment.

Yet, despite all that, as Jack
watched Blaze go, he still felt like an utter shitheel.  She’d given him a
chance to shape up his act and he’d screwed the pooch even worse than before,
all because he couldn’t get his damn tongue to work the way he wanted it to.  Once
she disappeared inside the lodge, he glanced down at his little pile of tools,
miserable. 
Way to go, Jackie-Baby,
Jack thought, disgusted. 
She’s
gonna be on the next flight outta here.
  Maybe she wasn’t gonna sing like a
canary, but he doubted she was gonna hang around much longer.

Sighing, Jack put the wrenches
aside and got back to his feet.  If there was one thing he’d learned about women,
it was that it was best to apologize first, then figure out
if
you were
wrong later.  Well, it was even
better
if you just assumed you were
wrong in the first place, but Jack wasn’t about to belly up to the sexy
giantess.  He’d already handed over thirty acres of his land and spent a good
portion of the summer putting her place back together for her, and like hell he
was gonna start crawling around on his hands and knees asking forgiveness for
her
trying to make him feel stupid.  Jack Thornton didn’t beg.

Muttering, Jack went back inside
and walked to the door of her room, which was locked.  Sighing as he twisted
the knob, Jack said, “Come on, Blaze.  You know this fucking door won’t do
shit.  Let me in.”

She answered him with silence.

Jack narrowed his eyes and
dropped his hand from the knob. 
Do
not
be an asshole…
  It had
become a private mantra for him for the last couple months. 
Don’t be an
asshole.  Don’t be an asshole.
  About one out of ten times, it worked.

This time happened to be one of
them.  Instead of putting his fist through the drywall and unlocking the door
from the inside, Jack cleared his throat and muttered, “Sorry.”

Silence on the other side.

Immediately, Jack bristled. 
“What, you’re gonna give me the silent treatment?  Make me beg?”

She said nothing.

Remembering what happened
last
time he got the silent treatment, Jack stuck his ear to the door and listened.

He could hear her breathing.

“Okay, tootz,” Jack growled. 
“You and I are gonna come to an understanding.  You might own this place, but
I’m living here with you from now on, and seein’ how I’m the one doing all the
repairs, I’ve got no problems busting down a goddamn door so I don’t have to
speak through a fucking wall because you’re having a pity-fest on the other
side.”

Nothing.

“I’m serious,” Jack warned. 
“Open the door.”

She was still
in
there,
but she was completely ignoring him.

He narrowed his eyes a long
moment, then grated, “Please?”

She didn’t even shift on the bed,
didn’t even make any indication she’d heard him.  Jack had a moment of panic,
wondering if she’d set up her phone with another recording, but when he got on
his knees and sniffed under the door, he could smell her in there.

Her and…fire?  Jack wrinkled his
nose and sniffed again.  Yes, he was pretty sure he smelled smoke.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he growled,
“I’m getting fucking sick of the silent treatment.  What are you burning in
there?”

She continued to ignore him.

“
Please
let me in,” Jack
muttered, when the acrid smell under the door continued to get stronger.  He
tried to think of what she could be setting on fire.  The bed, her underwear,
books…

His eyes widened slightly as he
remembered the book she’d brought out with her.  “Oh, no, please, honey, no,
don’t burn it.  I really wanna learn, I swear.  Please don’t do that.”

The stench continued, and this
time, he saw lines of smoke pass under the door.  Seeing that, Jack narrowed
his eyes.  “Okay.  I’m trying
really
hard not to be an asshole,
sweetcheeks, but you’re being a real pain in the ass.  So I hurt your fucking
feelings. 
I’m sorry.
  Just don’t burn the damn book, okay?  I’ll teach
you anything you wanna know.  Just cut the fucking bullshit and open the door so
we can talk or I’ll
bust it down
.”  At her continued silence, he tapped
politely on the door again.  “Last chance.  Let me in and talk to me. 
Please
.”

She still wasn’t listening to
him. 

Okay, so maybe he needed to class
it up a bit.  She was a rich brat.  High-society.  She probably didn’t
appreciate the crude little clusterfuck of a wereverine cursing at her through
a door.  Jack took several steadying breaths.  What would a feylord say?

It pains me to see you in such
distress at my hand.  Please, end this silence and allow me to make amends for
my past misdeeds…

“I…uh…am pained…that you are upset…” 

Listening to her continue to mock
him with silence, Jack found himself getting more and more irritated, and it
was becoming difficult to think straight.  All he
wanted
to do was put
his fist through the door. 
Don’t be an asshole,
he thought, taking a
deep breath. 
Don’t be an asshole. 
Think
about this, you dumbass. 
You can do this.  You’ve got time.  No pressure.
  He concentrated, trying
hard to work out exactly what he could say that would make her stop being a
stuck-up, pity-partying drama-queen.  He thought again of the arrogant, prissy
feylords he had known in his time, remembered how eloquently they had wooed the
ladies right out from under him.  He scrunched his nose, remembering their
flowery speech, trying to force it to the socially inept little half-busted
crankcase that was Jack. 
It wasn’t my intent to deliver such sorrows to
you, blessed-of-my-heart.  Please, vanquish this bitter portal and allow me to
bear your troubles with you or I’ll be forced to take out my rage on your
current abode.

“Open the door or I’ll beat it
the fuck down.”

This time, when she ignored him,
Jack’s hands tightened into fists on a surge of rage.  “All right, sugar.  You
were warned.”  He took a step backwards, leaned back, and put his fist through
the door.  Casually, he reached through and unlocked it.  Then he yanked his
arm back through the hole, twisted the knob and pushed the door open.  “Okay,
just shut up and listen while I—uuuhhh, Blaze?”

Blaze’s shirt, piled in a corner
by the door, was on fire.  It was smoldering on the sleeves and down the front,
working in slow, outward-spreading bubbles of flame.  Blaze, for her part,
appeared to be unconscious, tucked under a blanket, looking rather peaceful.

“Uh…” Jack said, glancing from
Blaze to the burning shirt and back.  “Why’d you set your shirt on—”  Then he
froze.  He knew what this was.  The feather.  She’d
activated
it.  And
she’d been
crying
.

“Oh, oh shit, uh, okay, um, never
mind, you just stay right there, honeybuns, and I’ll take care of everything.” 
He reached down to grab a fistful of the shirt, then howled when the
tearstained cloth came into contact with his hands.  “Ow,
fuck!
”  He
dropped it into a smoldering pile on the floor at his feet, shaking out his
palm.  When he examined his skin for boils, he found there were no burns, but
it still hurt like a
bitch
.  Like he’d reached into a blacksmith’s forge
and dragged out a handful of white-hot coals.

Then, realizing from the wisps of
smoke coming from the hardwood floor under the smoldering wad of cotton that
the shirt was about to set the
house
on fire, he squatted to pick it up
again.  Careful to touch the
back
of the shirt, Jack yanked it off of
the floor, hurried over to the woodstove, and tossed the garment inside.

“Okay, sweetie, it’s all better
now,” he said, locking the woodstove door behind it and coming back inside to
peer at Blaze worriedly.  She appeared to be sleeping peacefully, not even
having stirred at his commotion.  He frowned.  “Blaze?”

When she didn’t respond, he eased
a little closer, then squatted slowly beside her bed.  “Blaze?” he asked
again.  When she didn’t stir, he reached up and touched her forehead. 
Immediately, he wrenched his hand away with a hiss.  Her head was like
ice
.

“Okay, pumpkin,” Jack said,
trying not to hyperventilate, “you’re scaring the shit outta me here, dear. 
What do I do?”

She just lay there, like a Yeti-sized
ice cube, completely unresponsive.

“Fuck me,” Jack managed, watching
her.  He tested her temperature again with his palm, just to make sure he wasn’t
overreacting, then decided when his fingers came back numb that, yes, there was
definitely something very wrong with her.  He ran upstairs, grabbed a
thermometer from the owners’ apartment, and came running back.

“Okay honey, open up,” he said,
sticking it into her mouth, not really caring what kind of cooties it had on it
when she had the same general temperature as the inside of a commercial
refrigerator.

Seeing that the little silver bar
on the thermometer didn’t even climb out of the bulb to pass to the first set
of
notches
, Jack realized he had a serious problem on his hands.  But
what did you do with a
Fourth Lander
who was, to all appearances, dying
in her bed?

The sun
, Jack thought.  He
needed to get her into the sun.  He dropped the thermometer back into its handy
little plastic pouch and tossed it aside.  “Okay, honey, you just hold on, I’m
gonna take you outside, get you warmed up, okay?”  He stood up and yanked back
the blanket, intending to flip her over his shoulder, then froze.

“Oh,” he said at her long ivory
body, as perfect and unobstructed as the day she was born.  He swallowed hard. 
“Oh.”  What
was
it with girls nowadays?  Didn’t they at least wear a
nightie
or something?  Long-Johns? 
Something?
  No
wonder
she was cold. 
She didn’t have anything
on
under there.  She was stark
naked. 
Nothing
but pale, gorgeous skin, lily-white, delicate curves, perfect round breasts, with
little spatterings of freckles down the stomach…

Jack realized he was staring.  He
quickly tucked the blanket back over her and tried to get hold on himself. 
“That was
your
fault for not wearing pajamas,” he muttered, flushing
hard enough to make his ears burn.  “What kind of decent woman doesn’t wear
pajamas?”

If she heard him, his Yeti-sized
ice-cube made no response.  And, after
that
little blunder, Jack was
pretty sure she wasn’t faking.  The Blaze
he
knew would’ve been
hollering hidey-ho if she’d even
suspected
the hairy little curmudgeon
wanted a look at what was under her 4-Extra-Long combat pants. 

“Okay, gorgeous,” he growled,
wrapping her up in a blanket and heaving his Yeti-burrito over his shoulder. 
“I’m gonna go save your life.  You get pissy with me, I’ll just eat you.”  He
carried her back out the ruined door, up through the lodge and out to the front
porch, and laid her down gently on the creaky spruce planks.  Squinting up at
the sun, he unwrapped her and then quickly turned his back to make sure any nosy
dumbshit neighbors kept their distance.

After a good hour in full
sunlight, Jack reluctantly glanced back over his shoulder.  The leggy Fourth
Lander lay where he’d left her, soaking up the rays with that deliciously pale,
curvaceous—

Jack quickly looked away again. 
Getting up, he
backed
up to her and carefully reached a hand behind him,
aiming for an arm.  His fingers hit what he was pretty sure was a warm, supple
human breast.  Crying out, he jerked his hand away.  “Sorry!” he stammered. 
“Sorry, I was reaching for your arm and…”

The leggy Aphrodite continued to
sleep peacefully.

“Okay, babe,” Jack said, quickly grabbing
the blanket and flipping it back over her.  “You got your rays.  Time to take
you back inside ‘fore you wake up and take all this the wrong way.”  Once he
was sure she was good and
covered
, Jack turned, gathered up his Yeti burrito,
and once more threw her over his shoulder.  He trundled back down through the
lodge and deposited her on her bed.  Then, once she was tucked in, he went
looking for a screwdriver.

As quietly as he could, he
unscrewed the door from its hinges, pulled it aside, took it upstairs, replaced
it for one in one of the far guest rooms where she wasn’t likely to notice for
awhile, and brought the fresh door down and screwed it into place.  Then, when
he was pretty sure he’d done all for her he could, he locked the inside latch
and yanked the door shut behind him.

Then, sweating, he started pacing
back and forth outside her door, cursing himself for locking it, wondering if
he was going to have to make another trip upstairs with a screwdriver.