Love Story for a Snow Princess (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

And so she had applied to the advertisement to be a potential mail-order bride. Everything became a whirlwind from that moment, which had been a good thing because it took her mind off the accident, starting from the time she had hit send on her computer to the moment she had flown out of Los Angeles. The first order of business had been going to her lawyer to make sure the advertisement was legit.

The lawyer reported that it had been done through a match-making service for the men who lived in remote parts of Alaska and were unable to leave their posts to find wives. They included logger men, oil men, fishermen, men who braved the frigid weather of the state to live. She had been given a sizeable book on every man available through the service, including their pictures, lifestyles, their backgrounds and history, medical records, income records, and a written synopsis by each man on their five-year plan. Truth be told, that impressed Thea the most since she hadn’t even thought about the coming year let alone the next five.

Her own evaluation and physical had been just as intense and somehow she had pulled through without letting on how emotionally wrecked she was.

Through her answers, the computer had chosen three potential men, and it was her job to pick one. At first, she’d judged each man on their photo. How could she not? But as she started reading about each of them, it became less and less about what they looked like. Somewhere in-between the background notes and the history given, these men had become real to her, not simply random photos in a white binder.

So she had signed on the bottom line. Since there wasn’t an agent stationed in the town of River Ice, Alaska, trying to set up a video conferencing chat had proven a little tricky. The company had offered to send her in the spring, once the winter months were over to set everything up properly, but she had been impatient. So she had gone shopping for the right clothes, had researched what it was like to actually live in Alaska, moved all her personal possessions into storage, and sold off almost everything else. There were probably a million other things she should have done or could have learned, but there simply wasn’t any time left.

Because she felt like
she
was running out of time.

“Panthea?”

The sudden sound of her full name jerked her from her uncomfortable musings. She jumped and knocked over her water glass with her elbow, which managed to splash half on the floor and half in her lap.

“Crap,” she muttered, rising and blotting her dress with a paper napkin.

“I’m sorry,” said the same masculine voice that had called her name. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Thea looked up and saw the man she had picked from the photo book, Caleb Tasker. Her first impression was that the photo didn’t do him justice. He was a large man, heavily muscled, with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore dark pants and a brown flannel shirt tucked in, with a red wool cap over his head. He actually looked like the Brawny man on the paper towels.

For a moment, the man from the night before flashed through her mind and she couldn’t help comparing the two. While that stranger had set her nerves on edge, this stranger just…didn’t.

The thought did not settle well. She gave a dismissive wave to the wet stain on her dress.

“Oh, it’s just water. It’ll dry.” She held out her hand. “Caleb, correct?”

The man nodded and took her hand. “It’s nice to meet you finally.”

Whether or not they unconsciously planned it, both held hands while studying each other. Thea liked that he didn’t act coy or overly flirtatious, thus allowing her to get an honest first impression.

His light-blue eyes reminded her of spring time in Malibu, with the sky crystal clear and stretching for miles over the water. But they weren’t happy eyes. She could see shadows in them, the hint of sadness mimicked her own. Clearly he was hurting but trying very hard to ignore the pain.

“Please sit down, Caleb,” she said, breaking from his grip. He helped her sit, pushing in her chair like a true gentleman. He seemed so out of place, as if the room was a tad too small for his frame.

For a long minute neither of them spoke, nor did they even look at each other as the waitress placed an assortment of breakfast pastries in front of them. When she retreated, the dining area fell silent as a tomb. Thea finally looked at Caleb only to see him staring at her.

“I suppose we should ask each other questions,” he said. “Get to know one another.”

“All right. What would you like to know?”

He cleared his throat. “Um…how did you get your name? It’s unusual.”

“It’s Greek,” she said. “Refers to all the Gods, a Pantheon. My mother absolutely adored mythology, hence the horrendous name.”

“Not so horrendous,” he murmured. “What made you decide to respond to Illa Partnership Services?”

“Oh, nothing quite so surprising,” she replied. “I want to start my own family.”

His lips thinned a bit as he frowned. “You want children?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Of course not. I guess I just didn’t think about...well, about—”

“Sex?” she supplied.

He let out a large breath of air and gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, well, now I guess that’s in the open. I didn’t realize how nervous I’d be. For all intents and purposes, you’re a stranger to me.”

“Yes.”

“And I hope you don’t mind me saying that you’re a very lovely woman, Panthea, so I don’t quite get why you don’t find a normal boy in your hometown, date, and do the traditional thing.”

“I’m from Malibu, California so there’s not really a traditional thing there.” She shrugged, trying to turn her statement into a joke, but it fell flat.

“Malibu, huh? You gonna be able to live in a place where snow tends to fall at least once a month?”

She was silent for a long moment. “I, ah, I needed something completely different. I’m not saying that I probably won’t complain about the freezing cold, but I can’t go back there, Caleb. That’s not my home anymore.”

He cocked his head. “Why not?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped into the bland tone she used when telling people about the accident the year before. “My family died in a car accident. I was the only survivor.”

He couldn’t hold her gaze. He blinked a few times and then turned his head away. She knew he had to be thinking of Claire.

“I lost my wife,” he said, in a tone almost too low for her to hear. “I lost her last year.”

“I’m very sorry,” Thea softly. “I read you were a widower in your bio.”

He snorted. “My bio. What a joke. I was told to write a biography of myself in two hundred words or less. And I couldn’t even find fifty to fill up that damn questionnaire.”

“I thought it was hard, too.”

He looked back at her, one eyebrow raised. “You did?”

“Yes.”

“I signed up with Illa Partnership Services because I…I was lonely.” He ran a hand over his face. “River Ice isn’t a normal place to socialize, there’s no movie theater or snazzy dance club. There’s nothing here but tourist season and perpetual twilight half of the year. I never thought Illa would come through and send me a bride.”

“I never thought I’d be a bride meeting her fiancé the day before her wedding.”

That made him smile.

“Caleb, are you sure you want to get married?”

“I honestly thought I’d never be married to anyone other than…her.”

“You still love her.”

Caleb didn’t say anything for a long moment. A mixture of emotions crossed his face, frustration, pain, and grief all jumbling around. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “I wake up every morning with her name on my lips. I sit at my kitchen table every night staring at the stove because she was always cooking. My heart hurts so bad I don’t know what to do. So I thought if I married again, got over her, then it wouldn’t be awful waking every morning and not seeing her.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. Tears gathered in Thea’s eyes as she watched him, not because she knew that she could never marry him, but because she could never help him heal like he needed to be healed. Not when she, herself, was still broken.

“One day,” she said, “it will be easy to wake up and face the day. One day you won’t look at the stove. One day you’ll realize that you’ve gone an hour without thinking of her. Then that hour will stretch to two and before you know it, you’ll be able to look at her photos and say her name. But that day is a long way away, Caleb.”

He reached and took her hand in his. His eyes were red from unshed tears. “What about you? Can you get through the day normally yet?”

She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. She wanted badly to say yes, to reaffirm the words she’d just told him, but she couldn’t. Thea figured that made her a hypocrite. Who was she to be giving advice on mourning?

“I’m sorry,” he said sadly. “As much as I would love to have the honor of being your husband, I don’t think I can marry you.”

She squeezed his hand back. “I know.”

He let go and stood. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You’re a good woman, Panthea. You don’t need to be a mail-order bride.”

She watched him leave the dining area, and then she turned back to the pastries, picked up a croissant, and absently tore it into little pieces. She had to work hard to keep the panic at bay, because what the hell was she going to do now?

Ten minutes later Mr. Ford sat in the vacant seat in front of her, the one Caleb had just left. He blew a large puff of air out between his teeth as he loosened his tie. He looked at her through slightly squinty eyes, an annoyed expression on his face.

“Miss Snow—”

“Mr. Ford,” she interrupted. “I have been thinking about the consequences Mr. Tasker and I have just thrust upon you, and I want to apologize.”

Mr. Ford sighed “It’s perfectly fine, Miss Snow. These things do happen, you know. Illa Partnership Services does have protocols in place for situations like this.”

“Does this happen often?” she asked, cocking her head. “People changing their minds, I mean.”

“Surprisingly no,” Mr. Ford said with a smile. “We provide a platform that enables men who want to have families a way to fulfill that dream. And it works, Miss Snow. But to be honest, your case was unique.”

“Unique how?”

“You would not have been considered a candidate for our matching services. But both you and Mr. Tasker had backgrounds of emotional stress. Mr. Tasker wasn’t on our active account. Until you.”

“Oh,” Thea said, surprised. “I thought I had passed the psychological evaluation.”

“Our doctors suggested you and Mr. Tasker would be a good match together, helping each other out. So we added him to the list of candidates. I thought it was interesting that you chose him.”

Thea raised an eyebrow. “Because our families died?”

He gave a half-shrug, half-nod type of gesture. “It was a chance to bring two unhappy people together.”

“Oh,” she said again. “That’s actually very romantic, Mr. Ford. I don’t know how realistic it was thinking two depressed people could find happiness with each other, but I thank you for trying.”

She reached out to squeeze his hand. Mr. Ford squeezed back for a brief moment before sliding back into business mode.

“If you hurry and pack, we can have Hank fly us back this afternoon,” he commented, rising and checking his watch.

“Back?”

Mr. Ford nodded. “To Nome. You can go back home, Miss Snow.”

She frowned. “Home. To Malibu.”

“All fees are non-refundable, but Illa Partnership Services will pay your passage back to Los Angeles, of course.”

“I, um, don’t think I want to go back,” she said quietly. “Is it possible to stay here for a week? Like on vacation?”

Mr. Ford blinked. “Well, Illa Partnership Services can’t take responsibility for further—”

“It’s okay, Mr. Ford,” she interrupted. “You can go back. I can take care of myself. I just…I don’t want to go back yet.”

He didn’t say anything as he studied her. “Are you sure, Miss Snow?”

Was she? She took a deep breath. “Positive.”

* * * *

That afternoon, Thea stepped out of the Princess Hotel, bundled from head to toe, and walked the few blocks to the center of town. The day wasn’t quite dark but wasn’t very bright for being noon. The sky overhead was gray rather than blue, with a hint of black clouds strewn about. The wind blew fiercely, kicking up snow to swirl around in little tornadoes. She wished she could say Alaska looked beautiful covered completely in white, but truthfully, the oddly constructed buildings on stilts and the washed-out colors everywhere made it all seem flat and dirty.

Despite all of this, River Ice teemed with people milling around going from building to building. Some carried grocery bags and others heaps of fur pelts. Some people walked big Husky dogs with them, and others seemed to struggle along, using ski poles to navigate their way from place to place. Each person looked at her, smiled, and waved.

That had never happened in Malibu.

Thea tentatively waved back.

Across the street, over an enclosed entryway, hung a sign that read “Suinnak.” Thea stomped off the crusted ice and snow on her boots before entering the diner, surprised to see how crowded it was.

In the daytime the place was a lot different. Another room had been opened up where a large potbelly stove stood in one corner, emitting a tremendous amount of heat. Square tables filled up almost every inch of floor space, with chairs scattered every which way. Young and old, people talked, ate, and drank, and Thea could tell right away this was the local socializing hangout for the population of River Ice.

Everyone sat without coats, so Thea did the same, hanging hers up on one of the many coat racks on the wall. Curious stares followed her as she made her way to the bar, smiling as she squeezed through tiny chair-to-chair spaces.

“Hello again, Thea!” Miki greeted with coffeepots in each hand.

“Is Hank around?”

Miki shook her head. “Sorry, he left about an hour ago to fly someone back to Nome.”