The Stranger (9 page)

“Because I asked you.” No way but forward. “What about sex? Had you ever had sex in your sleep before?”

I could see the blood flushing through her face’s capillaries.

“That’s a rude question.”

“In that case, you don’t have to answer it.” I’d just hit her wall.

I opened the door, but before I could climb out of the cab, she reached over and put her hand on mine, a touch that rattled my body and rerouted my circulation.

“It’s okay.” I laid my hand over hers and willed my heart to slow down. “You can tell me.”

“Once.” She swallowed with an audible gulp. “It happened once before, only once.”

That’s why she’d been so upset. That’s why she’d warned me to lock the door before she passed out in the truck. That’s why she hadn’t told me about her condition, because something similar had happened to her while she sleepwalked way before we met and her experience had marked her.

I knew exactly when it happened. When she was nineteen, when she married the son of a bitch. The sadness I spotted in her green eyes sparked my protective instincts. Had she been hurt?

Nobody was ever going to hurt Summer again, not while I was around. Nobody. The short marriage had puzzled me from the beginning, but with her admission, her character came through loud and clear. The last time she’d had sex while walking in her sleep, she’d married the guy.

“Thank you,” I said.

Her eyebrows rose on her forehead. “For what?”

“For telling me the truth.” I kissed her gloved knuckles. “And by the way, so that you know? The next time I make love to you, I promise, you’ll be wide awake.”

Chapter Six

The pristine landscape flew by as we ripped through a sea of white, trailing a wake of shimmering snow. Our tracks were the only marks on an immaculate geography. The snow machine roared between my thighs like a powerful beast. I clung to Seth, enjoying his heat. The ride was almost as thrilling as the feel of his body in my arms and, I swear, even though I couldn’t recall squat about last night, my body remembered everything.

Oh, lord. Why was this happening to me? Not content with the sleepwalking episode, I now floundered while awake. The conversation we’d had in the truck echoed in my ears. He wanted to get to know me. He’d said so. He wasn’t freaked out. He liked me. Me.

Could I really believe him?

I was in deep trouble and I knew it. I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anyone outside my family. If nothing else, life had taught me that. But every time he looked at me, something inside of me reacted with visceral longing. He was right. There was a connection between us. And his touch—it had the potential to blister me on contact. The promise he made, right there at the end, before we got on the snow machine repeated in my head. What was I supposed to think about that?

It was as if he knew something I didn’t, as if ending up in his bed again was a foregone conclusion. The gall of the man, thinking
I
was going to ask
him
to sleep with me. I wasn’t that desperate...was I? I wasn’t reckless either. It made me crazy that he’d think I’d simply fall into his lap like some stupid broad without an ounce of self-respect. But it drove me even crazier that a part of me wanted to do just that, not fall but rather land on his lap with perfect accuracy to rediscover the pleasures he’d hinted at.

This was not like me at all. I had to get out of Alaska now. I had to get away from him, before I fell into the same trap that had almost destroyed my life before.

The snow machine slowed down from a roar to a purr. A cabin appeared at the turn, a weathered, rambling, A-frame log construction, bigger than I’d imagined but consistent with my reality show-shaped expectations, including a pair of enormous moose antlers hanging above the door.

Seth yelled over the noise. “The Golov homestead.”

He brought the snow machine to a stop, dismounted, and, taking off his helmet, climbed the stairs and pounded on the door. I took off my helmet and looked around. A collection of sheds, an old truck raised on blocks, and piles of rusting scrap surrounded the cabin, all covered in a fine layer of snow.

“Nobody’s home.” Seth studied the tracks on the snow, which headed toward a narrow trail through the woods. “Maybe the Golovs are down by the lake. I’ll go check. Wait here.”

With brisk, purposeful strides, he disappeared into the forest. I sat on the stairs, listening to the eerie silence around me, interrupted only by the cry of an eagle, flying high above. At least I thought it was an eagle.

Cack.
Cack.
Cack
. The noise got my attention. It came from the back, so I circled around the house. I spotted a rickety awning by the lake, but the clothesline caught my attention. My heartbeat tripped. A familiar blanket printed with colorful trucks rippled in the breeze. I marched up to the line and snatched the blanket off the line. The fabric was soft between my fingers. It was Tammy’s blankie all right. Tammy was here! She may be twenty-seven and she’d kill me if I told anyone, but she never went anywhere without her blankie.

The crack of a shot rang in the air. A bullet whizzed by me and plinked against the nearest rust pile. I dove to the ground and elbowed myself behind the pile in time to see a rotund little woman wearing rubber boots and a bloody apron, wielding a gun almost as tall as she was wide.

“You thief!” The wild woman fired again. “Drop it!”

Seth came galloping out of the woods. “Anya, stop!”

The woman’s weapon shifted in Seth’s direction.

“She’s got a gun,” I yelled.

The gun jerked back toward me and loosened another shot.

“Wait, Anya!” Seth shouted, waving his hands in the air. “It’s me, Seth Erickson!”

“Is that you, Seth?” The woman kept the gun on me but squinted in Seth’s direction, motioning for him to step closer. “Why, speak up! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I did say so.” Seth approached the woman, arms up, palms bared in the air.

“Yeah, it’s you all right,” she blared. “Your timing’s good. I’ve got a thief pinned over there—one I’m gonna shoot full of holes.”

“You’re not shooting anybody.” Seth wrapped his fingers around the rifle and gently wrestled it off her hands.

“What?” the woman yelled. “Do you want to do the shooting?”

“That’s my friend over there,” Seth said.

“Who?”

“The thief,” Seth shouted.

“Speak up.” The woman cupped her ear. “There’s no use in you chirping like a squirrel.”

“Where’s your hearing aid?” Seth yelled at the top of his lungs.

“What?”

“Your hearing aid!” Seth tapped his ear. “I know the boys bought you a hearing aid, a nice one.”

“Wait.” The woman grappled through her pockets. “Maybe I should put in my hearing aid.”

“Good idea.” Seth called out to me. “Are you all right?”

“I’m alive.” I came to my feet slowly, keeping my eyes on the woman as I dusted the snow off my coat, ready to dive for safety, should she suddenly reclaim her gun.

The wild woman found the hearing aid and inserted it in her ear. “Ah, yes, much better,” she said. “That little thief over there tried to steal a blanket off my line.” She turned in my direction and lifted a fist in the air. “You’ve got no business messing with other people’s clotheslines.”

Seth motioned for me to join him. “Do you want to explain?”

“It’s Tammy’s blankie,” I said, approaching with care.

“You know Tammy?”

I nodded, studying the woman before me. A wiry puff of gray hair sprang from beneath her knit hat like a tangled nest, framing a wide face with heavy jowls and brown skin webbed with wrinkles that deepened around her tiny brown eyes.

“Sweet girl, Tammy,” Anya said. “Why didn’t you say you knew her before now?”

“Because I was busy ducking your bullets?”

Seth shook his head and peeled his eyes, but his warning came a little too late.

“Why, you’re a damn hothead, aren’t you?” Anya glared. “Do you think you can strut into someone’s property and get something other than bullets?”

This time, I heeded Seth’s warning and held my tongue. No sense in getting shot for nothing.

“Summer is Tammy’s sister,” Seth put in.

“You are?” Anya’s tiny eyes bore into my face. “But she’s so...blonde and you’re so...not blonde.”

It was a reaction I got often. “She’s my stepsister.”

“Ah.” Anya’s smile pressed her eyes into slits and added a new layer of wrinkles to her face. “That Tammy. She belongs to the air. You, on the other hand, you belong to the fire.”

I looked to Seth. What was she talking about?

“Anya’s one-fourth Athabaskan, a little Russian, and a hundred percent Alaskan,” he explained. “She’s got her own set of beliefs going.”

“Come on, I’ve got chores to do.” The woman waddled toward the awning. “Where have you been, kiddo? Since my Vik moved to Barrow, you haven’t been by to see me.”

“Sorry.” Seth motioned for me to follow them. “I’ve been really busy.”

“Busy, that’s all I hear from you boys.” Anya turned to me. “Vik and Seth ran around together in high school. Seth could put down pounds of my
pelmeni
.”

“Best dumplings in Alaska.” Seth smiled briefly then got serious again. “Summer here is looking for her sister. Where’s Tammy?”

“She and Nikolai arrived a few days ago,” Anya said.

I was ecstatic. Tammy was here, very near. I’d persuade her to go home with me. We’d be gone from Alaska and all my troubles would be over.

The awning turned out to be a fish-cleaning station, complete with an outdoor counter, currently smeared with fish guts and an impressive knife collection, including the most intimidating cleaver I’d seen in my life.

Large glass jars lined the shelf. Some looked like they were filled with the remains of gruesome experiments. Others held only a whitish liquid. The sharp scent of brine struck my nose, white vinegar, mixed with salt and something else, onions maybe?

“What’s the matter,
cheechako
?” The woman grabbed a huge pike by the tail and dropped it on her counter. “You’re too good for pickled fish?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “It’s just that I’d never seen it done, you know, the pickling thing.”

“You’ll be glad for pickled fish when the snow is high and the weather sucks,” Anya said. “So keep your wrinkled nose to yourself and learn.”

Her cleaver fell with a sudden
clack.
I jerked. The pike’s head fell off the chopping block as if struck by a French guillotine. The fish’s tail came off next, before the woman traded the cleaver for a smaller knife and gutted the fish. The gore. My stomach pitched. I put my hand over my mouth and tried very hard not to retch. The woman flashed me another look. I smiled weakly. She wasn’t buying it.

“This is a lot of fish for one woman.” Seth bent down to examine Anya’s basket. “Where did you get all of these?”

“I got lucky,” Anya said, filleting the fish like an automated machine.

I cleared my throat. “I’d like to see Tammy. Is she in the house?”

“Impatient, too.” Anya cut the fillets into smaller pieces and dropped them into the brine. “You don’t got many virtues, do you? Tammy now, she’s soft like a baby seal’s fur. But you? You’re stubborn, dark and stormy. Bossy too, if I judge you right.”

Eyes sparkling, Seth coughed into his fist in a blatant attempt to hide his laughter. So what if I had a bit of a temper. He wasn’t exactly cold-blooded. The smartass was having fun at my expense.

“My Nikolai is a bright boy,” Anya said. “Airy too, like the girl.”

“I wouldn’t mind meeting Nikolai...” to give him a piece of my mind. The sly Don Juan had stalked my sister across the internet and bamboozled her into coming out here.

“You leave my Nikolai alone.” Anya pointed the bloody tip of her knife at me. “He’s a good boy, maybe a bit rash sometimes, but a nice boy he is.”

A bit rash? Talk about the understatement of the year. He’d lured my sister to Alaska!

“Where’s Tammy?” I was done tiptoeing around. “I want to see her right now.”

“They arrived here earlier this week,” Anya said. “But they’re not here anymore.”

“What?” I glared. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Anya traded a suffering look with Seth. “This one doesn’t have an ounce of patience.”

“Not even a gram,” Seth agreed wholeheartedly.

“Are you sure they’re not around?” I said, suspecting the woman of aiding and abetting in the pair’s escape.

“Of course I’m sure.” The woman eyed me crossly. “I might look decrepit to you, but I can count heads in my own house and there aren’t any asses parked next to my fire.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I know what you meant, so be quiet!”

“Summer’s just worried about—”

“Hush, Seth, you too,” she said. “You might be the great Seth Erickson around these parts, but since you’re reeking like a musk ox at the rut, your messed-up mind might have forgotten that I’m not an idiot. I don’t need an interpreter to talk to outsiders. I didn’t raise seven boys on my own without my faculties.”

With a tilt of the head, Seth urged me to apologize.

“I’m sorry if I came across wrong,” I said. “I’m a bit blustery sometimes.”

“Blustery like wildfire,” Anya agreed, “and crossed like a moose with a toothache.”

“Tammy’s my baby sister and her mother is very worried.” I held up the colorful blanket. “Tammy wouldn’t forget this. She wouldn’t go anywhere without it.”

“Well, now, see, she did,” Anya said. “Go figure.”

“Do you have any idea where Nikolai and Tammy went?” Seth asked.

“South, maybe.” Anya scooped a handful of fish guts off her cutting board. “Or maybe they mentioned Denali and Fairbanks, I can’t remember for sure. Nikolai wanted to show Tammy Alaska. But I’m sure he said Kenai first. Or was it Katmai?”

I suppressed a groan.

“Alaska is a very big place.” Seth’s eyes met mine. “Without knowing which way they went, they’ll be difficult to find.”

“But I have to find Tammy.”

“Now, child,” Anya said. “Why would you try to trap the wind in your fist?”

Trapping the wind in my fist? Is that what I was trying to do?

No way. Anya didn’t know Tammy. She didn’t know that Tammy suffered from bipolar disorder and that she often needed help to snap out of it. She didn’t know how to soothe her manic moods. She hadn’t wiped my sister’s tears when depression gripped her, and she didn’t know that, sometimes, Tammy forgot to take her meds.

Oh, my God. What would happen if Tammy forgot to take her meds? Nikolai wouldn’t know what to do. I felt sick to my stomach. I had to find Tammy, before it was too late.

“Don’t worry.” Seth squeezed my arm. “We’ll find her.”

“Stop worrying about others and pay attention to yourself,” Anya said. “You dream chasers are all the same.”

I frowned. “What did you just call me?”

“Dream chaser,” Anya said. “What? Do you think I’m blind? Well, I’m not blind. I see the mark on your neck.”

“This mark?” I fingered the crescent birthmark below my ear.

Seth eyed the mark. “What about it?”

“It’s the mark of a dream chaser,” Anya said. “What is it that they call it in the lower forty-eight? Sleepwalkers?”

“But...” I grappled for words. “How could you know?”

“I know a dream chaser when I see one,” she said. “I would’ve known you even if I hadn’t spotted the mark on you. It’s the eyes, you know. They’ve got a tendency to glaze over when the person’s tired, upset, or thinking.”

“Really?” Seth leaned in to examine my eyes.

His nearness sent my cells into a tizzy. “Stop that.” I shrunk from him.

“My grandmother was a dream chaser,” Anya said. “She wandered the forest at night and we’d have to go after her so the wolves wouldn’t get her. Back then, wolves were plentiful, a real nuisance. If you ask me, that’s the problem with dream chasers. They chase dreams while you chase them.”