Дана Стейбнау - Spoils of the Dead

And then in 1960 the highway was built, and the 1964 earthquake destroyed the infrastructure of Kapilat, and Blewestown’s fortunes began to rise in almost exact proportion to the falling fortunes of the communities across the Bay. The Blewestown Chamber of Commerce website listed a dozen halibut charters, almost thirty restaurants, and over a hundred bed-and-breakfasts, attesting to its place as a tourist destination for locals and Outsiders alike. There was a thriving arts community, including painters, potters, and a musical population big enough to support a chamber orchestra, a jazz band, several rock bands, at least a dozen folk music groups, and an annual music festival that brought musicians in from all over the state and all over the country. A local luthier hosted workshops in building stringed instruments to apprentices from all over the world. There was a fifty-bed hospital and half a dozen clinics, four dentists, three veterinarians, and—Wy counted—two coffee roasters and six coffee shops if you included the drive-throughs. There was even a Starbucks. In the local Safeway, but still. For someone coming from a town of two thousand with no road, this was big-city living with style.

Along with tourism and the arts, Blewestown was the market town for the Bay, where everyone came to buy food, building supplies, and get their hair cut. The mirror image, in fact, of Kapilat sixty years before. There had to be some feelings about that locally.

Wy saw the humpback cow and calf she’d heard the chatter about. They were swimming a lazy circle, until they passed into water cast into the shade by the mountain next to it. With a sigh she left them behind and set a course for the tip of the Spit.

It was a twelve-minute flight from Kapilat to Blewestown, following the string of islands off the south shore before turning left to catch the tip of the Spit and follow it inland. A drilling platform sat on three legs halfway up the Bay. At this distance it looked only parked, not in operation.

The Blewestown airport (so dignified because it had an intermittent ATC presence and was paved) was seven thousand feet long. Under “Obstructions” the AOPA directory warned of moose and seagulls. Since birds were the bane of every Alaskan pilot Wy kept her head on a swivel. She saw a bald eagle and a five-member flock of sandhill cranes but no seagulls and thankfully no moose during her descent.

The airport consisted of a commercial hangar on the north edge, deserted at present because the latest in a string of fly-by-night commercial carriers had filed for Chapter 11 and stopped regularly scheduled service between Blewestown and Anchorage from one day to the next. A distance down the apron was an FBO, a fixed base operator, servicing privately owned aircraft. Today it had a small jet parked next to it, a Gulfstream, she thought.

The south edge was lined with private hangars and two that belonged to two air taxi services, which made absolutely no sense, as people flying in from the south shore communities would then need transportation to go all the way around the airport to catch a flight to Anchorage. It probably had to do with the federal dollars used to build all US airports. Nonsense in Alaska always came back to the requirements placed on the spending of federal dollars there.

There was also a seaplane base on a shallow lake that paralleled the runway, host to several flightseeing services. That much she saw before 68 Kilo kissed the tarmac of Blewestown Airport’s in a runway paint job. She let the craft run out of steam with only a gentle application of the brakes—there was plenty of room, after all—and when 68 Kilo had slowed down to a walking pace kicked the rudder over to turn around and go find her man.

She saw him instantly. She always did. He was standing next to a brand shiny new pickup truck parked next to 78 Zulu. It said something of her besotted state that she didn’t spare a glance for the Super Cub.

She couldn’t just see Liam’s smile from a thousand feet away, she could feel it. She always could. She made her way sedately to the tie-down and swung the tail around. She shut off the engine and the prop slowed and stopped. He caught the door in his hand as she opened it. “Hey.”

She returned his smile with one of her own that seemed to light her face from within. Did he look like that when he looked at her? He pulled her down from the aircraft and onto the tarmac and at long, long last into his arms.

“Hey backatcha,” she said, sounding breathless, her face turned up to his.

He looked at her for a long moment, his hands on her waist, her full, lush body firm against his, his own body already reacting because ’twas ever thus. “I missed you.”

Her eyes roamed over him, hungry for every detail. The thick brown hair that gleamed with reddish lights fell over eyes so dark a blue they were like the sea at twilight. His nose was arrogant, his chin obstinate, his carriage commanding. He was tall and broad-shouldered and long-legged and drew the world’s attention just by moving through it.

And he was smart, and funny, and kind. He was her lover and her best friend and her warm oasis in the indifferent desert that would be life without him. She could see his pulse beating in his throat and touched her fingers to it. “‘I am to see to it that I do not lose you.’”

“What?” he said, deafened by the look in her eyes.

“Nothing. Just me channeling my inner Whitman. I missed you, too, Liam. Every day.” She stood on her tiptoes, deliberately rubbing her body against his, and murmured against his mouth, “And every night.”

With a will of their own his hands slid down over her ass and pulled her in tight against him and he forgot the world until someone gave a loud wolf whistle and someone else yelled, “Get a room!”

He pulled back to see that she was flushed and laughing. Neither of them cared enough to look around to see who was making fun of them. “Let’s go home,” he said.

“Does it have a bed?”

“Clean sheets and everything.”

She stood on tiptoe and nipped at his bottom lip. “Take me there.”

Six

Tuesday, September 3

HE WOKE EARLY AS HE ALMOST ALWAYS did, no matter how active the day—or night—before had been. In spite of the unfamiliar surroundings he knew immediately where he was and who was sleeping next to him. He turned to look at her, a graceful sprawl of woman, face down, a tumble of bronze hair, brown eyes closed. One arm tucked beneath her pillow revealed a plump curve of breast, right knee raised—he couldn’t help himself and he didn’t even try, raising his head to look at the dark mystery that upraised knee revealed. He did more than look. He positively gloated over all of the richness that was his to rediscover, exploit, debauch. He rolled up on his elbow to place a soft kiss at the base of her spine and was rewarded with a long, sensuous moan. He was already hard but that sound, man. Everything stood even more to attention.

“I can’t,” she said, voice muffled. “I’m dead. I am officially dead.” She glared at him through her hair. “Killed dead by you, specifically.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, and knelt behind her, lifting her to her knees.

“Liam.”

“Uh-huh.” He slid one hand down her belly and between her legs.

“ Liam. ”

“I’m starving,” she said.

“We did miss dinner,” he said.

Explaining to each other why meant breakfast was even later. They ate it in bed. “Is Barton going to be pissed because you weren’t in the office by eight?”

He licked the marmalade from her fingers. “I’m not officially on duty until Monday.” He kissed her, enjoying the flavors of butter and orange and toast. And Wy. She was glowing. He didn’t doubt that he was, too, and wouldn’t have had a problem exhibiting that glow before anyone passing by. Preferably with his clothes on, but still.