Nadia Nichols - Everything To Prove

For a few moments Libby glared at him. Carson could see that tears were about to spill over and her chin was trembling as she fought for control. Why was it such a big secret?

“You’re looking for bones,” she blurted out abruptly.

“What?”

“BONES!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, the tears finally brimming over. “My father’s bones!”

As soon as she’d said the word father, all the pieces of the puzzle clicked together.

“If we can find just one bone in that wreckage, the DNA will prove my paternity and Frey will never be able to stop us from recovering the plane.” Her eyes were wide, fixed on him, riveting him in his seat. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“I suppose now you’re going to want to charge me more money.”

Carson stared at her, then shook his head. “You have a really high opinion of me, don’t you?” He started the motor. “I’m going to take a quick break. I’ll be back out in an hour.”

“Pick me up at the dock at seven,” she said. “And don’t tell me no. I have way too much at stake for you not to let me help.”

Before he could respond, she started her own outboard and veered around his boat, heading at top speed for the lodge. He muttered, “Yeah, I guess maybe you do at that. Several billion dollars is a pretty big stake.”

Dear Reader,

Deep beneath the icy waters of Alaska’s Evening Lake lies the wreckage of not only a plane, but also three lives: the pilot of the ill-fated craft, the bride he was flying off to meet on their wedding day and their unborn child. Twenty-eight years later, that child, Libby Wilson, is determined to prove her paternity by salvaging the wreckage and recovering her father’s remains. Her journey into the past reveals the secrets of the lake and unlocks long-dormant family mysteries…mysteries that change her life in ways she never imagined.

Every so often, a person’s future is dictated by events long past. The desire to know where we came from and who we are within the context of our family’s past can be a powerful driving force. Deciphering the clues can take us on new, wholly unexpected adventures with amazing outcomes in the here and now. Whether it’s simple genealogical research or more complicated scientific genetic testing, we never know where the search might lead. Perhaps this book will light a spark in you to delve into your own family history. Who knows what secrets (and skeletons) you might discover when you peek into the far corners of the family closet?

Nadia Nichols

P.S. I’d love to hear from you. My e-mail address is nadianichols@aol.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To John, for pointing out that the exception proves the rule.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

FOR THE SIXTH TIME IN LESS THAN Twenty Minutes, Connor Libby knotted his tie then studied his handiwork in the small mirror that hung above the bathroom sink, and for the sixth time it failed to pass muster. If he didn’t hurry up, he was going to be late. He tore it out again and started over. His hands were shaking, which didn’t help matters much. He’d had to borrow the tie from Dan, a green strip of silk with little brightly spotted rainbow trout jumping all over it. It went well enough with his white shirt and dark slacks. Dan was lending him the jacket, too, a fine wool tweed with leather elbow patches. If not for Dan’s help, Connor would be decked out in faded jeans and his favorite red flannel shirt, and would no doubt be a whole lot more comfortable than he was in these fancy duds. But suffering a gentleman’s fate for a few hours was worth it, for Marie.

Marie. Just the thought of her kick-started his heart and made his hands shake even worse. She was as beautiful as an early spring sunrise over the Brooks Range, and in less than three hours she was going to become his wife. He’d met Marie nearly a year ago, when she came to work for him and Dan. The war was over and he’d arrived back at the Alaskan lodge, still trying to make sense out of four years in the air force, the last two spent in Vietnam.

She was a slender, quiet girl and an excellent cook, minding her own business and keeping apart from the others. In her spare time she would read books outside the cabin where the hired help stayed, and Connor’s dog, a three-legged mongrel named HoChi that he’d brought back from Vietnam, liked to hang out with her. He took that as a good sign, since HoChi was by nature and experience a very wary and distrustful dog.

One day he braved it all and dropped onto the wall bench beside her. “What’re you reading?”

She glanced up with those shy, dark eyes, as startled by his boldness as he was. “War and Peace. One of your guests left it behind.”

“Have you figured out which is better?”

She closed the book, a piece of birch bark marking the page. “I do not like war.”

“Me, either. You like to fish?”

“My family is at fish camp right now. If I were there, I would be gutting and splitting and drying dog salmon.”

“And you’d rather clean rooms at the lodge?”

“The money I make here helps my family. My father’s health is not so good. He can no longer do all the things he needs to do. We need a lot of supplies to get through the winter.”

Through quiet conversations, Connor learned that Marie Wilson was an Athapaskan whose family lived on the Koyukyuk River, and in the weeks that followed, the friendship that developed between them became the highlight of his summer. Walks along the river or paddles in the canoe were moments to be savored. Connor was smitten, though he was unsure if Marie felt as strongly about him as he did about her. As the end of the season drew near, he asked Dan for some advice. Dan, whom Connor regarded as more of an uncle than a godfather, was a confirmed bachelor. He didn’t have a high regard for women in general, and disliked native women in particular, hiring them only because help was so hard to get out in the bush. To Dan, the indigenous people were to be tolerated with barely concealed contempt. He believed them to be lazy, incompetent and untrustworthy—a racist attitude that Connor never understood. He smoked his cigar and listened to Connor relate his feelings about Marie, and when Connor asked him what he should do, Dan took his cigar out of his mouth and spat.

“Soon enough, she’ll go back to her village and take up with some young buck,” he said. “She’s a squaw, for God’s sake. Forget about her.”

When the summer was over, Marie returned to her people. The geese flew south, the lake froze up and deep snows filled the long cold darkness. Conner ran a trapline out of the guides’ camp and suffered endless torments thinking about Marie falling in love with some young man from her village. He went to the lodge from time to time when his need for companionship outweighed his desire for solitude and shared a whiskey or two with Dan. He told Dan he planned to marry Marie and bring her back to the lodge to live. Dan never said anything in response, just shook his head and threw back another slug of hooch.

Spring came and filled Connor with a restless yearning as the days lengthened and the sun rose higher in the sky. The ice went out on the lake. The great flocks of geese returned, their long ragged Vs darkening the pale sky. Connor wondered if Marie had missed him during the cold dark winter, and if she would return as promised.