Carrie Alexander: North Country Man

Alouette, Michigan. Located high on the Upper Peninsula.

Home to strong men, stalwart women and lots and lots of trees. If you come, bring your camera—you won’t believe the number of stars in our skies or the color of our sunsets.

And if you’re lucky, you might just meet a cute critter or two. But remember: The U.P. is not like anywhere else.

We even have our own language. Don’t worry, though.

It’s easy to learn. Here are a couple of pointers:

YOOPER: resident of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (aka the U.P.)

FOURTH OF JULY: Yooper summer.

HOLY WAH!: Yooper exclamation.

TROLL: resident of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula (below the Mackinac Bridge).

FINNISH TERMS:

MUMMU: grandmother

PIKKU: little (girl)

RIIESKA: half bread, half biscuit—all good

SISU: character, grit, spunk—Finnish-style

SAUNA: steam bath (aka Finnish religion)

VIHTA: switch made of birch branches

Dear Reader,

This book was a long time in coming. Ever since I began writing for Harlequin, I’ve intended to set a book in my hometown area, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But it had to be the right story, the right setting and the right characters….

Noah and Claire are it—big and bold and brave. And Bay House is it, so real to me on the cliff overlooking Lake Superior that I just might try to check in. As for the town of Alouette and the supporting cast—well, they’re completely fictional, but also entirely familiar. I hope you recognize a little bit of your own hometown in them.

Please look for my forthcoming Superromance stories about the people of Alouette. If you’d like to know more, visit my new Web site at www.carriealexander.com, where you can get the inside scoop and secret family recipes for lumberjack cookies and riieska.

Forever a Yooper,

Carrie Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the gang at the RFF:

For the laughs, the names, the trouble,

the chats (pass the peanuts), the witty banter, the randy Viking, the tales of the TBR.

For everything—even the thwacker!

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

“YEAH, I WANTED to get away from it all,” Claire Levander said to herself as the rental car bumpety-bumped along the ridges of the lonely two-lane country road. The blacktop had buckled like cardboard left out in the rain. “But I didn’t expect to be sent to the ends of the earth.”

Suddenly a pickup truck with a gun rack in its rear window roared by on the left. Her lungs seized as she jerked the steering wheel to the right, then fought to control her instinctive need to get away. The truck was too close.

Claire didn’t draw a proper breath until the vehicle had swung into the proper lane. The eggbeater rattle of its engine was shockingly loud with no other traffic around. She was accustomed to the efficient hum of the airport shuttles that were her normal mode of transportation to a new job.

Truthfully, it was the entire situation that had shaken her. Although she’d practically begged Drake for an easy assignment, she’d been thinking deluxe accommodations, not unrelenting rusticity. For her, country meant friendly folks, humble cottages, open farmland and a freeway to the city.

Not this—this barely civilized wilderness.

The pickup sped away, blatting stinky blue smoke from its tailpipe. The rust-eaten muffler drooped dangerously low, hanging on by a few wires.

Claire imagined that these backwoods roads were constantly littered with mufflers, tailpipes and oil pans. The country was supposed to be safe, but the odds of her getting stranded with car trouble out here in the boondocks were probably worse than being mugged on a subway.

“Drat that Drake. This is not what I need right now.” Claire clenched her fingers on the wheel and slowly eased her rental car’s tires away from the crumbling edge of the blacktop. She did not want to wind up in the ditch.

A dense, tangled forest met in a canopy over the narrow road, screening all but the ambient light of the setting sun. The snatches of sky visible through the interlaced treetops looked bruised—purple and dusky blue, faintly tinged with yellow. If she’d known her journey to the hinterlands would end like this, she’d have forgone her habit of arriving the day before a meeting and booked a morning flight. Instead, efficient as ever, she’d chosen to be early. To get the lay of the land.

Never had the phrase been so appropriate. Thus far, it was a wild, rugged, alarmingly unpopulated land. She’d driven a half hour from the airport before she’d reached a town of any consequence, then realized that she still had farther to go. Since Marquette, signs of civilization had diminished. There were no roadside conveniences. Little traffic. No habitation, either, except for the occasional driveways—if such overgrown paths could be called driveways—that led off through the woods.

“To the ends of the earth,” Claire muttered, wishing she hadn’t been quite so open with Drake about her dilemma.

Upon hearing the dubious results of Claire’s annual physical, her boss had promised her a working vacation. “This one’s a slam dunk, Claire. You’ll love Upper Michigan,” Drake the Snake had said, speaking with the usual forked tongue. “One breath of the fresh air will clear your lungs of city pollution. One walk through the woods will soothe that incipient ulcer. You’ll have pure relaxation—no worries and no expectations. We’ve booked you directly into Bay House, so you’ll be on the premises with almost nothing to do. Set your own pace on this one, hon.” Drake had chuckled. “No, that’s not so wise, is it? I want you to take it easy this time out. You’ve earned a gimme assignment.”

Claire nodded. Why hadn’t Drake sent her to Key West or Carmel-by-the-Sea, where she could have relaxed in luxury? Because he was a slithering reptile, that’s why. For months now, he’d been raking in the accolades that were rightfully hers.

The sun had almost set. She frowned at the darkening road. Feeling vaguely like Livingstone hacking through the jungle, she switched the headlights to high beams and pressed on. It took more than a slimy boss and a little bit of wilderness to defeat Claire Levander.

Friends and acquaintances considered her job with the Bel Vista Hotel Corporation a paid vacation. They were dead wrong. She did advance acquisition work for the luxury bed-and-breakfast division, which meant she traveled around the U.S. and Canada and even the occasional foreign port, checking into tourist towns, checking out various charming inns and stately Victorians for potential profitability.

It had seemed like a plum assignment when she’d been awarded the position eighteen months ago. But the nomadic lifestyle, combined with the pressure of recommending acquisitions that could go from black ink to black hole with one unforeseen mechanical failure or plumbing disaster, had wreaked havoc with her nervous system. Even the company’s doctor had advised her to scale back, and he was notoriously more corporate than caring.

To Claire’s surprise, the prospect of slowing her climb to the top had been appealing, even when she tried to remember that it was traitorous to the goals she’d set for herself at sixteen. She’d been with Bel Vista since college, had worked her way up from the most junior of executive assistants. The long hours and hectic schedule had meant postponing her personal life, particularly the romantic side of it. Even her family obligations had suffered. She’d felt guilty about that, but she hadn’t stopped to think that the stress would eventually become physical as well as emotional.