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Everly shrugged out of her coat, then sat down at thenearest table. “It’s not actually a surprise that you ‘don’t do friends.’ It’s something about how open you are, maybe. Your sunny personality.”
“And also I hate everyone.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t ask for a job. You can’t work here.”
“I have a job,” Everly assured her. “Also, I’d be a terrible waitress. Here, I mean. I waited tables in college one summer and was good at it, but that doesn’t really go with your whole... thing.”
“Are you here for Blue?” Caradine asked in the same mild tone, cutting through the conversation just like that. Skewering it, more like.
“I don’t know.” Everly settled back in her chair, thought about it, and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”
Because a lot of that would depend on which Blue turned up. The one who couldn’t keep his hands off her? Or the one who’d left her without a word?
Caradine smirked. “I’ll take that as a yes. And I like it. You can stay in my spare room.” She slid off her stool and headed toward the kitchen. “But that doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
“Of course not,” Everly agreed.
But she was still smiling.
After she ate yet another perfect meal that she wouldn’t have known to ask for but was precisely what she wanted, she asked Caradine for her key. The other woman laughed.
“I pity anyone stupid enough to steal from me,” she said. “It’s not locked. Just go up the stairs.”
Caradine lived above the restaurant, in a cozy apartment with a woodstove and breathtaking views of theharbor from every window. Everly sat there for a long time, not sure if she was relieved or overwhelmed to find that Alaska was even more beautiful than she remembered it.
The kind of beautiful that wedged its way into her soul, making it hard to breathe.
She felt... expansive here. Chicago felt too close now, too confined. Even the lovely house she’d grown up in hadn’t suited her any longer. It felt like a pair of pants that was just a shade too tight, the button forever digging into her belly, the creases riding up every time she tried to move.
Grizzly Harbor felt wide. High. Endless in all directions.
She spent the rest of the afternoon wandering up and down what passed for streets, the haphazard lanes going this way and that. Funny boardwalks and buildings propped up on stilts, and the happy, defiantly bright colors everywhere, even more magical to her mind when the sky was gray. She poked around in the handful of shops, and even bought herself a couple of local craft items—the firstthingsshe’d bought since almost everything she’d had incinerated.
There was a bite in the air that suggested the seasons turned quicker here, and might even turn right on top of her. She stopped to untie her wool midlayer shirt from around her waist, then tugged it on. When she pulled her head through, she looked up to find a man standing across from her in the narrow street.
He looked the way she would have imagined an ancient warrior might, if she’d spent her time imagining such things. She wanted to draw him, to see if she couldcapture his strong cheekbones and the particular brown hue of his skin. His black hair was thick and slightly too long, and looked as if he spent a lot of his time raking his hands through it. He also looked as if he had just come out of the woods, and yet somehow sweat from exertion didn’t in any way take away from his considerable, and overwhelming, male beauty.
“Hey, Templeton,” Everly said. Very politely, as if the last time she’d seen him hadn’t been when he’d transported her from a police station to her parents’ house. “It’s nice to see you again.”
He grinned, but the look in his dark eyes was intent. Focused. “You’re a long way from Chicago.”
“I am.”
“Grizzly Harbor is pretty cute. I guess you didn’t have much time to look around the last time you were here.”
“You know, I didn’t.” She smiled. “I heard there were great hot springs, right here in town.”
“There sure are.” She couldn’t tell what accent that was that mellowed out his voice, hinting of time spent in the South. She knew only that he could wield it at will. “Is that why you came back? To enjoy some Alaskan hot springs?”
“Why else?”
Templeton laughed. It was a big, brash laugh that suited a man as...extremeas he was. It also seemed to echo off the mountain.
“I hoped you were going to put a miserable bastard I know out of his misery, but hot springs are fine. Probably more pleasant, all things considered.” He nodded to her, which saved her having to pretend she didn’t know what he meant—or having to conceal the twist in her gut atthe notion Blue was miserable. Or that she could do anything about it. “Enjoy your time here. There’s no other place quite like Grizzly Harbor.”
And Everly was all about happiness these days, so that was exactly what she did.