Chapter 1
John Tillman checked the cargo one last time and then watched his kid sister, Cora, walk toward the plane. He eyed the plastic container she carried. “What’re those?”
“Cookies for Mac.”
“I guessed that. What kind?”
“Honey walnut.”
“I’ll take one.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Who’s flying you to Grizzly Rim to deliver them?”
“You are.” Cora kissed him on the cheek, leaving a damp impression that cooled immediately in the autumn air. “Because you’re my excellent older brother. And the only pilot available.”
“Ha, ha.” He climbed in behind her. She stowed the cookies behind her seat and began to strap herself in. When he reached for the box, her hand came around her seat and slapped his arm.
“I mean it! They’re for Mac.”
“He’ll never miss one cookie. He could stand to miss several dozen.”
“Don’t be a dick. He’s sweet. And he likes sweet things.”
“He’s a bear.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hence the honey.”
John checked her straps, giving each a good yank.
Cora sighed. “I’m not five anymore.”
She might as well have been. And he wished she was. Seventeen was way the fuck into uncharted territory for a guy who had never planned to raise a teenager. “I’m the pilot. Shut up.” He climbed into his seat and strapped himself in. Continued the preflight checks.
“You don’t always have to be the pilot,” she said, too casual.
He put on his headset.
“You could let me fly her.”
He flipped switches.
“I’ve watched you fly for over a decade.”
He checked gauges.
“I’ve been doing simulators online. I’m really good.”
“No.”
“Come on, John—”
He silenced her with a look. “I said no.”
She slumped in her seat and looked out the window, tugging on her ponytail. She’d worn it that way forever because it was the only thing he’d known to do with a little girl’s hair besides cut it, and she’d thrown a fit at that prospect. Her profile was still one of the sweetest things he’d ever seen, and he tried to ignore the strong bones that had begun to emerge under her cheeks and forehead. They made her look just like their mother. Like an adult. He couldn’t always ignore her chin—she stuck it out in stubbornness too often these days. He turned back to his console and started the engine.
Its hum eased the tension in the cabin. Cora put on her headset and started talking about her schoolwork. She attended the tiny local school, which housed all grades, pre-kinder through twelfth. She also took advanced placement courses online through the University of Alaska. John had pushed her to do them, but he hadn’t had to push very hard. Cora was a good student, and she had plans for college. He was taking every run his rig could handle to make sure she had a chance to go where she wanted.
And if Cora going off to school also meant he’d have his house to himself for the first time in adulthood, that was definitely a side benefit. One he intended to take full advantage of. He made a mental note to start shopping for a new mattress. A big one.
Taxiing to the runway, he shared a few words with Jeannette at Control, then squared the nose and accelerated into takeoff.
~
Two hours and one completed cargo delivery later, John pushed through the sticky front door of Mac’s tavern and into the dark warmth inside. The familiar wood and brass gleamed, and scents of beer and savory food set his stomach to growling. He held the door for Cora, then headed to the bar.
Nate spotted them first. “Hey, it’s Cora! And her hideous troll of a brother.”
“Yeah, yeah.” John sat down next to him, and the otter shifter bumped his shoulder with a grin.
“Good to see you too, Nate.” Cora gave him a one-armed hug and rounded the bar. “Hey, Mac.”
The brewer gave her a shy smile. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“Sweetheart!” Nate said, leaning on the bar. “Why don’t you greet me like that?”
“You don’t bring me cookies.”
“I could bring you cookies.”
“I’m not eating anything you bake. It’d have fucking fish in it.”
Nate, a river guide in addition to being an otter, played at looking offended. “You like fish.”
Mac opened the lid of the cookie box and sniffed. A slow smile spread behind his beard, and he planted a kiss on the top of Cora’s head.
“Aw c’mon,” Nate said, “you’re killing me. She gets kisses, too?”
“Yup.” Mac picked out a cookie and took a bite. His eyes closed in delight.
“Man.” Nate looked at John. “He’s gonna eat them in front of us.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Fine.” Nate pointed at Mac. “But since your mouth is full, this is the perfect time to tell you what I came up with last night.”
Mac shook his head.
“Have another cookie.” Nate held up his hands, as if showcasing the words. “Barley Legal.”
Mac choked. Cookie crumbs flew out of his mouth.
“Catchy, right? You use barley. And you brew them strong, so, you know, they’re right up against the state definition of beer.”
“No.”
“And for the label you could have big—”
“No.” Mac flicked his eyes meaningfully toward Cora, then glared at Nate.
Who was unfazed. “It wasn’t gonna be gross. Much. Hey!” He flinched as a hand came around to pinch one of his nipples.
John didn’t have to look to know whose hand it was.
Dmitri leaned forward to growl in Nate’s ear. “Your mouth runs too much. I have the perfect solution.”
John grinned at the frown on Nate’s face. Only one person ever put one there.
“Gross,” Nate said. “I’d be, like, the fifth mouth today.”
Dmitri leered at him and lowered his voice. “And the snuggest.”
“Ugh.” Nate threw his shoulders backward, pushing Dmitri off. “Otters don’t mate with wolves, dude. It’s unnatural.”
John chuckled and wasn’t surprised when Dmitri turned to him. “How about eagles? What do you say, fly boy?”
“I say you’re not very picky.”
“On the contrary.” Dmitri gave John’s shoulder a squeeze with one strong hand.
“No, thanks.”
Not that Dmitri wasn’t attractive. He was. He was hot as shit, actually, with his salt-and-pepper hair that John knew from experience extended down the wolf’s chest and abdomen to frame his cock. Nobody else knew it, but he and Dmitri had had a hot weekend a few years before. John had told him then that he didn’t want Cora to get word of it, and the guy had never let on. Frankly, he was impressed with Dmitri’s discretion.
It didn’t keep him from hitting on John along with everyone else. Part of the subterfuge, he figured. And sometimes he was tempted to scratch the itch again with the wolf. But they hadn’t really clicked, not in a way he would’ve wanted with someone he saw so often. And Nate was right: there was no telling how many people Dmitri had fucked lately.
Lucky bastard.
Dmitri shrugged and sauntered down the bar. “Your losses, gentlemen.” He reached for a cookie, but Mac slapped his hand with one big paw. When Cora came back around the bar with a smile for him, Dmitri’s prowling posture eased instantly. He gave her the same brotherly peck on the head that Mac had put there and asked her about school.
They were good guys. Annoying as hell sometimes, but decent people.
Mac stowed his cookie treasure and handed Cora a root beer. Nate pitched a few more names for Mac’s beers, all of which the brewer shot down unceremoniously. He had never named his brews beyond ale or porter or stout, and Nate’s badgering wasn’t going to win him over.
Patrons came and went, greeting John, asking about his week’s cargo runs. Sometime after he’d finished his beer and moved on to ginger ale, the front door opened and closed again. He didn’t think anything of it until Nate nudged him. When he turned to look, two strangers stood just inside the door, dressed head to foot in colorful, brand-new cold-weather gear. They looked lost.
“Tourists,” Nate said.
“You think?”
“Cute, though. The older one, I mean.”
They’d taken off their hats, and though he kept it to himself, John had to agree. Most guys in Grizzly Rim wore some level of scruff, for warmth and an excuse not to shave. This guy had the clean-shaven look of a businessman. Muscular build for an office rat, though, broad through the shoulders. Everything else was hidden under his parka. He nodded to Mac and stepped toward him with a hitch.
Something was off about his gait. His boots were new and the floor reasonably level, but he definitely had a limp. The younger guy—a teenager and, if John guessed correctly, the guy’s son—followed him, looking sullen. He had to hand that to Cora: she rarely sulked.
Nate’s voice came low behind him as the guy spoke to Mac. “C’mon, c’mon. River trip. Fishing. Kayaking. Tubing.”
John turned to him. “Kind of cold for tubing.”
Nate’s eyes were trained on the new guy. “Speak for yourself, feather balls.” Then his face changed to a welcoming smile. John turned to find the man approaching them. He addressed John.
“Bartender says you’re a pilot?” The words came out slow and curving, like stretched taffy, and a little flicker of heat sparked in John’s gut.
“I am.”
“Logan Maddox. My son and I would like to head into the bush to hunt.”
“Damn it,” Nate whispered behind him.
“Hunt what?” John asked.
“Grouse, mostly.”
“You got nontoxic shot?”
“I do. My son’s got an air rifle.”
“Rifled barrel?”
Maddox nodded. “Got licenses earlier today.”
He gave the right answers, but John wasn’t convinced. Everything they wore looked synthetic, flimsy, except for their boots, whose thick leather hadn’t been broken in. John would have bet Cora’s first-semester fees that they’d brought the wrong guns. Good thing he hadn’t made that wager.
“We’re not choosy,” Maddox said. His eyes looked like they might be slate blue in full light. “Just want a few days of peace and quiet.”
“Except when you’re firing.”
The man acknowledged John’s joke with a wry twist of his mouth. “Except then.”
John looked away from his lips and tapped the bar. “There are a few places around. How many days?”
“A week? Whatever your schedule allows. Our flight home’s flexible.”
“I can drop you tomorrow. Pick you up next Thursday.”
Maddox reached back and rubbed his neck. “Know any guides?”
John could practically feel Nate perk up behind him. Down the bar, Dmitri grinned and stood.
Aw, hell no.
“I know the area,” John said.
“You a tracker?”
Nate snickered, the little fucker.
“I know what’s in season, and I know where to find it. Which water sources are clean.” John shot a glance at Mac, whose mouth was full of cookies again. “How to protect your food from bears.”
Mac scowled.
“Sounds perfect,” Maddox said, then added, “I’d make it worth your while.”
Dmitri flipped John off behind the guy’s back. Luckily neither Maddox nor his son saw it. Sure, it felt like the guy’s drawl was curling around John’s neck, draping his words on John’s shoulders, but Maddox wasn’t offering what D’s reaction suggested. It was just how the guy talked. Nate had had an accent once too. It’d gotten under John’s skin for a while, but it wasn’t as pronounced now. He could deal. “I need to reschedule a few runs. You got a place tonight?”
“Anita’s?”
“Good choice.” And good timing—Anita was leaving for vacation in a couple days. She’d been telling them all her plans, which amounted to lying on a beach in Jamaica. Sounded too hot, in his opinion. “The airstrip’s just off the east side of town, three blocks that way. Meet me there tomorrow morning at nine. Welcome to Grizzly Rim.”
Maddox stuck out his hand and smiled. One of his canine teeth was crooked. It made the perfect lines of his face more human. “Much obliged, Mr.…”
“John Tillman.”
“Mr. Tillman.”
A tremor went through John’s shoulders at the lilt of it, and Nate giggled behind him. John was going to pound him. “Beer’s good here. Burgers too, if your boy’s hungry?”
The kid’s eyes lit at the mention of food.
His dad put a hand on his shoulder. “What do you think? Burger?”
The boy masked his enthusiasm and gave an apathetic shrug. “Sure.”
Maddox seemed to take it in stride. He thanked John again and led his son down the bar to order from Mac.
John turned back to his soda, cooling the ghost of Maddox’s touch against the chilly glass.
He got about four seconds’ peace before Nate drawled, “Mis-ter Till-man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he muttered, and the otter grinned at him.
“Gonna pull out all your native know-how? Give him the Full Alaska?”
“Idiot. And he couldn’t handle the Full Alaska.”
“Prob’ly.” Nate leaned over to look down the bar. “Nice ass, though.”
John looked before he could catch himself. Maddox had shed his coat, and damn. It was a nice ass. “Stop ogling my client.”
“Gonna give him a ride?”
“How old are you?”
“Young. Young and slippery and flexible.”
He took a long swig of ginger ale. “You’re as bad as Dmitri.”
Nate snorted. “We’re all horny as jackrabbits, and don’t pretend you’re not.” He knocked his knuckles against John’s arm. “I just got one question for you.”
“Can’t wait.”
“While you’re out showing Deep South the great outdoors…what’re you gonna do with Cora?”
Oh.
Shit.
He turned to Nate, considering him.
“Don’t look at me,” the otter said, “I’m too immature to babysit, and I live in a fuckin’ shack.” His face lit up. “Oh look, she’s met the boy.”
John turned in time to see his sister shaking the Maddox kid’s hand. Then she smoothed her hair and adjusted her shirt.
She never did that.
Nate’s low chuckle became a raunchy laugh, and he slapped John on the back. “Good luck, Dad.”
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