Flirting with Forever Read online

  He had no doubt that she could. There was something…irresistible about her. Like a wind ruffling the surface of Misty Bay. The water couldn’t help reacting, and neither could he in the face of her charm. She had sparkling blue eyes and windswept blond hair, a quick smile, fine-grained skin and a crescent-shaped scar next to her mouth. Not the kind of thing he would normally notice, that scar, but they had kissed, after all.

  Not kissed, just touched their mouths together due to exigent circumstances, he corrected himself. Important distinction to keep in mind.

  “It’s fine,” he told her.

  Chrissie’s face lit up in a blazing smile. He blinked, as if the sun was getting in his eyes again. She spread a blanket over one half of the backseat and then stepped back to help Shuri inside. The dog scrambled awkwardly onto the seat, making Ian wince at the thought of those toenails digging into the leather. Toenails? Paw-nails? What was the right term? He’d never owned a dog, since he’d been laser-focused on neurosurgery his entire adult life and had never had time for anything more than the occasional cat-sitting.

  Maybe if he’d had a pet, he’d be more prepared to be Bo’s adult-in-charge. The kid ran circles around him. Then again, Bo wasn’t really a kid; he was nineteen and his own person. At his age, his neurons were all firing at peak efficiency. No wonder an ancient thirty-seven-year-old like himself couldn’t keep up.

  After getting Shuri settled, Chrissie disappeared again, then returned dragging a single large suitcase across the snow. “Is there any extra room in your trunk? Otherwise I can hold this on my lap.”

  “Are you moving in?” he asked dryly. “It was just a kiss, not a proposal.”

  Bo let out a belly laugh. “Jokes, Uncle Ian. Keep it up, dude.”

  A smile quivered in the corner of Chrissie’s lips. “Believe me, I have no intention of moving in anywhere in Alaska. You can rest easy on that point.”

  He popped the trunk for her, and she disappeared behind the car. What was her problem with Alaska? he wondered. There must be a story there. In the seven years he’d been living here, the magnificence and isolation had settled into his bones. It suited him, and he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else now.

  But it wasn’t his problem. He had enough of his own. Starting with the kid in the passenger seat next to him.

  Had he made a mistake, inviting Bo to Alaska? Elinor had been worried about his aimlessness and lack of job prospects. Ian had mentioned something about there being plenty of work in Alaska, and the next thing he knew, he’d been buying Bo a ticket.

  And it wasn’t even summer yet. It was only March. Bo had arrived a week ago, and Ian had quickly realized that Anchorage wasn’t the right place for the two of them. Bo wanted adventure, not another city. Lost Harbor was a much better choice, especially once the boardwalk opened up for the summer. Bo could wait tables, process fish, scoop ice cream. His nephew would fit right in at one of the coffee shops where the teenagers hung out.

  Like the one Gretel Morrison ran.

  Thinking about her still hurt just a bit, so he shifted his attention away from that topic. Overcoming his infatuation with Gretel had taken all his mental powers—but he’d done it. Maybe he should offer a course at the hospital. Train your Brain: Understanding that Love is Nothing More than a Neurochemical Illusion.

  “Uncle Ian? Are you thinking of another joke? Don’t hurt yourself, my man.”

  He realized he’d been chuckling out loud at his course idea. “I tell jokes,” he said, a bit stiffly. “It’s not unusual.”

  “Really? Mom says you’re all about work and have no time for anything social. She says I should leave you alone as much as possible because what you do is extremely important and lives depend on you.”

  “That’s…flattering.”

  Ian’s family always referred to him like that, as if he was a workaholic machine of some kind. As if he didn’t have regular human emotions. Which was absurd. Just because he didn’t indulge them in the same way didn’t mean he didn’t have them.

  “But I told her she doesn’t really know you,” Bo was saying. “You’re a lot more rad than she says you are.”

  “Thanks? I guess?”

  “You’re welcome, Uncle Ian. Don’t worry, I’ll always defend you. You’re the only one in the family who’s abby-normal like me.”

  Bo aimed a happy smile at him. Was the kid wearing eyeliner or were his eyes just naturally dark-rimmed? Was that normal for boys of his age? Or abby-normal, whatever that meant? Ian had no idea. He saw all kinds of young people in his work, but he didn’t pay attention to such things. He could analyze every aspect of a patient’s MRI before he could describe their appearance.

  Chrissie slid into the backseat of the car. She brought a whiff of freshness with her, a combination of the icy mist suspended in the outside air and something floral. Shampoo perhaps, or hand lotion.

  He shifted his focus from thinking about her hair to the road ahead. The sun had dropped below the peaks and the long Alaska sunset had commenced.

  “I really appreciate this, you guys,” Chrissie said. “I’m more than happy to chip in for gas and snacks and so forth.”

  “Will share the usuals,” Ian said, quoting the Bush Lines. Every day, the Lost Harbor radio station read announcements sent in from residents of far-flung settlements and camps in the area.

  “Oh my God, I haven’t heard that phrase in over ten years,” Chrissie exclaimed. “That takes me back. I once asked a boy on a date over the Bush Lines.”

  Ian put his car in gear and pulled back onto the highway, wheels crunching over the ridge of crusted snow left by the plow. “Did you grow up in Lost Harbor?”

  “I did. I was born there. Left when I was seventeen.”

  Bo swiveled around so he was staring at her in fascination. “What was it like growing up in Alaska?”

  “Cold.” Succinct. He appreciated that. “Where are you from, Bo?”

  “I’m a man of the world.” He tossed the end of his scarf over his shoulder. “I don’t consider myself tethered to one geographical location.”

  “He spends a lot of time online,” Ian clarified dryly.

  Chrissie nodded and settled one hand on her snoozing dog. “I hear ya. One of these days, we’ll all discard our physical forms and exist only as electrical impulses traveling between brains.”

  Ian cast her a startled glance in the rearview mirror. “Are you a scientist?”

  “No.” She laughed. “But I love science fiction. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades, like a lot of people raised here.”

  Should he revise his opinion of her? He’d written her off as scattered and flaky. What else could explain the fact that she’d traveled all the way from Arizona in a car she wasn’t a hundred percent sure about? The Al-Can Highway was no joke, especially in the winter.

  Or so he’d heard. He’d never driven it himself. Never in a million years would he allow himself to take that much time to go from one dot on the map to another. Airplanes existed for a reason.

  “I want to be a jack-of-all-trades,” Bo announced. “How can I do that?”

  “It’s easy,” Chrissie said cheerfully. “Just flit from one thing to another and leave as soon you get bored. Honestly, it’s the only way to live.”

  Bo looked so inspired that Ian decided he had to step in.

  “I completely disagree. It’s much better to choose something you enjoy and stick with it until you’re an expert.” In the rearview mirror, he shot Chrissie a look loaded with disapproval. He hoped she’d get the message. He might be willing to give her a ride but he didn’t want her nutty ideas taking hold with his young and impressionable nephew.

  She didn’t notice his scathing glance because she was petting her dog. “I’m sorry, but that’s just naive. Not everyone is lucky enough to find something they love to do. Most of us just stumble along and do the best we can. Or try to.”

  “Stumbling sounds like something I can do,” Bo said brightly.

  Oh no, I
an couldn’t let this go on. Two minutes in his car and this woman was already having a bad effect on his nephew.

  “Maybe you don’t give things enough time,” he told her. “If you’re always flitting from one thing to another, you don’t give anything a chance. That’s an ineffective and unproductive way to exist.”

  Her eyes finally met his in the rearview mirror. Their blue sparkle turned more fiery. “Excuse me? Are you calling me ineffective and unproductive after knowing me for five minutes?”

  For a moment he didn’t answer, because he realized how rude he’d sounded. Social interaction wasn’t his strong suit. He could perform incredibly complex hours-long surgeries, but when it came to something as simple as a conversation with a stranger, he failed. He was trying to get better at it. The matchmaker he’d recently hired had emphasized that point.

  “I apologize,” he began.

  She burst out laughing and waved off his apology. “The sweet Lord knows you’re absolutely right. How can you know me so well when you only just met me? Ineffective and unproductive…hmm, maybe I should put that on my business card.”

  Bo whooped with laughter. “You really are funny. You should put that on your card too.”

  The two of them were both laughing now, and Ian realized he was on the outside of their shared joke. It wasn’t the first time this had happened; in fact it was a familiar feeling.

  It didn’t usually bother him, but for some reason with Chrissie, it did. He wanted to converse with her. There was something so inviting and charming about her, and intelligent, too. She seemed like someone with a lot of stories to tell. Which was very different from him, unless stories about carotid endarterectomies counted.

  “I apologize for my choice of words,” he said, more formally than he wanted. As soon as he said it, he cringed inwardly. If he was trying not to be such a stiff, he wasn’t going about it the right way.

  Again, she waved a hand in the air. “Here’s the thing about me. I’m very well aware of my flaws. Pointing them out does not offend me. I could give you a long list at this very moment, but it would probably take the entire trip, and I’d much rather hear more about you guys. You’re uncle and nephew, I take it? Do you live in Lost Harbor or are you visiting?”

  Bo piped up before Ian could answer. Which was a good thing, because he wanted some time to mull over Chrissie’s words. Had he ever known someone so comfortable with themselves? He didn’t think so. It was a rare quality and one he himself didn’t possess. If he detected a flaw in himself, he dedicated himself to eliminating it.

  For instance, his social ineptness. That was priority number one. It was the key to everything he wanted to achieve next: a thriving relationship, a solid partner. At thirty-seven, it was time. Hence, the matchmaker.

  He tuned back into the conversation, in which Bo was happily explaining his plan to get a summer job in Lost Harbor, while Ian had rented a house there for the next eight months or so.

  “Uncle Ian’s a neurosurgeon and usually he’s based in Anchorage, but he travels around to other places in Alaska to consult.” The pride in Bo’s voice brought his confidence back.

  Arrogance, some called it.

  “I’ve decided to make Lost Harbor my base for the summer,” he explained.

  “I’m sure they’re honored.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or sincere. “I want Bo to have plenty of support for his first job away from home.”

  “Also, my mom would literally murder him if anything bad happens. She’s so overprotective. Uncle Ian had to do some fancy talking to let me come up here. It’s my first time leaving home. I don’t even know how to wash dishes.”

  “You put them in the dishwasher. It’s not hard.” Chrissie’s eyes had their sparkle back.

  “Maybe you can teach me,” he said eagerly. “You can come over for dinner. Uncle Ian says we have to take turns making dinner so I can learn how to cook.”

  “Hmm. Would you be insulted if I came on a night when your uncle’s doing the cooking?” In the rearview mirror, she sent Ian a wink.

  He nearly drove off the road, but caught himself in time and muttered something about a chunk of ice.

  Was Chrissie flirting with him?

  He didn’t know how to flirt. That was a big part of his problem. He didn’t recognize when women were flirting with him. He didn’t realize when his own behavior came across as flirting. The whole thing was a big confusing mystery to him.

  “Never mind,” Chrissie said in a soothing voice. Clearly she’d picked up on his discomfort. “It’s unlikely that I’ll have time for dinner. I won’t be in Lost Harbor long, and I’ll be quite busy, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Doing what?” Bo asked.

  Ian sent him a frown, since that seemed like a very nosy question. But she didn’t seem to mind.

  “My grandfather recently died, and I inherited his…” She hesitated, sparking both Ian and Bo’s curiosity.

  “His stuff?” Bo asked.

  “His estate?” Ian spoke at the same moment.

  She laughed. “Yes to both. But it’s not so much an estate as…” Again, that odd hesitation.

  “What is it?” Bo had swung all the way around, and was hanging on her every word.

  She sighed. “Well, I’ve inherited something called Yatesville.”

  Three

  Apparently that statement sounded just as oddball as she’d predicted. Bo turned his entire body around on his seat and kneeled so he faced her. “Did you say Yatesville?”

  “Yes. That’s what my grandfather called it. After Yates, which is our last name. He, uh, tried to secede from Alaska and form his own little territory, but that didn’t go anywhere. He had a lot of wild ideas and plans.”

  Bo was still looking at her with fascinated dark-rimmed eyes. “What’s Yatesville like?”

  “Honestly, it’s mostly a lot of acreage with some cabins and yurts and a half-finished house. Oh, and it has a lighthouse.”

  “A lighthouse?”

  “Well, a non-functioning lighthouse. It was decommissioned years ago, before my grandfather bought the land. It appealed to his hermit tendencies. Alaska is home to a lot of eccentrics, in case you haven’t discovered that yet. My gramps was the ultimate eccentric.”

  “Did you ever sleep in it?”

  “I did. I had slumber parties there with my friends.”

  Bo bowed down to her, as best he could from his position. “You might be the coolest person I’ve ever met.”

  She stole a glance at Ian, wondering if he too now considered her cool, rather than “ineffective and unproductive.” He was focused on the road ahead, where a semi-truck was laboring to climb a steep part of the highway. Its rear tires were spitting bits of ice like a rooster tail behind it. She had the feeling that she could rip off her top right then and there and he wouldn’t notice—that was how closely he was watching the truck.

  To be honest, it was a little sexy, that singleminded intensity.

  She shook it off. “You’ll have to come see it for yourself, Bo, if you have time in between job interviews.”

  “Sweet.”

  Ian downshifted and, with an understated roar of German engineering, passed the truck. He performed the maneuver with a deliberate precision that made her laugh a little.

  When they were well past the truck, with an empty highway ahead of them, he shot her an irritated frown. “What’s so amusing?”

  “The way you passed that truck. It was…”

  “He drives like an old lady, doesn’t he?” Bo rolled his dramatically lined eyes. “Waste of a fancy car.”

  “I didn’t say that. It was just very…precise.”

  “That’s because I calculated the angle and the speed for optimal success,” Ian said.

  “That certainly does explain it.” Chrissie wasn’t sure why, but she found this man highly entertaining. He was so serious, and yet so easy to poke fun at. And so damn good-looking at the same time. Cheekbones like that wer
e wasted on the man. He ought to be posing for an Italian espresso ad or something.

  “Safety first,” Ian said virtuously. “Perhaps you should thank me rather than mocking me.”

  Even after knowing him only for a few minutes, she could tell that he wasn’t actually offended by her teasing, and was maybe even teasing her back in his own dry way.

  She screwed up her face. “How about a little of both? Can you live with that?”

  “Do I have a choice in the matter?”

  “I am at your mercy, after all. You could put Shuri and me out on the road any time you like.”

  “But then I’d be stuck with that enormous trunk of yours.”

  Oh ho. She knew it. He was teasing her back.

  Even Bo picked up on it. “More jokes, Uncle Ian. I’m putting you in my story.” He jabbed at his phone.

  Ian groaned. “Please leave me off your social media.”

  “Don’t worry, I use an alias for you. On my Instagram you’re Dr. Brain.”

  Ian let out a heavy sigh, and abruptly switched his attention to Chrissie. His sudden glance in the mirror sent a surprising little sizzle across her nerve endings. She didn’t know what to make of it, but decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. Obviously Ian wasn’t anyone who would ever be interested in her. She was much too “unproductive.”

  “What was your grandfather’s name?”

  “Ohlson Yates. Did you ever meet him? He was quite a hermit in his last years. The last time I talked to him he said he hadn’t been out in a month.”

  “I don’t believe so, but unless he needed a neurology consult, I wouldn’t have.”

  “That would never happen. He avoided doctors.”

  Which was a polite way of saying that Gramps had despised the entire medical profession and had once amputated his own frostbitten toe.

  “This lighthouse. Can you see it from the harbor?”

  “Yes, except for very foggy days. Have you seen it?”

  “I’ve noticed it, but I’ve never seen it in operation.”

  He seemed interested, and Bo was busy with his phone, so she continued. “It’s just a building at this point. A relic. My grandfather used it as a retreat and an extra workspace. He had a shortwave radio set up there. He was an inventor,” she explained. “He invented exactly one thing that made him any profit, but he kept trying.”