He just looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
“So,” I continued. “What if we go in fifty-fifty on the new space and reno costs?”
He held an open but neutral expression on his face. “So you’re all in? No backing out, no second thoughts, don’t need time to consider? This is what you want? For you? No bullshit. You know—you know you want this.”
I nodded, unable to hide my excitement. I wanted this. I now had a future here, in Ketchikan. This was where I had Mom, where I had my new friendship and soon-to-be partnership with Baxter. This is where Ink lived.
This was home, and the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. In the last few minutes, here in Bax’s office, my life had changed and had taken on new meaning. Suddenly I could see the future, and it looked exciting.
“I want this, Bax. I want to teach dance and yoga and become a personal trainer. It all makes so much sense, and I can’t thank you enough.”
He broke into a boyishly excited grin. Stuck out his hand, and we shook. “Partners?”
“Partners.” I laughed. “Don’t you, you know, need to consult Eva?”
He pointed behind me—I twisted to see Eva, standing in the doorway looking as if she’d been there a long time. “Duh.”
Eva came in, bent over, and gave me an upside-down and from behind hug. “Congratulations, Cass.”
I wiggled, too excited to hold still. “Oh, Eva. I’m so excited. I gotta go tell Mom.”
Eva held my hand, kept me from bolting off. “I’m taking you for a girls’ night out to celebrate.”
I hugged her. “Oh, that would be awesome.”
“And not just me—the whole pack.”
I cackled. “Pack?”
“We girls of the Badd clan.” She grinned. “You haven’t lived till you’ve been out with all of us. It’s wild.”
I blinked. “How many of you—us—are there? And do I even count? Ink isn’t a Badd.”
“Ink is an honorary Badd,” Bax said. “And you’re my business partner, and your mom is shacked up with Uncle Lucas. You’re one of us in at least four different ways.”
“That’s three ways, dear,” Eva corrected.
“What the fuck ever,” he said, waving. “Three, then. Point is, yes, you’re in their pack.”
I smiled at their good-natured banter. “So, who’s in the pack?”
She took a deep breath. “Dru, Mara, Claire, me, Tate, Aerie, Joss, and Low.” A smile. “Plus your mom, and now you.”
I blinked. “I’ve laid eyes on everyone at least once, I think, except for Low. I’ve not met her.”
“Her real name is Harlow Grace,” she said. “She’s Xavier’s fiancé and he’s the youngest of Baxter’s family.”
“Harlow Grace, as in…”
“The actress, yes.” Eva shrugged. “We don’t think of her that way, though. She’s just family. She and Xavier split their time between Hollywood, Silicon Valley where Xavier’s robotics startup has offices, and here. So they’re only here part of the year, but they’re in town right now for a few months. They got in…?” She glanced at her husband for assistance.
“This morning, early,” Bax said. “I haven’t seen them yet, but we’re all supposed to meet at the bar for lunch.” He’d been on his phone, which he now put down, and winked at me. “Brock has the plane ready, by the way.”
I frowned. “What? Plane? What do you mean?”
“My next oldest brother, Brock is a pilot, and has his own seaplane. He took Ink up north.” He shrugged. “I mean, you’re not planning to drive to Talkeetna, are you? I hear it’s, like, a forty-some hour drive.”
I laughed. “Well, since I don’t even have a driver’s license, no.”
He furrowed his brow. “You don’t know how to drive?”
I shook my head. “After I graduated high school I moved to New York to study dance, and then ended up in Paris. Just never got a license. Never needed one.”
“So Brock can fly you up there when you’re ready.”
I moved around to hug him. “Thank you, Bax, for everything. You’ve just changed my life.”
He hugged me tight and then gave me a playful shove. “Thank you. We’re gonna make bank on this, you know. I’ve had people asking about classes of different kinds for years.”
I waved to both of them as I headed for the door. “I’ll see you…whenever I get back. No clue when that will be.”
“Getcha some, girl!” Bax shouted.
Whack. “Baxter Badd. Don’t be crude.”
“Have you met me?” I heard Baxter reply.
“Intimately, yes.”
I just laughed as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. It had been a gloomy, overcast day with low, heavy clouds hanging over the water. And there had been a light drizzle on and off all day. But when I emerged and started jogging, as if to validate my decisions, the sun peeked out from behind a break in the clouds and bathed me in a bright ray of warm sun which stayed with me all the way back to Mom’s condo.
Ink
Brock had flown me right into Talkeetna, situated up north with Mt. McKinley white-capped in the distance, and wild Alaska just steps beyond the town. After I’d said goodbye to Brock, I spent a couple of hours collecting more supplies—mostly perishable food items. And I did what I usually do in such situations: I fell back on my childhood and the week-long hunting trips with Dad, or one of my uncles, or cousins.
I cut some long poles out of fallen branches, and used some of the hemp twine I always carried to fasten smaller branches into a basket between the poles, which I’d crossed into an X at one end. This done, I had a crude but effective travois, a kind of sled which I piled with my gear and supplies. Then I plaited more twine into a long, thick strap and tied the ends together where the poles crossed. I hooked the strap around my shoulders, leaned into it, and started for my cabin.
It took a couple of hours of hard trekking through the forest, sometimes following trails, other times heading off-trail when I knew of a shortcut. It was dusk by the time I reached my cabin.
The cabin was…well, I’d used the word “remote” with Liv. But that really didn’t cover it. Unless you had been there with a guide, were well versed in off-trail forest navigation, could hike for several hours on end, and knew how to get there with your eyes closed, you’d never find it. Not in a million years. You could walk right past it and not see it unless you knew what to look for. It had been built at the edge of a little pond, small enough that you could skip a rock across it. There were lots of big, moss-covered boulders ringing the pond, and stumps of old pines stood, like the broken teeth of dead giants, in the water at the far side. All around was forest, deep, heavy, dark, chaotically thick. The pond had no name, unless one of the local tribes had named it, but I’d never heard about that.
The cabin was sort of a family heirloom—the history of it was murky, though. I knew it had been built several generations back on my father’s side—a great-great-grandfather, or uncle. Something like that. The point is, it had been built a long ass time ago.