Felicity goes white as a sheet, everything except two rose-red spirals on her cheeks.
She’s not just nervous.
This wild hypothetical she’s talking about scares her.
So much that she looks like she’s about to pass out. I round the island quickly, pressing a hand to the small of her back and guiding her away from the counter to a stool. “Hey—hey, Feliss. C’mon. Sit down.”
“Fliss,” she says faintly, like she doesn’t even realize she’s talking.
“What?”
She sits down, almost missing the stool, but my hand on her back nudges enough to sway her over so she thumps down on the padded leather seat.
She lifts her head, looking up at me, her eyes stark and ringed wide with their whites showing. “My friends, they...they call me Fel or Fliss. Not Feliss.”
“Okay, Fliss. Noted.” Fuck, is she in shock? I lean down, trying to get a look at her pupils, checking if they’re dilated. “Talk to me. What’s got you so riled?”
“Alaska, I can’t.” She takes a shaky breath that sounds like it rattles her throat. “I can’t get you involved. I can’t—”
“Who said involved? We’re just talking hypotheticals, remember? There’s nothing to get me wrapped up in. Let’s say in this hypothetical it’s safe to tell me what’s wrong. What would you say?”
Felicity just stares at me—then twists away.
She’d left her purse on the floor, propped against one of the stools, but now she leans down and flips the top flap up, drawing out a battered black leather book.
Looks like a journal or a logbook.
With a shallow, humorless smile, she passes it over.
“Last page,” she whispers. “You know. Hypothetically. In the theoretical book you’re not holding.”
Frowning, I flip through the pages. “...this looks like a flight log.”
“Yeah,” she says faintly. “How’d you know?”
“My brother,” I say. “Former Air Force, now a bush pilot near Juneau. I’ve seen this stuff before.” I stop on the last page. I’m not too shabby with coordinates myself, plus all that military jargon, and it’s not hard to tell the last entry indicates a location somewhere north of here.
Felicity looks on, watching me with her eyes small pinpricks.
“So what am I looking at?” I ask.
“Hypothetically?” It comes out fragile, a weak attempt at a joke. “Something my father left me. I...how much do you know, Alaska? What things have you heard about me?”
“Scandalous claims. I’ve heard you serve the most addictive coffee in the entire state. That’s about it.”
Felicity gives me a flat look, but at least it looks like she’s coming out of her shell shock.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I skim my fingers under the last line of flight coordinates. “I’m not in town much, Felicity. I’m either on construction sites or busy spending time with Eli. Guys on site don’t have time to gossip when we’re trying to meet deadlines and avoid anything that might cause a worker’s comp suit. And I’m just not around the local hangouts enough to hear anything. I’m not at Brody’s bar enough to know everybody by name. I’ve heard more about these rumors from you than anyone else.”
She winces, heart-shaped lips pulling back in an embarrassed grimace. “Great impression, right? The first time I really get to talk to you alone, and I tell you I’m the town pump. Again.”
“Are you?”
“What? No!”
Her face flashes bright red, right up to her hairline, and it’s the most adorable damned thing I’ve ever seen.
I snap the book shut with a decisive thump.
“Exactly. So there’s nothing to worry about with impressions. There wouldn’t be even if you were. Your sex life is none of my business.” I swallow too hard.
I didn’t know it was possible for her to go any redder.
Though I’ve got my own problem, too. My face feels like a damned brush fire, and my brain sticks on barbed wire, suddenly obsessed with what it would be like if her sex life was my business.
Focus, Paxton.
You got an upset lady here with some scary secrets, and she’s trying to trust you.
Mind off your dick—and off how goddamned lonely it’s been.
She’s staring down at her knees, no doubt mortified by my mouth. Time to change the subject and douse the tension in the air between us.
“So what do the rumors have to do with this flight log?”
She lets out a long, slow sigh like she’s deflating, still staring at her knees.
“My dad. Morgan Randall. He...he wasn’t the greatest guy, let’s say, though he tried sometimes. A lot of people in town blame him for a lot of things. He was a drug addict, then he got clean, but even when he was, he kept working in dirty circles. I think he was a cargo pilot doing some illicit runs. He helped turn Heart’s Edge into a minor distribution hub for some nasty junk, until Warren Ford ended that a few years ago. Dad always swore his dirty business was meant to get us stable so he could take care of us, but...” Her words keep getting tighter, her jaw more tense, her gaze fixed and unmoving from the denim over her kneecaps.
“But?” I whisper softly.
“That never happened because he died. His plane disappeared, and then he was found dead in his truck. His heart almost exploded from the overdose.”
Harsh.
Every thought in my head vanishes save one.
This girl is trouble with a mammoth T.
I just wish like hell I could help her.
That thought’s going to get me in trouble, too, if I’m not careful, but I can’t help the way my chest aches for the quiet sorrow in her voice.
It’s that mellow, desperate pain that’s been etched deep over time, starting off as a little scratch until the next thing you know it’s a jagged groove.
Years later, it’s worn a hole right through you like caustic acid.
Felicity’s got too many holes in her soul.
I gotta remind myself it’s not my job to fill them.
Still, I can at least try offering her some comfort, some answers.
I settle down on the stool next to her, lightly resting my hand between her shoulder blades. “So is that what this is about? Finding out what really happened to him, and if his plane’s at the bottom of the lake?”
She hesitates before nodding, and this time it’s less that her eyes are downcast and more that she’s avoiding mine.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
Okay.
Damn.
She’s obviously not telling me the whole truth, but she doesn’t owe me that either.
Not yet.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll let Holt know I need to borrow our biggest crane for the weekend, plus the flatbed to transport it.”
“What?” Felicity’s head flies up so fast her hair snaps across her face, and she stares at me with her mouth open. “Alaska, no! I can’t drag you or Holt into this! He’ll...God. No way. I can’t do that to you guys.”
“Holt doesn’t have to know what it’s really for.” I smirk. “Look, he’s got some weird ideas about what guys in Alaska do for fun. I could tell him I need the crane for deepwater fishing or a log tossing competition, and he’d believe it and just tell me to bring it back without a scratch. Besides, this is still hypothetical, right? So now let’s say it’s imaginary. It’s an imaginary crane, we’re dragging it to an imaginary lake, and as far as anyone’s concerned—this imaginary brainstorming never happened.” My smirk widens into a grin.