hillside fast enough. Marcella had wept as her favourite new distraction had departed only ten days into her month-long stay, but he’d kept a careful distance—his heart beating, then, at least as hard as it was now—relieved to see the last of her, certain that Kitty’s departure was going to make things with Marcella right again.
He’d worked on their relationship for three more years and it had never been right again.
Which made having Kitty here an extra problem. A man didn’t move halfway around the world to escape his past only to invite it right back into his front room. Especially not given how they’d left things.
But… Polar bears.
‘It’s bigger than it looks back there,’ a soft voice suddenly said behind him.
He lurched upright in his chair.
For so long the only voices other than his in this place had been canine. But, somehow, the walls of his cabin absorbed the soft, feminine tones. As if her words were cedar oil and his timber walls were parched.
He struggled for something resembling conversation.
‘Plenty of prefabs in town, but I wanted something a little more personal.’
‘And private,’ she remarked, glancing out of the window. ‘It’s very isolated.’
Yep, it was. Just how he liked it.
‘A mile’s a long way in the Boreal. But I have neighbours up the creek and Churchill’s only ten minutes away if you know the roads.’
Twenty-five if you didn’t.
Did he imagine it, or did her eyes get a shade more anxious at the seclusion? Maybe she, too, was remembering the electricity they’d whipped up between them back in Nepal.
He didn’t whip up much of anything these days. No matter who was asking.
It just wasn’t worth the risk.
‘So… I think I’ll head to bed,’ she said and, again, it somehow had the same tone as the crackling fire behind him. ‘In case they get the plane back in the air early.’
That wasn’t going to happen. Churchill was set up for small aircraft—twenty-to-thirty-seaters coming and going across the vast Canadian North like winged buses—and its apron was barely big enough to turn a colossal jet around, let alone get it airborne without a support team. Someone was going to have to fly engineers and safety inspectors up here to help prep the plane for its return flight. And no way were they going to pack a wounded jet full of passengers. Not after they’d taken such risks to get everyone down safely.
But it was two in the morning and Kitty was almost grey with fatigue, so he wasn’t about to put that thought in her head.
Time enough for her to find out tomorrow.
‘I’ll be up at dawn,’ he said, instead. ‘I’ll check on the status for you and wake you in plenty of time.’
‘Okay, see you in the morning.’
He turned back to the fire.
‘And, Will…?’
Seriously…what was it about a female voice here? His skin was puckering up as if he’d never heard one before.
‘Thank you. Truly. I really appreciate the sanctuary.’
Sanctuary. That was exactly what this place had been when he’d bought it. Still was.
Though not so much since his past had stepped foot so confidently in it.
WILL SQUATTED IN his navy parka and clipped a final boisterous canine to its long chain in the expansive yard, their happy breathing and his murmured words taking form as puffs of mist in the frigid mid-morning air. It hadn’t taken Kitty long to track him back there—she just had to follow the excited barks and yips.
Where Will went there were always excited yips. And there were always dogs.
She’d woken pretty late after the adventures of the night before and found two pairs of thermal leggings, a vest, new socks, a scarf, gloves and a pair of military patterned snow boots sitting on the chair just inside the guest-room door. With no idea what she’d find outside, she’d put on all the thermals under her Zurich sundress, the socks and boots, and Will’s sweater over the top of the lot. But she’d only had to open the door to the cabin before realising that wasn’t going to be quite enough. A spare coat pilfered from Will’s boot room helped seal all the heat inside.
Kitty tugged the scarf more tightly around her throat and curled her gloved fingers into the ample sleeves of Will’s coat.
Outside the toasty cedar cabin, the air cut into her lungs like glass—even worse than the night before. The temperature had dropped overnight until it was too cold even to sleet, and her throat and lungs burned with her first breaths outside the warm cabin.
Despite the ache, every breath she took seemed to invigorate her. She felt awake and alert and…attuned, though that made no sense. Standing out on Will’s front steps cleared her mind in a way that only yoga had before. Except here, she was getting it without the sweating.
The creak of the bottom step last night was more an icy crack this morning, twitching every ear in the place in her direction, before seven sets of pale eyes turned towards her.
‘No run for them today?’ she called across the open yard.
Will took a while to turn to glance at her. ‘Later, maybe.’
He straightened from his crouch and plunged one hand into the big coat pocket in front of him and rummaged there for a moment. Then he withdrew it, and set about scooping out a generous serving of mixed kibble into each of seven identical bowls recessed into the top of seven identical kennels. As soon as he gave the visual signal, six of the seven dogs leapt nimbly up onto their roof and got stuck into their breakfast.
His left hand found its way back into its pocket and stayed there.
‘How did you sleep?’ he asked without looking at her.
‘Great actually. The darkness out here is very…’
Enveloping. Subsuming. Reassuring.
‘Dark?’
She laughed. ‘It’s very sleep-promoting.’
‘That’s the forest breathing out,’ he replied. ‘And low pollution because we’re so remote. You’ll get used to the extra O2.’
In Nepal, everything had been just a smidge harder because of the reduced oxygen levels in the high-altitude Kathmandu Valley. Did that mean everything would be a bit easier here in the low, flat, sub-arctic forest?
When would ‘easy’ start, then?
‘Shouldn’t that make me sleep less, not more?’
‘You sleepy now?’
Now? With him crouching there, looking all…good morning? Nope, not one bit.
But she wasn’t about to admit that. ‘Thank you for the clothes. Just happen to have them lying around?’
Or was she wearing the clothes of some…special friend?
‘The supply store opened up early on account of the emergency landing. I headed in there at dawn before it got picked clean by your fellow passengers and got you a few basics. I’ll take you in again later if you like, so you can pick out your own gear.’
This kindness from Will…given how they’d left things… She didn’t know quite what to do with it.
‘I don’t really plan on being here long enough to need more.’
The look he gave her