“Yes. I mean no,” he corrects himself. “I was just going to grab your bags from the lodge. Did you want me to build a fire first, though?”
I look around to see a stone fireplace in the cabin’s living room, and one of those circular wrought iron racks loaded with wood. Pretty self-explanatory, and more than anything, I need to be out of this man’s disturbing presence.
“That’s okay, I’ve got it.”
“You’ve got it,” he repeats doubtfully.
“What, I don’t look like I know how to light something on fire?” I say, ready to be offended on behalf of fire-lighting women everywhere.
“Doyou regularly light things on fire?” The concerned eyebrows are back.
“I mean, I don’t have a monogrammed blowtorch or anything, but I think I can handle a fireplace.”
His face makes it clear he thinks otherwise, but wisely, he doesn’t push it. “Just remember to open the flue.”
“Right. Obviously,” I say, making a mental note to look up why a fireplace would have a flu. Which in turn, makes me think of something critical. “Oh! I’m going to need the Wi-Fi password. I was having trouble connecting earlier.”
He squints at me like I’ve just spoken in a foreign tongue. “Wi-Fi?”
“Uh, yes? Sometimes also called the Internet?”
At this, he laughs. A deep, rich sound that, paired with his smile, momentarily stuns the neurons firing across my brain. “There’s no Wi-Fi here.”
I shake my head to clear the pheromones clogging my ears. “Come again?”
He lifts his hands and looks around the rustic log cabin as though to point out the obvious. “There’s no Wi-Fi here. Closest tower’s near Talkeetna, and that’s out of range.”
“So wait,” I say, struggling to comprehend. “You’re telling me North Star Lodge has no Wi-Fi.Period?”
“Big part of why most folks come to stay here. They want to connect with nature—not their screens.”
I register his judgment but can only gape like a fish, unable to form words. It hadn’t occurred to me that a no-Internet situation was even a remote possibility.
“But I need the Internet,” I tell him, barely checking the panic in my voice. “I need it for my job! To keep in touch with my sister, who has a very serious condition!”
“Well, I drive to Talkeetna once a week to pick up mail and supplies,” he says. “I guess you could tag along and use the Internet café in town.”
“Internet café? What is this, 2003?”
He shrugs his giant shoulders, gives me a smile that seemsmore like a taunt, and this time it takes zero effort to be irritated with him. On the contrary, the irritation floweth.
“Welcome to Alaska,” he says. With that, he leaves me standing in a log cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, wondering how the hell I’m going to survive the next six weeks of my life.
3FORREST
How does one human being fill this much goddamn luggage?
As I adjust the slippery hard-shell bag on my lap that wouldn’t fit with the rest in my snow machine’s largest trailer, I have to wonder if anyone, ever, has been as epically lost as Margot Bradley. Amelia Earhart? Magellan? Tom Hanks and Wilson? Nothing about this situation makes any sense. Without deviation, all the guests who stay at North Star Lodge are experienced outdoors enthusiasts. They’re the sort of people who know how to convert their own piss into drinking water and typically bring only what they can carry on their backs. Until today, of course. Something tells me our new guest’s idea of the “great outdoors” is a stroll down Santa Monica Pier.
I stretch the tension from my neck as I drive toward her cabin, still feeling whiplash from her literal crash collision into my life. I can admit that, at first, I’d thought the last six months of near isolation in the Alaskan bush had finally gotten to me. That I was having a multisensory hallucination of the most attractive woman my prefrontal cortex could dream up. But as it became clear she was a real person with approximately the same degree ofhumble self-awareness as Malibu Barbie, my mind latched on to a single question:Why the hell is she here?
It’s a puzzle, and unfortunately for me, I can never resist one of those.
I pull up to her cabin, cut the engine, and begin unloading her endless suitcases, all of which are a completely impractical and therefore irritating cream color.Did she pack an outfit for every hour of her stay?I shake my head in disbelief. Maybe the high price tag of staying at North Star convinced her she was signing up for a glamping experience. She’s in for a hell of a surprise when she meets the other guests, whose clothing looks (and smells) like it’s been worn straight out of a sweaty stuff sack for days on end. Because it has been.
A small part of me that’s been starved for amusement during the last extraordinarily difficult few months can’t wait to see how she interacts with them. Or how she’ll respond to the news that there are no spa services at North Star Lodge. But a wiser, more cautious part of me just wishes she hadn’t come at all. From her long mane of wavy golden hair that looks like it’s managed by a team of professionals, to the bright white tennis shoes she slipped through the snow in, everything about her screams Southern California. Which is exactly the place I’m trying my damnedest to forget.
I finally finish unloading the trailer and straighten to my full height before knocking on her door. After almost a minute of silence, I knock again. Still nothing. I release the inside of my cheek when I realize I’m chewing it. Chances are, she face-planted and fell asleep after a long day of travel. Then again, it’s only been a few minutes since I left her. Annoyed concern grows like a thorny weed in the pit of my stomach. Did she perish from lack of Wi-Fi? See a squirrel and faint? Start a fire and forget to open the goddamn flue like I told her to?
