with long black hair gathered into a low-riding ponytail, silver threads running throughout. She was short and comfortable looking, her skin winter-white, her dark eyes liquid in the subdued light.
“I thought maybe you got stuck at the airport…” the woman began, her voice trailing off as Katie stepped from behind Nick.
The friendly smile wavered.
Katie was blasted with a fresh wave of alarm. Was everyone in Frostbite suspicious of outsiders?
Nick said, “Helen, this is Katie Fields, the woman I went to meet today. Katie, Helen Delaney, the woman who runs things around here.”
Helen raked Katie over with narrowed eyes but addressed her comments to Nick. “I thought you were meeting your father’s stepdaughter. The one who called here. Theresa Mays.”
“Katie is apparently my…father’s…other stepdaughter,” Nick said.
“I’m the one who called you the last time,” Katie explained, sticking out her free hand. “I’m sorry for the confusion.”
Helen dried her hand on her apron and took Katie’s hand, her gaze averted as she mumbled a polite greeting. Katie said the first thing that popped to her mind. “That pie looks delicious.”
“Apple rhubarb,” Helen said. “Mr. Nick’s favorite.” She turned her attention back to Nick and added, “I didn’t know you were bringing anyone back to the house. I didn’t expect company.”
Nick said, “The weather turned. Toby had to get some medicine to Skie.” He ran a hand through his dark blond hair before looking at Katie. “Well, you’re here now and, by the looks of the weather, you aren’t going anywhere for a couple of days. I’ll show you to a guest room in a few moments, but first I need to look in on my daughter.”
“I gave her an early dinner and put her to bed,” Helen said, darting Katie a surreptitious glance. Katie felt distinctly uncomfortable. Helen had seemed cordial enough on the phone, so why the cool welcome? And did Nick have to talk to her as it she was an intruder?
Whoa, reality check. You forced yourself on both of them, an inner voice whispered. No one asked you to come, you just refused to leave.
She rubbed her forehead. She’d packed doctor-prescribed painkillers in her suitcase and the temptation to down half a bottle and sleep the storm out was amazingly strong but she knew she’d settle for a couple of aspirin instead. She needed to stay clear-headed and focused.
“I’ll be right back,” Nick said, glancing down at her.
She grabbed his arm as he turned and felt his muscles tense beneath her grasp. “You have to tell me about your father,” she said vehemently. “I need to understand what’s going on. I have to find my mother. I know you think I’m overreacting—”
He stared at her hand. For a second, she expected him to bat it away, but then he did something even worse. Laying his hand gently over the top of hers he said, “No, I don’t think you’re overreacting.”
“So you do think she’s in danger.”
“If she married my father, I’d be willing to bet on it,” he told her, his eyes intense and serious. “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Three
Nick loved this time of day the best.
Lily, cheeks rosy, fair hair glistening in the subdued bedside light, smelling of soap, eyes sleepy but resolute, small arms anxious to wrap around his neck, voice soft and sweet as she asked him to read her a story.
His Lily, a small carbon copy of her mother except for the color of her eyes, which mirrored his own, and the stubborn streak she’d picked up from his side of the family, as well. Patricia had called Lily the perfect combination of the two of them, and they had spent hours musing over who their future children would look like, be like.
Fate had snatched away the possibility of future children. Fate in the form of his father.
He read Lily a story about a bird that lived on top of a palm tree on the island of Maui. As Lily had been born right here in Frostbite and hadn’t left the state of Alaska once in her three years, he often wondered how she could relate to palm trees and grass skirts, green and yellow birds and brilliant flowers. When she was old enough, he’d recently decided, he’d take her to Hawaii and show her all the things the book promised, from luaus to warm ocean water.
For now, he finished the story by gently tickling her, which was part of the ritual, and then he kissed her warm forehead and held her hand as she drifted off to sleep.
And tried not to think about the redheaded problem in his kitchen.
The wind had come up while he’d been busy with Lily, and he returned to the kitchen to find the lights flickering and Helen absent. He could hear naked limbs scratching against the tin roof and the sound of an unclosed gate from out near the pier.
Had Helen been walking out there earlier today?
After stoking the living-room fireplace, he lit a couple of kerosene lanterns in anticipation of losing the lights. His was the last house connected to Frostbite’s power lines and the first to lose electricity during bad weather. He’d start the generator if it looked like the electricity loss was going to go beyond a few hours.
He found Katie in the kitchen standing at the sink, draining a pot, steam billowing around her flushed face. She looked over her shoulder as he came into the room.
“Where’s Helen?” he said.
“She showed me which bedroom to take then pleaded a headache,” Katie said, turning to face him. She held a pot of boiled potatoes in one hand and the masher in the other. “How do you feel about kitchen duties?”
“No problem,” he said, still puzzling over Helen’s odd behavior. “She just left?”
“She just left.” Katie leaned against the counter as he retrieved butter and milk from the refrigerator and added, “Frankly, I don’t think she likes me.”
He crashed the masher into the pot. He found Katie’s tendency to blurt out exactly what was on her mind a little disconcerting.
“She’s choosy,” he said.
Katie laughed. “Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t take me wrong,” he said, adding butter and seasonings to the pot. “Your coming to Frostbite is a reminder of a lot of things Helen would like to forget, all revolving around my dear old dad. Your coming into this house is like rubbing salt in an old wound.”
“I’ve never even met your father!”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
“For heaven’s sake. How about you? You’d like to forget a lot of things about your father, too, right?”
“Like the fact he ever existed? Yeah, you’re right,” he said, whipping in the milk, his mind closing against the pain Katie’s probing caused. “I would.”
Except for the sound of the
