the backing of Senator Marsh, they’d prevailed.
Bering had scored the bonus of a lifetime by meeting his now-wife, Emily, during the antidevelopment campaign. As relieved as they’d all been at the project’s outcome, the experience had shown just how vulnerable Rankins was. Tag, Bering, their family and friends, virtually the entire area relied on the pristine natural beauty of the Opal River Valley in some respect for their livelihoods. His winning a seat in the state senate would provide long-term security for them all. And they’d agreed, Tag was more suited to political life.
“Anyway,” Bering said, bracing his big hands on a shelf to test its sturdiness. “Jack says you’re on the right track, doing everything you need to be doing. Just stay the course, keep your nose clean and we’ll be ready.”
“Got it. Stay out of the dirt.”
“Although he did mention one small thing.”
“What’s that?”
Bering let out a chuckle and began stacking kids’ books on the bottom shelf. “He said it could be helpful if Rankins’s most eligible bachelor was to find a wife and maybe start a family.”
Tag felt a familiar invisible hand reach inside his rib cage and give his heart a painful squeeze. This chest pinch had been happening more and more lately when the subject of parenthood came up, which was all too frequently now that Shay and Hannah, two of his four sisters, were married, as were his two closest cousins, Bering and his sister Janie. There were eight cousins in his generation on the James side of the family, and at thirty-eight, he was the oldest of them all.
The family bachelor. Everybody’s cool and fun uncle, cousin, brother, friend. The childless bachelor. The one everyone could count on. And, somehow, somewhere along the way, he’d earned the moniker of the town’s most eligible bachelor. Lately this unintentional status had begun to bother him. Tag loved kids. He’d always wanted a family, had just assumed it would happen one day. He’d meet someone and settle down and have kids. That’s the way it was done.
He’d met plenty of someones, all right. Problem was, either they weren’t quite right, or he wasn’t, or logistics like work schedules and geography made a relationship too difficult. Or a combination of these resulted in the woman cheating on him. Okay, maybe that one was just Kendall, his last girlfriend.
“I’ll get right on that,” he replied drily.
Bering shot him a hopeful glance. “If you mean it, Jack has someone he’d like to fix you up with.”
“No, thanks. No way.”
“Why not?”
“Seriously? You have no recollection of life pre-Emily, do you? Dating is bad enough. Blind dating is...brutal. I try not to be offended by the matches you people think will work out for me. Being single should not be the only criterion involved. A couple of weeks ago, Shay set me up with this uptight mortgage broker from Glacier City who hates sports and is afraid to fly.”
Bering grimaced. “I see your point. But until you start blind dating in the women’s professional basketball league you aren’t going to find a woman who can beat you at basketball. You do know that, right? You might need to cross that off your list.”
Tag laughed. “Hey, I’ll settle for a fan at this point. She doesn’t even have to play.”
“Tag!” Smashed, half-eaten sandwich in hand, Violet skipped into the room, her tousled blond curls and peanut butter–smeared cheeks the cutest thing he’d seen since his last visit three days ago.
“Violet, my flower, you woke up for me!” Tag picked her up and swooped her high into the air. Wild giggling ensued. Planting a kiss on her cheek, he asked, “You want to take a walk on the ceiling?”
She thrust the sandwich at her dad. “Daddy, can you hold this? Don’t eat it!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Bering grinned and took the sandwich.
Holding Violet securely at the waist, Tag flipped her upside down until her bootie-clad feet touched the ceiling. Still giggling, she carefully placed one foot in front of the other as Tag strode across the floor while she “walked” on the ceiling. When she’d crossed about half the room, he lowered her and turned her in his arms.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, eyes nearly the color of her name fixed firmly on him, she said, “I love walking on the ceiling. And I love you, too.”
A chest pinch of mega proportions nearly made him wince. “I love you, too, flower.” Tag wondered if men had biological clocks. A prick of sadness followed as he thought about his sister Shay and how desperately she wanted a child. She and her husband, Jonah, had recently suffered yet another adoption disappointment, and Tag was worried about the long-term repercussions on her. She seemed to be having a hard time recovering from this one emotionally.
“I think you’re her favorite person, Tag.” Emily stood in the doorway, eleven-month-old Brady on her hip. She followed that up with a quick “Don’t tell your sisters I said that.” Wearing black leggings and a long flannel shirt, her blond hair bunched into a cute, messy pile on top of her head, Emily didn’t look anything like the corporate executive she used to be. Although by all accounts she was a wizard in her current job as head of the Rankins Tourism Bureau.
“Are you guys wrapping it up? Lunch is ready.” Stepping inside, she surveyed the shelving they’d constructed and installed across one entire wall. “This looks incredible. It’s even better than I imagined. Thank you so much for helping, Tag.”
“Of course. Anytime. You know that.”
A buzz in his pocket followed by a distinct-sounding chime indicated a text from his business, Copper Crossing Air Transport. This particular alert had his paramedic’s pulse thumping because it told him that an emergency required medical evacuation.
“You need that sandwich to go?” Emily asked. His family members and most of his friends were familiar with the sound. And they all understood when plans were interrupted; there was no such thing as an inconvenience if it meant a life could be saved.
“That would be great, Em. Thanks.” Tag frowned as he read the brief message. A tap on his phone sent a return text letting his crew know they needed to get the float plane ready.
“Bad?” Bering asked.
“Grizzly bear.”
Bering winced and muttered under his breath.
“Oh, no!” Emily cried, one hand coming to rest possessively on Brady’s back.
No further explanation was necessary. Everyone who lived in Rankins, or the rest of Alaska for that matter, knew what those two words meant.
* * *
SO MUCH BLOOD. Too much to see exactly how much damage the bear had wrought. With nimble fingers, Ally Mowak probed her fifteen-year-old cousin Louis’s wounds. The dressings in her first aid kit weren’t going to go far, not with this amount of shredded skin. She slipped off her jacket as well as the thick fleece shirt beneath it. Using the knife she’d already wielded to cut away Louis’s tattered clothing, she went to work on her own, arranging strips of cloth on the worst of his wounds.
“Quinn?” she barked at the other
