CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
Melinda Curtis
I consider myself lucky to have two great friends in Anna J. Stewart and Cari Lynn Webb. Thanks for making Kenkamken Bay fun. And to my family—especially Mr. Curtis—thanks for always believing.
Welcome to Kenkamken Bay, Alaska!
In K-Bay most men don’t shave but once a year. And when they do shave? It might be because a spring trip to Anchorage is in the making. Most men in K-Bay aren’t really pining for women. They like the isolation. So when Cooper Hamilton and his friends make a bet that they can successfully match six couples, no one really thinks they’ll succeed.
But Coop has more than matchmaking on his mind. Last spring when the snow thawed, Coop made the drive to Alaska and met Nora Perry. Nora thought she might have met “the one.” And Coop? He wasn’t thinking along those lines. Now Nora has tracked Coop down before the most romantic holiday of the year—Valentine’s Day! Too bad romance is not on Nora’s to-do list.
I hope you enjoy Coop and Nora’s journey. I love to hear from readers. Check my website to learn more about upcoming books, sign up for email book announcements and I’ll send you a free sweet romantic comedy read, or chat with me on Facebook (MelindaCurtisAuthor) or Twitter (MelCurtisAuthor) to hear about my latest giveaways.
Melinda
“A GOOD CAR is like a good life,” Cooper Hamilton said to his friends over a beer on Friday night in Kenkamken Bay, Alaska’s, Bar & Grill. “Make it affordable, make it practical, make it easy to trade in. And you’re all set.”
“A good car starts up and goes no matter how bad the storm,” Gideon Walker added, tightening the knot on his don’t-leave-home-without-it blue tie. “Nothing keeps a good car stuck in your driveway.”
Ty Porter scratched his full, dark beard—the one that gave half the men in town beard envy—and channeled his inner cynic. “Unless it runs out of gas.”
Coach, the bar’s owner and bartender, rolled his eyes. And Coop couldn’t blame him.
In their high school years, Coop, Gideon and Ty had strutted around town looking down their noses at K-Bay because they were destined to leave for better things in the Lower 48. Now they’d become a sad cliché. A fixture at the K-Bay Bar & Grill. Always taking up the three seats at the elbow of the bar near the kitchen.
As demoralizing as the 0–0 score of the hockey game.
There were other fixtures in the old bar, of course: the large brass bell that hung over the beer taps, the hand-painted sign above the mirror proclaiming it a Nag-Free Zone, and the other regulars at their regular seats. Mike and his fishing buddies around the pool table. Sam and other cannery workers in the booths near the front windows. Derrick and the cross-country truck drivers at the round wooden table in front of the big-screen television.
Coop supposed there was nothing wrong with being a regular and keeping to your group of friends. It was just that Coop hadn’t expected to be one of them—the bearded, parka-wearing, windshield-scraping residents of a remote town in southwest Alaska.
The hockey game on the big screen ended. There were calls for a change of channel. Coach worked the remote with arthritis-gnarled fingers. Other sports played silently on smaller TVs around the bar.
Out of habit, Coop flexed his digits. His father had lost all the fingers on one hand in a fishing accident that had nearly killed him, right before Coop had planned to leave for college. Made Coop appreciate his limbs and everyone else’s, arthritic or not.
A lifestyle report from an Anchorage station popped on-screen. The reporter was interviewing a woman wearing a turquoise business suit that looked as though it belonged in Washington, DC, not Alaska.
“The possibilities for matchmaking in Alaska are limitless due to the ratio of men to women here.” Not one of the suited-lady’s highlighted curls moved in the wind. “When I meet a female client, I intuitively know what kind of man she’ll be happy with. You could almost say that love is guaranteed.” She flashed a calculated smile at the camera. “If you hire me.”
Jeers rose from the crowd.
Coop groaned. As a car salesman and used-car-lot manager, he knew a slick sales pitch when he heard one. “If that woman sold cars, she’d be doctoring repair records and rolling back odometers.”
Coach found a basketball game and the patrons settled down.
“‘There are no women in Alaska.’” Ty framed his statement in air quotes. “That’s a myth.”
“A myth everywhere but here,” Gideon said. Since he worked as a loan officer at Kenkamken Bay Savings & Loan, he should know the area’s statistics. “K-Bay is seventy-five percent male.”
“And some of the females...” Coop didn’t voice the rest of his opinion. The women in town were nice, but they weren’t the kind you’d see in beauty pageants or in a Lower 48 big city. Heels? Glossy hair? Artfully applied makeup? Not in K-Bay. “Why would they put a story about matchmaking on the news?”
Coach slapped the lifestyle section of the Anchorage Beat on the nicked oak bar. “Because Kelsey Nash wrote an article about that woman.”
Coop’s gaze cut to Ty. His friend looked away from the paper and touched the scar on his cheek, the one half-hidden by that thick beard.
Kelsey was from K-Bay and had been the first to report on Ty’s career-ending injuries seven years ago. That wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t slanted the piece to make Ty look like an irresponsible, immature fool. Never mind the puck to Ty’s face, detached retina, medically induced coma and the end of the man’s pro-hockey dreams—of all their dreams. Ty wasn’t a fool. He was just...Ty.
“It’s a fluff piece. It’s
