The Stranger (15 page)

Chapter Eleven

We landed on a helipad next to the parking lot of a sizable industrial complex overlooking the Cook Inlet and Knik Arm. An extensive set of understated historic buildings, warehouses, wharfs, and storage lots composed the E&E complex. Seth shut down the helicopter, took off his kneeboard and helmet and, after unstrapping his seat belt, came around and helped me to get down.

“That was amazing,” I said.

The smile he gave me warmed my soul.

A BMW pulled up. The driver, a very attractive woman, got out of the car and went straight for Seth, hugging him as if she owned him. I refrained from peeling her off by an act of pure will, but I had to grit my teeth.

“Summer,” Seth said, “this is my sister, Ally.”

“Oh.” I felt instantly better and not a little foolish. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Ally flashed an open smile that reminded me of Jeremy.

Seth’s brows quirked. “Who did you think she was?”

“Oh, well, I—I didn’t know.”

“I see.” Seth flashed me a grin that said he was on to me. “I asked Ally to show you around Anchorage this morning.”

“You don’t have to trouble yourself. I can wait. No problem.”

“It’s no trouble,” Ally said. “Come on. Let’s leave Seth to do his thing. I’ve got a whole morning planned for us girls.”

She was a platinum blonde version of Jeremy, with sparkling blue eyes, delicate features, and a round mouth that reminded me of a ripe strawberry. Like Jer, she was fun, bubbly, and vivacious and, unlike Seth, she was a prodigiously fast talker.

I soon learned that she lived in Anchorage with her husband, a Texan who was an emergency room doctor. She worked at E&E but was playing hooky today. She zipped me around Anchorage in her Beemer as if she were a NASCAR racer, shifting with the joy of a natural-born driver. The backseat driver in me cringed at every turn.

After a glorious morning and a thorough tour of Anchorage, she turned into the parking lot of what looked like a high-end boutique. “Shopping time,” she announced, turning off the ignition. “Seth said you needed a dress for the benefit next week.”

He hadn’t said any of that to me, but I’d made a deal with him. He’d help me find my sister and, if I was still around, I’d go with him to the benefit. It was fair and square and I intended to stick by it...
if
I was still around by then.

I followed Ally into the store, where the two of us had a blast trying on dresses. I don’t know why, but I had assumed that any Alaskan party would be informal. Apparently, I was wrong. Ally informed me that I needed fancy cocktail attire. I found a dress I liked for a price I didn’t. I had to get an overcoat with it, as well as some shoes and accessories. My credit card was about to scream, but when I went to pay, Ally insisted she had strict orders from Seth.

“He’s buying,” she said.

“No way.” I handed my credit card to the clerk. “It’s not right.”

“Of course it’s right.” Ally plucked my credit card from the clerk’s hand and gave her another. “He’s my big bro and he spoils me rotten. He’d like to do the same with you.”

“I don’t need to be spoiled.”

“Come on.” She wiggled her very fair brows. “Every girl wants to be spoiled.”

“Not me.” I’d learned the hard way that guys who pretended to spoil girls sometimes wanted your dignity in return.

“Give the guy a break.” Ally dropped my credit card in my purse. “If he wants to give you a gift, let him! You didn’t come to Alaska expecting to go to fancy parties. So, I think it’s only fair he pays for your stuff.”

“Seth has already done a lot for me,” I said. “The last thing he needs is one more person sucking the life out of him.”

“Seth is a giver for sure.” Ally’s pale blue eyes took a new measure of me. “I’m glad you’re able to see beyond the tough exterior. But if you have any objections to his plan, kindly take it up with him. I have no desire to face his wrath.”

She flashed me a sparkling smile that displayed the stubborn streak she shared with her brother. These people were nearly as pig-headed as my people.

“You’re really something else.” Ally took some of the posh garment bags from the clerk and motioned for me to do the same. “You’re like the opposite of a gold digger.”

“Excuse me?” I followed her out of the store.

“Sorry.” She opened the trunk and settled the bags in it. “I don’t mean to offend you with a compliment that’s also an insult, but you need to understand. Gold diggers are the norm when you’re an Erickson.”

The Erickson money would make Seth a target for fortune-seekers wherever he went. His good looks would only add to the equation and his generosity, combined with what I was discovering was a very big heart, would be the icing on the cake. But Ally had me all wrong and, as I got into the car, I rushed to correct her misconceptions.

“Your brother and I aren’t...you know.” I swallowed a dry gulp. “I suppose I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

“Oh, please.” She pushed on the ignition and peeled out of the parking lot. “I don’t need to know the juicy details.”

“I’m going back to Miami as soon as I find my sister.”

“Sure.” She smirked, speeding down the busy street. “If he lets you.”

What did she mean by that? “Could you, please, um, slow down?”

“He’s smitten with you,” she said, blunt as her brother.

“He’s
not
smitten with me.”

“Oh, yes he is,” Ally said. “I can tell by the way he looks at you. I don’t know you very well, but I think you’re smitten with him too.”

“Stop,” I said. “We’ve only known each other for a few days.”

“I’ll stop.” She hurled the car into a tiny parking space and screeched to a stop. “But only because this lovely place is where we’re having lunch.”

The charming restaurant was perched on a cliff overlooking Cook Inlet. Cargo ships sailed in the distance and low-hanging clouds cast moving shadows over the stunning vistas.

“Best caribou burgers in Anchorage.” Ally ordered for me. “Served on hot sourdough.”

I’d never had caribou, let alone caribou burgers, but the one the waiter parked before me was delicious. I managed to put down a great portion of it. Ally’s slim figure disguised a voracious appetite. She washed down her burger with a handcrafted ale.

“I don’t think you’re such bad news,” she said when she was done dispatching her meal.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Seth would hate me for saying this to you, but he deserves a little happiness in his life. He’s been through a lot.”

I put down the remains of my burger. “What do you mean?”

“When Mom and Dad died, Seth’s youth got cut off at the knees,” Ally said. “The full yoke of E&E fell squarely around his neck. He’s been an ox ever since, the family’s work beast. He never got to enjoy being young and carefree, so you’ve got to excuse him if he’s a little straight and square.”

Straight and square—plus sharp like a right angle—described Seth all right.

“Jer and I tried to help,” she said, “but we were too young back then to fend for ourselves. Seth was like a dad to us.”

“He’s not that much older than you and Jeremy.”

“He’s only two years older than Jer and four years older than me,” Ally said. “He used to help me with my homework. Even when he was in college, he’d call me every night to make sure I was doing okay. If I was blue or missed my parents, he’d fly out for the weekend, just to be with me. Seth gave me away at my wedding. A girl couldn’t ask for a better brother.”

Why wasn’t I surprised at all?

“Think about it,” she said. “He’s barely thirty-four. Not only has he grown the company tremendously, but he’s managed to do it while helping his community and serving his country. Did you know he holds the record for the highest-altitude helicopter rescue in North America?”

“No.”

“He’s a phenomenal pilot, the guy you want to pluck you out if you’re in danger,” Ally said. “He was the XO of the Alaska Air National Guard’s 212th Rescue Squadron when they went to Afghanistan.”

“He didn’t mention any of that.” But of course, he wouldn’t. I gave in to my curiosity. “Ally? What happened in Afghanistan?”

“They were extracting a group of special ops out of the mountains. They were ambushed. An RPG blasted through the helicopter and killed one of Seth’s crew and the other pilot.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Ally said. “I read his commendation letter. The helicopter was on fire, and so was he, but he managed to put the helo down and saved the lives of the rest of the crew and the five special ops guys he’d picked up. He was ‘grievously wounded,’ but he dragged three wounded out of the burning helicopter and then organized the survivors’ defense. He held back the attackers for hours, until backup arrived.”

Talk about the definition of heroism. “Wow.”

“He’s incredible,” Ally said. “But he was pissed when he came back from Afghanistan, angry and depressed. Sometimes, I think he still is. They gave him a whole bunch of medals and decorations, but he never talks about any of that. My heart still hurts when I remember how sick he was when they shipped him back.”

“Was it really bad?”

“Awful,” Ally said. “He was in terrible shape. He broke his back in two places. His lungs were scorched. He couldn’t breathe on his own for a while. And the burns. God. I cried when I saw him, which was the wrong thing to do, because for months after that, he wouldn’t let any of us visit him at the hospital.”

I had a flashback of his reflection in the bathroom mirror that first time I’d tended to his back. My stomach clenched. It had been so hard for him to accept my touch.

“The doctors weren’t sure he would recover,” Ally said. “But he did and look at him now. When he came out of the hospital, he moved out to the cabin. Sometimes, when I think of him, alone in his house, I want to pull out my hair. I was ecstatic when he called me up and asked me to take you around. I haven’t seen him excited about anything or anybody for a long time.”

Oh crap. I was the wrong thing to get excited about. I was such a mess, barely able to take care of Tammy and Louise, due out of Alaska anytime, struggling with my own problems...

And yet when I thought of Seth, something in me heartened. Here was someone who’d gone through so much more than the rest of us, whose daily challenges dwarfed mine, and yet he wasn’t daunted by much. I liked his courage. I liked him. I craved his body too.

Crapola. I was in way over my head.

“Now we’ve got a little time to take care of you,” Ally said after paying the bill. “If there are some other errands you’d like to run, I’m game.”

“I suppose that if I bought a few things for myself I’d be sparing your wardrobe from Seth’s ‘borrows.’”

Ally laughed. “I don’t mind, but let’s go get what you need.”

“And there’s this compounding pharmacy here in Anchorage.” I looked up the address in my cell and showed it to Ally. “Do you know where it is?”

“Seems easy enough to get to,” she said as we got up from the table and walked to the car. “Why do you need to go there?”

“I spoke to the pharmacist this morning,” I said. “I asked him to mix a medical moisturizer for Seth from a formula I got from the Burn Center at Johns Hopkins. Perhaps we could pick it up?”

“Sure.” Ally said as we got in the car. “Why didn’t I think of it?”

Probably because Seth would never admit to pain or discomfort to her or to anyone else for that matter and, unlike me, she hadn’t caught him taking icy showers or rolling in the snow when he thought I wasn’t looking.

We picked up the lotion then went on to get a few things to augment my limited wardrobe. I bought myself a jacket—on sale, which explained why I settled with the very loud pink—and a few other practical things.

“Have you seen this woman by any chance?” I held up my cell for the cashier. The screen displayed a picture of Tammy. I thought maybe the enormous store was a place my sister may have visited if she needed suitable gear for Alaska.

The cashier examined the picture. “Of course I have.”

“Here?” My heart skipped a beat. “When?”

“Her picture is plastered all over the employee break room,” the cashier said. “She’s that silly girl who ran away to Alaska with a guy she met on the internet. How stupid can she be? Her sister is looking for her.”

Great. Wonderful. Fabulous. I had succeeded at broadcasting my sister’s flaws all over Alaska while failing miserably at finding her. I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned.

“Chin up,” Ally said. “You’ll find her yet. You’ll see.”

We went to the supermarket, where I splurged buying ingredients to cook for Seth. I watched as the clerks packed my food order. Because so many people who worked in Anchorage lived away from the city, they packed the cold stuff in iceboxes, sealed for easy transport.

Ally’s cell chimed as we loaded the groceries. Obediently, we drove back to E&E headquarters. Seth waited for us by the helicopter. He flashed me a smile when he opened the car door for me. My knees faltered.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked.

“Your sister is a fantastic tour guide,” I said. “I had caribou for lunch.”

“Impressive.” He tugged at my new jacket. “Pink?”

I lifted my arms in the air and twirled. “Warm
and
on sale.”

“That explains it.” He laughed.

I really liked it when he laughed like that. The lines on his face softened and his eyes sparkled like gold coins. I wanted to hear that sound more often.

He took my hand and gestured to a distinguished, dark-skinned, sober-faced gentleman. “Summer, this is Robert, the big house manager.”

The elegantly dressed man scrutinized me from head to toe while the ground crew transferred my purchases to the helicopter. He, too, had a load to add to the helicopter. I surmised he’d been shopping for “the big house.”

Robert inclined his head formally. “Miss Silva.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

Just then, a black, unmarked sedan pulled onto the lot, followed by an Alaskan Wildlife Trooper. The tires screeched to a stop right in front of us. Seth’s body tensed. He let go of my hand, planted his feet apart and set his hand on his hips. Two men got out of the car.