Return by Air (Glacier Adventure Series Book 1) Read online

  We all did it. We found the will to find our dreams, all of us. Brad’s got his family and his boat. Kody’s building homes like they’re Lincoln Logs. Nick achieved his dream years ago by becoming the MMA heavyweight title holder and is now helping create them. I’m in the air or directing people to get there. And Jed? “He found love and marriage, something he never believed he’d be able to do legally in his lifetime. How fucking heartless is life that it took him from it?” I wonder.

  Kody lets out a rough sound in my ear. “That he did. Call me when you’ve figured out when we’re heading up. I’ll drive up to you and store my car at your place, cut down on time.”

  “Right.” We both disconnect, each of us lost in a brotherhood of friendship that began close to twenty years ago.

  And suffered a devastating blow tonight I only hope we can recover from.

  Back in my condo, I sit in the dark drinking straight from the bottle of locally brewed gin Jed sent me for my last birthday. “Listen, buddy, as a bar owner, I might not be able to afford as much as you can, but I can get you a direct line to the best-tasting liquor in the world,” he joked.

  He wasn’t wrong about much, including the fact the Florida-made gin whispers down the back of my throat as smooth as water.

  Lou came into my office not long after I got off the phone with Kody. She took one look at the devastation on my face and asked only, “What do you need me to do?”

  “Payroll’s done,” I responded dully. “Find pilots for my flights.”

  “On it.”

  “If I haven’t said it before, Lou, I appreciate what you do keeping everything in line here.” My words are sincere even if my voice is flat.

  “I know, boss. Now, get out of here.” She squeezed my shoulder before she left my office. I left not long after. I only wish the rest of my night permitted such liberties.

  The phone call I endured when I broke a date for a charity event frayed my temper to the very threads. “Jesus, it’s not like we were an item,” I snapped before I ended the call. And now I’m more glad than ever over my unwilling celibacy in the last several months due to the business taking on more work and keeping me away from home. “If this is what dating is like…” I leave the rest of my sentence unsaid as I take another swig of gin. Unfortunately, the lack of compassion from the woman in question reminds me vividly of a conversation I had with Jed years ago.

  “Don’t you want to settle down one day?” he’d asked me a few years ago. “Find the one woman who you’d give up anything to have, who could give you everything you ever wanted?”

  “She doesn’t exist, buddy.”

  Jed bellowed our a hollow laugh. “Jennings, one day, you’re going to realize everything you ever wanted has been waiting right there in front of you and you never realized you could have had it all.”

  “If that’s the case, I give you permission to slap me upside the head to wake me up.”

  Now, he’ll never have the chance.

  Stumbling to my feet, I go to the closet where I know I’ve kept photos of me and the guys over the years. Sliding the hefty box labeled “Lumberjacks” into my arms, I carry it over to the couch and yank out a bunch of pictures.

  Kody’s bright hair which looks almost neon orange in the Alaskan sun.

  Brad’s arms scooping his then girlfriend, now wife, into his arms as he threatens to dump her into the hot tub behind the Smiths’ family home.

  Nick, brooding, and flicking off the camera. Tossing the picture on the desk, I find one where there’s actual laughter on Nick’s face when he’s pointing at Jed, who stripped his hair from its dark brown to bleach white. “God, look at Jed parading around without a care in the world,” I wonder. My lips curve even as I set that one aside to put in a frame later.

  The next picture has me blinking rapidly. “How did this one end up in here?” The slim brunette with glasses is laughing with Jed’s sister, Maris, while Jed has them both in a headlock. He’s grinning madly at the camera.

  But even after all these years, my heart still twinges at the quiet beauty of Kara Malone. After all, it’s not every day you realize you might actually be in love and then quickly shove the woman out of your life knowing that trusting someone with that much of your heart could lead to nothing but broken dreams and heartbreak.

  After all, hadn’t life taught me that from an early age?

  Leaning back, I hold up the picture, which shows Kara smiling up at Jed. “I wonder what she’s up to. Knowing Kara, she’s probably slowed down global warming or she’s sprouted palm trees in Antarctica,” I mumble. But the truth is, she was just that brilliant.

  By the time I met her, Kara had already attained dual masters in physics and ecology by the age of twenty-three and was on a fast track to get her PhD. And I was what? Petrified, I can admit with so many years in between. Lifting the bottle of clear liquid to my lips to take a drink, I sigh with regret at the way we ended. “She didn’t deserve the way I dicked her over,” I admit aloud, not for the first time. Then again, the only other person I’ve ever admitted that to is gone. Jed listened when I told him a few years ago the reason I let her go was because “I couldn’t bear to watch her walk away like everyone else did.”

  Jed clapped me on the shoulder, before telling me, “Look around, my friend. None of us ever walked away,” before heading back into the cabin we rented for that particular reunion in Montana.

  Memories come rushing through my system the longer I hold on to Kara’s photo. Staying up overnight in order to take the ferry to Juneau so I could string a few days together with her. Teasing her about trying to save the world as we lay in bed, when she’d very seriously explain, “No, just trying to make my part of it safer.” I remember repeatedly chastising her for rubbing her wrist raw with her grandmother’s bracelet over her delicate skin whenever she got nervous or upset.

  “I wonder if she’s coming to the service.” Knowing how close she and Jed’s sister were, it wouldn’t surprise me. As much as Jed, Brad, Nick, Kody, and I are brothers, those two women were born sisters on opposites sides of the country.

  And now we’ll all be reunited because of Jed’s death? It’s abhorrent to me. My temper boils over at the injustice of it all. Swiveling in my chair, I hurl the bottle against the wall, and the glass shatters into a thousand pieces. “Damn you, Jed. Why the fuck did you go and die on us? What are we going to do without you?”

  Dropping the picture, all thoughts of anything beyond the crazy-wild man who loved life and everyone in it, including a woman who’s likely long forgotten I exist, disappear. I shove the box aside and cut loose.

  It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room until I’m in nothing but a void of pain and emotion weeping near the tangible evidence of the past that showed at one time there were five of us who considered each other brothers.

  Now, there are only four.

  What are we supposed to do?

  Kara

  Dear Dean.

  Well, we’re on our way back to Alaska. For so many years, I tried to tell you about my time there, and now that you’re gone, it’s funny how the words just want to pour out of me.

  Unless you’ve been there, it’s almost impossible to understand her beauty and her savageness because they’re intertwined so brilliantly they can’t be separated. You have to love both to love the whole. Alaska isn’t merely a piece of land to be lived upon; she breathes and embeds herself into your heart and soul mere minutes after you bow in her presence.

  She’s demanding and regal, temperamental and savage. She’s unconquerable. And humans are foolish to think they can.

  There are so many pieces that make up Alaska. She provides rare but distinct praise for those few dynamic souls who sustain their lives there. You know there was a time when I believed I could be one of them. Almost sixteen years ago, to be exact. Now, between all the years in between and everything that’s happened, it seems like those years belong to a story that should begin with the words “once u
pon a time.” Back then, I thought I had the mettle to build my dreams conquering sweeps of ice while breaking down walls built around a man’s heart. I had my chance at the first.

  It took a long time for me to realize I was blessed by her when I left; that Alaska gave me a gift to make up for my original one being lost.

  Pausing in my letter, I sigh. It doesn’t matter how long it takes me to write it. Dean’s gone. He’s never going to receive it anyway. I glance to my right at the tall figure in the seat next to me. His dark hair flops over his forehead as he frowns down at his iPad. Slowly, I reach over and brush the hair away from my son’s forehead.

  His head turns toward me before he pulls the noise-canceling earbuds from his ears. With a frown, he asks, “Are you okay, Mom?”

  Mom. Alaska made me a mother to a son whose heart is easily the size of her landscape. Well, technically, that’s not correct. Jennings did, I think with a touch of lingering anxiety I shove aside knowing what’s going to happen the moment Jed’s will is read. After ignoring all of my attempts to contact him over the years, he’s finally going to be forced to admit he’s a father.

  My breathing accelerates. I acquiesced to Jed adding in the codicil to his will because he accepted my conditions. It still doesn’t mean what’s about to be set in motion isn’t affecting me because I know it’s just going to add another level of emotional upheaval to the person I love more than anyone else in this world—my son.

  Kevin frowns again when I don’t respond fast enough. Quickly, I pull myself from my thoughts and answer, “Yes, sweetheart. I’m just woolgathering. Go back to your movie.”

  “Are you…” He doesn’t finish his sentence before he shoves in his buds again.

  I wish he would just tell me what’s on his mind, talk to me about what’s bothering him. Because if there’s anyone in the world who understands what he’s feeling, it’s me. There’s so much pain locked inside of him since he lost both of his uncles a few short weeks ago in an accident that’s left the three of us devastated and floundering.

  And here we are—heading right back to the place where it all started. After ensuring Kevin’s attention is back on the movie, I close my laptop and tuck it into the seat back in front of me. Looking out the window, there’s nothing but clouds from our current vantage point.

  I know from my conversation with Maris the letters from the lawyers were going out today, as was the notice of Jed’s death to the local Juneau paper. But that’s not how he was known for the decades he lived in Alaska before taking a vacation to Florida and never returning. It’s why, despite the local media coverage that invaded our lives for weeks in Florida with the death of the “Misters Malone,” we haven’t been faced with Jed’s closest friends.

  Yet. That’s going to change the minute we touch down, and I know it.

  We’re about to endure a second viewing and funeral. Then, the second will reading. And a second chance for John Jennings to turn my world upside down.

  We hit a pocket of turbulence that has Kevin’s hand shooting out to grab mine. God, I want to laugh and then let silent tears fall, much like I’ve been doing late at night when I know Kevin’s barricaded himself in his room. Our worlds have drastically changed. And they’re about to be shaken more; he just doesn’t know it.

  But I do.

  And I’ll do everything possible to protect my son from the pain I’ve endured each time an email I sent to his father and it was ignored.

  What I won’t do is feel shame for the decisions I made, starting with the one where I walked out of my parents’ life, moved in with my brother, and never looked back. Not once.

  Not ever.

  Eighteen hours after we left Jacksonville, we’re waiting for Maris to pick us up at the Juneau International Airport when Kevin takes a deep breath of the cool mountain air and sighs contently. “Mom, I thought you said Alaska was cold?”

  Wrapping my arm around his waist, I wonder how time went by so fast that I now have to look up into his eyes to answer. “This is a warm day.” My lips curve faintly at the shock on his face. “This sixty degrees you’re basking in is almost sweltering for a native Alaskan.”

  “But—”

  “Yes?” I answer distractedly as I scan for Maris’s SUV in the darkness.

  “But that’s like our winter!” he sputters.

  The words are out of my mouth before I can censor them. “Why do you think your uncle Jed loved our winter so much?” I tease. Then I curse myself a million times a fool as Kevin’s body goes rigid beneath my arm. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” My voice is as cracked as my heart.

  My son, my baby, is learning lessons he should never understand. He’s been taught too early the agonizing loss of those you love. It’s then I spot the vehicle Maris described over the phone. “There’s Maris.” I give his waist one more squeeze before I step away to pick up my carry-on, using my other hand to wave.

  My best friend, and sister-in-law through marriage, pulls to a stop next to us. As she jumps from the driver’s seat, her head of mahogany hair gleams in the fluorescent lights. Running around the front of the car, she opens her arms wide to wrap us both in the one thing we need more than anything.

  Strength.

  Leaning my head down on her shoulder, I take just a moment of it. Because it’s not just the memorial service that has me on edge. It’s what I know I have to do after.

  And to honor the two of the three men I love beyond anything, I agreed, which is why it looks like I have enough luggage to last a lifetime when the reality is Kevin and I are only moving to Alaska for the rest of the summer.

  Juneau, Alaska, is only accessible to an outsider by air or by sea. But for some indescribable months many years before, I never cared if I left once I stepped foot on her shores. I easily pictured myself living permanently in the state capital that drew me because of one love, introduced me to another, and finally, gave me the one I cherish above all others.

  Driving from the airport to Maris’s family home on the outskirts of downtown keeps me quiet despite the catching up between my son and my best friend. Reaching over the back of the seat, I grab Kevin’s hand. “Are you sure you want to stay here this summer?” It’s not that the reunion between father and son I agreed to leaves me much choice, but I’d be willing to fight unlike the way my parents did for me, but very much like the way my brother did for me every single day. Including the ways he often went against his husband when it came to matters of my son.

  My son. I’d do anything for this child. Despite the resentment when year over year, I never heard a peep from his birth father, including a bounce-back message, I persisted in trying to contact Jennings to let him know he had a son. Shoving that thought aside, I give Kevin’s hand a firm squeeze for the millionth time since we got the knock on the door telling us about the accident.

  He nods. “I need to be away from everything back there. Everywhere I go, I’m reminded of what happened. I don’t know why, but somehow I think I feel close to them because this is something they would do.”

  You have no idea. The thought passes through my mind as my eyes collide with Maris’s as I shoot her a sidelong glance. “You’re right, Kevin. It is something they’d do,” I reassure him.

  Something infinitesimally wound up behind Kevin’s green eyes relaxes. “So, what’s there to eat at the house? Airplane food sucks.”

  Maris jumps into our conversation at this point. “Honey, you know it’s late. So, when we get back to the house, I think a light snack is in order—”

  Kevin groans. I just smile, waiting.

  Maris continues. “— because tomorrow we’re going to have the best lobster chowder anywhere in the world. Tomorrow. Tonight, it’s close to midnight our time, which is 4:00 a.m. for your body. Too late for anything heavy. You and your mom must be exhausted.”

  Kevin perks up. “Are we having lobster to go with it?”

  I rebuke him gently. “Did Maris say that?”

  “No, ma’am.” I have to st
ifle my giggles when I twist back around in my seat and catch the wink Maris aims at me.

  “Likely cause she wanted it to be a surprise,” I murmur but obviously not quiet enough when Kevin lets out a rebel yell from the back.

  Hearing that, a small stitch helps pieces of my desecrated heart seal itself back together. It’s temporary, I know, trying to repair weeks of anger and devastation, and the fear waiting for me.

  Pulling up to the home that holds so many memories, I begin to hyperventilate. My vision darkens at the edges as the clock spins wildly back to the last time I stood in front of this two-story home over fifteen years ago.

  “Kara? Jesus, you’re scaring the hell out of me.” Maris shakes me hard.

  “Mom?” In a faraway part of my mind, I hear my son’s anxiety. It drags me from my nightmare the way nothing else can.

  “I’m fine.” Or I will be if I could erase the memories of John Jennings out of my head each time I see images of the home where my son was likely conceived. I give them a weak smile. “I’m just tired. And I’m ready to find a bed.”

  “Then let’s get your stuff inside. Oh, I figured Kevin would want the basement,” Maris says casually.

  “Like a man cave?” Kevin says excitedly.

  “Indeed. There’s an open room down there with a bed, closet, gaming setup—” Maris doesn’t get to finish before Kevin’s holding out his hand for a high five, which Maris doesn’t hesitate to give him.

  “You didn’t need to give up your space,” I rebuke her gently. “Though for the sake of the smell of your house, it was probably a wise move.”

  “Hey!” Kevin protests.

  “Is the teenager starting to resemble that remark?” Maris snarks before sliding out of the car. I’m not far behind. I pause when I take in the night sky. It shows me every star I ever made a wish on before I gave up on wishes and dreaming and went back to what I know best—analytical thinking. Shaking my head, I suggest, “Why don’t we just take in the carry-ons tonight? Then we can deal with the larger bags in the morning.”