Wild Men of Alaska 01 - Impact

heard her name. At least she thought it was her name. One thing she did know, bears didn’t speak.
    She squinted against the slicing snow and instead of seeing a bear, the outline formed into a man.
    “Skip Kolenka Ozhuwan! You scared me to death. I thought you were a bear. What are you doing out here, and where is your coat? Are you insane?”
    “Apparently.” He shivered. “You were taking too long. I thought maybe you were in danger.”
    “It isn’t like women can just whip it out and pee anywhere. It takes some finesse. Besides, I can take care of myself.”
    “I was worried.”
    “Have a little faith. It’s not like I’m out here trying to score a line of coke.”
    “That thought never crossed my mind.”
    Suddenly she was ashamed of herself. He’d come looking for her because he’d been concerned, and she was jumping all over him. “I’m about froze to the bone. Can we continue this inside?” But when they returned to the closed confines of the plane, she realized there was no putting off going to bed with him.

Chapter Ten

    “How many layers are you going to put on?” Skip asked.
    As many as it takes. Wren struggled with a second pair of socks.
    “I’m cold,” she muttered, when in truth she was sweating. How was she going to sleep next to him?
    They had unzipped Jim’s sleeping bag they’d found in his survival kit and had it laying like a comforter over the cushions that would keep the cold from the ground seeping from the metal of the plane into them. It was actually quite cozy. Over the sleeping bag was a Mylar blanket they weren’t going to need.
    Wren couldn’t find another reason to postpone going to bed. She lay next to him, their shoulders and hips touching due to the slope of the plane underneath them. Her nerve endings sizzled to life, laying the length of him. She tried to move, giving him space, but no matter what she did she ended up touching him.
    “Are you going to squirm all night?”
    She didn’t bother answering him. She just might.
    “I’m going to turn off the light.”
    “Okay.” She hated that her voice sounded timid. She could do this.
    “Wren, relax.”
    The light clicked out and darkness closed in.
    Right. Like that was going to happen. She clutched the covers to her chin. With the darkness, her other senses picked up on the whistle and moan of the wind, the heavy splattering of the snow in its attempt to bury the plane from sight. Skip’s long even breaths, and her choppy ones. How could he be so relaxed?
    “We can’t go to bed mad at each other,” Skip said.
    “We’re not married.” She wanted to retract the words as soon as she said them.
    “And whose fault is that?”
    “You arrested me.”
    “Get over it.” He turned toward her and lifted up on his elbow. “You left me with no choice.”
    “I was entitled.”
    “Entitled didn’t make it right.”
    “You knew what he’d done.”
    “I still couldn’t let you take the law into your own hands.”
    “Nobody was punishing my dad, and he killed my mother.”
    “Wren—”
    “No, you know it, and I know it. The whole village knew why she did what she did.” Wren still saw her mom’s lifeless body, having been the one to find her beaten and bruised and dead. “She took all those sleeping pills because she couldn’t escape him any other way.”
    “It was still her choice. Your dad didn’t feed them to her.”
    “He might as well have.”
    “It wasn’t your call to make, Wren.”
    She knew he was right. He’d been right at the time to take the shovel away from her before she bashed in her father’s head. As it was, he’d let her wail on her father’s prized truck longer than he’d needed to, before restraining her. She’d been over all this in therapy.
    So much therapy.
    “Wren, I’m on your side here. If I could have arrested your father and thrown his ass in jail, I would have gladly done so. But you were the one who broke the law.”
    Yeah, and her old man had pressed charges, more concerned over his precious truck and who was going to pay for the damages than the suicide of his wife and meltdown of his daughter.
    He was free of both of them now.
    “So . . . what is he up to now?”
    Skip didn’t pretend to know what she was asking. “Same. Drinking, fishing, drinking more. At least, the women of the village steer clear of him. He’s alone. Fitting punishment if you ask me. Life without you a part of it is hell.”
    Her heart thumped. Did he mean his life was