“You need me to do anything?” Ben asked, getting up from the table. He carried his plate to the sink. “I’ve done plenty of dishes in my time. I wouldn’t mind lending a hand, especially after a meal like that. Seems to me that those who cook shouldn’t have to wash dishes.”

  “Normally I’d agree with you, but not today. You’re my guest.”

  “But…”

  “I should think you’d know better than to argue with a woman,” Mitch chided.

  Laughing, Bethany shooed Ben out of the kitchen.

  “We were going to continue our game of Monopoly, remember?” Chrissie reminded him eagerly. “You said you wanted a chance to win some of your money back.”

  “Go play,” Bethany said with a laugh. “I’ll rope Mitch here into helping.”

  “You’re sure?” Ben asked.

  “Very sure,” she told him, glancing over at Mitch with a smile.

  Mitch mumbled something she couldn’t hear. She looked at him curiously as she reached for a bowl. “What did you say?”

  His eyes held hers. “I said a man could get lost in one of your smiles and never find his way home.”

  Bethany paused, the bowl of leftover mashed potatoes in her hands. “Why, Mitch, what a romantic thing to say.”

  His face tightened, as though her comment had embarrassed him. “It must be the season,” he said gruffly. He turned away from her and started to fill the sink with hot, sudsy water.

  Bethany smiled to herself. It was rare to see Mitch Harris flustered. She fingered the polished five-dollar gold coin he’d had made into a pendant and placed on a fine gold chain. The coin had been minted the year of her birth, and he’d had it mounted in a gold bezel. The necklace was beautiful in its simplicity. The minute she fastened it around her neck, Bethany knew this was a piece of jewelry she’d wear every day for the rest of her life.

  She felt that her gift for Mitch paled in comparison. Mitch was an avid Tom Clancy fan, and through a friend who managed a bookstore in San Francisco, she’d been able to get him an autographed copy of Clancy’s latest hardcover.

  When Mitch had opened the package and read the inscription, he’d looked up at her as though she’d handed him the stone tablets direct from Mount Sinai.

  Chrissie had been excited about her Barbie town house, too.

  The one who’d surprised her most, however, was Ben. He’d arrived for dinner with not one pie but four—all of them baked fresh that morning. In addition to the pies, he’d brusquely handed her an oblong box. Bethany got a kick out of the way he’d wrapped it. He’d used three times the amount of paper necessary and enough tape to supply the U.S. Army for a year.

  Inside the box was a piece of scrimshaw made from a walrus tusk. The scene on the polished piece of ivory was of wild geese in flight over a marsh. Mountains rose in the distance against a sunlit sky.

  Ben had dismissed his gift as nothing more than a trinket, but Bethany knew from her brief stay in Fairbanks how expensive such pieces of artwork had become. She tried to thank him, but it was clear her words only embarrassed him.

  “I would’ve thought you’d want to fly home for Christmas,” Mitch said, rolling up his sleeves before dipping his hands in the dishwater.

  “I seriously considered it.” Bethany wasn’t going to minimize the difficulty of her decision to remain in Hard Luck. “But it’s a long way to travel for so short a time. I’ll probably stay in Alaska during spring break, as well. After all, my commitment here is only for the school year.”

  “You’re going home to California in June, then?”

  “Are you asking me if I plan to return to Hard Luck for another school year?”

  “Yes,” he said, his back to her.

  Something in the carefully nonchalant way he’d asked told her that the answer was important to him.

  “I don’t know,” she said as straightforwardly as she could. “It depends on whether I’m offered a contract.”

  “And if you are?”

  “I…don’t know yet.” She loved Alaska and her students. Most of all, she loved Mitch and Chrissie. Ben, too. But there were other factors. Several of them had to do with Ben—should she tell him he was her biological father, and what would his reaction be if she did? More and more, she felt inclined to confront him with the truth.

  “Well, I hope you come back” was all the response Mitch gave her. The deliberate lack of emotion in his voice was clearly meant to suggest that they’d been talking about something of little importance.

  Why, for heaven’s sake, couldn’t the man just say what he wanted to say?

  Hands on her hips, Bethany glared at him. Mitch happened to turn around for another stack of dirty dishes; he saw her and did a double take. “What?” he demanded.

  “All you can say is ‘Well, I hope you come back,’” she mimicked. “I’m spilling my heart out here and that’s all the reaction I get from you?”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “The answer is I’m willing to consider another year’s contract, and you can bet it isn’t because of the tropical climate in Hard Luck.”

  Mitch grinned exuberantly. “The benefits are good.”

  “But not great.”

  “The money’s fabulous.”

  “Oh, please,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. She took an exaggerated breath. “My, my, I wonder what the appeal could be.”

  Mitch looked at her in sudden and complete seriousness. “I was hoping you’d say it was me.”

  She regarded him with an equally somber look. “I do enjoy the way you kiss, Mitch Harris.”

  The first sign of amusement touched his lips. He lifted his soapy arms from the water and stretched them toward her. “Maybe what you need to convince you is a small demonstration of my enjoyable kisses.”

  A second later Bethany was in his arms. The water seeped through her blouse, but she couldn’t have cared less. What did matter was sharing this important day with the people she loved. And those who loved her.

  John Henderson wanted to do the right thing by Sally. He loved her—more than he’d thought possible. Proof of that was his willingness to delay asking her to marry him. He was determined to wait until he’d talked to her father.

  He’d been carrying the engagement ring with him for weeks now. Every once in a while he’d draw it out and rub the gold band between his index finger and thumb. He figured that his patience—difficult though he found it to be patient—was a measure of his love for Sally. Still, he cursed himself a dozen times a day for listening to Duke.

  John told himself that the other pilot didn’t know any more about love than he did. But it wasn’t true; Duke had given him good, sensible advice. John desperately wanted everything to be right between Sally and him, especially after her recent heartbreak.

  It would’ve been selfish to rush her into an engagement and then a wedding without first knowing that she shared his feelings—and was sure of her own. He had to be certain she wasn’t marrying him on the rebound. Duke was right about her family, too. Her parents were traditional, old-fashioned, even, and it was important to meet them, give them a chance to know him. Important—but the waiting had become harder with every week that passed.

  Now he was ready to make his move. And ask his questions…

  Naturally, John would rather have delayed this initial awkwardness. No man likes to be scrutinized by strangers, especially when he’s about to ask these very people for permission to marry the most precious, beautiful woman God ever made. Their daughter.

  If he were Sally’s father, John thought, he wouldn’t blame the man for booting him out of the house. He hoped, however, that it wouldn’t come to that.

  He’d bought a new suit for the occasion. It wasn’t a waste of money, he’d decided, seeing he’d probably need it for the wedding and all. If Sally agreed to marry him, and he hoped and prayed she would.

  Sally’s true feelings for him seemed to be the only real question. They’d been seeing each other on a regular basis, but John had noticed certain things about her that left him wondering. Her eyes didn’t light up when she saw him, the way they had in the beginning. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was avoiding him lately.

  Mariah Douglas had recently moved into the house with her, and Sally seemed almost relieved to have an excuse not to invite him over so often. Of course, he’d been busy at Midnight Sons, with the holiday rush and all.

  Other signs baffled him, as well. These puzzling changes in Sally’s behavior had started after he’d spent the night with her. It wasn’t like they’d planned to make love; it had just happened.

  John regretted not waiting to initiate their lovemaking until after the wedding. He’d known for a long time how he felt about Sally. Immediately following their one night together, he’d gone out and bought the engagement ring, but then Duke had talked him out of proposing until he could meet her family.

  It might not be such a good idea to show up unannounced on Christmas Day, but John didn’t have a lot of spare time. Midnight Sons was shorthanded in the wintertime as it was. The holidays had offered him the opportunity to make the trip. That was why he was here in British Columbia, in a small town with an Indian name he couldn’t pronounce, dropping in on Sally’s family un-invited and clutching a somewhat travel-worn bouquet of roses.

  John checked the address on the back of the Christmas card envelope and walked up to the white house with the dark green shutters and the large fir wreath on the door. He pressed the doorbell, swallowed nervously and waited.

  His relief was great when Sally answered the door herself. Her eyes grew huge with surprise and, he hoped, with happiness when she saw who it was.

  “John? What are you doing here?”

  He thrust the flowers into her hand, grateful to be rid of them. “I’ve come to talk to your father,” he told her.

  “My dad?” she asked, clearly puzzled. “Why?”

  “That’s between him and me.” He found it difficult not to stare at her, seeing she was as pretty as a model for one of those fashion magazines. They’d made love only that once, and although he cursed himself for his lack of self-control, he couldn’t regret loving Sally. He looked forward to making love to her again. Only this time it would be when his ring was around her finger and they’d said their I do’s.

  “John?” She closed the door and stepped onto the small porch steps, hugging herself with both arms. Her eyes questioned his. “What’s this all about?”

  “I need to talk to your father,” he repeated.

  “You already said that. Is it because I’ve decided not to return to Hard Luck? Who told you? Not Mariah, she wouldn’t do that, I know she wouldn’t.”

  John felt as if someone had punched him. For one shocking moment, he thought he might be sick. “You…you didn’t plan on coming back after Christmas?”

  “No.” She lowered her gaze, avoiding his.

  “But I thought…I hoped—” He snapped his mouth shut before he acted like an even bigger fool. He was about to humble himself before her father and request Sally’s hand in marriage. Yet she’d walked out of his life without so much as a word of farewell.

  “You mean you didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “You weren’t planning on telling me?”

  “No.” She tucked her chin against her chest. “I…I couldn’t see the point. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he shouted. Standing outside her family home yelling probably wasn’t the best way to introduce himself to her father, but John couldn’t help it. He was angry, and with good reason.

  “You know exactly what I mean,” she replied in a furious whisper.

  “Are you referring to the night we made love?”

  Mortified, Sally closed her eyes. “Do you have to shout it to the entire neighborhood?”

  “Yes!”

  Sally glared at him. “I think we’ve said everything there is to say.”

  “Not by a long shot, we haven’t,” John countered. “Okay, so we made love. Big deal. I’m not perfect, and neither are you. It happened, but we haven’t gone to bed since then, have we?”

  “John, please, not so loud.” Sally glanced uneasily over her shoulder.

  His next words surprised him, springing out despite himself. “I wasn’t the first, so I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal of it. Too late now, anyway.” He would never have said this if he hadn’t felt so angry, so betrayed.

  Tears leapt instantly into her eyes and John would’ve given his right arm to take back the hurtful words. He’d rather suffer untold agonies than say anything to distress Sally, yet he’d done exactly that.

  The door behind her opened and a burly lumberjack of a man walked out onto the porch. “What’s going on here?”

  Sally gestured weakly toward John. “Daddy, this is John Henderson. He—he’s a friend from Hard Luck.”

  Finding his daughter sniffling back tears wasn’t much of an endorsement, John thought gloomily. He squared his shoulders and offered the other man his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. McDonald.”

  “The name’s Jack. I don’t understand why my daughter hasn’t seen fit to invite you into the house, young man.” He cast an accusatory frown in Sally’s direction. “Seems you’ve come a long way to visit her.”

  “It doesn’t look like I was as welcome as I thought I’d be,” John muttered.

  “Nonsense. It’s Christmas Day. Since you’ve traveled all this distance, the least we can do is ask you to join us and give you a warm drink.”

  John didn’t need anything to warm him. Spending time with the McDonald family would only add to his frustration and misery, but Jack McDonald gave him no option. Sally’s father quickly ushered him inside.

  Swallowing his pride, John followed the brawny man up a short flight of stairs and into the living room. The festivities ceased when he appeared. Sally’s father introduced him around, and her mother poured him a cup of wassail that tasted like hot apple cider.

  “I don’t believe Sally’s mentioned you in her letters home,” Mrs. McDonald said conversationally as a chair was brought out for John.

  He felt his heart grow cold and heavy with pain. Forcing himself to observe basic good manners, he thanked Sally’s brother for the chair. All those months while he was pining over Sally, he hadn’t rated a single line in one of her letters home. Although he’d told her their making love had been no big deal, it had been. For him. He loved her. But apparently their relationship wasn’t important enough for Sally to even mention his name.

  “I told you about John,” Sally said.

  John wondered if that was true, or if she was attempting to cover her tracks.

  “John’s the bush pilot I wrote you about.” Sally sat across the room from him and tucked her hands awkwardly between her knees as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them.

  “Oh yes, now I remember. Don’t think you said his name, though.” Her father nodded slowly. And her mother sent him a bright smile.

  John drank the cider as fast as he could. It burned going down, but he didn’t care. He drained the cup, stood and abruptly handed it to Sally’s mother.

  “Thank you for the drink and the hospitality, but I should be on my way.”

  Jack bent down to the carpet and retrieved something. “I believe you dropped this, son,” he said.

  To John’s mortification, Sally’s father held out the engagement ring.

  He checked his pocket, praying all the while that there were two such rings in this world, and that the second just happened to be in Sally’s home. On the floor. Naturally, the diamond Jack held was the one he’d bought for Sally. Without a word, he slipped it back inside his suit pocket.

  “It was a pleasure meeting everyone,” he said, anxiously eyeing the front door. He’d never been so eager to leave a place. Leave and find somewhere to be by himself.

  Well, he told himself bitterly, he’d learned his lesson when it came to women. He was better off living his life alone. To think he’d been one of the men eager to have the O’Hallorans bring women north!

  One thing was certain; he didn’t need this kind of rejection, this kind of pain.

  “John?” Sally gazed at him with those beautiful blue eyes of hers. Only this time he wasn’t about to be taken in by her sweetness.

  He ignored her and hurried down the stairs to the front door. He’d already grasped the door handle when he realized that Sally had followed him. “You can leave without explaining that ring, but I swear if you do I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “I don’t see that it’d matter,” he told her, boldly meeting her eyes. “You weren’t planning on speaking to me anyway.”

  He gave her ample time to answer, and when she didn’t, he made a show of turning the knob.

  “Don’t go,” Sally cried in a choked whisper. “I thought…that you’d gotten what you wanted and so you—”

  “I know what you thought,” he snapped.

  “Maybe we could talk about this?” It sounded like she was struggling not to break into tears. He dug inside his back pocket, pulled out a fresh handkerchief and handed it to her.

  “Could we talk, John?” she asked and walked down the second flight of stairs to the lower portion of the house. “Please?”

  John guessed he was supposed to accompany her. He looked up to find her mother, father, brother and a few cousins whose names he’d forgotten leaning over the railing staring at him.

  “You’d better go with her,” Sally’s younger brother advised. “It’s best to do what she wants when she’s in one of these moods.”

  “Do you love her, son?” Jack McDonald demanded.

  John looked at Sally, thinking a response now would be premature, but he couldn’t very well deny it, carrying an engagement ring in his pocket. “Yes, sir. I meant to ask Sally to marry me, but I wanted everything to be right with us. So I thought I’d introduce myself and ask your permission first.”

  “It’s a good man who speaks to the father first,” Sally’s mother said, nodding tearfully.

  “Marry her with my blessing, son.”

 

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