Wildfire: Midnight Sun 3

1. Annie

1

Annie

“What will you do if he happens to stop by?” Mom’s voice, muffled by the headset, reached me over the plane’s rumbling engine as she flew us deep into the wilderness.

I stared at the snow-capped mountains to my right, knowing who she spoke of, but I didn’t have a ready answer. “Not sure,” I stated the truth. Part of me longed to see his face after eight years, the other part of me wanted to scar up that face for what he’d put me through.

The first time I saw him, I fell in love. Only twelve years old, a little girl whose hormones had yet to kick in and put me on the right path like the rest of my friends, and I’d got warm fuzzies in my belly over his lopsided smirk. Imagined hearts in my eyes like those silly old-time cartoons I sometimes caught Mom and Dad watching.

Young love…it set me to dreaming of having what my parents did after twenty something years together. Unconditional. Affection all the time. Mad love, the type that made Dad act like a bear sometimes in defending Mom or when looking out for her.

I wanted a man like my dad. He always claimed he’d “grown up” in the wilds of Alaska even though he hadn’t moved there until later in life, but I knew such a one. A young man who had grown up out in the middle of nowhere and seemed the sort to turn into an animal in order to protect his loved ones.

Roan Kelly.

It’d been eight years since he’d stolen my first kiss, eight years since he’d burned me—literally—and broke my heart by not seeming to care.

He’d come to town once a few years back, but I made sure to be out of town at my cousin Kari’s house in Fairbanks. I didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to get caught up in those green eyes of his that seemed to read clear through to my soul and sent shivers from head to toes.

Last I’d seen him had been when Dad carried me toward the plane Mom had fired to life, the searing pain in my hand stealing my breath and sending tears down my cheeks. Roan hadn’t followed on our heels like a man sorry for what he’d done. He didn’t ask forgiveness, didn’t apologize for being the one who’d caused me serious injury and the possibility of ending my dreams. He’d stayed right where we left him—by the fire pit, hands fisted at his sides. Mute and emotionless.

He’d gotten what he’d wanted—my first kiss—and obviously didn’t care enough about me to make sure I was okay.

I hadn’t been for a very long time.

I glanced down at my hands clasped lightly on my lap. My right still had ragged, ugly as sin scars on some fingers. I didn’t release my hold to inspect the palm. Those scars remained, too. Even after grafts, evidence of falling hands first into a burned down bonfire full of glowing, red-hot coals couldn’t be erased, nor could the phantom pain that lingered. A constant reminder I couldn’t get rid of.

If he hadn’t caught me the first time, stolen my sweet sixteen a day early, chased after me when I’d sprinted off full of giddiness and elation at his fulfilling my secret fantasy I would never verbally admit to…

But years later, I’d found another perfect man who sent similar shivers to my toes—until he, too, broke my heart. The pain of that lingered as well, but for a whole different reason.

Letting out a sigh, I turned my focus on the window beside me, staring out over the Alaskan wilderness far below Mom’s old plane she refused to retire.

The thing was old as s**t, but still ran like a dream. The first Midnight Sun Charter plane, her precious ’54 Beaver. Mom and Dad’s business had grown over the years. Five other planes, two of which ran joy rides for paying vacationers wanting to experience Alaska from the skies.

I’d co-piloted with Dad a few times, and it’s where I’d met the second love of my life as we’d flown his family to see the sights. He hadn’t looked anything like Roan. Didn’t have the same deep voice, the dark hair, and vibrant green eyes, but my heart ended up broken regardless.

Different men. Same result.

I’m not made for that kind of love.

That truth had run countless times in my head, but at least my heart didn’t ache as bad as it had a month earlier.

“You okay, sweetie?”

I turned toward Mom, hearing the clear concern in her voice muffled through the headset, and forced a smile. “Yeah.”

“You’re sure about this?”

Rolling my eyes, I snorted a huff.

“I know, I know,” she said with a sigh, turning once more to look out the plane’s windshield. “You’ve assured me a million times over this is what you want.”

“Yeah.” I, too, looked ahead, waiting for the turn that would bring our homestead into view. “It’s just a broken heart, Mom. I’m not some damsel in distress hoping to find my knight in shining armor out in the woods.”

“It could happen,” she said with a shrug and smirk.

Yeah, it had happened for her, but if nothing else, my ex tackled those daydreams to the ground.

“Love will come when you aren’t looking for it.”

“With what?” I motioned toward the vast nothingness out the windows. “A griz? A wolf?”

Mom didn’t laugh. “You carry that pistol, knife, and sat phone everywhere you go, understood?”

“Yes, Dad.” Sarcasm oozed, but he’d said the same thing a dozen times before seeing us off.

“He’s not any happier than I am about this, but I’d rather have you be a forty-minute flight away than overseas like you considered doing when Justin… Sorry.”

Yeah, the dreamer in me thought. Head to Tuscany and forget all about my ex.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I murmured.

I’d considered falling for an Italian who owned an olive orchard but only because I loved olives, not because I was interested in allowing myself to be vulnerable ever again. A case of olives packed in the cargo area behind us. They would be the love of my life.

“I’m going to be just fine.”

“I know, sweetie. You’re one of the strongest young women I know.”

“And the summers at the homestead prepared me for the zombie apocalypse,” I reminded her with a small laugh, knowing it to be the absolute damn truth. “I got this.”

Mom smiled and reached over to squeeze my hand. “You get bored or lonely, I’ll come for a visit. Girls weekend. Wine, chocolate, and sleeping in.”

While that sounded like a lot of fun, I wanted quiet time to finish writing the three-book series I’d been working on for what seemed like forever. It didn’t help that I had put my dreams of becoming a published author aside for my ex—because my daydreaming and writing took too much time away from him.

Insecure bastard.

He’d demanded all my attention, and I’d given it to him because I’d been so desperate to find what my parents had. I had come to realize the truth of that fact—and his damn insecurities—but had been blinded for too long by the warm fuzzies. By hope. By dreams. With my second broken heart, that whole twenty-twenty hindsight s**t hit hard.

Dad was one of a kind and growing up in our household had instilled unrealistic expectations in my heart. I’d never find someone who looked at me like I supplied their oxygen—but holy hell, I still wanted it. Dreamed of it. Scribbled stories in my journals since childhood about fairy lands, trolls, and elves. True love fated by cupid’s arrow.

It’s time to put me first, just like Mom always told me to do.

“I won’t be a pushover ever again,” I murmured half to myself, thinking about the choice I’d finally made for me.

“Good,” Mom snipped the word in my headset. “I never liked how you gave up yourself for Justin.”

I lifted my chin. “I’m back to good old b***h Annie—selfish and independent. A woman who refuses to settle.”

“That’s my girl.” Mom laughed while banking toward the south. “You make me proud.”

The Charran homestead appeared in the distance, the small one-room cabin’s gray logs nearly blending into the brush along the river. Dad had ripped off the roof and built up the walls higher to put in a loft above their bed for Junior and me, but other than that, the cabin looked the same since I could remember seeing it the first time at three years of age.

Dad had shown Junior and me how to survive in the wilderness, how to hunt, fish, and track. Every summer, our family filled my mind up with memories, and I, in turn, filled up countless journals with stories long lost.

Once upon a time, the homestead had been what I’d looked forward to the most. Quiet to write. Quality time with loved ones. An occasional visit from Roan and his family who lived upriver. Until that fateful night all those years ago when I learned he’d only wanted a kiss and couldn’t be bothered to worry about the injury he’d caused.

Men and their damn selfish desires.

I let out another sigh, knowing Mom would head to the Kelly homestead next with the pile of spring supplies behind mine, but I didn’t mention their son’s name, nor did I want to talk or think about him.

He’d broken my heart first, brought on that first inkling of mistrusting love. My ex, Justin, just hammered the truth home.

Two men. Two broken hearts.

I’m so done. It’s me time, b***h.

Smirking at the fact I spoke to my muse with excitement for the first time in years, I looked forward to settling in. Pouring myself some wine, curling up by the fire, and typing away.

No internet, no social media to distract me. No man sneering or laughing at my “unattainable” dreams.

I would have my three-book series hammered out in a matter of months. Three before I had any plans of company—no matter how much mom called the sat phone and bugged me to let her visit.

Dad sat at home recovering from having his appendix taken out, and Junior went and got himself hitched a few years back, his wife popping out two boys who looked just like him in two years. She hated the homestead, and he loved her like Mom did Dad.

So, no Junior. No Dad—and no Mom.

Just me and you.

I imagined my muse laughed maniacally in my head, rubbing her hands together with glee.

Time for us, time for taking control over my life and fulfilling my dream, one I would let no man take from me ever again.