Head over Heels for the Holidays

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Rune found Cara taking selfies on the balcony of the Eagle’s Nest Resort and Spa. None of those selfies would ever see the light of day, since she was strictly banned from using social media.

But at least she’d have a very thorough family album to look back on some day.

She leaned an elbow on the railing and angled her hip as she snapped the photo. Beyond her, the mountains of Lost Souls Wilderness looked almost violet under a heavy cloud layer. On the far horizon a perfect cone of a mountain rose from the ocean; a volcano, part of the Ring of Fire that linked Alaska to the Pacific Rim. It gave him a sense of home, since he’d grown up on a volcanic island in the middle of the ocean.

Maya used to tell him stories about Lost Harbor, about the mountains and the glaciers and the bay that filled with fog. But the reality was so much more spectacular than he’d pictured. He didn’t know if this place was remote enough to evade the stalker, but it felt like it was.

“Hello brother,” Cara greeted him cheerfully. “I think I like this place. These photos are fricking amazing.”

“Yeah, that’s the most important thing to look for,” he said dryly. “What kind of background a place offers for your selfies.”

She made a face at him and straightened away from the balcony. Even though she was his little sister, he knew perfectly well that she was magnetic with her thick butter-blond hair and loving nature. It was irritating because it made his life more difficult. She wanted to make friends with everyone. Which was why they were in this mess to begin with.

“Are we going to meet Maya?” she asked eagerly.

He’d told her all about his long-ago friend. She loved his Maya stories, and had been delighted at the thought of living in Lost Harbor for six months.

“Yes, let’s go. Not just Maya, but her father. He’s my patient, so be cool.”

“You’d better be cool, or Maya will know you used to have a crush on her.” She stuck her tongue out at him as she danced past him, back into the suite.

“Cara,” he warned. “You say anything like that and I’ll toss you off that balcony.”

“No one should be punished for telling the truth,” she said virtuously, crossing her heart like some kind of mischievous nun.

“It’s not the truth, and you definitely will be. I’ll start by leaving you here. I’ll tell Maya you weren’t feeling well because you fell off the balcony.”

She giggled and grabbed a neon-pink hoodie off the table next to the door.

He eyed it unhappily. “Really? Have you learned nothing about laying low in the past two years?”

A shadow came over her face. “Yes, I’ve learned that for six weeks, I can do whatever I want because it takes him time to find us. After that, I have to tone down what I wear for a month. Then I have to change the color of my hair. Then I have to avoid going outside until the day you come home and tell me it’s time to move on.”

His heart wrenched at the sad resignation in her voice. Why had he done anything to bring down her mood? He should be grateful for every moment that Cara was her normal joyous self.

“Fine,” he said. “You can wear the hoodie. But you still have to behave yourself.”

She brightened, like a sailboat regaining its equilibrium after a gust of wind. “No, you have to behave yourself or I’ll show Maya your old diary.”

He made her wait to exit the suite—that was one of the rules. He always went first to scope out the surroundings. With a jerk of his head, he indicated that the coast was clear. “You don’t have my diary.”

It wasn’t a diary so much as a few drawings in an old sketchbook. But there was certainly some incriminating material there. Luckily, Cara had only seen it once.

“No, but I memorized it.” She breezed past him. “I can recreate it.”

“Better stick to selfies, kiddo.”

Still bickering, as was their habit after two years of living mostly on the run, they made their way down to the boring Toyota they’d bought in Seattle, then ferried to Alaska. He missed the days when he could drive flashier cars.

“Can we drive past the high school?” Cara asked when they’d buckled themselves in.

“Don’t you want to see the sights? The boardwalk, the harbor, all the fishing boats? This town is one of the most scenic locations in all of Alaska, or so they say.”

Cara shrugged, ignoring the panorama unfurling out her window. Here at the tip of the boardwalk, the backdrop of snow-peaked mountains loomed like a majestic reminder that humans were short-timers here. “I just want to see the high school.”

Since he knew that the prospect of being able to attend an entire semester at one school was overwhelmingly exciting to her after so much home-schooling, he nodded. “We can swing by there. But it wouldn’t kill you to take in some scenery on the way.”

They’d reached the harbor, where storefronts and restaurants were jumbled together on either side of the boardwalk. Some were perched on stilts sunk into the mudflats, some were covered in weathered shingles, others painted bright colors—purple and green and blue.

Cara looked out the window just in time to see a young fisherman, about her age, emerge from the top of a ramp that led to the harbor. He carried a cooler on one shoulder and wore nothing but a muscle-baring sleeveless shirt under his oilskins.

“Okay, fine, I’ll look at the scenery,” she said, eyeing the kid. “I wonder if he’ll be going to my high school?”

Rune was only thirty, but in that moment he felt at least ten years older. On top of everything else, teenage hormones? Lord help him.