Northern Renegade Read online

  Liam wasn’t convinced. “I suppose.”

  “You’ve got to open your mind to possibilities.”

  “I guess I’m getting there since I’m having this conversation with you. I’ve been so angry, all I could think about was how angry I was.”

  Bull grinned. “Tell me something I didn’t know. Your mom thought you were coming here to heal. I called bullshit on that the second I saw your face. You just came here to wallow in the shit you found yourself in.”

  Liam winced. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Nothing to feel guilty about. But I’m glad to see you’re ready to quit wallowing and get on with life. The survivalist camp is a good idea. With your reputation, I think you could be booking out a training camp and having people on a waiting list.”

  Excitement stirred in Liam in response to Bull’s enthusiasm. Bull wasn’t a man given to hyperbole.

  Liam had been turning the logistics over in his head. “I’d need a big tract of land that would still be close enough to transport participants and supplies.”

  “If there’s one thing we’ve got up here, it’s land,” Bull said with a grin. “You might find yourself with fairly primitive conditions, but land isn’t a problem.”

  He’d done primitive. Hell, he’d sat out the enemy for days at a time without any provisions. “If it’s survivalist training, no one should expect the Hilton.”

  Bull grinned. “Have you given any thought to bringing someone in with you on the operation? You’re going to need a second-in-command.”

  “I’d need some help, but I haven’t gotten that far. I just wanted to toss it around with you first.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Dirk.”

  Instinctively Liam rubbed his hand over his jaw. “What about him?” Surely, Bull wasn’t thinking...

  “You should bring him in with you on this.”

  “Dirk’s a loose cannon. He knocked the hell out of me.”

  “Yeah and then he helped you up and you guys were okay. I know Dirk’s always been a rolling stone but that’s because he’s got all the qualities of a second-in-command. He’s just been looking for a commander and a spot he fits in.”

  Right off the top of his head, he wasn’t seeing it, nonetheless he respected Bull and his opinions. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Just turn it over in your head a bit. Now, what about Tansy?”

  “Wellington as part of my crew?” Damn, if Bull wasn’t stretching the bounds of rationality there.

  Bull chuckled. “No, Tansy just as Tansy.”

  “She’s an interesting woman.”

  Bull stood and clapped him on the back. “You may be surprised at all the doors you find opening.”

  * * *

  TANSY LEVERED HERSELF up off the couch. She was tired of her own head and her own company. She’d done nothing but think, think and think some more. Jenna had kept her updated on what Bradley had spent his day doing—warming a seat at Gus’s, shooting a few games of pool and nursing beers. He’d called and texted. She wasn’t being a bitch, but she needed some time away from him to think, which was ironic considering she’d had a couple of months away from him. But this was different thinking. He was just a few minutes away. And he wanted her to go back with him. And she wanted to think about something else. She wanted a distraction.

  Night had settled around the cabin and over the lake. An owl hooted in the distance. Farther away still, a wolf howled. Within a few minutes another wolf answered. The scent of woodsmoke drifted in on the night air. She wandered outside and around the back of the cabin.

  Liam sat near a fire pit where wood snapped and popped, casting an orange glow. A mat on the ground held various pieces of what looked like a rifle. He glanced over as she approached.

  “Hi,” she said. “Are you up for some company or are you enjoying your solitude?”

  “Company is fine. Have a seat.”

  Tansy settled on a log to his right. It wasn’t exactly cold, but the autumn nights had grown chilly and Tansy welcomed the fire’s warmth. She hugged her arms to her knees and watched as he deftly cleaned the part in his hand. He had nice hands. Strong, capable. Sexy. Her body hummed, remembering the feel of them against her, gripping her thighs, testing the weight of her breasts.

  “You have enough light to do that?” she said.

  “I could do this in the dark blindfolded.”

  “Ah.” She shifted. “I’m sorry about...well, yesterday at Gus’s.”

  “You don’t owe me an apology because you didn’t do anything.”

  She had been angry at finding them discussing her but in retrospect, she realized Liam had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bradley had been the one who made her business public. Given his privacy issues, Liam had probably found it as embarrassing as she had, perhaps more so. “Bradley was—”

  “You’re not responsible for him. You didn’t do anything so you don’t owe me an apology.”

  “Okay. Nice fire. Reminds me of when I was a Girl Scout. You don’t have any s’mores fixings, do you?”

  His teeth flashed in the firelight. “Fresh out. So, you were a Girl Scout?”

  “Of course.”

  “I bet you sold a lot of cookies.”

  “My fair share. Were you a Boy Scout?” She wasn’t seeing it.

  “Nope. That just wasn’t my thing.”

  “I didn’t think so, but I thought I’d ask anyway.”

  “We were too busy playing in the woods, hunting and fishing.”

  They exchanged tales of childhood misdemeanors, silly stories that made each other laugh. It was quiet and relaxed. There was something comfortable about his voice, the warmth of the fire and the night’s darkness. They talked about a little bit of everything and a lot of nothing but it was nice.

  “Do you want to go inside?” he said.

  “No. I just wanted to share the campfire and some conversation.”

  “I understand.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to be presumptuous, but don’t make any decisions based on me, Tansy. I’m trying to figure out my life. I don’t have anything for anyone right now.”

  “I’m not.” And she wasn’t. “This is between me and Bradley, which is why I don’t want to cloud the water with anything else.” For all of his gruffness, abruptness and lack of adherence to social dictates, he really was a very nice man. “Can I ask you a very personal question, and it’s really none of my business, so feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

  “Ask and I reserve the right to not answer.”

  “Were you faithful to your wife?” The question hung in the night air and she found herself holding her breath as to whether he’d answer.

  He did. “Yes. There was never another woman. There was my career and long separations, but there was no one else. I’m a man of my word.”

  She was somewhat surprised he’d answered. However, his answer itself didn’t surprise her. It simply confirmed what she’d thought of him and his character. “That’s what I thought. Thanks for answering.”

  “You’ll figure it out, Wellington. I have great faith in you.”

  There was nothing left to figure out. She had all the answers she needed.

  * * *

  MALLORY CLICKED HER TAPE recorder to the Off position on the kitchen table. “Thank you.”

  Liam had left it down to the wire but he’d finally contacted her and granted an interview. She’d extended her stay. She’d known that day that she’d left his cabin that he’d come around, if for no other reason than to make sure she got her facts straight. But there was so much more to it than that. He had to have finally tuned in to this cosmic connection between the two of them. Her inner self was so tuned in to him, he had to be equally tuned in to her.

  They’d arranged for her to come out to his cabin. He’d said it was simply for the sake of the interview not being interrupted. The only other real choice had been her room at
the bed-and-breakfast and that didn’t really work. There were a few tables that overlooked the main street in the front of the airstrip office, but that place had a steady flow of people coming and going so that had been out. Mallory, however, was certain he’d simply wanted the time alone with her, to get to know her better.

  And now the business portion was finished—he was the kind of man who’d always take care of business before pleasure. They’d spent a couple of hours on the interview.

  She’d dressed carefully, wanting to look professional but also wanting to strike a feminine, alluring note. She packed away her notes and the recorder. She’d been in love with him from before she ever met him face-to-face here. Her friend Yvonne had dared to tell Mallory she was obsessed. Mallory, however, had known she’d found her soul mate. She and Yvonne were no longer friends. Just as she’d known he’d be, Liam, in person, was even more potent than on the video she’d seen, and the dry facts in his personnel file and other records hadn’t done him justice, either.

  “Can I buy you dinner?” she said as she stood to leave.

  A perplexed frown furrowed his brow. “I thought you got all the information you needed.”

  Ah, he wanted to play a game with her, because him not being attracted to her simply wasn’t an option. One of her girlfriends had told her once that she was pretty without being so gorgeous that she scared men off. It seemed to be true enough because sitting at home on a weekend night wasn’t an issue. However, most men bored her. As a military historian, she dealt with men who were larger than life. Heroes. Most ordinary men simply couldn’t measure up. Her last love interest had been a retired lieutenant colonel in his fifties. There was something about that combination of authority and power that did it for her. Liam Reinhardt was a man of incredible skill, valor, and he was damn hot to boot. Her man.

  She was used to going for what she wanted. If you didn’t ask, if you didn’t throw the line out there, you didn’t get. She cast her line. And this wasn’t simply want—this was destiny. “This isn’t business. You’re very attractive, and one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever met.”

  He paused and she found herself holding her breath. “I’m flattered—” that foreshadowed a big old but “—and you’re very pretty, but I’m going to pass. It’s been a long day and I just want to kick back.”

  What? She couldn’t just give up on them, on the future she knew they were meant to have together.

  “I totally understand kicking back. I’d be glad to bring over takeout or I make a mean spaghetti sauce.”

  She saw it in his eyes before he even opened his mouth. “Thanks, but no.”

  No. No? It was that Wellington bitch next door. She’d clouded Liam’s thinking, his perception. Mallory was for him. She recognized what a hero he was. She loved him, dammit. She was what he needed, not Tansy Wellington.

  Mallory wanted to cry and kick and scream. Instead, she nodded. “I’ll be in touch then if I find I missed anything.”

  And that was that...for now.

  * * *

  TANSY WALKED INTO THE airstrip office. Alberta had a tarot-card reading going over in the corner with a tourist. Dwight, Lord Byron and Jefferson were all huddled around the chessboard. Merilee and Dalton Saunders, the other bush pilot, were going over a schedule.

  Merilee looked across the room to Tansy. “He’s out of here in two hours.”

  “I know.”

  Merilee nodded. “Room three. All the way at the other end of the hall, next to the bathroom.”

  Tansy mounted the stairs. She’d slept on it, waited until the last minute, had searched her heart one last time before she drove over here. She walked down the hall, her shoes echoing on the wood floor. She knocked. Bradley opened the door. “Come on in.”

  He looked terrible. There was a time, when she was so angry at his betrayal, she would’ve been near gleeful. Now she simply felt sad.

  “Dammit, Tansy,” he said, tears gathering in his eyes.

  She didn’t even have to say it. He saw it in her eyes, on her face. “It’s just no use, Bradley. I care about you, but I just can’t... It’s not going to work.”

  “So does that mean you never loved me? Because if you loved me, you could forgive me. Is this just your way of punishing me?”

  She shook her head. “This has nothing to do with punishing you. It told me something about the man you are and something about the woman I am and you’re right, it did change me. I can’t regret it because I grew from it. It was definitely growing pains, but growth nonetheless. So, we’re not the same people we were and the people we’ve become don’t belong together. It’s time for both of us to move on.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thank you for coming, Bradley. You set me free. I was stuck and you’ve unstuck me.”

  Tansy could see it in his eyes. He didn’t get it, not even a little bit, which was even further proof that the two of them didn’t belong together, not that she doubted it.

  He grabbed her wrist, but not too tightly. “It’s that Marine, isn’t it?”

  “No. How I feel about you has nothing to do with Liam.”

  “If I had gotten here a week before him—”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference. This is about you and me, not me and him. It wasn’t an either-or situation. And you and me aren’t going to work.”

  That particular lightbulb still wasn’t going off for him, but it really didn’t matter. She’d said what she had to say and it was time for them to permanently part ways.

  “Travel safe, Bradley. I wish you well.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  She simply shook her head as she closed the door behind her. Now she had one more piece of business to set in order.

  She went downstairs and cut through the connecting door to Gus’s. She really, really wasn’t into making her life a public spectacle but within no time everyone would know Bradley had left without her and she wanted to make one point clear.

  She made her way to where Rooster was sitting. As far as she could tell, Rooster’s main income stream was operating as the local bookie. Rooster took bets on anything and everything and people placed bets on anything and everything. Some places had dog-track racing, some places had horse racing, Good Riddance just had the ins and outs of life that they bet on.

  Norris, a retired newspaper reporter, and her boyfriend, a short man whose name Tansy never could remember, were sitting at the table with Rooster. Good, they could vouch for the information. “Hello—” she didn’t see any point in beating around the bush “—I know there are bets placed and soon enough it’ll go around that Bradley is leaving alone. I need to clarify that just because I didn’t choose Bradley, I haven’t chosen Liam, either.”

  “Let me get this straight ’cause it makes a difference in how the bets are paid out. You didn’t choose Bradley and you didn’t choose Liam. You didn’t choose either one of them. Got it.” He looked beyond Tansy’s shoulder. “You got it?”

  Tansy knew before she turned, before she heard the voice.

  “Got it,” Liam said.

  Well, that was one way for him to find out.

  13

  LIAM FINISHED UP HIS NOTES and supply list with a renewed sense of purpose. He didn’t still feel so angry that he couldn’t think anymore. Talking to Mallory Kincaid had ultimately been a good thing, even though he’d been getting a kind of weird vibe from her, especially after the interview. The interview, however, had been a good thing.

  He’d gained a perspective on his time in the military. It was the past, just like his marriage was the past. He’d always been so sure that a career in the military was his destiny, was where he belonged. And if he went with Bull’s philosophy, that clearly was the case. So, he could go around being angry at the world and the unfairness of life or he could regroup. Nope. Life wasn’t particularly fair. There wasn’t a damned thing fair about life as far as he could tell. He’d seen too much of it to be that naive—there wa
s no equity in the way some of the villagers lived in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was no equity in the way some Americans lived. What had been fair about Bull being a POW for two years? What had been fair in guys losing body parts to roadside bombs and living as half men? Nope. He could safely say fair wasn’t part of life.

  He could also safely say that he didn’t have any control over having been kicked out—okay, discharged on a medical—but the thing he could control was what he did from this point out. He could sit around in his own crap, stinking up himself and the world, or he could get up, clean up and move forward.

  That interview with Kincaid felt like moving forward. Making plans for his future, finding a purpose, felt like moving forward. He’d talked to Bull and was moving forward on exploring setting up a camp. He’d spent some time looking over topographical maps and he’d scheduled a reconnaissance flyover for tomorrow.

  He picked up the two-way handset and “rang” Tansy next door.

  “Wellington, how’s your schedule looking day after tomorrow? Want to take a trip?”

  “What kind of trip and for how long?”

  “Just a couple of days. We’d be gone two nights and it’d be camping with no facilities. Just thought I’d ask, but no problem if it’s not your thing.”

  “Keep talking. You’ve got my interest.”

  “I’m going to go look at a piece of property for that survivalist camp you mentioned. Either Dalton or Juliette will fly me in. I’ll take a couple of days to hike around and get a feel for the terrain and then they’ll pick me up a couple of days later.”

  “I see. So, like no running water, no toilets, no beds.”

  “A stream runs through the property. I’ll pack a latrine shovel. And there will be a tent and sleeping bags with bedrolls under them. Gourmet freeze-dried rations. Deluxe accommodations.”

  “What about snakes and bears and other wildlife?”

  “All possible. Fairly probable, in fact.”