Endless Night. Dana Mentink
the airport in San Francisco, she’d bought a satellite phone, though she’d almost choked at the thousand-dollar price tag. She had to be sure Asia could reach her, so she e-mailed her the phone number via her laptop just before the flight. It might be a risk if Reynolds’s people could hack into her e-mail, so she sent only the phone number and didn’t include any other details. She wished again that Asia and Asia’s boyfriend, Mick, had come along. But Asia was right—Mick needed medical attention for his injuries and it was probably smarter for them not to fly together, anyway. In the agonizing hours before the plane departed, she’d been lucky enough to find a place in the airport to charge her phone and to buy a duffel bag and some sundries. There were no messages from her friend through the Internet or on her home answering machine. Where was she? Jackie could still hear the panic in her friend’s voice.
Just get away somewhere, anywhere.
Under the pretense of studying the mountains, she shot a glance behind her at Byron Lloyd. She found him gazing at her intently.
“Where do you hail from?” he asked.
Jackie’s stomach knotted. “West Coast.”
“Whereabouts?”
She forced a smile. “Oh, you know. Here and there. How about you?”
“San Francisco area.”
Her gut twisted even further. “Well, you’ll love the Delucchi Lodge.” She realized she’d given herself away.
“Oh, you’ve been there before?”
She nodded, saved from a reply when Roman took the plane down toward the cleared strip of frozen ground. She saw Skip Delucchi waiting, his hair a little sparser than she remembered, his long face and prominent nose giving him a hound-dog look.
Skip wrapped her in a hug when she dropped down from the plane. “Jackie, it’s so good to see you. I was completely surprised when you called me from the airport. Thank goodness we had one cabin still vacant.” He shot an uneasy glance at Roman, who was pulling luggage out of the plane’s cargo hold. He lowered his voice. “Did you and Roman get a chance to catch up?”
“No. I’m not feeling chatty, I guess.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Yes, well, it doesn’t matter. June is so excited that you’re here. She hasn’t stopped baking since sunup.”
Skip introduced himself to Lloyd, who Jackie noticed had been taking in their conversation with interest. He helped them into a battered Range Rover and, with a final word to Roman, headed toward the distant lights of the lodge. Jackie glanced quickly into the side mirror. Roman stood tall and straight against an unforgiving glare of white. In the distance, above the snow-crusted bluff, she thought she could just make out the roofline of the still unfinished cabin, the place where everything had ended in the blink of an eye.
In spite of the circumstances, the sight of the Delucchi Lodge stirred a warm nostalgia in her. She savored the profile of the rugged mountains that backed the property and the thick stand of snow-topped pines that stood sentry around the main cabin. Smaller cabins were sprinkled along the property. A massive set of antlers festooned the doorway, and Jackie was greeted by the smell of roasting meat and apple pie.
June appeared in the tiled hallway, wiping her hands on a worn apron. Her dishwater-blond hair hung in a careless chop at her shoulders, her blue eyes accented by deep crow’s feet that Jackie had not noticed two years before.
“You look wonderful. I’m so glad you’re here.” She wrapped Jackie in a cinnamon-scented embrace. “Fallon will be glad too. I wonder where she is, anyway.”
Jackie was not so sure about Fallon’s reception. Fallon had only wanted to be around Jackie because of her brother. The girl had adored Danny with the deep passion of a love-struck teenager.
They exchanged more pleasantries until Skip offered to show Jackie and Byron to their cabins. “Be dark in a couple hours. Best get you settled in.” He turned to Jackie. “You’re staying in Riverrun. I thought you’d like that.”
Jackie nodded. “That’s perfect. I’ll go myself. You take care of Mr. Lloyd.” Jackie thanked him and watched the two march off into the snow. She was dismayed to discover when they stopped that Lloyd would have the cabin closest to hers. Just relax, Jackie. He’s a nosy reporter, that’s all.
She was about to head out herself when June stopped her. “Jackie, what were you thinking, coming here with that flimsy jacket? Did you forget we’re north of the Arctic Circle?” She fetched a heavy coat from the closet and helped her into it.
Making her way to her cabin, Jackie wondered if her abrupt arrival had inconvenienced Skip and June. Perhaps she should turn around and leave. But it was not the time to make such decisions so late in the day, not in Alaska, not this time of year when there was only a scant four hours of sunlight each day. She resolved to at least help June in the kitchen and ease any burdens she might have caused by showing up on short notice.
As she turned around to pick up her duffel, she saw Lloyd looking out his small cabin window, his dark eyes fixed on her. The curtain quickly fell into place as he stepped back out of sight.
With a surge of fear, she closed her cabin door.
Roman flew the plane past trees thoroughly crusted with ice, against the backdrop of rigid mountains. He was relieved to take off, glad to be alone with his thoughts.
The shock of seeing Jackie still tingled in every nerve. She looked different than the last time he’d seen her, the grief not as fresh in her face. An anger had taken its place and rooted itself deeply in her eyes.
The guilt swirled up like wind-whipped snow. Jackie still despised him, and he despised himself for what had happened those two years ago.
He tried to concentrate on the feeling of the plane as it banked smoothly. He had to remind himself that the beautiful de Havilland did not belong to him and never would, unless business picked up. He’d been saving every dime he made, but he was still fifty thousand dollars short. Fifty thousand roadblocks separated him and his dream, the only dream he had left.
He was admiring the spectacular dazzle of snow on the gray mountains, highlighted by the sun on its way to setting, when the radio crackled.
“Roman, June needs your help. Fallon’s gone. June’s half-frantic,” Wayne said.
Roman sighed. “Where’d she head this time?”
“Her mom isn’t sure. Went out to do some cross-country skiing.”
“By herself?” Roman checked his watch. Almost one-thirty. The sun would set in a little under an hour.
“She told her mom she was meeting friends, but all of them are home safe and sound where they belong. Skip is out right now on the snowmobile looking for her.”
“Give me her last location and I’ll check it out.”
Wayne filled him in. “Don’t stay out too long. There’s a low pressure building over the Gulf. We’re gonna get some snow.”
With a sense of rising urgency, he banked and turned the plane. It wasn’t a game this far north. If you got lost in the great white expanse you might survive, in the daytime. If you got lost in the dark, when temperatures plunged deep into the minus range, that was a whole other can of worms. Wayne had taught him early on to carry a survival kit. No exceptions. Picturing the stubborn, careless sixteen-year-old Fallon, he knew she hadn’t taken any such precautions.
Fallon was hard to like, harder to trust, and he should be mad about having to go bail her out. Instead he only felt the same lancing pain when he thought of the younger Fallon, barely a teen with a puppy-love crush on Danny, who loved her as if she were his own sister. He blinked away the image of Jackie that rose again in his thoughts, the strange mixture of pleasure and pain that her presence awakened in him. What was she doing at this very moment? Asleep in her cabin? Knowing her, she was probably out helping to