Northern Fires. JENNIFER LABRECQUE

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Susan Grigsby-Floyd and Lucius Williams, IV.

      Thank you.

       1

      “HEY, HOTTIE, wait up, I’ve been looking for you.”

      Sven Sorenson, heading down the only real street in Good Riddance, Alaska, stopped.

      He’d recognize that voice anywhere. Grinning, he turned. “How’s my favorite girl?”

      Alberta Reynolds, her bright red hair sticking out sporadically from a yellow-and-purple scarf rather like a hedgehog, returned his grin, minus a few teeth here and there. Her bottom lip bulged with the dip of smokeless tobacco she kept tucked there.

      Alberta was something of a living legend in these parts. She claimed descent from European Gypsy stock, psychic powers and unparalleled matchmaking abilities. Sven had always been a skeptic when it came to that psychic stuff and he figured people either clicked or they didn’t, but Alberta had a reputation for putting together lasting hookups. Well, except for when it came to herself. Already married five times, rumor had it Alberta was on the lookout for Husband Number Six.

      She’d shown up yesterday, her beat-up Datsun pickup—the hood held on with baling wire—pulling a one-room travel trailer that appeared damn near as old as Alberta herself, and that was pretty old. A couple of years ago she’d adopted a three-legged cat she’d named Lord Byron.

      Sven and Alberta had crossed paths numerous times in the past ten years in the small towns scattered across Alaska’s vast wilderness. Sven in his capacity as a professional builder, Alberta in her capacity as a Gypsy queen. She was a hoot for sure and had a good heart.

      “I heard you were here,” she said.

      He gave her a quick hug. “Are you following me again?” he said with a smile as he released her.

      It was a running joke between them. Sven was almost as much of a rolling stone as Alberta. He’d followed work all over the state for years, preferring the smaller towns to Anchorage’s sprawl.

      “You know it. Heard you’ve been here nearly ten months. That’s some kind of record for you.”

      He shrugged. “I was lucky enough to win the contract to build the new day spa, then it burned. I had remodel work in the winter and then rebuilding the spa, and Skye and Dalton’s place. Now I’m knee-deep in a new build and a remodel project. I like it here, so it’s all good.”

      For the first time he’d had an odd reluctance to leave a place. Well, actually, this place. He’d done a couple of jobs over the years in Good Riddance. Packing up and changing locations had never been a problem before. And it wasn’t that it was a exactly a problem now, he’d just been glad to stay put for a while.

      He pushed aside the thought and picked back up on the banter. “You’ve got to quit chasing me this way, Alberta. People are going to talk.”

      “Always.” She winked at him. “I know a good catch when I see one.”

      Which was questionable considering her five matrimonial forays. Sven supposed the flip side of that was five times she’d snagged what had seemed a good catch at the time.

      Sven nodded in the direction of her travel trailer. “I was going to stop by yesterday, but your truck was gone. I waved at Lord Byron though.” The big orange-and-yellow tomcat had been sitting in the window, basking in the sun.

      She nodded. “I had a house call to make.”

      Alberta’s matchmaking service involved house calls, where she’d actually show up at the cabins of some of the more remote bachelors in these parts.

      “Who are you hooking up this time?”

      “Dwight Simmons.”

      “Dwight?” Not much surprised Sven, but that caught his attention.

      Dwight was eighty if he was a day. For years he and Jeb Taylor had been near-permanent fixtures in the Good Riddance airstrip office where they argued and played a slow-moving game of chess. Jeb had died last summer and now Dwight mostly sat there lost.

      “You’re never too old for love … and he’s lonely.” She slanted him an arch glance from beneath her painted-on eyebrows. “I’d say you’re ready for love, too. I think you’re lonely, Sven.”

      She was smiling, but there was a glint in her eyes, a knowing, as if she really could see somewhere deep inside him. It was a little freaky. Damn. Goose bumps popped up on him that had nothing to do with the weather. Actually it was a lot freaky.

      In all their years of crossing paths, Alberta had never tried her hocus-pocus on Sven. And now she was as wrong as the day was long in July.

      “Do I look lonely?”

      A beat-to-hell-and-back Suburban drove by. Petey, the prospector who doubled as the resident taxi service, honked and waved. Alberta and Sven waved back.

      Alberta focused on Sven, eyeing him consideringly. Despite his prickle of discomfort at her eye-balling him, he crossed his arms over his chest and laughed. Alberta