Midnight Sons Volume 3 Read Free

but his mind seemed to be elsewhere. She’d gone home discouraged, assuming he’d already made his decision and wouldn’t be giving her the job.
    When she learned she had gotten the job and told her friends, no one seemed to understand her reasons for wanting to move to a remote town north of the Arctic Circle. If she was doing it to escape her family, they told her, there were any number of places that would’ve been more suitable.
    Her friends’ doubts were nothing compared to her family’s reaction. When she’d informed her parents that she planned to move to Hard Luck, they’d feared the worst.
    She couldn’t make them understand that Alaska appealed to her sense of adventure, her need to experience a different life. She’d suspected she would grow to love this land, and she’d been right.
    Her friends had teased her unmercifully. She still grinned whenever she remembered a comment of her friend Rochelle’s: “I hear your odds of finding a man in Alaska are good—but the goods are odd.”
    Mariah hadn’t come here looking for a husband. No one seemed to believe that. She’d come because she wanted a life of her own, a life away from her family. She wanted to make her own decisions and her own mistakes. For the first time, she didn’t have her mother or one of her aunts hovering overher constantly, ready to leap into the middle of her life and arrange everything.
    Two important occurrences had shaped her year in Hard Luck. First and foremost, she’d fallen in love. Head over heels. Hook, line and sinker. The whole nine yards.
    The problem was that the object of her affections was Christian O’Halloran and he didn’t even seem to like her. He thought she was a major klutz, and in the past year she’d done everything possible to prove him right. Not intentionally of course. The man flustered her. Whenever they were in close proximity, she said or did something stupid. She couldn’t help it. And now he seemed to think she was infatuated with Duke. The man had to be blind.
    The second occurrence had been set in motion by her family. Mariah should’ve realized they’d have a difficult time accepting her decision to move away. The ink had barely dried on her contract with Midnight Sons when her parents had hired an attorney.
    Tracy Santiago had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At first Mariah was afraid the woman would jeopardize her position with Midnight Sons, but her fears had been groundless.
    Shortly after Mariah’s arrival in Hard Luck, Tracy flew up to meet her, and while she was there she interviewed several of the other women. In the year since then, Mariah and Tracy had become good friends.
    They’d kept in touch, with letters and phone calls and the occasional brief visit. In that time, there’d been a number of unexpected events. Marriages. A death. A new enterprise—the revived Hard Luck Lodge. And soon the community would see a spurt in population growth. Abbey O’Halloranwas pregnant, as was Karen Caldwell. Both were due in midwinter.
    Tracy had enjoyed receiving Mariah’s letters, updating her on life and love in Hard Luck. Romance abounded. The two older O’Halloran brothers had fallen for women in no time flat. They were both married now. Pete Livengood, who operated the general store, had married Dotty Harlow, the health clinic nurse. Then Mitch Harris, the public safety officer, and Bethany Ross, the new schoolteacher, had fallen in love. Some women had come to Hard Luck and stayed; others had quickly moved on. Those who did stay became so integrated in the community it was sometimes difficult to remember who was new to this rugged, beautiful place and who wasn’t.
    Mariah liked writing long, detailed letters about the happenings in Hard Luck as much as Tracy liked reading them. She appreciated Tracy’s friendship and support more than ever.
    Mariah’s family had been convinced she wouldn’t last six months. But her parents had underestimated her tenacity; Tracy