Wild Heat (Northern Fire) Read Free

she’d rather live with a monster than come back to it?
    Miss Elspeth reached out and patted Tack’s hand, her smile belied by the tears sparkling in her faded blue eyes. “You’re right. She is moving home. And it’s going to be all right.”
    Tack rose from the table and gave the older woman a gentle but firm hug. “Of course it will.”
    Tack had more doubts on that front than he’d had since bringing his broken heart home to Cailkirn seven years ago, but he wouldn’t voice them.
    *  *  *
    Keyed up by the idea of returning to Cailkirn for the first time in almost a decade, Caitlin walked behind Joey and his mother toward baggage claim.
    When they arrived, a huge man stepped forward, stopping the mother and son’s progress. Like a lot of Alaskan men, particularly those who lived outside of the major cities, he had facial hair. Before she could stop it, an image of the close-cropped beard and mustache Tack MacKinnon wore popped into her head. It was the perfect, perpetual five o’clock shadow and the only beard Caitlin had ever found appealing.
    It didn’t bode well that she’d been on Alaskan soil for less than an hour and she’d already started thinking about Tack. Moisture slicked her palms at the prospect of seeing the man again, nerves superseding the anticipation she shouldn’t be feeling. She’d callously jettisoned him from her life, betraying years of friendship. She doubted Tack would have the time of day for her anymore, much less be interested in renewing their acquaintance.
    There would be no healing of that particular self-inflicted wound in her heart. Considering how stomped on and shredded that organ had been over the past years, Caitlin was surprised at the level of regret that thought elicited in her.
    She’d pretty much decided her heart was beyond fixing. She’d erected a steel wall around her emotions a long time ago, and it had been tempered in the fire of pain that burned through her life. There should be no room for regret at a loss that had already happened. The last thing she needed was the vulnerability of any kind of relationship, even friendship.
    Pushing aside her own disturbed thoughts, Caitlin couldn’t help noticing the way Joey and his mother reacted to the man who was so clearly there to meet them. Joey was staring up at the man in rapt fascination, but his mother appeared as nauseated as she had on the plane, her gaze shadowed by trepidation.
    “Is this my new daddy?” Joey asked with the keen interest and innocence of a small boy.
    Shock coursed through Caitlin at the question and her brain spun with explanations of where it could come from. Daddy? They were a family of strangers, or a family in the making?
    The man had the looks of a modern-day Cossack, the mother had the accent and delicate pale features of a Southern belle, and the little boy had short nappy hair and skin the color of coffee with just a dash of cream—they embodied the diversity so much a part of her home state.
    The man stared down at the boy for several seconds of tense silence. Then he addressed the woman. “Savannah Marie?”
    “Yes.”
    “You didn’t say you had a child.”
    “You didn’t ask.”
    Caitlin recognized Savannah’s tense stance all too well. The Southern woman didn’t know how her Cossack was going to react to her words, but she wasn’t dissolving into apologetic explanations either and Caitlin couldn’t help admiring that strength.
    The tall Alaskan man turned abruptly and started walking away.
    Savannah’s shoulders slumped, the defeat in her posture too familiar for Caitlin to ignore.
    Not that she’d ever let her own sense of despondency show, but Caitlin had felt it too long and too deeply not to recognize it in another human being. She might have learned to stifle concern for herself, but Caitlin had never been able to turn it off completely in regard to others. Since marrying Nevin, she’d done her best to protect her grandmother and aunts from the sharp