Page 22 of Fire Peak

His amazing news brought tears to her eyes and made the glorious vista of blueberry bushes and alder groves blur into an Impressionist painting. Was this actually Heaven? Had she crashed Molly’s car on that drive into town and was now, in fact, dead?

She made a sound that was half sob, half cry, and that brought her back to reality.

“I’m going to come pick you up.”

“No, bunny, you’re going to stay where you are. They’re taking me straight to a hospital in an ambulance. You can pick me up from the hospital when they release me, how about that?”

“But I should be with you. I can’t believe it! You’re getting out! Is this really real?”

“My lawyer says it is. She was practically crying at the news. You ever seen a lawyer cry?”

“I’m going to fly down as soon as you say it’s okay.”

“Or maybe I’ll fly to Alaska.”

The idea of her father being surrounded by stunning natural beauty after his long years behind bars brought more tears to her eyes. “That would be amazing. I’ll get you the best suite in the lodge, the one with the view all the way to Ice Falls. Can you call me from the hospital?”

“Will do!” He signed off with his usual, “Chin up, bunny!” and was gone.

Charlie slumped back in her chair. She felt as if she’d just crossed the finish line of a marathon. Her entire life had been shadowed by the fact that her beloved father was in prison. Incredible that after all her scheming and planning, he was just…getting out.

Not because of anything she’d done, even though she’d tried so damn hard. But because he was sick. Because sometimes the system gave you a break.

Her natural wariness surfaced. Was it suspicious that he was getting released even though Gomez had said the prison was on alert?

Stop being paranoid. This is a good thing. Compassionate release was legit, and her dad had already done so much time in prison, he certainly deserved it.

Charlie looked up as April hurried into the office. The owner of the lodge was a slender sixty-six-year-old dynamo who alternated between dashing around the lodge fixing plumbing leaks and meditating in her specially built gazebo. Even though she wore standard Alaska gear—Carhartts, paint-speckled shirt, work boots—she added her own stylish touches. Today she wore earrings made of iridescent blue feathers.

Charlie found April fascinating. Apparently she’d come to Firelight Ridge at the age of eighteen on a gap year between high school and college. April was a genius, in Charlie’s opinion. She’d used her inheritance to build the lodge, against the advice of every financial advisor her family sent to talk her out of it. She’d secured the parcel of land just before the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was established, and immediately gotten to work getting permits and digging a well and hiring construction crews. Most of the materials had been brought in by helicopter. Charlie had seen the photos; it was an incredible operation. Only a visionary could have seen it through.

Now it was worth millions of dollars.

If April had experienced some tragic heartbreak, as Lila had mentioned, she never spoke about it. Not even to Charlie, who had quickly become her right-hand woman.

“Charlie Santa Lucia, you are a goddess.”

“Excuse me?”

“A fucking goddess.”

Also, April swore a lot. She claimed that the only way to make the old-timers respect her was if she cursed and drank as much as they did. She called it “frontier feminism.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Your new inventory software just saved us fifty thousand bucks. And your new reservations system reduced our double-bookings to zero, which means we no longer have to comp any of those rich-bitch Karens, I mean guests.”

Charlie grinned. April’s love-hate relationship with the lodge’s clientele always amused her. “Then you could comp me. I might need one of those extra-fancy suites later in the summer. My father might come.”

Just saying those words out loud seemed surreal.

“Only full-time staff members get their suites comped. And I mean next year, the year after that, you get the idea.”

“I’m not a long-term commitment type.”

“Oh, save that shit for your relationships. We pay well, it’s basically a summer job, you have to admit you love it here. You should think about it.”

Charlie stretched her arms overhead and breathed in a lungful of sweetly scented air wafting through the window. She did love it here. It often felt like her first chance to stop and breathe in years.

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