Page 29 of Wind Valley

The moose bent at the knees, as if performing an awkward bow, then twirled around and galloped at top speed right toward them.

Lachlan jerked the truck into reverse and slammed his foot on the accelerator. Looking back and forth from the moose to the rearview mirror, he zoomed backwards down the road. The dark trees flipped past, and he heard Maura’s sharp squeak of terror, but he couldn’t reassure her yet, he had to keep a laser focus on his steering.

Then the moose stopped dead, shook itself, and trotted off the road into the forest.

Lachlan brought the truck to a stop and shifted into park. Quiet settled around them, disturbed by the blood pounding in his ears and Maura’s “holy shit,” murmured under her breath. She slumped against the back of her seat, a hand to her heart.

“Are you okay?” He reached over and touched her knee, meaning it as a reassuring gesture. She caught his hand and held it tight.

“Yes.” She whooshed out a breath. “I think your inner race car driver just came out.”

“If they ever hold a reverse Indy 500, I’m in.”

She managed a shaky laugh as he shifted back into gear, turned on the headlights and drove cautiously down the road.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” she kept repeating. “Do you know how glad I am I wasn’t alone, and that I wasn’t the one driving. Where I come from, moose don’t just wander across the road, let alone charge right toward you.”

“It doesn’t happen a lot here, either.” To his knowledge, it had happened exactly twice, to Solomon’s friends and to them. Twice within the space of a week, in the dead of winter, when moose, like every living being in the wilderness, would normally just be trying to survive.

16

Even though Lachlan offered to release her from her meatball offer, Maura was so grateful for his coolheaded response to nearly getting trampled by a moose that she insisted on following through.

Truth to tell, she didn’t want to be alone.

No, she didn’t want to be separated from him.

An unusual feeling, to say the least, especially recently. But she was too shaken up to question it. The sight of that enormous mass of hairy flesh and hooves galloping toward them, head lowered, aimed at them like a weapon, was going to haunt her nightmares.

And Lachlan…how on earth had he kept his cool like that?

She kept shooting him little glances as she chopped onions and parsley, which Pinky grew in a little clay pot in a southern-facing window. Lachlan seemed unbothered as he played with Pinky’s cats, allowing them to snuggle into his lap and bat at the zipper pull on his sweater.

She filled a pot with water and set it on a burner. The stove had come from an RV and only three of the burners still worked. The oven door liked to drop open at random moments, so he used a broken chopstick to wedge it closed.

In fact, she couldn’t name one thing in Pinky’s kitchen that wasn’t jury-rigged somehow. The refrigerator was held shut with a bungee cord because the door springs were broken. The electric pump that usually brought water into the kitchen sink faucet had a blown fuse, so Pinky had set up a temporary foot pedal. The fuse was coming—Gunnar had ordered it—but apparently it was on a dog sled somewhere between Blackbear and Firelight Ridge.

Literally, a dog sled. Pinky’s closest neighbor, Lasse Ulstrom, had picked up the latest order and used it as an excuse to give his dog team a good run in preparation for the Yukon Quest.

In the meantime, every time she wanted to wash her hands or fill the tea kettle, she had to pump with her foot to keep the water flowing.

More fodder for her journal. Maybe she should publish it, she mused as she rolled the meatballs between her palms. The only problem was that people might think it was fiction. Who would believe that people chose to live this way of their own free will? And even…like it? Pinky wouldn’t have it any other way, she knew. His only regret was his lost wife, of whom he spoke wistfully, sometimes between tears.

That regret was not reciprocated. Every time she’d asked Granny to talk about her life in Alaska, she’d shuddered and muttered something about outhouses or frostbite or oddballs. The Granny she knew loved malls and Grey’s Anatomy and microwaved casseroles and hair salons and block parties and drinks on the patio with her poker buddies. It was hard to picture her in Alaska. The same went for her mother and aunt, who’d both been small when Granny had left.

Was it possible that the adventurous spirit skipped a generation? So far, Maura hadn’t found the discomforts of Pinky’s lifestyle too difficult. And so many other things made up for the inconveniences. The vast quiet. The stoic reassurance of the mountains. Moments like little gems of beauty—a squirrel knocking snow off a branch as a low-angle ray of sun transformed it into a cloud of sparkles. A grass seed head frozen into its perfect crystallized form. The vivid personalities who made their home here. The way people helped each other to survive above all—other conflicts taking a backseat to the primary one against the relentless wilderness.

“Smells delicious.” She jumped as Lachlan ambled into the kitchen. He’d been building up the fire and somehow had gotten a bit of bark in his hair. Her fingers itched to pluck it out, but she hadn’t yet washed her hands since forming the meatballs.

And she didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

“They’ll be ready soon. Glass of wine while we wait?”

“Sure. If you point me toward the corkscrew, I can open it.” There was an awkwardness between them now. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she’d held his hand in the truck? That could have been a mistake, but on the other hand, who could blame her? They’d gone High Noon with a moose.

She gestured toward the Crock-Pot container that held the wooden spoons and other utensils, including the corkscrew. He went to work on the bottle that she’d already plucked from Pinky’s wine cellar—aka the cardboard box under the counter.

“I read something else in that newsletter,” Lachlan said after filling two mugs with wine. Pinky didn’t believe in wine glasses, though she knew that was because they inevitably wound up in shards of glass on the floor. “Have you heard anything about new cell service coming to the area?”

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