Page 20 of Bearing North
Alex led Orson to a park overlooking a big river with a view across the water to a historic church. She pointed out landmarks with her fries.
They scored a bench just as a couple got up and sat close together to finish their food.
“Alex…”
“I can’t commit to kids,” she said, staring at the last fries in her box. “I’m not promising that kind of forever.”
Had she been thinking about that conversation like he had? The idea of babies had never enthralled Orson, but he couldn’t help but think they’d make good ones, and he couldn’t imagine anything moreimportantthan raising good kids.
“I figured out how to make it work,” Orson said, folding the last bite of his burger into his mouth.
Alex fixed him with a sideways look like one of the ravens from Valdez. “Kids? I’m pretty sure I know how babies are made. That’s not the problem.”
Orson almost choked on his burger as he laughed. “Marry me! Then you’ll own half the business and there’s no weird power dynamic.”
They were sitting so close together that Orson could feel Alex freeze up. “It’s not that simple,” she said quietly.
“Why not?” he asked. “I love you. You’re my destiny!”
The bench was back-to-back with a cluster of older women who had fallen quiet to eavesdrop, and they all applauded, startling both of them.
Alex surged to her feet. “I don’t love you!” she protested, and the clapping died to a spreading awkward silence. “I barely know you! You’re— I can’t— How could you?—?”
Orson was glad she’d finished her fries, because he was pretty sure she would have dumped them on him now if there had been any left. She seemed to gather herself. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Orson Davison. How dare you make assumptions about my destiny for me? Fuck you and your incredible ego for thinking you can make a proper woman of me with a wedding ring and a fiction about fate. Get over yourself, you…you…pompous ass.”
Then she stormed off, disappearing quickly into the crowd.
Orson sat for a stunned moment, staring after her before a hand patted his shoulder. “You’d better go after her, son.”
The only problem was that he had no idea where she’d gone.
16
ALEX
Alex lost herself in the crowd at once, and wandered the streets of downtown Fairbanks until she ran out of festival abruptly by the parking garage in a quiet pocket without people.
Babies.
Marriage.
He was abear.
Alex wasn’t sure which part was most unbelievable.
She’d been sostupidto sleep with him.
She had too much common sense for that kind of slip-up, no matter how handsome and funny he was.
She’d made mistakes before, plenty of them, and she knew how to file regrets and move on with her life. The problem was, she didn’t regret a single moment of it. She wasactually consideringbabies and marriage, not just dismissing the idea as hormonal nonsense.
She wasn’t sure she was cut out for motherhoodormatrimony, but it didn’t horrify her like she thought it ought to.
And perversely, the fact that she wasn’t afraid terrified her the most.
Alex realized that Orson was probably lost in Fairbanks with no idea which hotel they were staying at; the parking lot with the truck was located between several of them. He would be smart enough to meet her back there—and she’d have to return for her luggage eventually.
Alex found a trashcan to dump the empty platter from her fries and wandered back through the crowd to the truck.
