Page 25 of Bearing North
“We’re meeting their dad at the Five Mile Campground,” the harried mother explained. “Honey, don’t let Charles eat the lug nuts!”
Alex and Orson jostled good-naturedly over who would change the tire, and ended up doing it together, Alex working the jack and the wrench while Orson wrestled the tires and tried not to look like it was too easy.
“Can I…pay you something?” the mother asked gratefully once she’d gotten her kids loaded back up.
“Of course not,” Alex said. “We have to take care of each other out here!”
“Bye, kids!” Orson called.
“Bye, Mr. Grizzly!”
Orson gave Alex an alarmed look as we walked back to the truck. “How’d he know?” he whispered. The kid hadn’t felt like a shifter to his instinct.
“It’s the giant logo on the truck,” Alex whispered back. “That’s real slick, you know. Great way to keep your secret.”
Orson gave a shout of laughter. “Want me to drive for a while?”
“Nah.” Alex seemed mostly recovered by now, and she accepted some of the snacks he plied her with.
Orson recognized the Yukon Bridge from the security footage. “I see now why I looked like an idiot suggesting human response to threats here,” he said as they stopped to scope it out.
Alex pointed out the cameras, and Orson waved enthusiastically for them before she shushed him. “They’ll send drones out if we’re here too long, or if they perceive threatening behavior,” she reminded him.
“I’m waving. How threatening is that?”
“Let’s go, you ham.” He thought she said it fondly. “The visitor’s center on the far side has the best view and the last flush toilets for a long, long ways.”
They stopped at most of the scenic pullouts, and Orson marveled at the scope and beauty of Alaska. Every time that he thought it couldn’t get grander, it managed to. The sky clouded over, and the stops were brief, because the moment the truck door opened, the mosquitoes descended, thirsty and annoying.
Every time they got going again, they had to kill a dozen of them. Their corpses smeared the truck windows.
Orson insisted on a selfie at the Arctic Circle, which wasn’t a circle at all, just pullout and an informational sign. Alex smiled for the picture. While she was distracted, Orson kissed her, snapping another photo, and for a moment, he feared he’d disrupted the easy warmth they’d enjoyed during the ride this far. She frowned, then smiled slowly again and invited a real kiss.
It was easy to forget everything else, standing at the monument in a breeze stiff enough to keep the bugs off. Alex was in his arms, exactly where she belonged, and he might have stayed there much longer and risked exposing more skin if a pair of tourists in a very dirty Jeep had not pulled in just then.
“We’ve got a long journey left to go,” Alex reminded him, but she didn’t pull away when he caught her by the hand to walk back to the truck.
22
ALEX
Alex wasn’t sure whether she should bless Sandra or curse her when they got to Coldfoot and found a reservation for only one room.
Orson stared at the compound in wonder as they drove in.
Coldfoot didn’t deserve the title of “town.” It was just a series of box-like housing units strung together in an overgrown gravel pit. Their room was in one of these, so tiny and industrial that Alex could see Mr. Billionaire’s toes curling. It made the cabin in Tok look amazingly spacious and modern. The bathroom was like an airplane closet, and the paneling was original from the 70s, unbroken by any attempt at art or decor.
It did, somehow, have two beds, twins on opposite sides of the room wrapped in crisp white bedding. An experimental nudge suggested they were bolted down to the floor.
“Only one room,” Orson said, filling up the room himself as they put their luggage down at the foot of each bed.
“Two beds,” Alex pointed out.
“One for sleeping, one for love-making…?” Orson’s eyes were full of hope and mischief.
Alex wasn’t sure that Orson alone would fit in either of the beds, but she’d been thinking about getting him naked again since her headache had finally lifted, halfway between the Yukon River Bridge and the Arctic Circle.
“Let’s test that out,” she suggested. She was in for a penny, in for a pound…and in this case, all in for that promised pounding.
