Single in Sitka (An Odds-Are-Good Standalone Romance Book 1) Read online

  “Animals being, um, crowded out of their space,” I say. “That’s the concept. People love an animal piece, right? With an environmental angle? We haven’t done one in ages. Kim is doing, uh, kids and vets and music. And Stacey’s got food and drink. We need animals. An animal piece. For summer. People will love it.”

  Steve is staring at me, sawing at his chin with a stubby index finger. “Alaskan bears. Tell me more.”

  “Well, we have decided,” I begin, glancing at Leigh and hoping she’ll just play along with me, “to look into the, um, the changing behavior of the Sitka bears. Why? What’s, um…what’s going on up there in—in, uh, Sitka?”

  “An environmental angle, huh? Animals and the environment. That’s usually a win for our readers. We are Seattle, for God’s sake.” Steve is nodding slowly but suddenly exhales loudly. “I’m not against it…but I’ll be honest, it sounds a little dry. I’m not sure there’s enough there to—”

  “Sorry, sir,” interrupts Frumplestein, a perennial ass kisser and already on the ropes for the sponsorship fuck-up. “These ladies didn’t give me a chance to sign off on the pitch this morning. Bears. Eh. I think it needs a massage. Or maybe I can get Kim to jump on board, and we’ll just, um…”

  I kick Leigh under the table and give her side eyes and a crazy smile. A little help, please?

  “There’s more!” chirps Leigh. “We have an uplifting, heartwarming idea you’re going to love, sir!”

  “I like heartwarming,” says Steve, shifting his glance away from Norm. “People like this heartwarming animal stuff. It’s all over my damn Facebook feed. What’s the idea?”

  “Well,” she begins, “um, Manda is planning to go up to Sitka and…that is, we thought it might be awesome if…”

  What’s awesome? What awesome thing are we about to do?

  Suddenly, a brilliant smile—warm, deep, and genuine with more than a dollop of mischief—replaces the fake one. And oh, shit. I know that look. It’s the look she gets as a very bad idea formulates in her head.

  “Manda is going up to Sitka to do some firsthand reporting. And then we were hoping to—”

  No, we’re not. I don’t know what you’re about to say, but don’t you say it. Don’t you dare say it!

  “—organize a fundraiser here in Seattle for late June. Manda will go up to Sitka to assess the, uh, the bear problem, and then we’ll have, you know, an event. Here. And all the proceeds will go to, um, the bears. But the Sentinel will be the lead sponsor of—of the big event.”

  I stare at her, my neck pivoting back and forth like a mechanical doll.

  And Leigh, my sweet, demented bestie, is grinning at me like a cat who got the whole bottle of cream as she nods yes in perfect time with my no.

  “Animals. Environment. Fundraiser.” Leigh pauses for effect, then booms, “‘Seattle Sentinel Saves the Bears!’”

  “‘Seattle Sentinel Saves the Bears!’ A fundraiser, huh? So,” says Steve, tenting his fingers under his nose as he looks at me, “you’re going to go up there and check out the situation, huh? Then come back here and get Seattle on board with fixing the problem? Hmm. Yes. I like it. Real-life reporting. An environmental angle. A story with heart. And a way to help.” He’s getting excited now and he raises his hands, spreading them like he’s reading a headline. “‘Join our very own Sentinel reporter on a quest to save the bears! A Beary Special Fundraiser!’ Or something like that.” He points to Norman. “Work on it. I want a catchy tagline for this one. It’s a winner.”

  “Wait!” I jerk my head back to Steve. “Sir, I think Leigh’s overstated the situation a touch, because the fundraiser part of things was more of conversation we needed to have—”

  “Nonsense!” says Norm, who knows me and Leigh well enough to sense that something hinky is going on here. “The Sentinel loves a fundraiser, and you two have delivered the perfect idea!”

  “Forget the beer thing. We have a bear thing! Ha ha!” Steve is practically preening in his seat. “The Sentinel will be the lead sponsor. We’ll be the Amazon of this event!” He points at Leigh. “Get Jody in accounting to cut you a check for the fundraiser expenses. You can ask a couple of the summer interns to give you a hand in planning.” He points at me. “I’ll give you two weeks in Alaska to get to the bottom of the bear issue. I want the column to run one week before the event.”

  Now, first of all, I don’t actually know if there’s actually a “bear problem” in Sitka. For all I know, that headline was three years old!

  And second of all, I have never organized a big-scale event in my entire life. A few friends, a six-pack of beer, and a package of hot dogs? I’m your girl. But a fundraiser? An actual, legitimate fundraiser with events and food and sponsors and all that jazz? Not my bailiwick. Not at all. And besides, I was hired to be a reporter, not a party planner!

  Now, if my partner wasn’t a hundred months pregnant, and the two interns weren’t morons, maybe she could organize the fundraiser while I researched and wrote the column…but Leigh’s about to be totally out of commission, right? Which means I’m on my own researching and writing the article and planning the event?

  Impossible.

  “Thank you, sir,” says Leigh. “That sounds great. We’ll get right on it.”

  We cannot possibly deliver what we’re promising, and when that happens, we’re going to be fired. I need to do something. I need to say something.

  “You know, sir,” I start, trying to keep the runaway-train panic out of my voice, “if we could just peddle back a bit here, I really think that we need a little more time and—”

  “‘Have a Heart for the Bears’!” he exclaims over me, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s perfect! I like it a lot, ladies. Great work. Nice job with these two, Norm. Get on this right away. Whatever they need.”

  I whip my head to face Leigh, my voice a furious whisper: “A fundraiser, Leigh? A goddamned fundraiser? I can’t plan a fundraiser!”

  She shrugs. “He wanted to be Amazon. You could see it.”

  “We can’t make him Amazon!” I hiss. “I needed your help.”

  “And I gave it. You go to Sitka. I’ll handle the fundraiser planning from here. How hard can it be?”

  “Are you crazy?” I whisper-growl. “You’re having a baby in ten minutes!”

  “We’ll figure it out,” she says, gathering up her notes and the energy to stand up. “Planning is mostly phone calls and emails. I can do that. Even with a baby.”

  “Have you ever planned an event this big?”

  “Does my cousin’s bridal shower count? There were, like, a hundred and—”

  “No!”

  I glance back at Steve, who’s making big plans for the Sentinel to sponsor my fictional, theoretical bear fundraiser.

  “The bears were just supposed to be a filler until I came up with a real idea,” I lament.

  “Well…now they are the real idea.” She pauses. “And if you ask me? It’s not bad.”

  My shoulders slump. “What did you just do to us?”

  “Nothing that we can’t handle,” she says, and I envy her confidence. We have approximately six weeks to write a column and plan an entire fundraiser while one of us becomes a new mother. “Truly. You write. I’ll plan.”

  I am entirely unconvinced that we will be able to pull this off.

  “Do you have a warm coat?” she asks me with a grin. “May in Alaska’s bound to be a little nippy.”

  And that’s when my semiwobbly head finally connects to reality: like it or not, I’m about to spend the next two weeks in Alaska researching a “story” that was inspired by some headline I bearly even read. I cross my fingers under the table hoping that Sitka, Alaska, still has an actual bear problem for me to report on. What if it doesn’t? Then what?

  “We’ve got to get me out of this,” I moan.

  Leigh glances over at Steve. “No chance, girl. This is happening. You,” she says, pushing in her chair and waddling toward the door, “are headed north.”
/>   “Great,” I mutter. I’m going to goddamned Alaska to save the goddamned bears. “Just great.”

  Chapter 2

  Luke

  “Five seconds, guys. Five. And then my car is pulling out of that driveway. You hear?”

  I wait at the foot of the stairs for their replies.

  “Yes, sir!” calls Chad, my thirteen-year-old boy scout.

  “Got it!” yells his sister, Gillian, who is eleven going on eighteen.

  Heading back to the kitchen, I grin at five-year-old Meghan, who’s sitting at the table, finishing her cereal.

  “You gotta buckle my shoes,” she says, swinging her legs in my direction.

  I take a knee and buckling each in turn. Over my shoulder I yell in the direction of the stairs, “And none of that lip gloss stuff, Gilly. I mean it! You’re too young for—”

  “Oh, Daddy,” she says, entering the kitchen with a pink Pusheen pack on her back, “that was a one-time thing.”

  “Let’s make a no-time thing, huh? No makeup, miss. None. Not until you’re eighteen.”

  “Eighteen? You’re a trip.” She rolls her eyes at me, leaning down to kiss my cheek as I finish Meghan’s second boot. “Stubbly.”

  I reach up, rubbing my new beard with my thumb and forefinger. “Don’t like it?”

  Meghan sighs dramatically. “So handsome and yet he chooses to hide it.”

  I hear Chad’s sneakers hit the landing, and he enters the kitchen as I’m standing up. “Dad, I need to stay late at school today. Until five.”

  “Detention?” I joke.

  “No, sir. Debate team.”

  “What about your sisters?”

  “Can Gilly and Meghan go to aftercare today?”

  Gillian groans. The girls don’t love spending two hours in the elementary school cafeteria after school, but it’s a helpful, low-cost childcare option when I’m working, and Chad has an after-school activity. Luckily the elementary school is halfway between the middle school and our house, so their brother can pick them up when debate team is finished practicing.

  “You’ll grab them up at five and walk them home?”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” he says, nodding at me.

  “All right, then. Debate away.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” he says. “I saw the chicken legs in the fridge. I can start dinner too.”

  “I appreciate that, son.”

  “I hate aftercare,” whines Gillian. “We didn’t used to have to go there, before…”

  “Shhh!” hisses Chad. He turns to Meghan, pulling out her chair. “Put your bowl in the sink and get your backpack.”

  Used to.

  Before.

  My wife of fourteen years died two years ago when her car hit a slick of ice and skated into a fuel truck. The collision resulted in a massive explosion that killed Wendy and the truck driver almost immediately and left me a widower with three young kids. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her. Not one. And I miss her so much sometimes, it takes my breath away.

  “Daddy, why can’t Aunt Bonnie pick us up?” Gillian demands as I grab my jacket and hat off the rack by the front door.

  “’Cause she works,” answers Chad, shrugging into his raincoat before helping Meghan zip hers. “She’s not your personal taxi service, Gilly.”

  “Are you my daddy?” she asks her brother, giving him a sour look before turning to me. “We hate aftercare. Why can’t she come get us?”

  “Yeah. We love Aunt Bonnie better’n aftercare,” adds Meghan.

  “I can’t ask Bonnie to drop everything and pick you up. Not when you’ll be safe and sound and looked after until Chad can fetch you and bring you home,” I say firmly.

  I’ve made a concerted effort not to ask my sister to play the role of mama for my kids. She has a husband, a home, a part-time job, and twin babies to look after. She never says no when I ask for help, but there are inevitable times that I do and will need her. I can’t wear out my welcome by pestering her for the little things.

  “She doesn’t miiiiind,” whines Gilly. “I can even help her with the twins. I’m finishing fifth grade! I’m old enough to babysit!”

  “Quit moaning,” advises Chad, grabbing Meghan’s hand and leading her through the door to my SUV. “I’ll get Meg buckled in.”

  Gilly stands in the foyer, staring down at her sneakers, her small body dwarfed by the cheerful pink backpack on her slim form. She looks so little, I’m reminded that her efforts to act like a teenager are just that: an act. She’s closer to babyhood than adulthood, and her bravado has got to be exhausting sometimes.

  “Gilly? Come on, honey.”

  That’s when I notice the slight shaking of her shoulders, which tells me she’s crying. I squat down before her.

  “Hey, Gilly-bean,” I say gently, looking up at her to find fat tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I know it’s not perfect, but I’m doing my—”

  “I miss Mommy!” she cries, throwing herself against me, her forehead landing on my uniformed shoulder.

  My heart clenches as I draw her into my arms.

  This is what hurts the most.

  I loved Wendy, and I miss her like crazy, but the worst of it is seeing my kids suffer. It tears my heart apart.

  My youngest, Meghan, doesn’t have many memories of Wendy: she was only three years old when her mother died. There must be a deep chasm in her life where a mother should be, but she doesn’t necessarily know what she’s missing. She doesn’t complain much. She’s agreeable and young and mostly just rolls with the punches.

  My oldest, Chad, keeps his sorrow bottled up, trying to help me in every way he can: looking after the girls, getting dinner started, tucking Meghan in on the nights I need to work late. He cried at his mother’s funeral, but he’s been a rock since, and even though I’m grateful for his help, it worries me too. A thirteen-year-old kid shouldn’t have this many responsibilities; he should be more carefree, biking around town with his friends after school, not babysitting for his sisters and cooking dinner. I know it’s wrong to lean on him as much as I do, but sometimes I feel too overwhelmed to turn down his help.

  As for my middle kid? Gillian? She’s the most emotional of the three. At least once a month, she has these desperately unhappy moments when she cries about her mother, mourning Wendy’s loss in such a real way that it flattens me on the inside while I force myself to stay strong for her on the outside.

  “I know you do,” I say softly. “I do too.”

  “She would’ve p-picked me up every d-day. She would’ve b-been here when I got home.”

  “I know it.”

  “I h-hate it that she’s gone,” she sobs near my ear. “I w-want her back.”

  “Can’t help you there, Gilly-bean,” I say, squeezing her tighter. “I wish I could.”

  As she cries, her sweet, sobby breath falls softly on my throat, and my mind speeds up to two or four or six years from now, when Gillian is going to need a lot more than a big hug from her father when her hormones are going crazy and she’s trying to become a young woman without the guidance of a mother. I know that Bonnie will do anything possible to be sure that Gilly and Meg have a positive female figure in their lives, but Bonnie will have her hands full with her own kids, her own concerns. Who will be there for my girls? It’s a question that plagues me in quiet moments, but I’m not interested in meeting someone new. My sister has tried throwing eligible women in my path, but I’m not ready to get back out there yet.

  “I tell you what,” I say, pushing her back a little and reaching forward to wipe the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs, “when I get home tonight, how about we watch a movie together? You, me, Meg, and Chad?”

  “With p-popcorn?” she asks, sniffling.

  “Sure. Real buttery too.”

  She nods. “Okay. I’ll go to stupid aftercare.”

  “And go easy on Chad, huh? He’s just trying to help me out.”

  “I know,” she says, taking a deep, wobbly breath before
looking up at me with glassy eyes. “Sorry I got sad. Love you, Daddy,” she adds, heading out the door.

  When I look up at the SUV, I see Chad standing by the passenger door, opening his arms to give Gilly a hug before she gets in the backseat beside her little sister.

  They’re good kids, I think, feeling my chest tighten with pride. They would have made you so darn proud, Wendy.

  Standing in the front doorway, I watch them for a moment, knowing that they need more than me, that we can’t continue on like this forever.

  I just don’t know where to start or how to make it better.

  ***

  As a sergeant and the second-in-command at the Department of Public Safety Academy in Sitka, Alaska, I work with state trooper recruits all day every day. They undertake an eighteen-week, live-in course at my school, and I, in conjunction with other commissioned officers and civilian instructors, teach them how to serve the great state of Alaska.

  When my phone rings midmorning, I glance at it to see who’s interrupting a class on weapon safety, then turn the class over to another officer when I realize it’s the nurse at Gillian and Meghan’s elementary school.

  “Hello?”

  “Sergeant Kingston?”

  “Yes, this is Luke Kingston.”

  “I’m sorry to say that we have Gilly in the nurse’s office today. She’s running a low-grade fever.”

  “How low?”

  “Ninety-nine point three.”

  “That’s barely a fever,” I note.

  “I’m under obligation to call you,” she answers, her tone a little frostier. “Her cheeks are red, and her eyes are glassy. I believe she’s coming down with something.”

  I sigh. This also explains her outburst in the kitchen this morning. Gilly’s always more sensitive when she’s getting a cold.

  Here’s the thing about being a single parent, though: in moments like this, you are truly alone. My parents have passed away. Wendy’s parents are great and take the kids for several weeks every summer, but they live down in San Francisco. Although I occasionally employ a babysitter, I can’t really afford the expense of a full-time caregiver; besides, one of my kids is old enough to look after the other two, so it hasn’t been a necessity.