Baby It's Cold Outside: An Alaskan Nights Novel Read online

  “What does the lawyer say about it? Shouldn’t this be more straightforward? It’s an inheritance, for Pete’s sake.” Sloan hesitated for a moment, but decided since it was Grier she’d keep on going. “I mean, do you think he’s qualified to handle this? He is practicing in the middle of nowhere.”

  “No, he really has been wonderful. And he seems as puzzled as I am by the town’s reaction.”

  “What have they taken sides about? It’s nobody’s business but yours and your father’s.”

  “Well, there is this other thing.”

  “What other thing?” Sloan recognized that tone in Grier’s voice—a mix of panic and nervous laughter—as exhaustion and it all fell into place.

  Things were far worse than her friend had been letting on.

  “I have a sister.”

  “You what?”

  “I have a half sister named Kate.”

  Sloan almost dropped the phone. “You have a sister and it took you this long to tell me?”

  “She’s the holdup. She claims I don’t have a right to my father’s estate.”

  “Um, isn’t it called a will for a reason? He willed it to you.”

  “Well, the will was changed relatively recently and she’s making a fuss.”

  “And your lawyer can’t do anything? You can’t even get in to see your father’s things?”

  “Nope. While it’s moving through the legal system, neither of us can touch anything. That’s why I’m still at the hotel.”

  Sloan refrained from pushing harder on the lawyer angle, trusting her friend’s judgment on that front. “So tell me about this sister of yours.”

  “From what I can tell, she’s about as warm as a python, and instead of the term ‘sister,’ I think ‘bitch’ would be far more appropriate.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just her grief talking? I mean, she presumably knew the man.”

  “I wish,” Grier snorted, her disgust more than evident despite the three thousand miles separating them. “That I could understand. I could even sympathize if it made her prickly, but the attitude I’m getting is just way off the charts. She’s actively waging a campaign to alienate me.”

  “Have you tried talking to her?”

  Grier never had any problems winning anyone over, her effervescent personality drawing people to her like a lodestone. Sloan knew grief drove some strange behavior, but the idea that Grier’s sister was purposefully shutting her out was hard to understand. If she was mourning the loss of a father, shouldn’t she try to accept a newfound relative?

  “Oh, Sloan, I’ve tried everything on the rare occasions I can even get her to look at me. Friendship. An appeal to sisterhood. Hell, I’ve even tried to boss her around as her older sister. Nothing works. And since the entire damn town’s on her side I can’t get anywhere. Whoever said small towns were interested in newcomers was smoking crack. These people won’t give an inch.”

  “They won’t talk to you? What about your side of the story?”

  Grier snorted. “The entire town communicates with me as little as possible. Everyone except for my lawyer cuts me a wide swath.”

  “The cold shoulder treatment in hopes you’ll pack up and go home.”

  “If they only knew how little I had to go home to,” Grier murmured, before adding, “Besides you, of course. And we can’t forget my mother and those biannual occasions she chooses to take an interest in her only child.”

  Sloan couldn’t stop the memory of the car ride home from intruding on their conversation. She thought back to the self-pity she’d indulged in an hour before. She might be entitled to a private moment here or there, but her night was nothing compared to what her friend was dealing with.

  “So what do you say? Will you come up here and help me? You could call it research and use it to put together an article or two.”

  The offer was more tempting than Sloan cared to admit, and Grier had a point. Although she was fortunate with steady work, the life of a freelancer meant she was always looking to line up more. A trip to Alaska could be some good fodder for a few articles. She’d just talked to a travel editor a few weeks ago who was looking for some fun pieces with a unique twist.

  Alaska.

  Miles and miles away from here.

  “I’m in.”

  “What?”

  Now that the words were out, Sloan couldn’t shake a sudden sense of optimism. She was filled with the certainty that this was not only a good choice, it was the right one. And it was a chance to do something out of the ordinary. And unexpected.

  And it was something she wanted to do.

  “I’ll book my flight in the morning.”

  “You really mean it?”

  Sloan couldn’t stop the small laugh from escaping. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “I guess I never thought—” Grier broke off and Sloan heard it. That slight hitch of indrawn breath that said her dearest friend was holding back tears.

  It confirmed she was making the exact right choice.

  “This is going to be so much fun. We’ll put on our very best New York charm and work it. The people of Indigo aren’t going to know what hit them.”

  As she hung up the phone a few minutes later, Sloan couldn’t stop the flutter of hope that filled her stomach.

  Maybe a trip to the middle of nowhere was just what the doctor ordered.

  “Are you about done putting that woman through her paces?” Sophie Montgomery demanded of her grandson. She’d been following his work with rapt fascination, and the latest situation—what to do about the estate of one Jonas Winston—was going to get a hell of a lot uglier before it got better.

  “Grandma, you know I can’t discuss someone’s private business with you,” Walker Montgomery said on a sigh. “It’s called lawyer-client privilege.”

  “As the mayor of Indigo, I have a right to know what’s going on with my townsfolk. Especially when those townsfolk have taken such a personal interest in the situation.”

  Walker held back a disrespectful snort, but wouldn’t back down on his point. “Your townsfolk take a personal interest in everything. And frankly, you only have a right to know about the things your constituents choose to tell you. Seeing as how neither Kate nor Grier have shared anything with you, I’d say that’s a pretty sizable clue you don’t have a right to know and are just being nosy.”

  Sophie did snort at that. “I’m not nosy.”

  Walker leveled her with a direct stare. The dark chocolate brown eyes that stared back at him were so similar to his own he could have been looking in a mirror. “Yes, you are. Just like every other person in this damn town.”

  “Fine. I’m quite sure I can find out whatever I need to know from someone else.”

  Walker wasn’t so sure about that. Grier Thompson was a tough one. The petite frame and large doe eyes hid a spirit far heartier than her half sister, who’d spent her entire life calling Alaska home. Although he’d admittedly judged Grier as a bit soft, his first impression had rapidly changed over the past month.

  The little New Yorker had a spine of steel and she wasn’t budging on what she rightfully believed was hers. Certainly not in the wake of the news that she had a sister up here in Alaska, nor the fact that she had to find a way to divide the inheritance from her father with the woman.

  Anxious to change the subject, Walker zeroed in on the one topic sure to drag his grandmother away from the relentless gossip she delighted in. Even if he was throwing himself on a sacrificial altar to bring it up. “Why don’t you worry about that ridiculous competition you’ve got going on?”

  “It’s hardly ridiculous. It’s the reason your parents met.”

  Walker raised his eyes to the ceiling of his grandmother’s office. “So you remind me every year.”

  “And you could meet someone and be equally as happy if you’d open your eyes and look around. Women from all over the Lower Forty-eight have heard about my ridiculous competition. This is the third year in a row we’ve got
over thirty entrants.”

  “Whatever will the Indigo Blue do? Do they have enough rooms?”

  “You know very well that hotel was built to accommodate our tourist trade.”

  Walker couldn’t resist one more poke to really get her going. “We have one of those?”

  “Oooh. You’re a cheeky pain in my ass.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a rare gift.”

  “It’s genetic,” Sophie added matter-of-factly. “You’re just like your grandfather.”

  If she only knew. The man he’d been named for had been a no-nonsense sort of guy who believed as definitively in the law as his grandson did. What his grandson didn’t have, however, was an avowed belief in the need to love, honor and cherish one woman for the rest of his days. He could thank his father for that one.

  The fact his grandmother couldn’t understand why he was happy with his life just the way it was fell squarely into the category of her problem, not his. Until early December rolled around each year, and her little competition became his problem.

  The chatter around town was relentless, coalescing to a fever pitch every time he got within earshot of another person. His grandmother’s cronies were the worst, but a new generation had gotten in the game in the last few years as they, too, were anxious to see their daughters paired up.

  “That Walker Montgomery, a bachelor to the core.”

  “Sophie’s grandson is harder to pin down than an avalanche on Denali.”

  “Maybe Walker’s just trying to come out of the closet.”

  Walker Montgomery could not give a shit how anyone else—gay or straight—lived their life. So why the hell wasn’t he given the same courtesy?

  On a sigh, he pushed off of the large credenza in his grandmother’s office, reached for the wool jacket he’d thrown on one of her visitor’s chairs and stalked across the room to press a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Are you going to the town hall meeting this evening?”

  He nodded as he pushed his arms through the sleeves. “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll see you later, then.” His grandmother patted his cheek and pulled his lapels closer. “I love you, Walker Montgomery. Every stubborn inch of you.”

  He leaned in. “I guess that makes us a matched pair, because I love your stubborn soul to distraction.”

  She giggled as she bestowed one last kiss to his cheek. “Go on. Get out of here.”

  It was surprisingly easy to book a trip to the middle of nowhere, Sloan thought with no small measure of amusement as she stepped up into the cold vestibule between train cars.

  Grier had peppered her with a nonstop barrage of information and instructions for the past two days as she’d booked her flight and made her travel arrangements. Apparently, a train from Anchorage to Indigo was the recommended mode of travel by the local tourist board.

  Sloan couldn’t say she was all that upset to miss out on flying in a puddle jumper–sized plane to the town her best friend was presently calling home, but she was admittedly tickled at the idea of a local tourist board.

  She knew from her editorial work that Alaska had a booming tourism industry, but a tourist board for a small outpost virtually in the middle of nowhere? It was serious overkill.

  The train let out a loud, piercing whistle as they pulled away from the station, and Sloan huddled down in her coat. It was surprisingly cozy in the train car, but she couldn’t quite shake the chill that had permeated her after a few moments on the station platform.

  She shot a quick text to Grier, letting her know she was on the train and headed her way, then pulled out a book to sink into for the ride. She’d barely gotten through a page when her gaze caught a reflection out the window.

  Endless plains of white, snow-covered ground, framed by impossibly tall mountain peaks, were set off by the dusky haze of sunset. Grier had given her a heads-up on the weird daylight she’d find at this time of year—a sort of perpetual twilight that hung around for about five to six hours in the middle of the day before darkness descended for another eighteen.

  Her eyes roamed over the landscape again and a small thrill shot through her as she noticed a herd of moose in the distance, their large antlers a distinct identifying marker, as if their long, knobby legs and oversized bodies weren’t a dead giveaway. And behind them, growing closer with each passing mile, was the mountain referred to as Denali by the locals.

  A small curl of anticipation unfurled low in her belly as Sloan stared at the mountain that dominated the entire landscape. It hadn’t escaped her notice they shared a name, and she’d come to think of it as her mountain as she’d read up on Alaska over the past few days.

  Mount McKinley.

  Of course, her mother was anxious for her to get rid of the name and Alaska natives preferred the mountain’s given name—Denali—to the politically charged Mount McKinley, so maybe it was apropos she felt this odd kinship.

  Or maybe it was just a funny coincidence, she berated herself for her fanciful notions.

  A sharp spike of nerves ran the length of her spine as Sloan burrowed down in her oversized sweater—one of five she’d purchased specifically for this trip. The land and the enormous mountain behind it were impossibly beautiful.

  And impossibly hard.

  How does anyone live here?

  She knew that’s what people thought about living in a city like Manhattan, but easy transportation, food on every corner and ready access to any type of entertainment imaginable didn’t seem nearly as challenging as miles and miles of barren land.

  Pulling her gaze from the impressive sight, she turned back to her book. A sense of anticipation filled her in a sudden, steady throb she couldn’t ignore and the words lay unread on the page.

  Purpose.

  It was something that had been missing from her life lately.

  This trip had it in spades.

  She’d help Grier. She’d pitch a few stories. She’d relax and get out of New York for a few weeks.

  The twilight sky spread out on the horizon before her as Sloan turned back to her book.

  It was perfect.

  Chapter Two

  Sloan knew she’d be forever grateful for the random gift of fate that had somehow threaded its way through the decision makers on the residential selection committee at Vassar. Whatever random accident—or star alignment—had been responsible, her college housing department had done her the biggest favor of her life when they placed Grier Thompson as her roommate.

  The two of them had already spent two minutes squealing and embracing on the train station platform—the month they’d been apart had felt more like a year.

  Sloan gave those slim shoulders—covered with enough layers to make her look like she belonged on the Giants’ offensive line—one last squeeze. “Okay. I love you, but I need to go inside. It’s freezing!”

  “We need to get you a better coat. I told you to pack warm.”

  “I brought my wool coat.”

  “You’re going to need more than that.”

  Sloan linked arms with the sister of her heart and hotfooted them to the station’s waiting area. “I can already see that.”

  They moved into the lobby as Sloan awaited the arrival of the heavier bags she’d checked before boarding the train. After a quick look around, she had to admit some surprise at her surroundings.

  The station depot was a large, log cabin–like structure, with exposed wood-rail walls and a tall fireplace on the far side of the room. Beautifully woven rugs in varied colors covered the floors, and the waiting room furniture had been designed to keep with the log cabin theme. The seats were oversized and looked—was it really possible?—plush.

  “This is quite a place.”

  “Wait till you see the rest of the town. This isn’t even the half of it.”

  Grier nodded at the waving hand of a man bundled up like he was heading out for a week in the woods and started in his direction. Sloan followed, but not before her eye caught on a la
rge, vinyl sign tied down on the wall above the baggage claim area.

  INDIGO WELCOMES ALL OUR FUN-LOVING BACHELORETTES. WE’RE HAPPY TO HAVE YOU.

  “Grier.” Sloan leaned over and whispered as she pulled a ten out of her wallet. The two suitcases and large overnight bag seemed like an unfair extravagance now that she realized someone had to haul all of it in this weather.

  “What?”

  “What’s this sign about bachelorettes? Am I doomed to be reminded of my single status everywhere I go?”

  “It’s not for you, silly.” Grier dragged the overnight bag onto her shoulder as she reached for the extended handle of one of Sloan’s suitcases. “It’s for the big competition next week.”

  “What competition?” Sloan reached for the bag on Grier’s arm. “Here. You don’t have to drag that around.”

  “Apparently it’s this huge thing where women from all over come and compete for bachelors.”

  “Oh my God, my mother’s influence extends all the way up here.”

  Grier had set off ahead of her, dragging one of the large suitcases and talking over her shoulder. With no choice but to follow, Sloan dragged her second, equally large suitcase, her carry-on bag from the plane and her overnight bag, which was now strapped to the handles of her suitcase.

  “Thankfully it’s not your mother’s influence, but it is about mothers. From what I can gather, there’s a group of close-knit town grandmothers who cooked this up a long time ago and it’s stuck.”

  “You’re serious about this? It’s a real competition?”

  “Serious as a heart attack. They’ve got something like thirty women signed up for it.”

  “Wow.” What did that say about being single? Were women really so desperate to find love they’d travel to the middle of the wilderness for men? Amend that, Sloan thought as they moved through the open door toward the snow-covered parking lot. The frozen wilderness.

  And then a quick image of Trent and his groping hands flashed in her mind’s eye and Sloan had to grudgingly admit the idea had merit.