Finding Home Read online

  Finding Home

  A Bluebird Bay Novel

  Christine Gael

  Denise Grover Swank

  New Beginnings Press

  Copyright © 2019 by Denise Grover Swank and Christine Gael

  Cover Design: Croco Designs

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  26. Chapter Twenty-Six

  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Christine Gael

  Also by Christine Gael

  Also by Denise Grover Swank

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Give me a look at that face, you gorgeous girl, you.”

  Anna Sullivan hunkered deeper into the shallow trench she’d dug, squinting into the viewfinder of her camera. The mother polar bear—named Kona by the small team of biologists Anna shared her lodgings with—turned to face her almost as if on cue as Anna snapped away. In the eleven weeks she’d spent here in Alaska, she’d fallen in love with this place. Especially this time of day. Nautical twilight, it was called. A two-hour window this time of year that lit the sky with celestial hues of deep blue infused with golden starlight… where sunrise and midnight collided.

  Only it was eight o’clock in the morning.

  As she pulled her face away from the camera, Kona’s mouth widened in a yawn that Anna couldn’t help but mimic. It was definitely time for some piping hot coffee and a thawing-out session by the wood-burning stove. If she hurried, she might have a shot at getting one of Brynn’s famous maple pecan pancakes before the rest of the crew ate them all.

  Just as she was about to start packing up her kit, a bleating sound to her right had her pausing to peer through the viewfinder again.

  A female muskox plodded through the patchy snow, her calf beside her. As Anna zoomed in, she could make out the knots in the thick, shaggy coat covering her humped back, and the striations of brown and black in her curved horns. Anna snapped away as the calf moved closer to nurse. Not a moment later, the rest of the herd appeared over the northern crest, and Anna watched in wonder as more than two dozen of the creatures surrounded mother and babe.

  The massive-looking animals had been indigenous to Alaska but were wiped out by the early nineteen hundreds due to over hunting. It had only been in the last few decades that reintroduction efforts in Alaska had truly begun to pay off, and their numbers had grown to over four thousand. Here in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, though, they were a rare sight and one she felt blessed to have captured.

  It never got old, she marveled as she studied the herd and then shifted her gaze to the polar bear a hundred yards away.

  It was clear by the way the larger animals circled around the females and calves and pawed the ground that they were aware there was a predator in their midst. It was also clear that they were glad to have found some vegetation to feed on that wasn’t hidden under a blanket of snow, and a lone bear and her cub weren’t going to deter them from gorging.

  But Kona wasn’t interested in the hairy beasts anyway. She was on the hunt for easier prey like berries, unguarded eggs, or some fish for her and her baby to share.

  Anna loved this. She was made for this. Snapping thousands of pictures to capture one single moment that would never be repeated exactly the same way again. She wasn’t a crier, but sometimes, her eyes leaked salty water just thinking about how beautiful it was.

  Nope. Taking pictures of animals in nature never got old.

  Too bad the same couldn’t be said for Anna herself…

  She set down her camera and blew out a sigh. Then she mentally psyched herself up to stand for a full thirty seconds before she actually made the move to do it.

  “Sweet bippy McGhee,” she groaned as every ice-cold muscle in her body screamed in protest.

  The temperature was about as chilly as she’d expected it to be in Alaska, mid-November. But knowing something and experiencing it were two very different things. And five below zero felt like being encased in ice. If only she could bottle that sensation for those awful, nighttime hot flashes she’d been having the past couple weeks…

  Despite her stiffness, she gathered her supplies and packed them up with relative speed, suddenly ravenous.

  The trek back to base camp was actually a relief. She’d been lying on her stomach for two hours straight, and she felt instantly better as blood rushed back to her extremities. By the time she reached base camp, she almost felt normal again. With a little food and a hot drink, she’d be ready to get out there for another round.

  But for how much longer?

  She shoved the maudlin thought away and pushed the door open.

  “Hey guys, I’m back,” she called, stomping her feet in front of the threshold before stepping inside.

  She probably didn’t have to announce herself, but two of the young scientists had hit it off, and for the past few weeks now, Anna had suspected that they might be sharing more than just body heat when they went out on their overnight excursions. The last thing she wanted to do was make them uncomfortable by walking in on an intimate moment.

  “Just in time! Reece was about to force these last three pancakes down,” Brynn said with a chuckle as she stepped into the common room, skillet in hand.

  “Save me from myself,” Reece groaned, following behind as he rubbed his slightly distended belly. “I ate six already. If I’m not careful, the bears are going to confuse me for a walrus by the time we leave here.”

  Anna grinned and then bit down on one thick glove to yank it off with her teeth before taking off the other and kicking off her boots.

  “I live to serve. Let me at ’em!”

  “Steve just put on the percolator, so you’ll have a fresh cuppa shortly,” Reece said as he made his way toward their shared sleeping quarters. “I’ve got to get geared up and then head out to take some readings. See you guys at lunchtime.”

  Brynn shot him a big smile, her gaze lingering on him as he retreated.

  “I’m gone in two weeks,” Anna said with a wink. “Ivan won’t be back until after the holidays, and Steve leaves Sunday. Just going to be the two of you alone up here for a while. If you haven’t made a move yet…”

  Brynn let out a low laugh, her cheeks going pink as she gestured for Anna to follow her into the kitchen.

  “I was sort of waiting for him to make the first move, but so far, he hasn’t,” the younger woman whispered, craning her neck around Anna to make sure Reece was still out of earshot.

  “Waiting doesn’t get you a darn thing, unless you work in
a restaurant,” Anna shot back with a snort, pausing to sniff the air appreciatively. “Those pancakes smell like heaven, but I digress. This isn’t the nineteen twenties, Brynn. If you like him, tell him.”

  Anna pulled her plate and utensil set down from the cupboard and laid it on the table as Brynn set a jug of maple syrup beside them.

  “Easy for you to say,” Brynn hissed. “You’re not the one who has to be stuck alone with him for weeks in a five-hundred-square-foot living space if he rejects me.” She forked up the remaining pancakes from the pan and stacked them onto Anna’s plate as Anna poured herself a steaming cup of joe.

  She took a long pull, burning her mouth and not caring, before she responded. “That’s a cop-out. It would be awkward for like two days and you’d be fine. You’re both so smart and so evolved, only good can come of it. You’re only young once. You’ll never be here, in this time of your life, with this person again. Are you going to go back home and kick yourself for not taking a shot at it? Just think about it, that’s all I’m saying,” Anna added, holding up both hands in surrender. “That’s the first and only time I’m going to mention it. I swear on your pancakes.”

  A grin tugged at Brynn’s lips as she set the skillet back on the stove.

  “I’ll think about it,” she agreed and then gestured to Anna’s plate. “Now, how are they? I was thinking next time I’ll cook them in a little bacon fat to get those edges a little crispier…”

  Anna had just finished slathering them with butter and drizzling them with syrup, so she nodded and shoveled a fork-load into her mouth with a purr of sheer joy.

  “Magical. Don’t change a thing,” she said around the bite of food.

  She made a mental note to tell Cee-cee about the magic of pecans, maple, and butter together for her cupcake shop creations the next time they spoke.

  A stab of unrest poked at her as she took another sip of her coffee. She had spoken to her sister Stephanie last week via the group’s shared satellite phone, but her most recent call to Cee-cee had gone unanswered. According to Cee-cee’s daughter, Max, she was just really busy with some big holiday baking event and probably hadn’t had the chance to get in touch, but it still smarted. After the catastrophic house fire had destroyed their father’s house just weeks before Anna had left for Alaska, she had felt much more compelled than usual to check in, and check in often. Despite Stephanie’s assurances that Pop was doing fine, aside from driving them all crazy about getting the house rebuilt more quickly than was humanly possible, Anna still couldn’t shake that unsettled feeling. Like she’d left the bathwater running or something.

  “By the way, fair warning,” Brynn was saying as she folded her legs beneath her in a way that only the young and her yoga-loving sister, Stephanie, could manage without dislocating a hip, “Steve said for his hour of show-and-tell tonight, he’s going to be introducing us to the all-time greats of smooth jazz.”

  Anna leaned forward and banged her head against the table softly for dramatic effect.

  “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were,” Brynn said with a chuckle.

  The nights were long, cold, and boring here at base camp, and a person could only watch so many movies. Their group had instituted Friday Night Show and Tell, where they each got an uninterrupted hour to enlighten the others about something they felt passionate about or wanted to share.

  Some weeks were silly, like the time Anna had taught them all how to whistle really loud with their pinkies, or when Ivan had shown them how to play a drinking game called beer pong. Some weeks were sad but eye-opening, like when Brynn had given a heartfelt lecture on the devastating effects of malaria on young children in Third World countries. And still others had been educational, like the time Steve had taught them how to finger knit.

  Anna already had a couple of her Christmas presents made, and it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, which was saying something coming from a last-minute online shopper. She would carry the memories of those evenings with her for years to come.

  But she’d leave the smooth jazz.

  “It’s okay. I’ve still got that bottle of bourbon socked away,” Anna said, waggling her brows as she finished up her pancakes. “We’ll hit that right after dinner, and even Kenny G won’t bother us.”

  The two women sat and chatted as Anna drank her coffee. By the time she’d drained her cup, she felt warm, full, and ready for a nap.

  Unfortunately, nature was a-calling.

  For middle-of-the-night use, they turned to a commode-type contraption they fondly referred to as John. But for daytime, they typically made the sojourn around back to the outhouse.

  “I’ve got to get back to work anyway. This data isn’t going to analyze itself,” Brynn said as she stood and stretched. “See you later.”

  Brynn went back into the common room as Anna washed up the remaining dishes. Once she was done, she put her coat and boots back on, slinging her secondary, lightweight digital camera around her neck out of habit, and headed out into the cold.

  She’d only gotten halfway to the outhouse when a moving flash of white off to her right caught her eye.

  Heart in her throat, she turned and then let out a sigh of relief.

  Not a polar bear, but a nimble little arctic fox. It loped through the snow-speckled grass just ten yards away, and she quickened her pace to follow stealthily behind. She lifted the camera and started to snap, grinning as the animal turned to give her a profile shot.

  “Show-off,” she murmured, moving faster still as the animal padded down a rolling hill toward the tree line. She wasn’t wearing her gloves and her bladder was aching, but the fox’s shiny black nose and citrine eyes were such a stunning contrast against its pristine coat, she couldn’t resist.

  Just a few more.

  She had just broken into a jog when her foot caught on a loose chunk of ice, and suddenly, she was free-falling. Not one of those graceful tuck-and-rolls they showed in action movies either. This was a full-on, ass-over-teakettle tumble down the icy hill. Instinctively, she pulled her camera close to her body as she rolled. When she finally came to a stop courtesy of a massive tree stump, it was with a dull crunch that made her stomach roil and bile rush to her throat.

  For a breathless moment, she lay there, stunned into silence. Adrenaline pounded through her veins, a sweet elixir that let her know she was still alive and which dulled the pain.

  But not for long.

  When it hit, it was almost blinding and stole the breath from her lungs. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to counsel herself through it. Pain was just a physiological reaction designed by Mother Nature to keep humans from repeatedly doing something that might damage their hardware.

  “Nope, not gonna work,” she muttered with a hiss as she tried to sit up and failed.

  She didn’t need a doctor to tell her she’d broken at least one rib. If that was the extent of the damage, she’d consider herself lucky. With a muttered prayer, she took stock of the rest, gingerly moving each limb, one at a time. Nothing felt great—she’d rolled so many times, every part of her had smacked against the frozen ground more than once—but nothing else felt broken either.

  “Okay. That’s a good start,” she whispered to herself as she wriggled to her side. The motion sent another wave of agony rolling over her and she tried to breathe through it. She couldn’t just lie here. She had to get back to base or she was liable to go into true shock and freeze to death before anyone came looking for her. She forced herself to a seated position, using the traitorous tree stump to prop her up—it was the least it could do. Then she tried again to stand.

  “Ahhh!” she growled with a mixture of pain, fear, and frustration. Her coat was so bulky and cumbersome, she was already about as limber as a turtle on its back. The rib pain only made it that much more impossible, and if she didn’t get to a bathroom soon, she was going to add insult to injury.

  It was no use. She had to resort to the nuclear option. The one she’d vo
wed she would never resort to, whether she was 48 or 98.

  “Help!” she called as loudly as she could, dreading the words she had to say next more than she’d ever dreaded anything in the world. “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”

  Chapter Two

  Stephanie Ketterman stood in front of her stove, stirring a pan of gravy. She couldn’t remember the last time her house had been filled with so many people and so much chaos, let alone when she’d made gravy, yet she was loving every single minute of it. She hadn’t hosted a family holiday since her beloved husband, Paul, had died in a boating accident two years ago, but over the last few months she’d realized moving forward with her life didn’t mean she loved Paul any less. It meant she needed to learn to live a full and happy life without him.

  Still, knowing something and following through were two different things, and she was the first to admit her progress had been plenty of two steps forward, one step back. Hosting Thanksgiving for her three kids and her extended family was definitely a step in the right direction, even if she was currently in a state of overwhelm.

  Her twenty-four-year-old daughter, Sarah, wrapped an arm around Stephanie’s upper back and squeezed. “What can I do to help?”

  Stephanie took a quick glance around the bustling kitchen—talk about too many cooks. “I think everything’s done.” She nodded to her father, who was digging a boney finger into the bowl of cooked dressing to grab a taste. “Let’s start herding people out. Start with Pop.”