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brought a man back with her.”
    “Man? You mean she’s going to get married?”
    “You make it sound so . . . obscene.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m surprised, that’s all. She didn’t say anything about having anyone special.”
    Mike shrugged. “I don’t know how special he is.”
    “Mike!”
    He was watching her intently. “Don’t get in a sweat. Marty’s got a right to make her own mistakes.”
    “Then you don’t like him?”
    “Not especially, but that’s not what’s important, is it?” He got up and put on his coat. “I didn’t like Jonathan Templeton, either.” He was watching her, trying to read her face, and she looked up at him, her features torn by confused emotions.
    “I can’t imagine life without you and Marty.” For the first time in months she felt weepy.
    Mike’s face had a strange, hard look on it, but it softened as he came toward her. He bent and kissed her cheek.
    “See you in the morning. I’ve got the day off. We’ll take a run up to Talkeetna and pick up a few things.”
    “I’m too tired to make out a list.”
    “Don’t try. Bed down on the couch. Tomorrow we’ll dig into the stuff up at the lodge and make this place livable.”
    “You’re too good to me. What’s the catch?”
    “I’ve got designs on your body.” He leered and his eyes raked her suggestively.
    “Oh, get out of here, you . . . you . . . turkey! Now I know you’re nuts!”
    Kelly expected to fall asleep at once, but her mind refused to rest. Plans for the lodge, the comfortable relationship she had established with Mike, the prospect of Marty getting married, all blurred together in a swirl of thoughts. She tried to make her mind go blank but Jonathan’s words sprang before her. “She will be my wife until the day she dies.” Why would he say a thing like that unless he wanted to make Mike angry? But . . . Jonathan wasn’t petty. He was probably frustrated because he couldn’t get the divorce papers signed. She admitted, reluctantly, that
she
had been petty in making Katherine and Nancy wait for Jonathan’s freedom. The marriage had, obviously, hurt him.
    “I must divorce him,” she said aloud, and the sound of her voice in the silent room startled her. She closed her eyes, feeling drained. Slowly sleep came to ease her troubled mind.
    She woke once in the night with tears in her eyes and knew she’d been dreaming about Jack. Under the spell of her passion for him, the dreams they’d shared haunted her like an unforgotten melody. She could see his face, tender with love, bending to hers on their wedding night. “God, but you’re beautiful, and you’re mine. Say you love me. Say you love . . . only me.” Jack faded away and Jonathan was shouting, “I never should have married her . . . damn her!” In the next breath, he muttered agonizingly, “Something’s got to give. I can’t take much more of this.”
    Kelly sank into an exhausted sleep and awoke only when she felt something rough and wet on her face. She opened one eye. Charlie was staring at her. She opened the other eye and saw the outside door open. Seconds later, Mike’s square body filled it, and he kicked it shut after him. He brought in an armload of wood and knelt beside the fireplace.
    “Are you going to lay on your butt all day? Get up, we’ve got things to do.”

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE FIRST WEEK flew by. The second week ended and Kelly looked back with amazement at what she and Mike had accomplished. First, and most important, they had found Clyde and Bonnie Fisher, a middle-aged couple from Ardmore, Oklahoma. The Fishers had come to Alaska for better pay and found making a living just wasn’t all that easy. But they loved the country and wanted to stay. Bonnie cooked fabulous, home-style meals, according to Clyde, and Clyde was about as handy as the pocket on a shirt, according to Bonnie. They both proved to be right.
    “Think of the ads I can run in the papers! ‘Come to Mountain View Lodge and