Chapter 13

WITH HIS Jeep loaded with supplies, William in the passenger seat, and Sasha on one side in back, Garvin drove carefully as darkness fell over the Parks Highway. They had just passed through Wasilla as it began to snow. "This is just what it did on the night I arrived."

Garvin turned on the radio to get a report as he continued their trek north and west. "It isn't supposed to be too bad. These are the flurries coming in before the main storm." He hoped. There was a break in the programming as a voice confirmed that the storm wouldn't hit until later and that it wasn't expected to be nearly as intense as the others. That was good news. The wind hadn't picked up yet, so he had decent visibility.

"When we get back, I need to book my return flight. Will you be able to give me a ride to the airport?" The rental company had picked his car up, and William hadn't requested a replacement.

"Of course. Just let me know when so I can make sure I don't need to teach at that time."

"Most leave at night, so you can teach and then take me in. It isn't necessary for you to wait around or anything." He turned in the seat. "I meant what I said. I will be back. I promise."

"You don't need to put yourself out on my account," Garvin grumbled. He might as well get used to being alone again. He had spent the past two years alone up here, and he would do it again.

William snorted. "You don't need to be a jerk. This isn't some made-for-TV movie where one person says they have to go and the other makes like it's no big deal… for some stupid reason."

Garvin didn't look away from the road ahead. "What do you want me to say?" He needed to keep himself under control and his emotions in check.

"I don't know. What you really feel instead of some stupid front to keep from feeling bad? Maybe be honest and say what's really on your mind. "

"Fine," Garvin snapped and wished he hadn't. "I wish you weren't going. Okay? Not that it changes anything, but I wish you could stay." There, he'd actually said it.

"I wish I could stay too. I like it here with you and Sasha, and as shocking as it is to me, I like going out in the freezing cold on the snowmobile with you. I like being here, and I like your friends. They're a great bunch. You have a good life here, and I'd like to have something like that in my life. But I have to go back and make a living. What I can do isn't available here, and I have to go where the work is. You know that."

Garvin knew William was right, and that was part of what hurt so bad. "But it doesn't make it any easier."

"I don't suppose it does, but it's not like I'm going to come all the way to Alaska to try to get you to notice me and then when you do, disappear forever." William looked at him like Garvin was crazy. "We'll just have to figure things out. Have you ever thought about coming to LA during the winter? It would be warmer, and I have a place there. You could bring Sasha and stay with me."

Garvin's stomach clenched immediately. "I don't think I can do that. LA isn't somewhere I can ever live again. There are too many memories there. I left to try to get away from them, to build a new life, and I did." Just the thought of going back had him gripping the wheel tighter. He breathed deeply, trying to stave off an anxiety attack. He hadn't had one in a long time.

"Hey, it was only a suggestion." William gently patted Garvin's knee. "Just relax. If I had known how it would make you feel, I never would have brought it up. I like it here in Alaska, and even in the small cabin, you and I get along well. So don't worry about it."

Garvin nodded, but he didn't know how things could work out. He loved his home, and this place was that now. It wasn't like he was holding on to John as much anymore. He was ready to move on, but doing it in LA would be impossible. Besides, he wasn't the same person he'd been back then. Garvin loved the open, wild spaces of Alaska. He could drive back roads and not see another person all day… and yet on that same road, he could see moose, caribou, and bear, and pass beaver lodges and osprey nests. "I can't help it so metimes."

"Hey. You know I have to go back and that I'm going to be busy. But things will work out." William sounded so sure of himself.

"I don't see how. What are you going to do? Fly back and forth on a regular basis?" He really didn't see how this could work, but he was willing to give William the benefit of the doubt. He had to, because otherwise he would be alone again. And that really sucked.

"I don't know, but I have to try. That is, unless you don't want me to." The soft hurt in William's voice was almost too much.

"Of course I do." Garvin made the turn and slowed as the lights of the library and community center came into view. He turned and made his way slowly down the road around the lake. He pulled into his drive and parked under the carport just as the wind picked up. They unloaded the Jeep, not saying anything more, and Garvin wondered if his own practical nature had only added more tension and anxiety. That hadn't been his intention, but William was quiet.

Inside, after they got out of their gear, Garvin built up the fire while William spent time on his phone. He spoke quietly with Arnie. Garvin put away the things he'd gotten on their trip and then began making a simple dinner. They hadn't spoken in over an hour, and Garvin didn't know what to do to fix it.

He and William had spent quiet hours together in the same room and everything was fine. They were happy and comfortable with each other. But this was different. The silence hung heavily in the air, and he wasn't sure what to do about it. What he'd said was the truth—well, at least what he thought of as the truth. Garvin wasn't very good at trusting that things would work out. In a bright blue sky, he was the guy who picked out the single cloud on the horizon that might carry a tinge of darkness.

"Garvin," William said, and Garvin set down the knife and went over to where William sat rigidly on one side of the sofa with Sasha pressed right up against him, like he was afraid William was going to leave at any minute. Maybe that was what Garvin was worried about as well. "There are flights back every day at ten at night with seats available." He seemed so tentative, and Garvin hated that. William was not that kind of guy. He had his quirks, but he was the kind of person who jumped on the back of a snowmobile to rescue people rather than sitting on the damned sofa, looking like he wanted the cushions to swallow him.

"When do you have to be back?" Garvin asked.

"My meeting is a week from Thursday."

"Then go back on Tuesday to give yourself a day in case the weather is bad. That will give you a day of grace so you don't miss it."

William lifted his gaze. Those huge eyes that Garvin had seen in commercials—eyes that could sell damned near anything on the runway—sent his heart racing. "Is that what you really want?"

Garvin took William's phone. "Arnie, this is his friend, Garvin. William is having a good time here. He's helped save three people's lives, and he's brought life and light back to mine. So get him on the flight that will allow him to make his meeting but will give him the most time here with me. Okay?"

A throat cleared on the other side of the line. "This is Sarah, Arnie's assistant." She chuckled. "And I'll be sure to do that. I'll text William the details, and now, could you put him back on?"

Garvin silently handed William the phone back and, without another word, returned to the kitchen, where he chopped onions with enough force that little bits of them went flying onto the floor and he needed to clean them up before Sasha tried to eat them.

"Okay," William said after he ended the call. He got off the sofa and came over to where he was cutting the already cooked potatoes. "I guess that answers one of my questions." He leaned against the counter.

"Just one?"

"Oh yeah. I have a ton more. Were you this big a pain in the ass with John? Why in the hell can't you just say what you want and not go in for all the drama? Do you really want me to stay, or are you just being nice? And does this mean you really care about me, or am I just a convenient way to dispel your own loneliness?"

Garvin smacked down his knife with more force than he intended. "I was not lonely."

William shook his head. " That's the question you thought was important? You really are a pain in the ass sometimes." He reached across the counter, grabbed Garvin's shirt, pulled him forward, and crashed their lips together in a kiss that made Garvin forget the rest of the world existed. When William pulled back, Garvin blinked and shook his head slightly.

"What?" Garvin asked as William stayed where he was, staring at him.

"I'm still waiting for my answers." Damn, William was feisty today. He stood straight and folded his arms over his chest.

"Okay. I don't remember the questions. But I clearly want you to stay."

"And were you a giant pain in the ass with John as well?" William pressed.

Garvin shrugged. "I probably was. And yes, I want you to stay, and you should know I never do shit just to be nice. You're not the best about expressing your feelings either, Mr. Silent Treatment."

William sighed deeply. "I told you how I felt already. I've hoped you'd open your damned eyes and see what was right in front of you for years." He rolled his big eyes. "I have to go back so I can work. But I told you I'll come back here, and I meant it. I traveled all this way to see you in the first place because you'd come up here and I was afraid you had fallen off the face of the earth. And I did that because I've loved you for years. Okay? You're strong and caring. You help those you care about without thought, and hell, you take off across a snowpack that goes halfway to Russia in order to help someone you don't even know. So hell yes, I'll be back, and I'm hoping that you and your pain-in-the-ass-ness will come down to LA to see me for a few weeks so that we can be together while I film these commercials. My place is small, but you can bring Sasha with you, and we'll take him for walks at the shore. That is, if you really want a chance for the two of us to see if this can go anywhere." His jaw was set tight, and his eyes blazed. "If you want to give this a try, then you need to do part of it."

Garvin picked up the knife but just held the handle in his hand. "I told you, I don't know if I can go back to LA. I left that behind." He lifted his gaze from the scarred cutting board. "I know this is hard to understand, but I stayed there for five years after John died and just wallowed in his loss. It wasn't until I moved here and built a whole new life of my own that I finally began to pull myself out of it. I had to start over…." He set down the knife once more. "And it wasn't until you came that I was finally able to let go of the past… of my past… and I don't want to go back there. I can't."

"You aren't the same person you were back then. You're confident, and you know who you are without John."

"Yes, that's true. But can't you see? John's life was back there. It was him. I was this kid from Oklahoma who moved to the city and got fucking lucky. I met John, a kid from Nebraska, and he took my breath away. We fell in love and somehow managed to build a life around and through school and his years of medical training and John starting his practice. It was the two of us against the world in a big city that sometimes seemed like him and yet not…. But in the end, it was always John and me. We could do anything together. But when he died, there was no more him. It was just me." Garvin tried to keep his thoughts from spinning out of control. "I tried to go on, but you saw what happened. So I left and built a life here. This is my life, out here in the middle of a small community that accepts me for me. They helped heal me and bring me back to life."

"Okay," William said. "I can respect that."

Garvin closed his eyes, breathing more easily again.

"We all have places that we call home, and this is yours."

"Yes. I know it sounds like I'm escaping, and maybe I am. But this place, with the lake and the trading post, the guys… and Sasha… all of it is home." He walked around the counter. "The thing is that you feel like home too. Like you belong here with me, and that's why you going away is so hard. It feels to me like I'm losing something all over again. You were that someone I've been waiting for, and I didn't have a clue until you showed up in the middle of a damned snowstorm."

William held him in his warm arms. "I will be back. This isn't the last of it. Because you feel like home to me too." He kissed him again, this time more gently, but with so much intensity and desire that Garvin couldn't help throwing all he had right back to William. "But we have to make the most of the time we have now."

Garvin knew William was right. "I wish I had done that with John." He began chopping again. "I think that was part of what made it so hard when John was gone at conferences or working long hours." He had never spoken about any of this with anyone. "I loved John with everything I had, but I think I was too selfish. John was always so easygoing, and he just went with things. I had my kids and classes there, and I had to be in school. John had his practice, and we were both working. John wanted to travel and go and do so many things. But I taught summer school because I needed the money to pay off my loans and stuff. John offered many times, and I wish I had just let him." He paused to open the refrigerator and pull out some eggs. "Six months before he passed away, John said he could get time away from the office for a couple weeks. He said that we should go to Europe, see Rome, Florence, and Venice. He had even found where he could make all the arrangements, and he was so excited."

William leaned closer. "I didn't know that."

"Because I said I had to work. I was teaching a special summer session. I could have gotten out of it, but I didn't. It was good money, and I was focused on wiping out those loans. So he let it go and never mentioned it again. Then three months later he was gone, a timebomb in his brain. If I had just taken advantage of the opportunity, the two of us could have gone and done things. Instead we worked, and then he was gone, and it was my fault."

William took his hands. "How were you supposed to know? You were trying to build a future for the two of you, just like John. You worked to help build the life the two of you wanted."

"Yeah, I know. But John always wanted to travel. He didn't get to do it when he was a kid, and he really wanted to see things. He and I talked about going to Asia and Australia as well as Europe. He really wanted to see the world, and I was busy working and could never get time off. And when John could, I was still busy, so he missed out on his chance. I don't want that to happen again. I want to make the most of the opportunities that I'm given, but I can't help regretting things. I made a bunch of mistakes with John. What if I make the same ones with you?"

William shrugged. "Then don't."

"It's not that simple," Garvin countered.

"Maybe it is. Maybe all you need to do is tell yourself that you aren't going to make the same mistakes. Let yourself be happy. "

"I was happy, and I thought John was happy. But now sometimes I wonder if I stifled him and made him give up the things he really wanted." As Garvin thought about it, there was so much. "John had wanted a motorcycle ever since he was a kid. He used to have toy ones. The other kids had cars; he had motorcycles. His collection is still in a box in storage along with the action figures that rode them. I remember that the first time he talked about getting one, I freaked, because I had an aunt who was injured riding one. I didn't want John to get hurt, and they scared the hell out of me. So he didn't buy one. John made a lot of sacrifices because of me, and now he's gone."

William shook his head. "You know all of this is bullshit." The words and William's tone surprised Garvin. That reaction was the last thing he expected. "Total bullshit."

"Really?" He could feel his temper rising.

"John loved you more than anything, and neither of you had any idea that he was going to get sick. The two of you should have had a long life together. It's what you deserved—what all of us deserve and should have. But you didn't." William leaned closer. "So build a bridge, get over it, and go on with your life. You'll always love John, but you can't stop living or let your past dictate the kind of future you're going to have. Learn from the shit you did wrong and don't make the same mistake again. It's just that simple."

Garvin was taken aback, and he didn't know what to do with that advice. "Build a bridge? Never heard that one before." He chuckled and went back to making dinner. William was probably right—Garvin did need to figure out how to let go of the last pieces of his past. And he needed to do that if he could hope to have any sort of future.