2

“If you haven’t found a job then there’s no problem, dear. You can find one here just as well, or wait until the summer’s over and go back to the lower forty-eight. Though why anyone would like to live there is beyond me.” Something chimed in the background. “Oops! There’s the timer. Jeopardy is on. I’ve got to go, dear. Love you.”

“I’m not going to Alaska!” Andrea yelled, but it was too late. The line was dead.

For a moment she just stood there, staring at the receiver until the automated message came on. She slammed it in its cradle, grabbed the half-eaten chocolate from Zoë and smacked it firmly on the orange counter. Pointless, now that it had been contaminated, but at least it was one thing in her life she could control.

“Granny bought you a ticket, huh?” Zoë murmured sympathetically, eyeing the bowl.

Eyes narrowed, Andrea inched it farther away. “No, she’s buying us tickets. On the Internet,” she said with mock anticipation, blue eyes wide. “And since I don’t have a job and as far as I know your job is mooching, there’s no problem, is there?” She shook her braided dark hair in disgust and popped the meringue in the oven, mentally reminding herself to put it on the top shelf so the ancient device wouldn’t scorch the bottoms. Carefully easing the frosted cake out of Zoe’s reach, she grabbed a fresh dishcloth and started to clean up.

“Sounds fun,” Zoë said absently, moving around her to lean on the mustard colored refrigerator. Her weave caught on the broken door handle and she grimaced, adjusting her position. “I’ve always wanted to see penguins.”

Andrea closed her eyes in exasperation. “They don’t have penguins at the North Pole, Zoë.” When she opened them again Zoë had the bowl and was seated at the table.

Giving up, Andrea joined her, eyeing the bowl wistfully. At the moment she wanted nothing more than to drown her troubles in a bowl of rich chocolate, but she’d already eaten her quota of heaven for the day. “I’m not going to Alaska,” she muttered rebelliously, almost to herself. Just the sight of that rapidly disappearing frosting was making her cranky. If there were justice in this world, Zoë would gain five pounds for every lick. Nobody should be able to live off snack cakes and pizza and still look like a prom queen.

Zoë just looked at her and licked the spoon.

“I’m not!” she insisted more vehemently. “Can you see me living with Granny for an entire summer? I’d go insane. Completely nuts. I mean…” She picked up a pen and tapped it on the table in agitated staccato. “All she does is ask me when I’m getting married, do I have a boyfriend….”

“How is Rob, anyway?” Zoë asked around the spoon.

“History.”

“Already?” she asked in surprise, going so far as to remove the spoon. “I figured you’d at least keep him around long enough to pop your cherry.”

“Zoë!” That was too much, even for her outspoken friend. “Maybe some of us like to wait until we’ve found someone worthy of the deed. Two months was enough to convince me that he wasn’t it.”

It had taken less time than that, but she’d been reluctant to admit it, even to herself. After all, she was twenty-three and she hadn’t dated more than four guys in her entire life. Zoë called her picky, and Andrea was starting to wonder if maybe she was a little too demanding. Not that she’d had a lot of offers in high school, being one of the unlucky late bloomers, and shy to boot. She’d hidden her nose in a book throughout most of her teen years and lugged around a huge stack that strained the seams of her backpack. She might as well have had the geek logo stamped across her pimply forehead.

Fortunately, things had changed. She’d learned to fit in, lost the glasses, and made a few friends. Her glossy brown hair was tamed with a chic cut and she’d discovered a sense of style. Her skin was smooth enough now that she hardly needed makeup, and she was in decent shape.

Occasionally, she even had a date—they just never made it past first base. She was really picky about kissing. If a guy didn’t know how to kiss, then it was doubtful he’d be good at anything else. Even if he might be, would it be worth putting up with garlic breath and cold slobber to find out?

Unfortunately, she’d had a run of bad kissers.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have desire, and she wasn’t frigid or anything. She just wanted more than a brief relationship with a man she only sort-of liked. She wanted love. Magic. Was that too much to ask?

Zoë snorted. “It’s just a ring of tissue, girlfriend. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Unwilling to argue the point, Andrea waved the issue aside. “Anyway,” she said, getting back to the original question, “I’m not going to Alaska. She’s just going to have to understand. I’ll call her back, and this time she’ll listen.”

Zoë blinked, very slowly. “This is your Granny,” she said very carefully, as if to a particularly slow child. “The guilt will eat you if you don’t go.”

Andrea frowned. “I’m not going.”

“Care to bet?”

***

One week later Andrea found herself in a cab, heading for the house her grandmother maintained for a rich gentleman. She didn’t know much about the man, and at the moment she couldn’t remember his name. She was far too busy wishing she’d wormed out of this visit like Zoë, who’d simply told her Grandma that she’d take a rain check and gone about her merry way.

Andrea had no such luck.

So here she was, paying a cabbie an outrageous fare to take her far into the budding hills of Fairbanks. Actually they’d passed the city limits some time ago, and she wasn’t really sure quite where they were. She had a life back in Chicago—or soon would—and she didn’t have time to run off to the wilds and commune with the wolves or whatever the locals did out here.