"Evan, right?" the stranger asked again, his mouth quirking slightly. He had dressed his athletic frame in the ubiquitous flannel of his brethren, paired with scarred jeans and scuffed dark Blundstone's.

I still hadn't answered him, only continued to gape blankly, my tongue suddenly as articulate as a watermelon, and my cheeks still stuffed with granola. Thankfully, though, he was not only gorgeous but seemed to understand my rapid blinking—Morse code for "Help, I'm pathetic!"

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Yeth!" My hand belated flew up to ward off flying granola, but it was too late. Out came the chunky deluge. Omigod! I was horrified! With one dry and painful swallow, I choked the granola down like a mouthful of sand and finally managed to utter something intelligible. "Sorry!" My cheeks flooded with humiliation.

"Don't worry, I've been hit with worse..." Topaz eyes glittered with humor. They were the most vivid and lightest of Gulf Stream hues—not quite green and not quite blue. Too intense to stare into for long. "I'm Tristan."

I diffidently lowered my gaze to his waiting palm. Unlike my fumbling lips my hand was at least functioning reliably today, and without any input from me, it obediently slipped into his. His handshake was confident and warm, just firm enough that he didn't crush my fingers. I almost wished it had been a 'wet fish' sort of handshake because then I would have been far less intimidated.

"H-hi, Tristan." Where was Matt?

"You look disappointed," he said, trying (and failing) to suppress his grin.

It took me a second to clear my head of the fluff that had collected there when our palms had met. "I was told...um..." It's really not that hard, Ev, just take your goddamn foot out of your mouth. "I, uh, expected a Matt."

"Well," he replied, apparently not in the least offended, "I'm afraid it looks like you're stuck with a Tristan instead."

Poor me. Smiling, I surreptitiously wiped at my mouth on the off chance there were any unsightly wet crumbs still loitering there.

Ordinarily, I'd have been thrilled to spend any time in the company of such a superior specimen (preferably without having spat on him first), but right from my initial glimpse, there'd been something primal and sylvan underlying my fascination. It seemed to evade my senses, yet it pawed restlessly at the fringe of animal instinct. Something about him seemed...not altogether safe. If he did pose a threat, however, I figured it was only to my flustered lady bits. He didn't strike me as a sociopath. But, then again, I'd never met a sociopath...

I shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny, fiddling with the straps of the backpack on my shoulder, wishing he'd look elsewhere. Mom would have told me to fake confidence, so I forced myself to meet his gaze and resolved not to hide my own on the floor again. "How'd you know I was Evan by the way?" Technically I was an Evangeline, a silly name that bore no familial significance. A name I disliked enough to assume a male byname instead.

Tristan's one brow winged facetiously before he shrugged and dragged his eyes dubiously over my copious layers. "You looked...a little lost."

Ain't that the truth.

He, however, looked confident and fresh, and so divinely rugged it made my eyes water. Was it any wonder I'd found my way to the Last Frontier—the last place on earth where men were men and sheep were scared... Wait, was I a sheep?!

His thick wind-blown hair lay like dark coffee, in perfect disorder, curling slightly at his ears and nape. I followed the angle of his jaw and then up towards that engaging dimple at his left cheek, watching, enthralled, as it deepened under his growing amusement. He'd clearly noticed my gawking.

"If you're gonna be staying a while, you'll wanna get yourself some Ketchikan sneakers."

"Umm..." I looked down at my white fashion sneakers, bewildered.

"No," he said, chuckling. After searching the crowd, he gestured over to a lady in sturdy grey rubber boots. "Those are Ketchikan sneakers." Then he swiftly bent down to grab my duffle, turning around only briefly to acknowledge a greeting from someone who'd called out to him. "What size shoe do you wear? I'll get you some on the next mail run."

"Size eight." I blinked bemusedly.

He nodded and, without further ado, left me to trail behind him, my bag slung over his wide shoulder like a boar destined for the hearth fire, the flock of sheep scuttling meekly out of his way.

"After you," he said with a chivalrous wink, pushing the double doors open for me.

I preceded him through the glass doors and then followed him down the wooden gangway to the float plane docks where about ten De Havilland Beavers were basking under the grey sky. Earlier, I'd read a tour brochure at the counter, so I was confident I'd correctly identified the distinctive lines of this flock of floating planes.

"Good thing you came in today. We had a freak windstorm this time yesterday. Peak gusts were at 112 knots! You'd have been stuck in Seattle for the night."

"An Alaskan hurricane?!"

"Pretty much," he said, readjusting the duffle onto the other shoulder. "So what accent is that?"

"South African." I watched as surprise lit his eyes. "I was born there," I explained, "but I've lived in West Palm Beach for the last five years."

"South African? You're a long way from home." He whistled, ostensibly impressed by the distance. "D'you miss it?"

I shrugged. "Well, home has always been where Mom is. What about you? Have you always lived up here?" In perpetual winter.

Tristan's expression tightened a fraction. "Practically born and bred in the snow..."

My gaze strayed admiringly over his rugged frame and untamed hair. "And raised by wolves, huh?"

He shot me a comical look. "Eh?"

"Oh, I've watched my fair share of Alaskan survival shows—families living off the land, and off the grid like primitives in bear coats."

"I think you mean like pioneers."

"Heating bath water over the fire," I continued, undaunted by his scoffing grin, "and reading by candlelight." It was all very romantic, the thought of such glorious subsistence living.

He snorted. "Sounds like you've done your research then."

"Yup," I said, grinning facetiously, "learned most of my survival skills from The Jungle Book."

"That's cute."

The problem with me was that when I was nervous I babbled incessantly. And usually nonsensically! Case in point... " 'Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky. And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper—' "

" 'But the wolf that shall break it must die.' "

He reads classic literature!? I was sure there were love hearts dropping from my eyes to fall at his feet. Le sigh. "I see you know your Kipling."

His lips parted enigmatically as he smiled. A sharp smile. "Words to live by..."

By this time we'd drawn up alongside a blue and white seaplane, Thorn Aviation emblazoned on the fuselage. But I hardly noticed the plane, still reeling from that keen-edged smile of his, and still disquieted by the fact that I'd just glimpsed a pair of unsettling canines. Weird.

"The weather's been holding up," he explained, all business now, as he stowed my luggage in the back of the plane where a stack of parcels and boxes had been placed, "but we're supposed to get fog later. You'll find the weather's unpredictable here." There was a glint of mischief in his eyes as he continued, "It changes like a woman's mood—all pretty smiles one minute and dancing a temper the next."

Smiling, "Excuse you, I'm pretty mild tempered."

Whether he heard me or not I didn't know. His forehead creased suddenly as he looked past me towards the horizon.

I followed his gaze to see a looming cloud bank in the distance.

He took a moment to scroll through his phone. "What I tell you—" shaking his head "—forecast just changed. It's moving in a lot faster." After he'd shoved the phone back in his pocket he held his hand out for me, helping me from the pontoon dock onto the floats, up the steps and then, from the rear door, into the cockpit.

I self-consciously pulled the beanie from my head and tried to smooth the static from my long mousy mane. I hated my hair. It was so dull and lank and dead straight.

"Do you get airsick?" Tristan asked suddenly.

"Uh...good question." I hadn't really been in a little plane before, but I did well enough in commercial jets.

"Here." He passed me a small, blue envelope.

Inside, I discovered a folded sick bag. "Gee, thanks."

"I can't have you destroying the upholstery." He smirked.

"Just my dignity." I rolled my eyes.

"I just got the interior refurbished."

I looked around the cockpit, taking note of all the switches, circuit breakers and instruments on the panel that he was currently fiddling with. A robust and exoteric blend of masculine spices infused Tristan's cockpit—old charts, sun-warmed leather, and avgas. "Well, it's a pretty swish interior, I wouldn't want to defile it with half-digested granola."

"Not like you did my shirt..."

I groaned, flushing with mortification. "Thanks for the reminder."

"Anyway," he drawled, stroking the dash with a cheeky wink at me, "you wouldn't have thought I'd hit a bird two months ago, eh?"

"What?!"

"Yeah" —nonchalantly flicking switches, twisting knobs and positioning levers— "a gull came straight through the windscreen on your side."

"What?!" It seemed I was incapable of saying anything else. Visions of bird guts and feathers flew morbidly across my imagination. "You're shitting me!"

"I shit you not!" he yelled over the sudden roar of the old radial engine. "But that bird sure shat itself!" The propeller blades had instantly blurred into motion. He slipped the green David Clark on and handed the second headset to me. "Don't worry, lightning doesn't strike twice...or so they say."

"Well, they sound like idiots," I muttered into the microphone.

Our repartee was subsequently suspended as Tristan taxied out into the waterway. "Ketchikan Radio," he said, the transmission followed by a blur of information I only caught in spurts. "VFR to Thorne Bay...two souls onboard...an hour and thirty on the fuel..."

I watched him scanning the harbor traffic, his attention focused as a large ferry chugged by—the same one that had brought me across to this side earlier.

A static, monosyllabic response instantly droned into my ear cups a moment later, but the unfamiliar tinny voice spoke too fast for me to follow.

"Ketchikan area traffic, One Tango Alpha departing harbor east." That said, Tristan turned a wide excited grin to me. "You ready?"

I answered with a grin of my own, eyes following as he opened the throttle wide. The engine roared as we plowed through the chop. Suddenly we were airborne, the beaver freeing herself of the little whitecaps, pulling her wings ponderously through the air. The widening of the narrows seemed to foreshorten the distance between the beaver and the glister of the vibrant blue water below.

"This is incredible!" I finally tore my eyes from the stunning view. "So you work for Bear Lodge too?"

"Nope, Alison and Owen are good friends and since their plane broke down this morning, I offered to take you on my mail run."

He seemed so nonchalant about the broken plane. "Well, that's...comforting."

That dimple flashed again. "The salt water's pretty corrosive. Something's always breaking. Good thing I love turning wrenches just as much as flying."

Honestly, I was too exhilarated and loopy from the jet-lag to dredge up much worry about corrosion or rivets popping off wings. "But this plane's safe, right?"

"This old girl has the sweetest temper, don't worry."

"So she's yours?"

"Sort of. My brother and I own and operate a fleet of ten amphibian Beavers and three Bell helicopters. Our company, Thorn Aviation, does a lot of charter work, tours, and general utility work like pipeline survey, mosquito spraying. That sort of thing. And—" gesturing with a thumb towards his cargo "—we just got the mail contract too. But any time Bear Lodge's beaver is AOG, we help them out regardless. Ali and O are good people."

"AOG?"

"Aircraft On the Ground—as in down for maintenance."

"Ugh, I can see I'm going to have a steep learning curve here."

"Nah, unless you find Sex on the Beach to be unfamiliar territory, I think you'll catch on quickly."

A vivid shade of carmine bloomed across my face. "Riiight." There was no mistaking his bar humor, but, like the repressed freak I was, I'd gone and pictured actual sex. With him. On an actual beach. And since I'd not yet voted my cobwebbed hymen off the island, the word somehow held a mystical sort of power over me.

Tristan, though, hadn't missed the heat flushing into my cheeks. "Um, it's a type of cocktail," he said, his left eyebrow climbing a little higher than the right. "Just so we're on the same page here, that's vodka, peach schnapps, cranberry and orange juice. Not some sort of lewd suggestion." Then he frowned thoughtfully. "Wait, you are going to be working at the Bear And Beaver, right?"

"I am, yeah." That was the name of the bar that was partly affiliated with Bear Lodge. It was doubtful I'd be serving Sex on the Beach there, but one never knew.

"So have you had one?" he asked.

"Had what?"

"A Sex on the Beach."

"Pfft, of course," I said with a comical wave of my hand that I hoped conveyed my worldliness and sophistication. I'd also watched plenty of Sex And The City reruns. That, surely, made me urbane enough to handle a flirty conversation with him, didn't it? I just wished I could flirt as well as Carrie did with Mr. Big.

"I hear it's all the rage down in Florida."

"What is?" I said, grinning, "Sex on the Beach or...sex on the beach?"

"Don't try to corrupt me, Evan"—grinning like a jackal as he stared out over the water—"I'm already as pure as the driven snow. And, anyway, you'd have to buy me a drink first. I'm old fashioned like that."

"What's your poison, Mr. Thorn," I asked, chuckling.

Without missing a beat, "Anything but a Sex on the Beach."

"Are you sure? The fact that you know your Sex on the Beach mixology, tells me you know way too much about girly drinks."

"We all have our dirty secrets, Evan..."

And I'd have given anything to know what his were. The provocative edge in his tone inferred that I had only scratched the surface of this man's character. And the brief, piercing look he'd shot me had dared me to look closer.

Midway through the flight, Tristan allowed me to take the yoke and pedals, instructing me with patience as he explained how each flight control moved the corresponding aileron or rudder. He was all calmness and quiet capability. A rugged bush pilot with a dimpled smile so perilous I feared for my heart.

I would have thought the flight from Ketchikan to Thorne Bay Seaplane Base would have taken longer than it did (or maybe it only seemed too short) but I was enjoying Tristan's company too much to worry about kamikaze birds.

By the time the floats skimmed the crystal waters of Thorne Bay, I imagined that the Evan of yore was falling away, her hangups sloughing off like cruddy, old skin with every cleansing inch of water that rushed up over the floats.