Bridget looked at Jim and smiled. “I’m visiting Jim.”
“Ah. Oh. Well. Where are you staying?”
“With you,” Jim said, and grinned.
It was an impish grin, cheerful and attractive, but there was something in his eyes, a considering look, that kept Wy from succumbing. “Good,” she said, summoning a return grin that she hoped didn’t look as forced as it felt. She would have loved to have shown him the door, but Liam’s friendship and Bush hospitality forbade it. “My son is out of town for the Labor Day weekend, so Bridget can have his room.” She didn’t say where Jim could sleep, deciding they could figure it out on their own. “Have you got a car?”
They nodded. “Okay, let’s pay for our groceries and you can follow me home.”
Luckily she’d set a moose roast out to thaw that morning, and it was a big one. She let Jim open and pour the wine while she got busy behind the counter, and Bridget and Jim took their glasses out on the deck and exclaimed over the view of the wide expanse of Nushagak River opening up on the limitless vista of Bristol Bay. An eagle was obliging enough to fly by at just that moment, and three ravens were even more obliging: they launched themselves from where they’d been skulking in the branches of a white spruce tree and started harassing him. The eagle flapped grimly on, ignoring the three black devils as they swooped and dove and k-kkk-raked at him.
Bridget came back in from the deck, glowing. “How amazing that you live in a house where eagles fly by the front windows, Wy!”
“It’s not bad,” Wy admitted, measuring white wine, raspberry vinegar, sugar and minced green onions into a saucepan. She turned the gas on low beneath it and rolled the roast over again in a marinade made of olive oil, garlic powder and crushed thyme. The thermometer in the oven read three-fifty, and she put in the roast. “I don’t know when Liam will be back. He didn’t leave a message on the machine, so it’s best if we just cook dinner and act like he’ll be home on time.”
“A cop’s life doesn’t run by the clock,” Jim intoned, raising a glass. “Let’s hear it for the chef.”
Wy raised her glass in turn. “Only for tonight. The rule is whoever gets home first has to cook. I’m later than he is most of the time.”
Bridget had been watching the preparations with an inquisitive eye. “And you said that this was moose meat, then?”
“Yeah, honey, like the big bruiser we saw that morning in my backyard,” Jim said. “Chowing down on my mountain ash.”
Bridget was properly horrified, and Wy and Jim exchanged a grin before they remembered that they were rivals for Liam’s affection. “If he’d beat me home, he would have sliced the roast into steaks, shaken them in his very own special flour mixture and fried them in an inch of peanut oil.”
“Why peanut oil?”
“You can get it hotter at higher temperatures without burning. Liam fries everything. If he could figure out a way to do it, he’d fry peanut butter.”
The two women laughed. Jim, putting on a puzzled expression, said, “And your point is?”
At eight o’clock the phone rang. “Hey, flygirl, you crash any planes lately?”
Wy grinned, a wide grin of pure pleasure. “Hey, Jo. Driven any politicians to suicide lately?”
“Give me time. Labor Day’s coming up.”
“You are one hell of a reporter, I’ll say that for you,” Wy said, one eye on the sauce.
“Smart-ass. I was thinking about coming down.”
“Oh yeah?” Wy said. “Were you thinking you might have a place to stay?”
“Smart-ass,” Jo repeated. She hesitated.
It wasn’t like Jo to hesitate. Wy turned the heat under the sauce down and took the portable phone around the corner and into the hallway. “What’s wrong, Jo?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jo said irritably.
Wy frowned at the wall. “You sound funny.”
Jo huffed out an aggravated breath. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Wy blinked. “Someone you want me to meet.”
“That’s what I said.”
Now that she was listening for it, Wy could hear the self-consciousness and maybe even a little embarrassment in Jo’s voice. Tongue in cheek, she said, “Would this someone by any chance be, ah”-she paused delicately-“male?”
“Kiss my ass,” Jo said, varying a theme.
Wy grinned at the opposite wall, and waited.
“Yeah, all right, it’s a guy.”
“And you want me to meet him.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Have you taken him home yet, or am I the first test?”
“Fuck you, Chouinard.”
“I love you, too, Dunaway,” Wy purred. “By all means, put this paragon on the first available plane, and get on after him.” Voices came from the living room. How nice. Liam could have his ex-college roomie and main squeeze to stay, and she could have hers. One big, very full, deliriously happy house. “You’ll have to sleep on the couch.”
“That’s where I slept last time,” Jo said.
“Yeah, but this time it’s a full house. Tim’s up the river with Moses, and I’d let you have his room, but there’s somebody already in it.”
“Who? Liam?”
“Nope. One of your favorite people. Jim Wiley.”
There was a long silence. Unlike Wy, Jo had actually met Jim Wiley. They both lived in Anchorage, not that big a town, and they were both involved in the information-gathering business, more or less. Her paper occasionally employed his services to track down subjects in cyberspace, something they both preferred to keep quiet. “Oh.”
“And friend,” added Wy.
“Oh.” Jo rallied. “Where from this time, Sri Lanka? Peru? Pago Pago?”
“Ireland.”
“Figures.” Another pause. “So, you need backup.”
Wy peered around the corner to see Jim murmuring sweet nothings in Bridget’s ear. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“See you tomorrow.” Click.
She walked around the corner and hung up the phone. “It’s going to be a full house.”
“I thought it already was,” Jim said.
“Jo’s coming down for the Labor Day weekend.” She watched with interest as his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. Wy didn’t know what had happened between the two of them because Jo refused absolutely to discuss it. Other than inventing new and better invective to describe Mr. Wiley, his progenitors and his character. Well, this certainly promised to be one of the more interesting three-day weekends of the year. She smiled to herself, and added innocently, “You remember my friend Jo Dunaway, don’t you?”
He reached for his wine and drained it with one gulp. “Sure. Jo Dunaway. Pudgy blonde. Nosy reporter type. I’ve had to work with her a couple of times. Definitely not a fun date.” He put his arms around Bridget and said brightly, “Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?”
Wy hid a grin and went back to the sauce. It would be nice for Jim to have another moving target at which to aim over the weekend.
It would be nice for her not to be the only target he was aiming at.
At eight-thirty the roast was ready to come out of the oven, the potatoes were done, the salad was dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Bridget and Jim set the table while Wy stepped the sauce.“Beurre à montre la sauce,” she said. In answer to Bridget’s quizzical look, she added, “My friend Jo and I backpacked across Europe the year we graduated from college. In Paris we took a cooking class. Madame Claudine was delighted when she heard where we were from, and she made up this sauce for us to use on game. It’s dead easy, it just takes forever. You reduce the initial ingredients to a couple of tablespoons, and then use butter to step the sauce.Beurre à montre la sauce. ” She held out the spoon to Bridget first.