Life and Love in Alaska: Life & Love in Alaska, #1

By Cherime MacFarlane

Prepare to be captivated by the tumultuous tapestry of Life and Love in Alaska. In these pages, you will find a realm where the unimaginable unfolds with relentless intensity. The indomitable spirit of this land defies all reason, commanding unwavering attention.

In this land of extremes, nature reigns supreme, the Great Land weaves its fateful tales. Here the lives of its inhabitants intertwine in a web of unorthodoxy. The people who dwell here shatter the boundaries of convention, leaving an indelible mark upon the fabric of existence.

Each tale offers a glimpse into the unpredictable tapestry of Alaskan life. Be prepared to have your emotions stirred and your senses awakened, for within these narratives lies a potent concoction of passion, heartache, and triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cherime MacFarlane
• Release date: Jun 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223242956

Cherime MacFarlane

Meet Award-Winning, Best-Selling Author Cherime MacFarlane. A prolific multi-genre author, she has a broad range of interests that reflect her been there-done that life. Romance, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, all sorts of characters and plots evolve from a vivid imagination. As a reporter for the Copper Valley Views, Cherime MacFarlane received a letter of commendation from the Copper River Native Association for fair and balanced reporting. She was part of the Amazon Best Selling in Anthologies and Holidays, and Fantasy Anthologies and Short Stories. The Other Side of Dusk was a finalist in the McGrath house award of 2017.

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Volume 1

By Cherime MacFarlane

Copyright 2013 – Cherime MacFarlane

Copyright Notice:

All the stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Author's Note: Alaska can be a hard and dangerous place to live. Finding love in this state has its challenges.

License Notes: This collection is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this collection with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your retailer and buy a copy for yourself. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

The Cheat

Homesteader Blues

Poppy

Road Talk

A White Cat for Christmas

Traffic Control

Other books by Cherime MacFarlane:

The Cheat

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By Cherime MacFarlane

Author's Note: Women often believe the worst about themselves. And any man who ignores the stereotypes is one to keep.

Dedicated to: Lover, the man who could do a gig and keep his pants buttoned.

Chapter 1

I got the text message at the end of the workday as I got ready to leave Anchorage. Sitting at my desk, I closed out the last program on the computer. In another five minutes, I would get in my car and commute back to the valley and home. Monte waited, and the message said for me not to worry about dinner as he had it covered. A second short cryptic thing from him pinged into my phone a second after the first message.

need 2 tell U something

The single line sat in a bubble under the first message.

I don't like surprises. I especially don't care for them from a man who has recently returned home from a two-night gig in another city. Worse yet, when the man is one hunk of a hot guitar player with a dimple in his right cheek, those kinds of messages start all sorts of disturbing thoughts churning around in my brain.

After all, what on earth did I think I was doing with the man anyhow? Every female within fifty miles of any gig the band worked seemed to sniff him out, somehow. I couldn't ride herd on Monte all the time. I didn't want to be his keeper.

Men who needed keepers were a pain in the ass. I gave up the last pain to my supposed good friend, Lianne. The bitch could have him with my blessing. It would be interesting to see how long they lasted.

Monte and I discussed Lianne once. I made my position clear. If I ever found a hint of that lying, skinny sleaze anywhere near him, he was toast. And when I got done with her, no one would ever find the pieces.

Right after I got to work on Friday, I heard a rumor. Talk of Lianne's heading down to Seward for the weekend made the rounds. The bass player's wife, Misty, worked at the insurance brokerage down the hall. She got pissed because she had to work on Saturday and couldn't make the gig. Misty came in to voice her worry about Lianne's being there. Once the woman got a couple of drinks in her, any man was fair game.

My being with Montgomery Wendt was the odd paring of the century. I wondered now and then exactly how it all happened. Thieves and Liars' popularity in Alaska had grown. The band had booked more gigs this last year. I’d noticed the females hanging around the front of the stage. Monte wasn’t hurting for offers from women.

Everything, the text message, the Seward gig, put the thought in my mind he may have found a little honey to replace me. If so, I wanted him to spit the damn line out whatever he chose to lay on me. No beating around the bush. A clean break and we both go our separate ways.

Sometimes after work, I needed the hour commute to ease down out of work mode. Today, an hour to imagine the worst didn’t help. His text left me wondering. Not good.

Misty and I had been friends for close to ten years. I met her and her husband, Jerry, through my ex. Rick worked with Jerry. They drove delivery trucks for a grocery supplier in town.

Jerry was a whiz kid for the repair and care of all things having to do with electronic music. He eventually opened a shop, which made getting the great gigs much easier for Thieves. Misty continued to work at the brokerage as it kept them in health insurance.

I had to keep my job. I waited for the axe to fall. Rick would get a DUI one of these days. When it happened, I would be the sole support of the family.

As with all bands, Thieves invited people to come out to hear them play. A standing invitation went out to everyone and anyone. The more followers they scraped up, the happier the bar owners were. We accepted the invitation one weekend when the band played a gig at a local bar.

We, well... Rick came up with the suggestion to go out that evening. I hadn’t planned to go anywhere, but he nagged at me about going out and having fun. I didn't have to worry about the kids. They were old enough to look after themselves. The youngest was in his last year of high school and his sister had classes at the University of Alaska-Anchorage.

When I looked back on the evening, I assumed it must be the night Rick chose to have a little fun with Lianne. His wanting to go out to get plastered was out of character. Drinking in the bar would be expensive. He always opted for the cheaper route, buy booze and stay home to get drunk.

I didn't see a thing because I didn't want to see it. Lianne claimed to be my friend. She knew all about Rick's addiction to vodka. I cried on her shoulder often enough.

I still don't quite get Rick and Lianne together. Which is probably why the first thought to slip into my brain had to do with Monte. Had she set her sights on him?

Anyhow, the night we went to the bar, I wanted to dance. Rick never wanted to dance, ever. I found a corner near the bank of speakers and danced by myself.

The band is great. It’s why they have such a big local following. Jerry's base held the rhythm perfectly. Monte did things with his guitar, which still amazes me. Both men took turns with vocals. Nick, the drummer, supplied backup vocals.

At the end of the set, Jerry and Misty came over to our table. Right on Jerry's heels came Monte. About that time, Lianne bounced in the door, and we pulled two tables together. A couple of pitchers of beer gave everyone something to drink, and the party got off to a good start.

The bartender started the jukebox and before I had a chance to decline, I got pulled up out of my chair and onto the dance floor by Monte. We danced a couple of fast numbers, but I headed to the table when a belly rubber came up. Always little Ms. Responsible, I thought since I was married, I should act like it.

But Monte didn't let me get away easily. We talked about lots of things during their breaks, fast cars, places to camp in Alaska and broken marriages. It seemed Monte was a veteran of the Anchorage divorce court. He had tried twice, and both times the marriages ended badly.

Philosophical about it all, he blamed the first one on garden variety stupidity on both his part and his ex-wife’s. They married right out of school, and neither of them knew anything about life. They weren’t ready. The second divorce he blamed on marrying on the rebound. I remember what he said word for word because it made a real impression on me.

You know, I was still too angry. Because of the anger, I figured the woman couldn’t do anything but nag. She wasn't nagging so much as telling me if I didn't pay her more attention than the guitar, she wouldn’t stick around.

Monte started turning up at all the parties. Jerry invited him because, with his kids at his first wife's place, the guy didn't have anywhere to go. For a little over two years, Monte became a regular at everything from Summer Solstice parties to Thanksgiving and Christmas. I didn't mind. He was easy to talk to and had a sort of dry, quirky sense of humor.

When summer rolled around, the shit with Lianne hit the fan full force. One of the local volcanoes sent a plume of ash and sparks several hundred feet into the air. Mount Redoubt had them rerouting planes, and everyone in the city wanted to go home before the stuff settled on Anchorage. People remembered Oregon and Mount St. Helens. Volcanic ash destroys engines. When I finally cooled down and talked to Monte about it, the volcano part of the story had him almost rolling on the floor, laughing. I had to admit; it was à propos.

We had finished wrapping up a big job at the office. The boss felt good about what we’d accomplished. He sent everyone home early so we could dodge the ash cloud. My personal volcano went off when I found Rick home and Lianne wrapped around him in my bed. They were in my bed!

I lost my temper, and Lianne lost a little hair before getting out the front door. Rick and the family jewels collided with my knee cap. It turned into an epic fight. That night I slept in the car. I was too pissed off to stay with anyone and didn't have the money to get a motel room.

Sleep wouldn’t happen. My emotions were too raw. I went down the road paralleling Knik Arm and had one mother of a screaming fit. Since the sun stays up so long here in the summer, I don't know exactly when I gave it up. Barely able to speak the next day, I went to work; I needed a paycheck more than ever.

As soon as the courthouse opened, I took lunch early and drove downtown. After parking several blocks away, I dashed in and got the standard packet to file for a no-fault divorce. He had to agree. After threatening him with the removal of the offending appendage, if he didn't, Rick gave up the fight.

Lianne didn't waste any time. She plopped her ass in my place before the evening of the first day. Which is the reason I didn't understand why the jerk put up such a fight about signing the divorce papers.

Rick’s brain had absorbed enough alcohol, I guessed he’d pickled all the little gray cells. Nothing he did made any sense. If Lianne liked pickles so much, fine, he was all hers.

The kids stayed with their dad until they could find a place to share. I went looking for a place to stay. Rentals weren’t exactly easy to find. Even if they had been, I didn't have the required cleaning deposit and first and last month's rent. I cried on Misty's shoulder about the horrors of sleeping in a car, and she told Jerry. They planned to put me on their screened porch until I got enough together to rent something.

I sat at my desk at work the following day when Monte came bouncing in just at closing time. He took me out to dinner. After he had me full up on steak and lobster, the man brought up moving in with him.

The whole situation freaked me out big time. Here I sat, a little fat and forty, and this hunk of a man who looks five years my junior wants me to move in. No flipping way! I wasn't into playing housekeeper for any guy. When I told him no dice on the unpaid cleaning lady gig, I thought he would have a spasm. He couldn’t stop laughing.

Nothing I said affected him. Taking me back to work and my car, Monte somehow collected my stuff. Then the man talked me into leaving the vehicle in the parking lot while he took me home. Home to his place. Monte promised to take me to work in the morning.

We didn't make it into the bedroom before he went for my shirt. The man was all over me. I couldn't believe it. I got three hours sleep total, in fits and starts. During the night, I learned we were the same age. The discovery shocked the hell out of me. Monte kept his body in beautiful shape, every firm inch of it. And he made sure I got intimately acquainted with all his lovely inches.

But I couldn’t help waiting for the other woman to slide into the picture. It would happen. It had to at some point. I had no expectation of this thing lasting. How could I keep this man? A casual thing on his part, it had to end. I didn’t believe I could be anything but a passing fancy. With that thought uppermost in my mind, I drove home.

Chapter 2

The closer I got, the faster the car traveled. I wanted the hard stuff over and done with. I’d saved enough to rent a place. My bank balance sat at a healthy four figures. During the six months we were together, I put money aside, in case. Trust wasn’t in my nature at this point.

Some little voice inside my head gained volume. With the house only a few miles away, my temper spiked. Why the hell had he started this with me if he planned to ease me out so quickly? What made him think he could use me and kick me out the door?

I crashed through the door and spotted him seated on the straight-backed chair he preferred for practicing. He smiled at me and turned to put the guitar on the stand slightly to one side.

For just a half second, I hesitated. Lord, deliver me! He’s beautiful. Dark hair framed deep set hazel eyes. He glanced up and stared at me. The dimple in his cheek, custom by crash, a motorcycle accident, gave him a hint of boyishness which smacked most women right square in the middle. I was no exception.

The contents of his text slid into my thoughts. My purse hit the floor, and I stalked over to straddle Monte on the chair before he could move. Jamming my fingers into his hair, I pulled his head backward.

What the hell was the screwed text about? I hated the slight wobble in my voice. I hear Lianne went down to Seward to see you guys play. You lousy cheat! Did you fuck her?

Nah. Not Lianne.

Not Lianne? What the hell is that supposed to mean? What, or better still, who did you do in Seward?

A sly grin lifted his lips. Monte reached one hand toward the pocket of his denim shirt. He took his eyes off me long enough to turn on the phone and do a little scrolling for something. The smile vanished when he turned the phone around for me to see what he’d pulled up.

A photo of a woman filled the screen of his cell. A skinny blonde with huge tits blew him a kiss in the picture. My inner bitch boiled over, and I smacked the phone out of his hand.

Bastard! You fucked that piece of trash! You...

Silently, he pushed my head toward him. Monte’s lips closed over mine as my fists knotted in his hair. It felt more a clashing of swords than a French kiss. His mouth devoured mine, and I bit back. I tasted the tang of blood on his lower lip and knew I cut him.

I didn’t give a flying fuck. I wanted to hurt him just as he wounded me. His hands in my hair jerked me away from him and bared my neck. Monte launched an attack on my throat. By the suction he worked to apply, I knew I would have a large bruise to explain in the morning at the office.

What the hell, anyway. There might be a lot more to explain before tonight ended. Clamping my legs around his as tightly as I could, I tried to squeeze them together, hoping a couple of pieces of his flesh got caught in the vice.

No luck with that move. The pullover I had on succumbed easily to his fists as he tore the damn thing from the neckline downward. Trying to bend backward away from him proved a dumb mistake. His mouth fastened on one nipple and Monte’s hands landed on my hips.

His sucking hard on my breast caused me to pucker tight between his lips. He pulled backward until just the tip sat between his teeth. A nip caused my body to tense. Monte crushed the lower half of my body tight to his. I might have him, but he had me firmly pressed into his lap.

One hand went to the back of my head, and I found myself pinned in place. Those hazel eyes flashed green and gold. Our altercation seemed to arouse him. Not a good sign. It wasn’t my intention at all, or I didn’t think it was, anyhow. Worse, the way he handled me, coupled with the anger I felt, morphed into a hot mess inside. I was in trouble and had to get away from the man.

Twisting and squirming, I tried to get free. I couldn’t do it; Monte had me firmly molded to him. It seemed I had unleashed something inside him.

My chest would be one purple bruise when he got done raising welts all over my skin. But the things he did to my nipples caused other things to come alive inside me other than anger.

I wasn’t over my temper fit by any