Read Online Northern Fires by Jennifer LaBrecque - Free Book Online Page B

her.
    Juliette held up her hand. “This is fine. I’d better run or I’m going to be late.”
    “Enjoy your weekend off.”
    “Will do.”
    “Got plans?”
    “I’m going to work on some wind chimes that have been knocking around in my head.”
    Making chimes freed her mind and her spirit—the second-best thing to being up in the sky itself. Just her and her wind chimes and it would put Sven Sorenson firmly out of her mind because there was simply no place for Sven in her mind…or her life…and certainly not in her heart.
    * * *
    H EAVINESS WEIGHED DOWN Merrilee’s heart. Bull, his arm in a sling, pushed through the door and interrupted her melancholy. “Why the long face? Other than you’re aggravated with me?”
    She ran her finger over her lower lip, contemplating the woman who’d just walked out the front door. “Juliette…” Merrilee shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t help but worry about her.”
    Bull snagged a muffin and settled in the empty chair next to Merrilee’s desk. “Some people just keep to themselves, Merrilee. You know that by now. God knows, we see our share of them here in Alaska.”
    She poured him a cup of coffee—black—and passed it to him. He nodded in appreciation, his mouth full of muffin.
    “I know. And see, that’s the problem. I know how those people feel. It’s like they give off a certain energy. They really are perfectly content being an island unto themselves.” Still chewing, Bull nodded. “And I’d be fine with it if that’s the feeling I got from Juliette, but it’s not. I think that girl has surrounded herself with a thick wall of isolation to protect herself.”
    “Nothing, huh?”
    Juliette confounded and concerned Merrilee. “Two years she’s worked for me. From her employment application I know she’s from North Carolina. She lived in Raleigh for a while, then Anchorage. Her emergency contact is a woman named Sue Dickens in Anchorage. The only bit of personal information outside of that employment record is that her yard is full of wind chimes and whirligigs and she’s an air sign.”
    “Huh?”
    “An air sign. You know. She’s a Libra.”
    In the middle of chasing his muffin with coffee, Bull rolled his eyes at her. Merrilee rolled her eyes back at him and forged ahead. “It makes sense. She flies, she’s into wind chimes and whirligigs, she’s a thinker… She’s an air sign.”
    “Sure. Okay.”
    Talking about astrology always earned an eye roll from Bull. The man was obtuse and stubborn. Merrilee had shown him how perfectly their signs aligned but he remained a skeptic. She didn’t dare tell him Alberta had shared her psychic matchmaking and that the traveling Gypsy had confided Sven and Juliette were meant for one another. Bull liked Alberta, but he didn’t give her psychic abilities much weight. However, much like astrology, Merrilee had found Alberta to be pretty darned on the money. Hadn’t she told Merrilee back in the day Bull was the man for her? That had certainly turned out right enough. But he’d have to convince himself; she was done trying. She moved on conversationally to less esoteric ground.
    “Marge is worried. She’s afraid Juliette’s going to break Sven’s heart.”
    Bull bristled on Juliette’s behalf. That’s why Merrilee was still so hopelessly in love with him after twenty-five years. “She’s not that kind of woman.”
    “Oh, she wouldn’t break his heart on purpose. In fact, if she thought he was offering his heart, it’d probably scare her to death. Marge is worried about Juliette’s previous marriages. I have a feeling she knows about Juliette’s alcoholism as well, but I could hardly betray Juliette’s confidence by asking, and if Marge does know she would’ve been told in confidence. So, I think she knows, but I couldn’t bring it up and if she does know she couldn’t bring it up, so it wasn’t brought up. Regardless, I think the real issue is whether Juliette will allow herself