Read Under Alaskan Skies for Free Online

Maybe she was. Apparently he’d never met anyone like her before. She had to admit she felt the same about him. But then, she didn’t get out of the sparsely populated state much, which suited her fine.
    She ladled out some soup into two bowls and set them on the wooden table. Then she took a deep breath. “I’m not going to be able to fly you back tonight, Matt.” She almost stumbled over his name. She wished she could call him Dr. Baker, it would help her keep in mind he was a doctor and out of her league, but at this point it would be ridiculous. “I’m sorry. I know I promised but…”
    “Never mind,” he said, pulling a chair up to the table. “It will give me a chance to check up on Donnytomorrow. You can take me to Skagway tomorrow. I’ll meet the ship there. I’ll get a room in a hotel or something tonight.”
    “Or something is more like it,” Carrie said, sitting down across from him. “I wish there was a hotel in Mystic, but there isn’t. We don’t get that many tourists. The nearest hotel is in Stewart, fifty miles as the crow or the floatplane flies. They’ve also got a coffeehouse. We’re lucky to have a post office, a store, a school and a library, which is only open when I’m home because I’m the librarian. Oh, and a kind of museum, too.”
    “Which is only open when you’re home because you’re probably the curator,” he said, digging into his soup.
    “How did you know?” she asked.
    “Just a lucky guess. I suppose you caught the salmon for the soup. It’s great.”
    “Actually I traded it for a pan of cinnamon rolls, I’ve never been much of a fisherman.”
    “I don’t know who got the best deal,” Matt said. “I guess I’d have to taste those rolls first.” He imagined how she’d look in her kitchen in the morning, any morning, with her hair tousled, her eyes still sleepy and the scent of yeast and cinnamon in the air, and it caused his heart to pump double time. What a combination—she was modest, gutsy, gorgeous, warm, generous and self-effacing. It was just his luck to find her in this corner of a different world. A world seen by most through the porthole of a cruise ship. It was his luck to see it up close and firsthand. If only he’d seen it ten years ago.
    If only he’d met her then in a different place anda different time. Things might have been…no, ten years ago he was on his way to becoming a doctor. He wouldn’t have let anything interfere with his plans, or were they his father’s plans? It didn’t matter. The die had been cast. The end was almost in sight. Three more years. Now if only the boy would recover, he would always have happy memories of this place. He’d always keep her image in one corner of his mind.
    “If that’s a hint, you’re on,” Carrie said. “After all you’ve done for me, for us, for the town, I’ll do whatever it takes to make your stay more pleasant. Cinnamon rolls, whatever.”
    “Anything?” he asked, trying to sound casual, but feeling anything but. He felt downright lecherous. He had no idea what was happening to him. If he thought about it, which he really didn’t want to do, he’d have to say that it was being here, away from everything and everybody he knew that had him feeling like a different person from the focused, serious medical resident who’d left for a vacation with his parents a week ago. It was his first break in a long time, between med school and his internship.
    Sometimes it seemed he’d spent all his life studying. Was he acting out because of the spring breaks from college that he’d never had, was he trying to make up for the teen summers spent in summer school while other guys chased bikini-clad girls on the beach? Had he missed out on something by staying away from womanizing and drinking binges in college?
    Whatever it was, he had it bad. He tried not to stare at her, but it was hard not to. Even as he was eatinghe let his gaze cross the table. When she wasn’t looking, he studied her