AGAINST THE WILD by Kat Martin takes place in one of the
most fascinating states I've ever visited Alaska. There is
something so earthy and real about a place that faces the
most horrific winters but looks forward to amazingly
beautiful summers. Kat Martin is the master of setting the
stage and with Alaska as her background AGAINST THE WILD was
just a joy to read. In addition Martin is a romantic at
heart and once again she treats us to a warm delightful love
story filled with unmistakable images of the joy of falling
in love. There is even a bit of a mysterious haunting thrown
in for good measure. AGAINST THE WILD plays all the elements
of Alaska like a virtuoso. Bravo.
Well here's the scoop Dylan Brodie knows something good when
he sees it. He fell in love with the lodge he purchased with
the intent of building a business guiding visitors on
fishing expeditions. And he also knew this would be a
wonderful place to raise Emily his 8 year old.
Lane Bishop was recruited to help remodel this lodge. Her
business was actually in California but Dylan had dangled a
unique and very interesting job working within such a rural
setting. Lane was busy convincing herself that her decision
to accept this assignment was to settle a debt but that was
her sensible side speaking. Her emotional side knew better.
Dylan and Lane had connected before for a very brief time.
Perhaps this would finally put an end to an attraction that
was a definite dead end. Along for the ride is Finn Lane's
huge wolfhound who immediately attracts Emily's attention.
Dylan hopes having a pet, even a short term one, will bring
Emily around -- anything that can help Emily find her voice
Dylan would wholeheartedly embrace.
Creaking staircases, uninhabited rocking chairs, chills in
the air are the stuff hauntings are made of. But Dylan is
committed to making his lodge into a vacation destination
and so feeding into any legends is just plain
counterproductive. This lodge with Lane's help is going to
be a fashionably rustic fashion plate in what is decidedly a
remote area of Alaska. Dylan has undying confidence in
Lane's ability to do the job. Just as he can't hide the fact
that Lane lights a spark that he felt long dead.
Kat Martin makes me smile -- it's just that simple. In
AGAINST THE WILD we are treated to a magnificent panorama of
Mother Nature at her best. The underdeveloped country is the
backdrop for a beautiful love story. Along the way Martin
teaches us the ways of the locals including the Indians
indigenes to the area. Anyone who has an appetite for some
really unique history will gobble up this latest installment
in Martin's Brodies books.
Alaska - Where the men are as bold and untamed as
America's last wilderness
It's been three years since Lane Bishop tragically lost
her fiancé, and she's finally ready to risk her heart on
someone else. The hot look in Dylan Brodie's eyes says he's
going to be that man.
But when Lane flies to the remote 1930's fishing lodge to
help him renovate, she discovers a little girl who won't
speak, eerie legends and strange sounds in the night. And
when she investigates the history of the lodge, she uncovers
a legacy of injustice and murder.
As danger stalks his daughter and the woman he is coming
to love, Dylan must risk everything to uncover the shocking
truth.
Excerpt
The low moaning of the wind awakened him. The old fishing
lodge, constructed in the thirties, was built of hand-hewn
logs, the chinking between them worn by time and weather,
leaving spaces for the air to blow through. An eerie
keening echoed inside the house, a chilling sound that sent
shivers down Dylan’s spine.
Just the wind, he reminded himself. Nothing to do with
stories of ghosts and hauntings. Just an inconvenience,
nothing more.
Still, he had Emily to think of. Dylan Brodie swung his
long legs to the side of the bed, shrugged into his heavy
flannel robe, and padded barefoot down the hall toward his
daughter’s bedroom.
Dylan had fallen in love with the place the moment he had
seen it, perched on Eagle Bay like a guardian of the two
hundred forested acres around it.
Old legends be damned. He didn’t believe in ghosts or any
of the Indian myths he had heard. He’d waited years to find
the perfect spot for his guided fishing and family vacation
business, and this was the place.
The wind picked up as he moved down the hall, the air
sliding over rough wood, whistling through the eves, the
branches on the trees shifting eerily against the window
panes. Dylan picked up his pace, worried the noise would
frighten Emily, though so far his eight-year-old daughter
seemed more at ease in the lodge than he was.
Frosted glass wall sconces dimly lit the passage as he
walked along, original, not part of a remodel of the
residential wing done a few years back, before the last
owner moved out and left the area.
The four bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs on this side of the
building weren’t fancy but they were livable while he worked
on the rest of the lodge. The master suite had been
updated, but it wasn’t the way he wanted it yet.
Eventually, he would rebuild this section, as well, bring it
all up to the four-star standard he’d had in mind when he
had purchased the property.
Dylan paused at the door to Emily’s room, quietly turned the
knob and eased it open. His daughter lay beneath the quilt
that his housekeeper, Winifred Henry, had made for her as a
Christmas gift, princesses and unicorns embroidered in puffy
little pink and white squares, all hand-stitched to fit her
youth-size four-poster bed.
His gaze went to the child. Emily had the same dark hair
and blue eyes that marked her a Brodie, but her complexion
was as pale as her mother’s. Unlike Mariah’s perfect
patrician features, Emily’s mouth was a little too wide, her
small nose freckled across the bridge.
She was awake, he saw, her eyes fixed on the antique rocker
near the window. It was just her size, fashioned of oak and
intricately carved. She loved the old chair that had been
in the lodge when he bought it.
Emily never sat in it, but she was fascinated by the way the
wind made it rock on its own. Dylan found it slightly
eerie, the way it moved back and forth as if some invisible
occupant sat in the little chair. She was watching it now,
her lips curved in the faintest of smiles. She mumbled
something he couldn’t quite hear and Dylan’s chest clamped
down.
It hurt to watch his little girl, see her in the make-
believe world she now lived in, forming silent phrases,
nothing he could actually hear.
Emily hadn’t spoken a single audible phrase since her mother
had abandoned her three years ago. Not a meaningful word
since the night Mariah Brodie had run off with another man.
Dylan’s hand unconsciously fisted. Maybe he hadn’t been the
husband Mariah wanted. Maybe he’d been too wrapped up in
trying to make a life in the harsh Alaskan wilderness he
loved. Maybe he hadn’t paid her enough attention.
Maybe he just hadn’t loved her enough.
Guilt slipped through him. He never should have married
her. He should have known she would never be able to adjust
to the life he lived here. Still, it didn’t excuse her
cruel abandonment of their daughter. An abandonment Emily
had not been able to cope with.
Dylan forced himself to walk into the bedroom. Emily’s eyes
swung to his, but she didn’t smile, just stared at him in
that penetrating way that made his stomach churn.
“Em, honey, are you okay?” She didn’t answer, as he knew
she wouldn’t. “It’s just the wind. The lodge is old.
There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Emily’s gaze went to the window, where a lone pine branch
shifted restlessly against the sill. Ignoring him as if he
weren’t there, she snuggled back into her pillow and closed
her eyes. She blamed him for the loss of her mother, he
knew. It was the only explanation for why she had withdrawn
from him so completely.
Tucking the quilt a little closer beneath her chin, he
leaned down and kissed her cheek. The wind picked up as he
walked out of the bedroom and eased the door closed. Emily
was his to watch over and protect, his to care for and
comfort. But he had lost his daughter three years ago.
When he had driven her mother away.
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