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Lonely men in Hard Luck, Alaska, looking for women. Our town might be cold, but our hearts are warm!
Location: north of the Arctic Circle. Population: 150 (mostly men!). But the three O’Halloran brothers, who run a bush-plane charter service called Midnight Sons, are heading a campaign to bring women to town.
Brides for Brothers
Sawyer O’Halloran, the middle brother, isn’t entirely in favor of this scheme. But he considers himself immune to any woman—even the lovely Abbey Sutherland. She’s arriving in Alaska within days. However, there’s a complication...or two. She hasn’t told them she’s arriving with kids!
The Marriage Risk
Like his brothers, Charles O’Halloran has a distrust of marriage in general—and of anyone related to Catherine Harmon Fletcher in particular. She’s the woman who tried to destroy his parents’ marriage. Too bad Lanni Caldwell, the only woman he’s ever really fallen for, is Catherine’s granddaughter...
Praise for the novels of #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
“Ms. Macomber’s storytelling abilities are on splendid display as she charms us with rich, dynamic characters, zestful scenes and tender dialogue.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Marriage Risk
“Showcase[s] Ms. Macomber’s richly developed characters and clever dialogue.”
—RT Book Reviews on Brides for Brothers
“Macomber is a skilled storyteller.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Debbie Macomber] demonstrates her impressive skills with characterization and her flair for humor.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Whether [Debbie Macomber] is writing lighthearted romps or more serious relationship books, her novels are always engaging stories that accurately capture the foibles of real-life men and women with warmth and humor.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Debbie Macomber tells women’s stories in a way no one else does.”
—BookPage
“Popular romance writer Debbie Macomber has a gift for evoking the emotions that are at the heart of the genre’s popularity.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Debbie Macomber is one of the most reliable, versatile romance writers around.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Dear Friend,
Welcome to Hard Luck, Alaska, a small community near the Arctic Circle. The town has a rich and interesting history that I hope you’ll enjoy. These books revolve around the three O’Halloran brothers—Sawyer, Charles and Christian—who own a flight service. The problem is, they’re always losing their best pilots, until the brothers decide that the way to keep these men is to recruit women to their town. That’s when the fun begins.
My husband worked on the Arctic pipeline back in the mid-1980s and came to love Alaska. Creating this series was the perfect opportunity for me to explore it for myself. Our research trip in the summer of 1994 proved to be one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences of my writing career. I fell hopelessly in love with Alaska—the sheer magnificence of the landscape, the vastness and beauty, the friendliness of the small towns. Even now, all these years later, I have warm memories of our time there. Wayne and I flew with bush pilots, trekked across the tundra and talked with anyone who was willing to tell us about their lives.
The Midnight Sons series holds a special place in my heart. It was the prelude to the Heart of Texas series, the Dakota books and eventually led to the Cedar Cove series. Keep in mind that the Hard Luck stories were written in the mid-1990s, before cell phones, DVDs and the internet became part of our everyday lives. Now I invite you to sit back and allow me to introduce you to some proud, stubborn, wonderful men—Alaska men—and show you what happens when they meet their matches. Women from the “lower 48.” Women a lot like you and me.
PS: I love hearing from readers. You can visit me at debbiemacomber.com, find me on Facebook or mail to P.O. Box 1458, Port Orchard, WA 98366.
Alaska Skies
Debbie Macomber
www.mirabooks.co.uk
Table of Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Praise
Dear Reader
Title Page
The History of Hard Luck Alaska
Dedication
Brides for Brothers
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
The Marriage Risk
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Extract
Copyright
The History of Hard Luck, Alaska
Hard Luck, situated fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle near the Brooks Range, was founded by Adam O’Halloran and his wife, Anna, in 1931. Adam came to Alaska to make his fortune, but never found the gold strike he sought. Nevertheless, the O’Hallorans and their two young sons, Charles and David, stayed on—in part because of a tragedy that befell the family a few years later.
Other prospectors and adventurers began to move to Hard Luck, some of them bringing wives and children. The town became a stopping-off place for mail, equipment and supplies. The Harmon family arrived in 1938 to open a dry-goods store, and the Fletchers came soon after that.
When World War II began, Hard Luck’s population was fifty or sixty people all told. Some of the young men, including the O’Halloran sons, joined the armed services; Charles left for Europe in 1942, David in 1944 at the age of eighteen. Charles died during the fighting. Only David came home—with a young English war bride, Ellen Sawyer, despite the fact that he’d become engaged to Catherine Harmon shortly before going overseas. Catherine married Willie Fletcher after David’s return.
After the war, David qualified as a bush pilot. He then built some small cabins to attract the sport fishermen and hunters who were starting to come to Alaska; he also worked as a guide. Eventually he built a lodge to replace the cabins—a lodge that was later damaged by fire.
David and Ellen had three sons, born fairly late in their marriage—Charles, named after David’s brother, was born in 1960, Sawyer in 1963 and Christian in 1965.
Hard Luck had been growing slowly all this time, and by 1970 it was home to just over a hundred people. These were the years of the oil boom, when the school and community center were built by the state. After Vietnam, ex-serviceman Ben Hamilton joined the community and opened the Hard Luck Café, which became the social center of the town.
In the late 1980s, the three O’Halloran brothers formed a partnership, creating Midnight Sons, a bush-pilot operation. They were awarded the mail contract, and they also deliver fuel and other necessities to the interior. In addition, they serve as a small commuter airline, flying passengers to and from Fairbanks and within the northern Arctic.
In 1995, at the time these stories start, there are approximately one hundred and fifty people living in Hard Luck—the majority of them male.
Now, more than twenty years later, join the people here in looking back at their history—particularly the changes that occurred when Midnight Sons invited women to town. Women who transformed Hard Luck, Alaska, forever!
From Jana S
to her Three Tree Point angels,
Mary C and Ann P (RIP Jeannie A);
her forever friends and fellow readers,
Barbara S, Sherry M, Cindy C and Cindy S;
her sisters by choice, Lori F, Chris S and Lori MK.
Brides for Brothers
Prologue
June 1995
“What you really need are women.”
Sawyer O’Halloran made a show of choking on his coffee. “Women! We’ve got enough problems!”
Ben Hamilton—the Hard Luck Café’s owner, cook and just about everything else—set the coffeepot on the counter. “Didn’t you just tell me Phil Duncan’s decided to move back to Fairbanks?”
Phil was the best pilot Sawyer had. He wasn’t the first one Midnight Sons had lost to the big city, either. Every time a pilot resigned, it was a setback for the Arctic flight service.
“Yes, but Phil’s not leaving because of a woman,” Sawyer said.
“Sure he is,” Duke Porter piped up. Still clutching his mug, he slipped onto the stool next to Sawyer. “Phil quit because he couldn’t see his girlfriend as much as he wanted. He might’ve given you some phony excuse when he handed in his notice, but you know as well as I do why he quit.”
“Joe and Harlan left because of women, too. Because they couldn’t meet any, not if they were living here!” It was Ben again. The ex-Navy “stew burner”—as the O’Halloran brothers called him—obviously had strong views on the subject. Sawyer often shared his opinions, but not this time. He had half a mind to suggest Ben keep his nose out of this, but that wouldn’t be fair.
One of the problems with living in a small town, especially if you’d grown up there, was that you knew everyone, Sawyer reflected. And everyone knew you—and your business.
He might as well set up the Midnight Sons office right here in the middle of the café. His pilots routinely ate breakfast at Ben’s, and the cook was as familiar with the air charter’s troubles as the brothers were themselves.
Christian, the youngest O’Halloran, held his mug with both hands. “All right, if you won’t say it, I will,” he began, looking pointedly at Sawyer. “Ben’s right. Bringing a few women to Hard Luck would keep the crew happy.”
Sawyer didn’t really disagree with him. “We’ve got a new schoolteacher coming. A woman.” As a member of the school board, Sawyer had read over Bethany Ross’s application and been impressed with her qualifications, but he wasn’t sure the state should have hired her. She’d been born and raised in California. He still hadn’t figured out why she’d applied for a teaching position north of the Arctic Circle.
“I just hope this teacher isn’t like the last one,” John Henderson grumbled. “I flew her in, remember? I was as polite as could be, circled the area a bit, showed her the sights from the air, talked up the town. The woman wouldn’t even get off the plane.”
“I’d still like to know what you said to her,” Christian muttered.
“I didn’t say anything,” John insisted. “I mean, besides what I told you.” He squinted at Sawyer. “The new teacher’s not coming until August, is she?”
“August,” Ben repeated. “One woman.” He readjusted the stained white apron around his thick waist. “I can see it now.”
“See what?” Fool that he was, Sawyer had to ask. It went without saying that Ben would be more than happy to tell him.
“One woman will cause more problems than she’ll solve,” Ben said in a portentous voice. “Think about it, Sawyer.”
Sawyer didn’t want to think about it. All this talk of bringing in women made him uncomfortable.
“One thing’s for sure, we’re not going to let John fly her in this time,” Ralph said scornfully. “I got first dibs.”
He was answered by a loud chorus of “Like hell!” and “No way!”
“Don’t squabble!” Sawyer shouted.
Ben chuckled and slid a plate of sourdough hotcakes onto the counter toward Ralph.
“See what I mean?” the cook said under his breath. “Your men are already fighting over the new teacher, and she isn’t even arriving for months.”
Ralph lit into the hotcakes as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. Mouth full, he mumbled something about lonely bachelors.
“All right, all right,” Sawyer conceded. “Bringing a few women to Hard Luck might be a good idea, but how do you suggest we persuade them to move up here?”
“I guess we could advertise,” Christian said thoughtfully, then brightened. “Sure, we’ll advertise. It’s a good idea. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner.”
“Advertise?” Sawyer glared at his brother. “What do you mean, advertise?”
“Well, we could put an ad in one of those glossy magazines women like to buy. You know, the kind with lifestyle articles.” He said the word almost reverently. “What I heard, it’s gotten to be the thing to place an ad about lonely men in Alaska seeking companionship.”
“A friend of a friend sent his picture to one of ’em,” Ralph said excitedly, “and before he knew it, he had a sackful of letters. All from women eager to meet him.”
“I want you to know right now I’m not taking off my shirt and posing for any damn picture,” Duke Porter said in an emphatic voice.
“Getting your photograph in one of those magazines isn’t as easy as it sounds,” Ralph warned after swallowing a huge bite. He shrugged. “Not that I’ve tried or anything.”
“Things are rarely as good as they sound,” Sawyer pointed out reasonably, pleased that at least one of his employees was thinking clearly.
“Those women aren’t looking for pen pals, you know,” John said. “They’re after husbands, and they aren’t the type who can be picky, either, if you catch my drift.”
“So? You guys aren’t exactly centerfold material yourselves,” Ben was quick to remind them. He pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and planted both hands on the counter.
“As far as I can see,” Sawyer said, “we don’t have anything to offer women. It’s not like our good looks would induce them to move here, now is it?”
John’s face fell with disappointment. “You’re probably right.”
“What would work, then?” Christian asked. “We need to think positive, or we’re going to end up spending our lives alone.”
“I don’t have any complaints about my life,” Sawyer told his brother. Christian’s enthusiasm for this crazy idea surprised him. Sawyer was willing to go along with it, but he didn’t have much faith in its success. For one thing, he wasn’t convinced there’d be any takers. And if there were, the presence of these women might create a whole new set of problems.
“You’ve got to remember women aren’t that different from men,” Christian was saying, sounding like a TV talk-show expert.
The others stared at him, and Christian laughed. “You know what I mean. You guys came up to Hard Luck, didn’t you? Even though we’re fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle.”
“Sure,” Duke answered. “But the wages are the best around, and the living conditions aren’t bad.”
“Wages,” Christian said, removing a pen from the pocket of his plaid shirt. He made a note on his paper napkin.
“You aren’t thinking about paying women to move to Hard Luck, are you?” Sawyer would fight that idea tooth and nail. He’d be darned if he’d see his hard-earned cash wasted on such foolishness.
“We could offer women jobs, couldn’t we?” Christian asked. He glanced around to gather support from the other pilots.
“Doing what?” Sawyer demanded.
“Well...” Frowning, his brother gnawed on the end of his pen. “You’ve been saying for a long time that we need to get the office organized. How about hiring a secretary? You and I have enough to do dealing with everything else. It’s a mess, and we can’t seem to get ahead.”
Sawyer resisted the urge to suggest a correspondence course in time management. “All right,” he said grudgingly.
The other pilots looked up from their breakfasts. They were beginning to take notice.
“What about all those books your mother left behind after she married Frank?” Ben asked. “She donated them so Hard Luck could have a library.”
Sawyer gritted his teeth. “A volunteer library.”
“But someone’s got to organize it,” Christian said. “I’ve tried now and then, but whenever I start to get things straightened out, I’m overwhelmed. There must be a thousand books there.”
Sawyer couldn’t really object, since, unlike Christian, he’d never made any effort to put his mother’s collection in order.
“That was very generous of your mother, giving the town her books,” Ralph said. “But it’s a shame we can’t find what we want or check it out if we do.”
“It seems to me,” Christian said, smiling broadly, “that we could afford to pay someone to set up the library and run it for a year or so. Don’t you agree?”
Sawyer shrugged. “If Charles does.” But they both knew their oldest brother would endorse the idea. He’d been wanting to get the library going for quite a while.
“I heard Pearl say she was thinking of moving to Nenana to live with her daughter,” Ben told the gathering. “In that case, the town’s going to need someone with medical experience for the health clinic.”
A number of heads nodded. Sawyer suspected now was not the time to remind everyone that Pearl regularly mentioned moving in with her daughter. Generally the sixty-year-old woman came up with that idea in the darkest part of winter, when there were only a couple of hours of daylight and spirits were low.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ben said, turning to Sawyer. “But did it ever occur to you that Pearl actually would leave if someone was here to take over for her?”
No, Sawyer hadn’t. Pearl had lived in Hard Luck for as long as he could remember. She’d been a friend of his mother’s when Ellen lived in Hard Luck, and a peacemaker in the small community. Over the years Sawyer had frequently had opportunity to be grateful to Pearl. If she did decide to move, he’d miss her.
“We can ask her if she’s serious about wanting to retire,” Sawyer agreed, despite his reluctance. “But I won’t have Pearl thinking we don’t want her.”
“I’ll talk to her myself,” Christian promised.
“I could use a bit of help around here,” Ben said. “I’ve been feeling my age of late.”
“You mean feeling your oats, don’t you?” John teased.
Ben grinned. “Go ahead and add a part-time cook and waitress to your list.”
There were smiles all around. Sawyer hated to be the one to put a damper on all these plans, but someone had to open their eyes to a few truths. “Has anyone figured out where these women are going to live?”
It was almost comical to see the smiles fall in unison, as if they were marionettes and a puppet master was working their mouths. Still, Sawyer had to admit he was beginning to warm to the idea of recruiting women. Hard Luck could do with a few new faces and he wouldn’t object if those faces happened to be young, female and pretty. Not that he was the marrying kind. No, sirree. Not Sawyer O’Halloran. Not after what he’d seen with his parents. Their unhappiness had taught him early and taught him well that marriage meant misery. Although, in his opinion, Catherine Fletcher bore a lot of the blame....
He shook his head. Marriage was definitely out, and he suspected his two brothers felt the same way. They must. Neither of them seemed inclined toward marriage, either.
He returned his attention to the dilemma at hand. No one appeared to have any answers to his question about where these women would live, and Sawyer felt obligated to point out the less-than-favorable aspects of their plan. The more he considered it, the more certain he became that this idea was impossible. Attractive, perhaps—especially in a moment of weakness—but impossible.
“It wouldn’t have worked, anyway,” he said.
“Why not?” his brother asked.
“Women are never satisfied with the status quo. They’d move to Hard Luck and immediately want to change things.” Sawyer had seen it before. “Well, I don’t want things changed. We have it good here.”
“Yeah,” Ralph agreed, but without much enthusiasm.
“Before we knew it,” Sawyer continued, “the ladies would have rings on their fingers and rings through our noses, and they’d be leading us around like...like sheep. Worse, they’d convince us that’s the way we want it.”
“Nope. Not going to happen to me,” John vowed. “Unless...”
Not giving him a chance to weaken, Sawyer went on. “We’d be making runs into Fairbanks for low-fat ice cream because one or other of them has a craving for chocolate without the calories.” Sawyer could picture it now. “They’d want us to watch our language and turn the TV off during dinner and shave every day...and...”
“You’re right,” Duke said with conviction. “A woman would probably want me to shave off my beard.”
The men grimaced as if they could already feel the razor.
Women in Hard Luck would have his pilots wrapped around their little fingers within a week, Sawyer thought. And after that, his men wouldn’t be worth a damn.
Christian hadn’t spoken for several minutes. Now he slowly rubbed his hand along his jaw. “What about the cabins?”
“The old hunting cabins your father built on the outskirts of town?” Ralph asked.
Sawyer and Christian exchanged a look. “Those are the ones,” Christian said. “Dad built them back in the fifties before the lodge was completed—you know, the lodge that burned down? Folks would fly in for hunting and fishing and he’d put them up there. They’re simple, one medium-size room without any conveniences.”
“No one’s lived in those cabins for years,” Sawyer reminded his brother.
“But they’re solid, and other than a little dirt there’s nothing wrong with them. Someone could live there. Easily.” Christian’s voice rose as he grew excited about the idea. “With a little soap and water and a few minor repairs, they’d be livable in nothing flat.”
Sawyer couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A city gal would take one look at those cabins and leave on the next flight out. “But there isn’t any running water or electricity.”
“No,” Christian agreed, “not yet.”
Now Sawyer understood, and he didn’t like it. “I’m not putting any money into fixing up those run-down shacks.” Charles would have a fit if he let Christian talk him into doing anything so stupid.
“Those old cabins aren’t worth much, are they?” Christian asked.
Sawyer hesitated. He recognized his brother’s tone. Christian had something up his sleeve.
“No,” Sawyer admitted cautiously.
“Then it wouldn’t hurt to give the cabins away.”
“Give them away?” Sawyer echoed. It stood to reason that no one would pay for them. Who’d want them anyway, even if they were free?
“We’re going to need something to induce women to move to Hard Luck,” Christian said. “We aren’t offering them marriage.”
“Damn right we’re not.” John gulped down a slug of coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Companionship is all I’m interested in,” another of the pilots added. “Female companionship.”
“We don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking this is about marriage.”
“Exactly.”
Sawyer looked around the room at his pilots. “Marriage is what practically all women are after,” he said with more certainty than he actually felt.
“There’s plenty of jobs in the lower forty-eight,” Christian said in a perfectly reasonable tone. This was always where Sawyer ran into trouble with his younger brother. Christian could propose the most ridiculous idea in the most logical way. “True?”