Free Unbound by Olivia Leighton Page A

shortly after nine o’ clock. I listened to the sounds of the woods—the sighing branches, a hooting owl somewhere in the distance, and a wind that barely brushed the side of my tent.
     
    I thought about the float plane and making a living out here in Sitka. I thought of Mac, the cute and unsuspecting proprietor of The Pine Way. I thought of the two lives I had already lived to this point and found myself incredibly anxious to truly start the third one.

7—Mac
     
    I was having what I liked to call a Crossword kind of day. Those are the days when business at the shop is so slow that I spend most of my time doing crossword puzzles to pass the time. For the last five years or so, over half of our business consisted of online orders which meant that all I had to do was box the item up, slap a shipping label on it, and send it off.
     
    The only real reason The Pine Way managed to exist as a physical store at all was for the tourists that came in from time to time. There were a few loyal locals as well, but they only made up about fifteen percent of our business.
     
    This was why I was so caught up on the idea of buying the float plane. With the plane, I could introduce an entirely new facet to The Pine Way—one that my father had mentioned offhandedly in the several years he had taken me under his wing. I liked to think that if I managed to get the plane and make a successful venture of flying tourists out to great fishing spots and off-the-beaten-path hiking locales, I’d be bringing a dream of his to fruition. Dad had been in the grave for almost five years now, but I still saw The Pine Way as his store.
     
    Of course, there were hold ups at the bank, not letting me purchase the plane as quickly as I could. According to the guy I was working with, the money would be mine within forty-eight hours. My only hope was that the other interested party was having the same sorts of complications. I was tempted to just siphon some of the funds from the shop’s money but it would go against the financial practices that my father had lived by and I wasn’t about to disgrace his memory in such a way.
     
    So to busy myself, I was attempting to complete the crossword in the back of the local paper. I was trying to figure out a nine letter word for love when I heard the little bell over the front door jingle. I looked up and saw the man that had come in two days ago.
     
    I smiled as my heart skipped a beat.  “Hey there.  Jack, right?” I asked. I was being coy; I remembered his name.
     
    “ That’s right, Mac ,” he said with a smile. The good-looking man made his way to the counter and looked around passively, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there.  I watched him for a moment, noting the way he moved. 
     
    “ I’m relieved to see you,” she said. “I was afraid our Alaskan wilds might get the better of you.”
     
    “ Oh, I can handle myself in the wilderness,” he said with a confident grin that made my insides pur.
     
    “ Did you have fun?” I asked.
     
    “ I did. It was sort of cool to get lost out in the woods for a day or so. I made it all the way to Catchman’s Overlook and camped. It was beautiful.”
     
    “ Wow, that was quite a hike!”
     
    He nodded casually.  “ I hope to do it again soon.”
     
    “Ambitious hiker.  I like that,” I said with a smile as his big brown eyes lifted to me.  “ So what can I do for you today?” I asked.
     
    “ I wanted to get some more of those GoBars. Those things are delicious—unlike most of those other healthy nature bars that taste like cardboard.”
     
    “ Yeah, they’ve been selling pretty well. I just put a few new boxes out.” I pointed to the aisle behind him and to the left. He glanced over to them in an almost reluctant way, and tossed me a sexy, boyish grin. Maybe he hadn’t come here just for the GoBars after all?  A girl could only hope...
     
    Still, I guess he felt obligated at that point. He walked over to the