Alaska.He wanted to return to the place of simpler rules, clean air, nature, and sky at every turn. His heart felt at home there. Even now, with Gina filling his senses, Alaska called to him.
When he poked at the feeling, though, it wasn’t his family calling him back so much as the place and the way it made him feel, the peace and tranquility it evoked in him.
“Wait a second.” He returned to something Gina had said, since he didn’t like rummaging around in his own feelings. “If you didn’t start with ballroom, what kind of dance did you start with?”
“Ballet, like a lot of other little girls.” Gina leaned back on her hands. “My older sister had taken classes at our local Boys & Girls Club, and my mom was friends with the teacher. Soon, I was signed up for every kind of dance class the club offered—jazz, tap, and Latin—and I earned a spot in their kids’ dance troupe, which allowed me to travel.”
“How old were you?”
“When I joined that troupe? Probably eight. Eventually, we started looking for scholarships to other dance schools. I kept going with Latin and ballet, and picked up ballroom and hip-hop, too.” She gestured at her curves. “I’m clearly not built to be a prima ballerina—not like Natasha—but I was good enough to audition and get into a public high school that specialized in the performing arts. That led to more opportunities, and I was part of another troupe and booking gigs by the time I was sixteen.”
She opened her mouth to continue, then shut it. Her gaze dropped. Whatever she’d been about to say, it was big. He wanted to know.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
“I’ll tell you another time.” She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Anyway, we’re supposed to be talking about the most important time inyourlife.”
He pulled a protein shake out of his gym bag. “As you know, I live in Alaska.”
She chuckled. “I remember.”
“My family didn’t always live in that spot, though. We moved there around five years ago, after a fire destroyed… well, almost everything. Pop had a friend who hooked us up withLiving Wild’snetwork, and they said they wanted to document our move and way of life.”
“A fire?” Her eyebrows nearly leaped off her head. “Was it lightning?”
“Arson.”
Crap.Stone faced the camera and made a slashing motion across his throat. “Sorry, you can’t use that. There was a lawsuit and… you can’t air that.”
Jordy nodded. “That’s fine. We’ll cut it. Keep going.”
Gina’s eyes were bulging with curiosity, but she only said, “A fire?”
“Yeah.”
Stone didn’t like remembering it. That had been such a rough time. One of the neighbors had harbored a grudge toward Jimmy over a petty feud, and torched their home while they were away. They’d had a few things in lock boxes, and a small storage unit in town, and their vehicles. Nearly everything else was gone.
“After that, my father wanted to move somewhere even more remote than where we already were. It would be hard, he said, but if we all went together, we could do it.”
More like if they all went together, they’d get the TV contract.
“How old were you when that happened?” All her attention was focused on him, and he didn’t think it was just for the benefit of the cameras.
“Twenty-five.” And living on his own, in Juneau. Working a good job for the city, putting his degree in engineering to use. But he didn’t tell her about all that. He wasn’t allowed. It didn’t fit the survivalist image the Nielsons represented onLiving Wild.The deal had been all Nielsons or no show, so he’d quit his job and moved with his family.
“That must have been a big change,” Gina said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder and rubbing in soft circles.
“I had a girlfriend.” Shit, he definitely hadn’t meant to say that.
Her hand paused. “Oh?”
No backing away from it now. Stone caught Jordy’s eye andshook his head. Jordy nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t want to move with me. Wanted to leave Alaska completely, in fact. So, we broke up.”
Stone hadn’t planned on mentioning Anna, but talking to Gina was too easy. She listened, asked questions, and showed real concern for him. When was the last time he’d had a genuine one-on-one conversation? At home, there were always other people around, in addition to the cameras.
There was a camera here, too, but the difference was Gina. He already felt closer to her than he did to some of his siblings.
And that was something else to feel guilty about.
