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Benjamin Sinclair hadn’t left any friends behind when he’d stolen out of town sixteen years ago—only a pregnant young girl, a town full of vigilantes, and a dead man.
Emma gave him a deceptively friendly smile. “I’m Emma Sands from Medicine Creek Camps. Um … welcome to Maine, Mr. Jenkins.”
Benjamin Sinclair started up the tote road, but he didn’t make it ten steps before his legs buckled and he fell to one knee.
Dammit. She would have to physically help him to the truck.
She expected him to feel like the snake he was; cold and slimy and disgusting. But what Emma felt as she set her shoulder under his was solid male muscle. The electric spark that shot through her nearly made her jump back.
Apparently he felt it, too. He shot upright and stiffened and glared at her again. Emma felt like a deer trapped in the light of molten gray eyes the exact same color of Michael’s.
Did he remember her?
Of course he did. The man wouldn’t have booked a stay at Medicine Creek if he didn’t know where his son was living.
The idealistic young man she remembered from sixteen years ago had been dangerously intelligent, if somewhat misguided. He’d been bold and handsome and charismatic, and Emma, only fourteen at the time, had idolized him. Her older sister had naively jumped into his bed, and Michael was the result of that recklessness. And now, after all these years, the boy was going to meet the man who had abandoned him and his mother without a backward glance.
“Are you planted here, Miss Sands, or are you waiting for me to bleed to death to save yourself the trouble of a lawsuit?”
Emma grabbed the back of his belt and started off down the dirt road. “It’s not my fault you were beaten up, Mr. Jenkins. My liability doesn’t start until you actually check in.” She snorted. “When out-of-staters wander these woods dressed like tree huggers, they have no one to blame but themselves for being mistaken for trouble.”
Emma watched him frown down at his clothes before looking back up the tote road they were hobbling along. His arm around her tightened and she shifted his pack on her shoulder, making him loosen his grip.
“They beat me up because they didn’t like my clothes?”
“There’s tension in these parts right now. Environmentalists, mostly out-of-staters, are trying to get clear-cutting ba
Good Lord. She was explaining this to the biggest tree hugger of them all! Last time he’d come here, Benjamin Sinclair had had the backing of the Sierra Club to fight damming the river for hydropower. He’d been quiet in his crusade, but nonetheless effective. The nearly finished dam hadn’t been rebuilt after it had been blown up—along with her father.
“Damn. They let the air out of my tires.”
Ben looked up to see a dusty red pickup with roof racks, a canoe on top, and four flat tires. Hell. Now he remembered why he hated this town. “Nice friends you’ve got,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
The woman beside him sighed. “Payback for spraying them with birdshot.”
His obviously reluctant rescuer opened the passenger door, and Ben eased into the seat with a groan. It was a relief to be sitting, and an even greater relief to be free of the disturbing touch of Emma Sands. He watched in silence as she tossed his pack and shotgun case in the truck bed, walked around to open the driver’s door, and carefully placed her shotgun on the rack behind his head. Then she started rummaging around under the seat.
Soda cans and empty chip bags came out, followed by candy wrappers and a flashlight, then a pair of gloves, a dirty towel, empty shotgun casings, live shotgun shells, binoculars, and a first-aid kit. Ignoring the kit, she made a sound of relief when she pulled out an unopened bottle of whiskey. She tossed it to him and grabbed up the towel. Then, without saying a word, she slammed the door shut and started walking down the road.
She was definitely pissed about something. Ben hoped it was the fact that her tires were flat, and not that she knew who he was. He watched her stop at a nearby bog and dip the scruffy rag into it.
A feather could have knocked him over when Durham had called her Emma. The Emma Sands he remembered had been a quiet, shy little waif who liked to spend more time in the forest than around people.
This woman—this gun-toting, fire-breathing virago—
was a far cry from the young girl he remembered. But what unbalanced Ben the most was his reaction to her. When she had tucked herself under his shoulder, he had felt a jolt of electricity that had nearly knocked him over.
Emma Sands had grown up real nice, and had done well for herself. According to the investigators, she’d never married, and had been single-handedly raising Michael ever since Kelly had run off with a man ten years ago.
Ben knew Emma was a bush pilot, a licensed Maine Guide, and the owner of Medicine Creek Camps. He also knew Michael’s name was on the deed with hers, and that their guiding and camping business was very successful. Emma clearly believed in investing in good equipment; the Cessna Stationair she owned wasn’t cheap, the truck he was sitting in was this year’s model, and the camps themselves sat on a thousand acres of prime woodland.
Only the investigators hadn’t told Ben exactly where Medicine Creek Camps was located. They’d also neglected to include a photo of Emma, or mention that her legs came up to her armpits, that her blond hair formed a braid as thick as his wrist, and her ta
Had she written him the letter?
And if she had, why now?
Ben didn’t think she recognized him. He’d filled out, grown hard, and his beard should help insure that no one in town would recognize him.
Ben watched her rise from the stream, expecting he would soon be getting his face washed like a four-year-old. But she just stood there, staring out over the water and then looking up at the sky. Finally she turned.
And damn if she didn’t look even madder than before.
Ben watched her walk back to the truck, her mind obviously wrestling with some decision. She hesitated at the driver’s door, looking back at the bog as she absently wrung the life out of the towel she was holding.
She seemed to suddenly come to a decision.
Whatever it was, Ben could see she was not pleased with what she had decided, just determined. She slid into the seat beside him and picked up the mike of the two-way radio bolted beneath the dash.
“Come on, Mikey. Talk to me,” she said into the mike. “I need a ride home.”
“Where’s your truck?” soon came a male voice over the radio. “Did you total this one, too, Nemmy?”
Mikey? Could that deep masculine voice be Michael’s?
Ben nearly stopped breathing.
“No. I’ve got four flat tires and my portable compressor is in the shed. Come get Mr. Jenkins and me. We’re over by Smokey Bog.”
“Holy cow! The sport made it that far? Walking?”
“It seems so, Mikey. Just come get us, will you? Mr. Jenkins needs to see a doctor.” She kept the mike depressed as she hesitated, shooting Ben a dark look. “You’re going to have to fly over, so we can leave for the hospital directly from here.”
“He’s hurt that bad?”
She continued to look at Ben, her eyes a dark, disturbed jade that made him think of glacial ice. “Bad enough, but he’ll live. You can land on the bog.”
“No way, bossy lady. Crazy Larry is home, and if he sees me flying he’ll call the FAA again. And I can’t land on that bog. It’s too small.”
Ben stiffened. She was asking the boy to do something dangerous?
And illegal?
“Michael, you can land here with your eyes closed. Just put Alice in the driver’s seat. Larry won’t know it’s not me.”