Текст книги "Tempt Me If You Can"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

“You’re going to have to get some new clothes, if you still plan to hunt these roads,” she said as he stared down at his useless hands.

Ben snapped his gaze up at the amusement in her voice, but he only had time to open his mouth before she held the bottle to his lips. The potent whiskey burned his bleeding mouth, and ran all the way down his throat to pool like liquid heat in his stomach. Damn, it felt good. And she was a generous savior, despite her crude care. She patiently let him have his fill, until he leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. Lord, he could feel the whiskey already spreading to every aching muscle in his body. He’d been so sore and numb he hadn’t realized how cold he was.

Ben cracked his eyes enough to see the sun was setting behind the nearest mountain, casting long shadows over the forest, making the bog an unreadable tangle of still water, stumps, and ripples.

His son was going to land here? In a floatplane?

Ben stiffened at the sudden roar of a plane buzzing overhead. Dammit. He’d crawl to the hospital before he’d put Michael in danger. He was just about to tell Emma that when he heard the radio crackle again.

“Help me, Nem.”

“Figure it out yourself, Mikey.”

Ben made a grab for the mike to tell the boy to abort the landing and go home, but Emma pulled it out of his reach and glared at him. “He can do this,” she snapped. “Michael’s a better bush pilot than anyone around here. The bog’s big enough and he’s talented enough to land here in his sleep.”

“If he gets hurt, Miss Sands, I’m going to use that radio cord to strangle you.”

She stared at him for a good long minute, and then she suddenly gave him a strange smile. “You have my permission to try.”

“Guide him in.”

“No.”

“Guide me in, Nem,” Michael echoed over the radio.

“If you want to solo on your sixteenth birthday, you better know how, Mikey. I won’t be on the radio then.”

Ben heard an exasperated sigh come over the speaker. “I’ve been flying solo for two years.”

“And I’ve only had to replace the pontoons once,” she shot back. “Don’t make it twice. Watch the rocks.”

She tossed the mike on the dash and got out, and Ben realized that every muscle in her body was primed for action. Her shoulders were squared and her eyes were trained like lasers on the fast-descending plane, which appeared to be brushing the treetops. Her hands were balled into fists and her feet were planted, and she looked like she intended to guide her nephew down by force of will alone.

So the tough-talking lady was worried, was she?

Ben was going to kill her before this was over.

He could see two heads through the windshield of the plane, but Alice was either a very brave or a very dumb passenger. Michael was doing the flying, and he seemed to be doing it very well. He had throttled back but he was still coming in fast, looking like a hawk diving for prey. He wasn’t hesitating or asking for help now, by God. And his water rudders were up.

Michael Sands set the Stationair down on Smokey Bog softly enough to make an eagle weep. Ben brushed the blood trailing down his cheek, only to find his shaking hand came away more wet than red.

Damn, he was proud of the boy. Michael was doing a job most men couldn’t, and he was doing it magnificently. Emma might be justified in her boast, if this was an example of the boy’s maturity and self-confidence.

Ignoring his protesting body, Ben climbed out of the truck and shuffled toward the bog, determined to be standing eye level and proud when he finally met his son for the first time.

Chapter Two

E mma watched with prideas her nephew carefully nudged the Cessna up against the muddy bank of Smokey Bog. She hadn’t doubted for a minute he could land here; Mikey was the most capable young man she’d ever known.

He killed the engine and gave her a cocky smile through the windshield, then reached over, adjusted Alice’s cap, and pushed her dark glasses up her nose. He was clearly proud of himself. He climbed out of the plane and walked forward on the pontoon, jumping onto the shore with the litheness of a cat. Not even sixteen yet, Mikey was already pushing six feet.

Suddenly he stopped and stared at the bloody man limping toward them.

This was not good. Michael Sands was far too intelligent not to recognize the father he’d never met but probably knew everything about. The boy did own a computer; what were the chances his curiosity hadn’t led him through the internet to Benjamin Sinclair?

Her sister had never talked about Michael’s father to him, but that hadn’t stopped the boy from asking questions. And after Kelly had left, when Michael was five, Emma had answered every one of those questions with all the care and courage she could. She hadn’t made Benjamin Sinclair out to be an ogre; she’d simply told Michael that his father had been young and confused. And yes, he was handsome; yes, he was tall; and yes, he was just as intelligent as Mikey was.

This should prove interesting, Emma decided as she watched them stare at each other. Knowing Mikey, he wouldn’t reveal that he knew who Tom Jenkins really was. And their guest seemed just as determined to keep up the charade.

His eyes intent, Mikey reached out a hand. “Welcome to Maine, Mr. Jenkins.”

Benjamin Sinclair seemed completely floored by the gesture, and took an unsteady step back, looking as if he were facing a ghost.

What? The man who could tear her family to shreds was suddenly scared?

Mikey was still holding his hand out, and what Emma saw when she looked at his face would forever stay etched in her memory. Mikey wasn’t hurt, or angry, or even surprised. He simply stepped forward, picked up Ben’s hand, and moved it over his shoulder as he reached around his father’s waist to give him support.

“You’re a bit of a mess, Mr. Jenkins. And my aunt is right about your needing to see a doctor. Come on. I’ll help you into the plane. Go get his stuff from the truck, Nem. I’ve got him now.”

Emma realized she had also taken a step back, her mind numb and her heart breaking at the sight of the only person in the world she loved gently coming to the aid of the one person who could destroy her.

They were finally back at Medicine Creek Camps, with their guest tucked into one of the downstairs bedrooms of her home, drugged to his eyeballs with painkillers. Michael was in the Cessna cleaning up after their bloody passenger, and Emma was stretched out in her recliner with a frosted bottle of beer in her hand and a hot washcloth draped over her eyes.

For a man of few words, her battered guest sure could find choice ones when he wanted—which they had learned when Michael had removed Alice from the plane. Benjamin had cursed their ears red upon discovering that Mikey’s copilot was an old store mannequin with a hat and wig and aviator glasses. He’d then demanded to know what kind of person put a kid in the unthinkable position of landing on a spit of water so small it made aircraft carrier decks huge by comparison.

Michael, bless the boy’s heart, had calmly told Ben that Crazy Larry kept trying to report him to the FAA before he could turn sixteen and get his license. To that Ben had said—quite colorfully—they should both be turned in to Child Welfare. Emma had finally ended his little snit by poking the angry man in the back with her shotgun. He had gotten into the passenger seat, silent but fiercely glaring.

Alice was now floating facedown in Smokey Bog, where Ben had thrown her.

So much for her reputation. Not that the sporting camps couldn’t weather a few critics, but Emma took pride in their business, which she and Mikey had pulled out of drowning red ink. Though still very young herself, Emma had talked her sister into buying Medicine Creek Lodge with the insurance money from their father’s death. She and Kelly had run the lodge and camps together until Kelly had suddenly left Emma with the sizable mortgage and a five-year-old boy to raise.

Michael had been born an ancient in a baby’s body, looking wiser than God. Thankfully he had been a good baby—sleeping when he should, walking when he should, and talking their ears off with precocious babble. By the time Mikey was five, Emma had wondered if he would be going to school or teaching it.

There wasn’t anything the boy couldn’t do. Emma figured he’d be ruling the world by the time he was thirty. There was such a calmness about Michael, a gift of understanding and insight so deep, she was in awe—when she wasn’t intimidated.

She had finally stopped being amazed by the time Michael turned ten, and had learned to accept the fact that she was living with an old man. If she had somehow become the head of the family, Michael had become the godfather.

Now fifteen, Mikey was only allowing her to hold on to the fantasy that she was in charge. He had picked up the habit of giving her orders every now and then—usually when she was tired or frustrated or at loose ends. And like a good aunt, she always listened to him, allowing herself to be bullied or taken care of, whichever she needed at the time.

Emma pulled the washcloth off her eyes and took another sip of her beer when she heard the back door slam shut.

“He finally sleeping?” Mikey asked as he walked into the living room.

Emma carefully folded the washcloth as she watched him silently pad across the room to loom over her, his six-foot frame lanky yet graceful. “Our patient’s sleeping like a lamb.”

Michael snorted. “A lamb with fangs. I thought you were going to wash his mouth out back on Smokey Bog.”

“Get his claw marks out of the dashboard?”

“Jeez, Nem. You’d think a grown man could handle a little excitement without sweating bullets. It was close, but you got us airborne in one piece.”

“He had just survived a savage beating, and didn’t want to find himself decorating a pine tree forty feet up.”

Michael grinned. “You only clipped a small branch.” He suddenly frowned at her washcloth. “Another headache?”

“No. Just relaxing. Is everyone settled in their cabins for the night?”

He nodded. “Cabin three wants to head out again at first light. Apparently their little swim today didn’t discourage them.” He gave her a deceptively innocent, expectant look. “I could take the day off from school to guide our bird hunters in cabin five. Someone should stay around and keep an eye on Mr. Jenkins, and since I might be corrupted by his vocabulary, you should probably play nursemaid.”

Emma shook her head. “No skipping school. And if I stay in this house with that wounded … bear, I’m liable to kill him. Besides, I just called and arranged for Durham to guide cabin five tomorrow. Maybe working for me will keep him out of trouble.”

“I can’t believe this clear-cutting thing has escalated to violence. There are better ways to resolve the issue. Those men could have really hurt Mr. Jenkins.”

“Three cracked ribs, a concussion, and a wrenched knee is not fun.”

Michael started putting together a fire in the hearth. His back to her, he asked, “Does Mr. Jenkins look familiar to you, Nem?”

“Why?”

The boy shrugged and struck a match to his work. “No reason. I just wondered if maybe he’s been here before.”

“I can safely say that Medicine Creek Camps has never had the pleasure of his company.”

“You gonna keep him here in the lodge?”

“For a while. Any problem with that?”

He added logs to the crackling pine. “No problem. But you’re too busy as it is. And with me in school, you’re all alone, running in every direction and trying to please every sport who wants to shoot a few birds.” He searched her face, concern in his eyes. “Moose season starts next week.”

Emma threw her washcloth at him and stood up. “Then it’s time you helped me get an orange ribbon around Pitiful’s neck.”

He caught the cloth with ease and also stood up. “I am not going near that stupid beast. A well-placed bullet would be a blessing. He’ll never make it through the winter, Nem.”

“Sure he will. Pitiful’s not stupid.”

“No? That fool is in love with you. A two-year-old moose should know the difference between a woman and a cow moose. He’s missing some rooms upstairs, Nemmy.”

“I think he was grazed by a hunter’s bullet last fall. That’s why his right antler hasn’t grown back this year,” she explained in defense of her pet.

“I think he walked into the side of a logging truck. Face it, Nem, he’s becoming a pest. He trashes the garbage cans and keeps trying to get in the kitchen.”

“He likes my cooking.”

“And he swamped one of the boats yesterday. He was trying to climb in it!”

“We have to look out for the dumb ones, Mikey. I’ll make him a cake of oats and molasses, and you can tie the ribbon around his neck while he’s eating it.”

Emma left her nephew contemplating that delightful chore, and went to check on her guest before she turned in for the night. Benjamin Sinclair had made a tangle of his blankets and kicked them to the side, barely keeping himself decent.

For a city-sport, the man was amazingly fit. His deep-barreled chest was darkened with bruises that would have killed a lesser man. Emma quietly leaned over and pulled the covers up to his chin. She carefully brushed his hair back from his forehead, feeling for fever as she exposed a bandage over his left brow.

Welcome to Medicine Creek, Sinclair. Have we given you all the adventure we promised?

She straightened and turned to crack the window beside his bed, letting in the pine-scented autumn air, hoping the slight chill would help keep his covers in place. The full moon was shining starkly, drawing a runway on the lake, just like when they had landed two hours ago. That had been another first for her guest, and one he’d argued against. But again, Michael had calmly told him not to worry, that his aunt had been making night landings on moonlit lakes for years.

The lights in cabin three winked out. Emma leaned her head on the glass, breathed in the smell of what had been her personal heaven for the last fifteen years, and wondered how heavenly Medicine Creek Camps would be without Michael.

Even if Ben didn’t take him away to start the new life he was entitled to, Mikey would be going to college, and then on to bigger and better things. And she would be right here, ready to push him or pull him in the right direction—waiting for him to return a grown man.

The wheels of change had begun turning today.

“Why does the boy call you Nemmy?”

Emma didn’t turn around, unwilling to let him see her tears. “Because when he was a two-year-old he found Aunt Emma too big of a mouthful. He shortened it to Nemmy and it stuck. I hope that’s what he writes on my tombstone.”

“Where’s his mother?”

“Gone.”

“And his father?”

“I hope he’s dead.”

There was a moment’s silence. “You’re raising him all by yourself?”

She turned to face the bed. “No, Mr. Jenkins. Michael has been raising me.”

“He’s a remarkable boy.”

“There is nothing boylike about Michael, Mr. Jenkins. He’s older than all of us put together, most of the time. Don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating my nephew, if you want his respect.”

“You clearly have it.”

Emma nodded. “Yes, and it took me many frustrating years to get it. Have you ever tried urging an infant to crawl when he’s determined to walk instead? Or tried to explain to a five-year-old why he has to go to school to learn finger painting when he wants to learn how airplanes stay up? Or tried to tell a seven-year-old with a genius IQ that being a tree in a school play is a noble pursuit?”

“No.”

“Then you should try telling a fourteen-year-old that he can’t drive to town for supplies, or fly sports up from Bangor when we’re shorthanded. Or try to comfort a grieving child when his mother leaves when he’s too busy trying to comfort you instead. I gained Michael’s respect by never, ever underestimating him.”

“I’ll remember that, Miss Sands.”

Emma walked to the door of the bedroom and looked back at the bed. “Be sure that you do, Mr. Jenkins.”

Ben sat at the expansive kitchen table and watched Michael move around the kitchen until the boy eventually came to sit across from him. “Where did Medicine Creek Camps get its name?” Ben asked into the silence.

“From the mist that sometimes rises off the creek in winter, when it should be frozen tighter than Pluto.”

“There are hot springs here?”

“There might have been at one time. Now the creek just runs unusually warm, fed by springs deep in the granite. Medicine Gore was settled by some Swedes back in the early eighteen hundreds. Apparently the creek ran even warmer back then.”

“Ever see these springs?”

Michael took a bear-size bite of his sandwich, chewed slowly, then washed it down with half a glass of milk. “They’re contrary wonders, only active when the mood strikes them. Nemmy took me to the headwaters of Medicine Creek once.” He looked at Ben with unreadable, assessing gray eyes. “I was about eight.” He shrugged again and raised his sandwich back to his mouth. “Maine doesn’t really have any geothermal activity,” he said just before he took another bite.

Ben waited until the whole sandwich was gone before he asked his next question. “Who built the lodge?”

Michael got up and went to the fridge, pulled out a bucket of ice cream, and put it on the counter. Then he got down two bowls from the cupboard and began to spoon a mountain of ice cream into each of them.

“Local tribes would come here and soak in the creek in winter, believing the mist held great medicine. That’s probably why the settlers built this old lodge here.” He gave Ben a cocky grin. “To lure city folks with tales of healing powers.”

Michael returned to the table with the two heaping bowls, spoons stuck in them like chimneys. He slid one in front of Ben and sat down with the other one. “Eat, Mr. Jenkins. The ice cream will feel good on your mouth. It’ll help the swelling.”

Ben stared at the bowl in front of him, wondering what small nation he could hire to help him eat it. “So your aunt bought the lodge and built the new cabins?”

“My aunt and my mother.”

The boy filled his mouth with a huge spoonful of ice cream. Ben wasn’t ready to go down the path of Michael’s mother yet, so he picked up his spoon and dug into his own monstrous bowl. And it did feel good rolling around in his mouth and sliding down his throat.

Between silent bites, Ben looked around the huge kitchen. Everything was aging but as neat as a hospital. There was a polished old wood-burning cookstove backing the great room, its pipe going into a massive wall of stone separating the rooms. There were yards and yards of countertops, worn patternless in places and chipped in others. A sink big enough to bathe a cow in sat under a bank of windows that looked out on Medicine Lake, making the water and nearest mountains appear almost touchable. And on the windowsill over the sink, running in each direction, was an eclectic assortment of rocks, moss, gnarled twigs, and Mason jars full of sand and broken glass and pebbles.

The old but obviously well-maintained lodge was more of a home than an inn, and a child’s gifts brought in from the wild had been lovingly kept and displayed.

Michael had arrived home from school less than an hour ago. He had built a small fire in the cookstove, and then he had begun the task of filling his tall growing frame with food. He hadn’t stopped eating since Ben had limped in and sat down.

“Your aunt doesn’t make dinner?”

He had to wait for Michael to swallow. “Sometimes. Usually I cook supper.” The boy suddenly smiled, as if he were comforting a worried child. “We’ll eat in about an hour, Mr. Jenkins. Nem usually forgets to have lunch, so she’ll be as hungry as a bear. I hope you like venison.”

Ben didn’t know which bothered him more—that Michael was expected to look after himself or that the boy took it upon himself to look after Emma. He should be playing football after school, not cooking dinner. Or he should be on the phone making plans with friends, not making meaningless small talk with a stranger.

“You got many friends around here?”

Michael gave Ben a look that said he was nearing a no-trespassing line. He pushed himself away from the table, unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, then picked up his empty bowl and Ben’s half-full one. He took them to the sink and started filling it with warm soapy water.

“I’ve made friends of sports from all over the world,” he finally said, his back to Ben. “I still write to many of them. I’ve been invited to Germany next summer to stay with a family that vacationed here this past summer.”

“You going?”

“No. Not without Nemmy.” He turned and pierced Ben with serious eyes. “My aunt is all that’s important to me, Mr. Jenkins. I would give my life to protect her, and my soul to see her happy.”

Where in hell had that come from?

“Is this your standard warning to all male … sports?”

Michael shot him another serious look, then turned back to the sink and shut off the water. “Not all of them. Just the potentially dangerous ones.”

“You think I’m a danger to your aunt?” Ben couldn’t believe this. He might be a danger, all right, though not in the way Michael was suggesting. But how had the boy sensed anything at all?

“Yeah, I think you are, Mr. Jenkins. But I don’t think you realize just how much.”

Ben stood up, limped to the woodstove, and held his hands over the firebox. It had suddenly grown downright chilly in the kitchen.

Emma Sands was a beautiful woman, if a man liked glowing health and energy. And if he liked straightforwardness and courage, well, she fit that bill, too. The woman possessed nerves of steel. Hadn’t she pulled a loaded plane off a puddle of water last night only to land it on a darkened lake? A person wasn’t born knowing how to fly like that. Ben might have been scared as hell, but he had also been damned impressed.

So, how was he a threat to Emma Sands?

A sexual threat?

She had fit rather nicely under his arm for their trek to the truck yesterday. She had smelled like the forest, and gunpowder, and some animal he couldn’t identify. But that hadn’t stopped him from wondering what she would do if he took that shotgun out of her hand and kissed her.

Ben had marked the bizarre thought down to distracting himself from the pain. But he hadn’t been in much pain last night, when she’d come to his room and set her gentle hand on his forehead. She’d smelled all fresh and delicious when she’d leaned over and touched him, awakening more than just his mind.

Which is why he’d silently watched her, and wondered at the strange mood she seemed to be in. She had appeared almost … sad.

Though he’d intended to hate the woman, Ben’s instinct last night had been to comfort her, to make the sadness go away. He’d also wanted her to realize she was in a nearly naked man’s room, and that it was dark and cold outside, and warm and welcoming in his bed.

Dammit. He didn’t want to be attracted to someone who had stolen so much from him. To someone who, in her own words, hoped he was dead. But Michael was his son, and he wasn’t about to let a foolish bit of lust mess things up.

“You two didn’t cross swords today, did you?” Michael asked from beside Ben, his eyes nearly level with his.

He must have been scowling rather fiercely, Ben realized, because the boy’s stance was defensive. “No. It’s hard to fight with a shadow. I heard the plane take off and return once, and a truck come and go several times, but I was left to my own devices today.”

Michael continued to look at him thoughtfully. Suddenly he gave Ben a crooked grin. “I imagine that was wise of her. Wounded animals aren’t always kind to their rescuer.”

The boy then turned and walked out of the room, apparently no more worried than Emma about abandoning him. Not that Ben had minded being alone in the house all day. He had spent most of the time in Michael’s room, just sitting and looking around, wondering about the boy-child who was a stranger to him in some ways and so much like him in others.

Emma Sands was right. Michael was very old for his age—an enigma of youth and confidence and calmness. He had an ability to see past a person’s surface, and he had a teenager’s appetite. The boy was tall for his age, with dark brown hair in need of a barber and a peach-fuzz beard lightly shadowing his face.

It had been Emma, not Ben, who had given Michael his first razor. It had been his aunt, not his father, who had probably already talked to Michael about girls and safe sex and the wonder of young relationships. And it was Emma who was in the boy’s heart now.

It was hell, being so close to his son and not being able to touch him. Not being able to explain that he would have come for the boy the moment he’d known about him, or that he would have married his mother sixteen years ago. He would have made things different if he could have.

Ben shuffled back to his room, resolved to find a way to become part of Michael’s life. He would have to stifle any urge to punish Emma, or to find Kelly and punish her. He realized now how foolish he’d been to think he could have both his son and revenge. Sam was right. A boy doesn’t live with a woman for fifteen years and then walk away to a new life and new father, leaving that woman behind. Nor would he stop loving a mother just because she abandoned him. Michael had been only five at the time, but he would remember Kelly with the love of a child.

Which meant that Ben would have to be very careful how he went about claiming Michael without alienating him.

Over the next week, Ben had plenty of time to dwell on his course of action. He was left alone to heal as well as explore the grounds of Medicine Creek Camps. Michael was in school by day, and studying or cooking or repairing a contrary generator at night. Emma had three of her six cabins rented, and when she wasn’t guiding sports she was busy getting ready for moose season, which started next Monday. Ben became a silent, forgotten fixture as he slowly healed and, unsurprisingly, fell in love with his son.

He also became uncomfortably aware of Emma’s multiple attractions. He actually found his pants getting tight whenever she strutted away from him, her long legs clad in worn, form-fitting jeans that hugged a decidedly luscious bottom. And he couldn’t wait for each night, when she came to his room and opened his window, felt his forehead for fever, and covered him up to his chin. He didn’t speak to her again after that first night, lying there with his eyes closed and his conscience wrestling between anger and lust.

It was a long week.