Rogue's Revenge (16 page)

“I’ll never, ever feel romantic about any man as long as I live,” she sobbed into her pillow. “Falling in love is just something stupid people write about in books, stupid, stupid books!”

She’d never told anyone what had happened. She’d been too ashamed.

****

The howl of a coyote startled her back to the present, and Allison glanced over her shoulder into the darkness. A form emerged, a form that was Heath.

“Here.” He handed her a pointed stick. “The coals look ready.”

“Sure…okay.” She took the slender branch and reached for the package of wieners.

Her fingers fumbled with the plastic packaging, and suddenly he was squatting in front of her, covering her trembling hands with his.

“Allie, what’s wrong?”

In the glow of the dying fire she couldn’t see his face distinctly, but his use of her grandfather’s pet name softened her to the heart.

“Nothing… A coyote howled.”

“Level with me…for once.” His tone brooked no denial.

“I was…remembering.” She let the package drop from her hands and allowed her gaze to rest on his hands clasped over hers. “Our last wiener roast.”

“Allie…” The word came in a soft, aching breath. “God, Allie, I’m sorry.”

“W…what?”

“For what I did that night. I was fresh out of a tough juvenile facility where forcing yourself on a girl was considered the macho thing to do, and, after Jennifer, I was out to take my revenge on the first rich girl who crossed my path.”

Allison felt his fingers beneath her chin. When he raised her face to a level with his, she hated the tears she felt brimming in her eyes.

“You…you destroyed my spirit of romance,” she choked. “You took away all the mystery and magic. You were the reason I never came back to the Chance. I couldn’t stand the sight of you!”

“You’re telling me I’m the reason you never came back to visit Jack? Sweet Jesus, Allie!” His eyes stared deep into hers, so deep he might be looking down into her soul.

“It doesn’t matter now. There’s no going back. I can’t undo the loneliness Gramps suffered. I can’t get that magic back in my heart.” Those damn tears slid down her cheeks.

“Don’t.” He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. “Please, Allie, don’t. I can’t watch you hurt any more.”

Astonished by his tenderness for a moment, she didn’t speak. Then she shrugged away, wiped the tears with the back of her hand, and looked down at the package of wieners on the gravel between them.

“Just forget it, okay? Open the wieners. I assume your knife is still sharp?” She sniffed herself back into control.

“Right.” He picked up the celluloid pack in one hand, pulled his knife from its scabbard with the other, and, in a single, swift gesture, slit it open. “Here.” He handed it back to her. “Eat.”

Their second pair of wieners were browning over the coals before he spoke again.

“Dogwood,” he said.

“What?” Surprised, she looked over at him as he squatted across the fire pit from her.

“These sticks we’re using, they’re dogwood, probably the hardest wood of all time. Their branches were once used to make daggers and were known as dagger wood. Time corrupted it to dogwood.”

“Interesting,” she replied vaguely, returning her gaze to the roasting wiener.

“Another legend states it was named dogwood because it proved effective in curing mange in dogs.”

“Charming.” She glanced over at him and, even in the flickering light, caught the gleam of mischief in his eyes.

He removed the cooked wiener from its skewer, plunked in into a roll, and applied mustard. Then he picked up the half-empty bottle of lime soda beside him and took a drink. “Hard to believe I like this stuff.”

“Given time, I suppose a person can develop a taste for almost anything.” She bit into her hot dog. “I’d forgotten how good these can be.”

“Nothing like food cooked in the outdoors. There’s a lot more you’ll discover you’ve been missing, if you’ll give yourself a chance to experience it.”

“I said I’d forgotten how good these can be. I didn’t say I’d never had better or that I wanted a steady diet of them.”

“Okay.” He finished his hot dog and handed her a cellophane bag. “Here, roast a marshmallow. Might sweeten your disposition.”

He stood ten minutes later. “Don’t forget to bury the tip of your stick in the sand. Bears can smell sweet stuff a long way off.”

He skewered his own cooking stick into the earth, stretched, yawned, picked up a cooking pot, and headed for the river. Shortly he returned and doused the campfire with its contents. As a cloud of smoke gusted up into the cold, crisp air, he dropped the container and offered a hand to help her to her feet.

“Time to hit the tent.”

“You do that. I’ll be in when I’m ready.” She ignored his gesture.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and turned toward the tent. “But it’ll get cold and scary out here without a fire to keep the frost and bears at bay.”

For a few minutes after he’d vanished into the tent, Allison sat stubbornly on the shore. A thin trickle of smoke wafted wreath-like from the smothering embers. Cold night air wrapped about her. In spite of her down-filled vest and flannel shirt, she shivered.

I won’t go rushing to join him. I won’t let him think I’m cold or afraid.

An owl hooted. A coyote raised a cry in the blackness beyond their campsite. Its long, mournful howl invited others to join a chorus. Allison stumbled to her feet, glancing back into the dark trees.

Maybe I should go to bed.

A slight movement to her left caught her attention. She turned toward the river. In the moonlight, something huge and hairy stood slouched and ape-like in the shallows.

A rock-like lump of terror blocked her voice. Rooted in place, she stared.

The creature shuffled toward her, then paused, appeared to sniff the air, and grunted.

A sasquatch. It’s definitely a sasquatch!

She bent and grabbed the end of a stick protruding from the smoldering fire. In the darkness its tip glowed red.

“Get!” She thrust it toward the creature.

“Allison, come on. Enough sulking. It’s got to be cold out there.”

Heath’s voice from the tent stopped the creature. It grunted again, shook a paw in her direction, then turned and waddled off into the darkness downriver.

As it disappeared, Allison dropped the stick back into the fire pit. Turning, she scrambled toward the tent.

“Sasquatch!” she cried as she fumbled with its zippered door.

“What?” Heath bolted upright in his sleeping bag when she burst inside.

“Sasquatch! In the river!”

“Stay here.” He came to his feet, his hand on the knife at his belt, and ducked out of the tent.

She sank down on the bed he’d laid out across from his, drew up knees too weak to support her, and hugged herself into a ball. Shivering, she rocked to and fro.

“Nothing out there.” A dark silhouette against the brighter outdoors, he stooped back into the tent. “I’ll look for tracks in the morning.” He zipped the canvas door flap shut.

“There won’t be any. He…it was standing in the shallows.”

“Right.” Exasperation colored the word. “I should have guessed. Did it dive out of sight…like the Loch Ness Monster?”

“You don’t believe me!”

“You make it difficult. First, a noisy bear. Now an amphibious sasquatch. Do me a favor. Get some sleep. And don’t wake me when you hear a poltergeist.” With a grunt, he climbed into his bed.

Muttering expletives, Allison pulled off her boots and crawled into her own sleeping bag. The bubble mattress crackled in tune with her temper.

Chapter Nine

Allison awoke to bird song and the gurgle of river water. Sunlight filtered through the tent to fall in a warming bath over her face. Freeing her arms from her sleeping bag, she stretched them above her head and drew a deep breath of crisp, clear air, a sense of contentment engulfing her.

She pulled herself up onto one elbow to look over to where Heath had been lying when she fell asleep. He was gone, his sleeping bag neatly rolled up atop his bubble mattress.

Stretching again, she stood. And shivered. She grabbed her vest that had served as a pillow and pulled it on. Spring in this country still boasted frosty nights that left a distinct nip in the morning air.

Coffee. I need a cup of hot, black coffee.

She unzipped the door flap and stepped out into a dazzling green spring morning where water droplets from melting frost glistened jewel-like on grass and trees. The sky boasted a flawless blue, and the river swept past in wild, majestic abandon. And squatted beside it, Heath Oakes, naked down to the waist, was splashing its icy water over his face and upper body. When he stood to towel himself dry, silhouetted against the surging water, he brought the words “noble savage” racing across her mind.

Get a grip. Remember what he did when you were a romantic teenager. Remember the hurt he caused Jack because of it. Remember what a mess you’re in right now because of him.

Running a hand through her tangled hair, she started toward him.

A noble savage wouldn’t have shanghaied me. A noble savage wouldn’t have scoffed at my fears last night.

“Good morning.” He turned at her approach and smiled a flash of perfect white teeth.

“Chilly for river bathing half naked, isn’t it?” She had to struggle to keep her gaze off his incredible body.

“I had to.” He headed across the gravel to where his packsack lay open. He took from it a snowy white T-shirt and pulled it over his head. “I couldn’t risk having you call me filthy or stinking again.” His eyes flashed with bitter humor. “A filthy, stinking, street tramp, to be exact.”

“I never did!” she gasped as he pulled a flannel shirt from his pack and thrust his arms into it.

“You most certainly did.” He buttoned it, narrowing those amazing golden-brown eyes as he looked over at her.

Oh, my God, I remember. I did.

“And what did you call me?” she countered, shame burning up her face in a hot blush. “‘Snotty rich brat’ isn’t exactly complimentary, either!”

“No, but at the time, it was accurate.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, it was ages ago. Let’s just drop it. We both said a lot of things.”

“Okay, fine.” He looked down at her and something inside did flip-flops at his nearness, his blatant maleness, his intensity. “What happened to your hair?” He reached out to touch the curls hanging below her ears.

She felt her breath catch in her throat.
Don’t,
a small warning voice whispered.
Don’t let him charm you…again.

“I cut it.”

“It was the stuff romance is made of.” His perception startled her, the softness in his tone weakened her defenses. “So you had to get rid of it.”

How can he know me so well? Those penetrating eyes seem to be able to see right through to my soul.

He released the curl and stepped away. He tucked his shirttail into his bush pants, pulled on his vest, and headed to where a pot sat steaming on the camp stove.

Damn it,
I won’t have him getting into my mind. As for what he’s doing to my body…

She grabbed her packsack and strode upriver out of his sight to freshen up.

When she finished her morning ablutions, crouched by the river, she paused and gazed about. Memories flooded back with that wonderful sense of awe she’d always felt and shared with her grandfather on mornings such as this.

The full flush of spring surrounded her. Birches and maples, their buds about to burst into leaf, stood laced in soft, transparent halos of palest green against a dark backdrop of spruce and pine. The moss under her hiking boots formed a natural carpeting, the river’s lusty rush voicing nature’s special baritone. In the branches of a thicket nearby, a flock of chickadees cavorted, chorusing their joy in the perfection of the season.

An osprey squawked as it slanted past her. Shielding her eyes against the morning sun, Allison watched it settle on its awkward nest of sticks and twigs high atop a dead tree several hundred yards away.

She remembered Gramps telling her the names of trees and birds and plants and animals, teaching her which mushrooms and berries were edible and convincing her that the snakes and frogs and toads that made their home on the Chance were harmless, valuable in keeping the insect population under control.

He’d taught her about the erosion caused by clear cutting of the forests and its far-reaching side effects, preached against sport hunting, and worried aloud about stresses on the environment caused by careless overuse of wilderness areas for recreational activities.

Finally she gathered up her toiletries and arose. She was letting the ambience get to her, and that was tantamount to falling victim to Heath Oakes’ plan.

Before she headed back to the campsite, she glanced once more up at the osprey nest and saw its mate lighting beside it on the rim of the crude nest.

Spring. Mating season in the wilderness. She clamped her packsack to her chest and turned away.

Heath had brewed coffee and made French toast, with butter and maple syrup to top it, for breakfast. Allison polished off her second slice and third cup and hated her admission.
Delicious
.
It’s not bad enough the man looks better than a movie star…he can cook.
I hope the way to a woman’s heart isn’t the same way as to a man’s…through the stomach. If it is, I could be in trouble.

When they’d finished eating, he replenished both their mugs and came to sit beside her on a log near the canoe. The sun had chased most of the chill from the air. Allison basked in its warmth.

“Gramps would have enjoyed this morning,” she said.

“Definitely.” Heath rested his elbows on his drawn-up knees, his coffee mug in his hands, and gazed out at the river. “And appreciated every minute. What about his granddaughter?” He glanced sideways at her before looking down at the coffee cup in his sun-bronzed hands.

“I never said this isn’t a gorgeous area, that I didn’t recognize its beauty. I just don’t want to spend the rest of my life tending it.” She stood, splashed the remainder of her coffee out over the grass, and headed for the river to rinse her mug. “Time to start packing. The sooner we get going, the sooner we get to the take-out point and the sooner I get on my way to Toronto.”