Rogue's Revenge (3 page)

Exhaustion settled over Myra Armstrong’s delicately featured face.

“Ignore my whining. I loved Gramps.” She gave her mother a quick hug. “I’m willing to do whatever he wanted.”

“Are you?” Her mother’s green eyes looked into hers, searching deep. “Are you really, Allison? You do know why your grandfather named his lodge and wilderness retreat the Chance, don’t you? He thought of it as a place that gave people a chance to find themselves, to discover who and what they really are.”

“Of course, but what…?”

“Ready to leave, ladies?” Heath climbed back into the driver’s seat. “This time you can ride on the trailer, if you think you can hang on.”

“We’ll definitely give it a try.” Myra headed for the decrepit conveyance. “My feet are killing me, and I’m sure Allison’s are in much worse condition.”

Chapter Two

“Let’s go.” Allison’s teeth chattered as she huddled against the car, hugging her body while Myra searched her pocket for the key. The black designer suit was poor protection from the cold mist. “Hurry, Mom, hurry. We have to catch that flight back home.”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Her mother paused with her hand on the door and looked out at her daughter from beneath the brim of her hat. “You’ll be staying at Chance Lodge. I have to go back immediately—the fundraising drive for the new children’s wing at the hospital is at a crucial point—but a family member has to be here for the reading of the will.”

“Me? Stay, at the Lodge—with him?” Allison was sputtering. “No way! I have to get back. My job…”

“Darling, the Shawville Corporation won’t go belly-up simply because you’re absent another day or two. Get your suitcase out of the trunk and go with Heath.” She glanced over her daughter’s shoulder and smiled at the man waiting beside the mud-spattered Jeep.

“If you’ll give me your key, I’ll get your daughter’s luggage, Mrs. Armstrong.” He strode forward.

“All right, all right.” Allison threw up her hands.
Taking charge, bullying his way into their lives. Damn the man!
“But as soon as the lawyer reads that will, I’ll be on the next plane to T-O. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Myra handed the key to Heath. As he went to the rear of the car, she embraced her disgruntled daughter. “Thanks, sweetie.”

“I’m not sure how Paul will feel about this arrangement, but safe journey, Mom.” Allison softened at her mother’s imminent departure.

“There you go. You’re doing better already. Take care of my girl, Heath,” Myra continued to the man who had returned, Allison’s oversized suitcase in his hand. “And be forewarned. She recently passed self-defense training with flying colors.”

“Noted.” He handed her the car key. “Safe journey, Mrs. Armstrong.”

“Thank you.” She slid into her car, waved, and drove off, windshield wipers battling the thickening mist.

“Who’s Paul?” he asked as they watched her out of sight.

“Paul Bradley, my sort-of significant other.”

“Sort of? Sounds serious.”

She turned on him and recognized disdain in his expression.

“Don’t!” she snapped.

“Don’t what?”

“Mock me. And don’t think you can take advantage of me now that my mother is gone.”

“Right.” Sarcasm colored the word. “Let’s go.” He headed for his Jeep.

“What about the tractor?” she asked as she stumbled along behind him in his too-large boots.

“The farmer I borrowed it from will pick it up later today. It’s safe. Who’d want to steal the thing?”

For the first time she caught a glimmer of humor in his golden-brown eyes. A smile struggled against her taut lips as they looked at the mud-spattered vehicle and homemade trailer, both scrap-yard ready.

“It did the job.” She followed him to the Jeep and flinched as he flung her suitcase into the back. Apparently Italian craftsmanship meant nothing to him.

“Sure did. Jack would have gotten a whale of a belly laugh out of it.”

He strode to the driver’s side and swung into the seat. Allison slogged around to the passenger side, started to get in, and found herself hobbled by her fitted skirt. No way was it going to allow her to climb into the Jeep without hiking it up higher than she had any intention of doing in his presence.

“What?” he asked, looking over at her as he leaned forward to put the key in the ignition.

“This thing wasn’t built with my skirt in mind.”

“Argh!” He swung out and strode around to her side of the vehicle. Before she could protest, he’d swept her up into his arms.

A shock shot through her as her knees fell over his arm and she felt her back cradled against his shoulder. A murmur of some brand of masculine soap whispered over her senses. The strength beneath her was astounding. His powerful, easy confidence not only astonished her, it made her heart flip.

He paused to look down at her, and the expression in his tawny eyes melted her like snow in a heat wave. Butterflies sprang to life in her solar plexus, and a shock of something hot and magic shot through her body. Handsome, strong, utterly self-assured in a dangerous, untamed way, the man captivated her physically even as her mind fought to reject him. She now understood Candace Breckenridge’s “delicious” and “wild-woods-hero” adjectives. As she looked up into the ruggedly handsome face, her lips parted.

“No.” His response crashed over her like a bucket of ice water as he swung her into the Jeep and plunked her down in the passenger seat.
Damn and double damn. He guessed what I was feeling, what he did to me.
And worst of all, I’m blushing
.

He strode back to the driver’s side and swung into place.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Allison avoided looking at him as she snapped the dirty belt into place across her damp suit jacket. “Surely you can’t be vain enough to think…”

“Look, Ms. Armstrong, I’ve been propositioned by enough rich city women over the years to recognize a ‘take me’ invitation when I see one.” He leaned forward to turn the key in the ignition, annoyance in his words and tense body movements.

As the engine roared into action, he gathered up his own seatbelt and snapped it into place. He glanced over at her, contempt flashing from eyes fierce with anger as he shifted into drive.

Allison glared a death threat in his direction as the old vehicle lurched to life. She’d never been so insulted in her life. He may have discovered soap and deodorant, but his manners were still those of a hoodlum fresh out of a concrete jungle. How could he possibly imagine that she, Allison Armstrong, daughter of one of Canada’s leading neurosurgeons and CFO of a major Canadian corporation, would be interested in him? She worked out at her Toronto gym three mornings a week. His wasn’t the first hard body she’d seen.

But it was the earthiest, the most naturally virile, an annoying thought nagged.

She glanced over at him. He did personify a romantic savage, with just the right amount of polish to be a female fantasy come to life, a genuine thrill for the neglected wives of wealthy men.

A vision of Heath with Candace Breckenridge flashed across her mind.
Damn.
She flicked it away like an unacceptable TV channel. Fixing her gaze on the road ahead, she remained silent.

A half hour later when they turned into the lane that led to the Lodge, a gasp escaped her lips. Although it had been years since Allison had visited her grandfather’s wilderness retreat, the joy and sense of expectation she’d always experienced on returning resurfaced in a flash.

Over two miles long, the private road was a tunnel hewn out of the branches of an ancient forest of birch, pine, spruce, cedar, and maple. Jack Adams had believed in destroying as little of the natural environment as possible. When he’d established the Lodge, over forty years earlier, he’d uprooted as few trees as possible in making a road to the river. The rest he’d left to grow into a living canopy.

In the mist, diamond-like droplets decorated the needles and awakening leaves that formed this living tunnel. Every tree and shrub glistened in soft green expectation of a new beginning. The air held the fresh rain scent only a place far from pollution can offer.

It’s like entering an enchanted forest. I remember thinking you could find every living shade of green here.

When a doe and her spotted fawn appeared in front of them, their beauty made her breath catch in her throat. The doe’s alert body was a reddish amber, she and her spotted, wide-eyed baby the epitome of pristine innocence.

Heath eased to a stop and turned off the motor.

“They’re gorgeous!” Allison breathed.

“Just a bit of what your grandfather was trying to protect.”

She glanced over at him and saw the taut planes of his face relax and soften as he leaned forward to watch the pair, his arms crossed on top of the steering wheel.

“I read a book entitled
Green Mansions
when I was a child,” she breathed. “Although it was set in Venezuela, it told the story of an unspoiled wilderness a lot like this.”

“And of a wild bird girl named Rima, who lived there in harmony with nature.”

“You’ve read it?” Her eyes widened.

“I’m not illiterate.” He leaned back in the seat to turn the key in the ignition, the hardness returning to his face.

The doe and her fawn, startled by the sound, snapped alert and bounded into the greenery.

“I never said—” she tried to protest, but he cut her short as he shifted into drive.

“Look, I’m not any happier about this arrangement than you are.” He pressed the accelerator hard and swung the Jeep around a mud-slick curve with a ferocity that made Allison clutch her seat. “Once the will is read, I will gladly see you onto the next flight to Toronto. But for now, let’s declare a truce. I don’t have the time or energy to keep sparring with you.” He slowed the Jeep and shot her a sideways glance, one eyebrow raised.

He was right. Keeping up a verbal battle neither of them appeared destined to win was pointless. Allison eased her fingernails out of the cracked upholstery, met his look, and nodded. “Truce.”

When the Jeep jolted into the Lodge grounds, her breath caught in her throat. Again, she’d forgotten how wonderful it was.

Surrounded by manicured lawns luminously green in the fog, the rambling single-story log structure with its full-length front veranda faced the North Passage River. Behind it were two other log structures—the caretaker’s small cottage, where she suspected Heath now lived, and a large barnlike building that served as a storage shed and housed the generator that provided power for the Lodge.

The estate’s only other structure, the boathouse where her grandfather had died, was farther down river, hidden in the trees. The remembrance of the place sent a shiver coursing up her spine
. Get over it. Just get over it
. To quell her memories, she returned her attention to the Lodge.

A wide fieldstone chimney rose from the ground to beyond the peak of the roof on the end facing the driveway. A wave of nostalgia engulfed her. The last night she’d spent with her grandfather in the Lodge had been before a blazing fire on the hearth that chimney vented. They had listened to rain bucketing down on the roof, and he’d told her stories about the birds and plants and animals that were at home in his bit of wilderness. He’d explained he named the area the Chance because it offered people a chance to enjoy all that was good and beautiful in the wilderness, and, as her mother had said, the chance to find themselves, their purpose in life.

She’d only half listened, her thoughts on the events of the previous evening, down at the boathouse, and the creature who’d torn up all her romantic dreams and trampled them into the mud.

God, how I loathe Heath Oakes.

Allison brought her reminiscences up short. Reminiscences she couldn’t afford to harbor, not if she wanted to make a clean break from the place.

Heath braked the Jeep at the rear entrance and got out. While he was retrieving her suitcase, Allison scrambled to release her seatbelt, swing her legs out over the side, and slip to the ground, her skirt riding up her thighs. By the time he joined her, she’d managed to pull it back into place and stood waiting for him as intact as she could be, her once-fashionable suit soaking up mist like a sponge.

“Come on.” He hefted her luggage and headed up the steps. “Let’s get inside.”

Allison took a moment to look around the grounds and spotted a gleaming new Cherokee parked at the rear of the house.

“Visitors?” she asked.

“Belongs to the Lodge.” He paused to look back at her.

“Then you didn’t have to bring that thing,” she jerked a finger back at the old Jeep behind them.

“No. Just wanted to. Thought Jack would appreciate the gesture. Come on, let’s get inside.”

****

They stood in the kitchen she remembered so well. Nothing much had changed. The long room, with its lengths of spotless counters and cupboards, its built-in range tops and wall ovens, rows of gleaming pots and pans hanging above them, still had double refrigerator-freezers and a pair of dishwashers. Best of all, everything sparkled from cleaning and maintenance. Mrs. Oakes must be all her grandfather had bragged her up to be.

The kitchen, like the rest of the lodge, was paneled in knotty pine that complemented the long, wide planks of its birch flooring. A row of windows above the stoves and double sink offered an excellent view of the manicured lawns and carefully pruned forest at the back of the Lodge. Jack Adams had spared no expense to make the room convenient and pleasant. He’d always declared a contented cook was a good cook and his guests deserved no less.

While she’d been taking in her surroundings, Heath had put down her suitcase and removed his work boots. Now he straightened up.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you to your room. You should get out of those wet clothes and into a hot shower.”

The suggestion sounded like an offer of heaven. She stepped out of the boots that had shredded the feet and ankles of her pantyhose and followed him through the long dining room, trying not to hobble.