From some battlefield, Emma decided.
Ben had returned from New York with a security dog, two bodyguards, and who knew how many other foot soldiers lurking in the shadows. She’d bet Medicine Creek Camps that for every man standing in her kitchen there were at least three more wandering around town right now.
When pushed, Benjamin Sinclair was apparently going to push back with enough force to start World War III.
Mikey must have spilled his guts last night when he’d called his father to tell him what had happened, and Ben had immediately assembled an army.
“Have either of you been to Maine before?” she asked, already knowing the answer. The closest either of these men had come to this wilderness was shopping at L.L.Bean or Cabela’s.
“No, ma’am. We’re used to slightly warmer country,” Skyler said, giving her a smile that was more feral than friendly.
Emma sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Well, you might as well make yourself at home in cabin five. It’s suddenly vacant.” She looked at Mikey as he set her tea on the table—along with a bowl so full of Elmer Fudge cookies, they were falling out. “We’ve got to call all my bookings for the rest of this month and cancel them, Mikey. Tomorrow you can help me send back their deposits.”
“Oh, Lord, Nem. I hadn’t thought about that. You can’t guide and we don’t have a plane anymore.”
“That’s only a temporary problem. The Cessna was insured. I’ll start hunting for a new one tomorrow.”
“You’re going to be busy tomorrow,” Ben said, sitting across from her and grabbing a handful of cookies.
“Doing what?”
“Recuperating.” He popped an Elmer Fudge into his mouth.
She was going to have to teach him how to properly eat the cookies, she decided, ignoring his unsubtle suggestion that she sit back and do nothing. She attempted to pull the two halves of her own cookie apart but her left hand failed her, and the cookie went sailing through the air. Beaker caught it before it could hit the floor.
“That’s good, Em,” Ben said, smiling at her, knowing damn well she hadn’t intended to feed the beast. “Keep giving him treats. That will help you two bond.”
She glared at the dog, who was looking at her with huge, expectant brown eyes. Her heart melted—a little bit.
He was such a quiet dog. And unobtrusive. He merely padded along with them like a silent shadow. He seemed polite, too. On the ride home from the hospital, Beaker had sat in quiet joy in the back, looking out the window at the forest zooming by.
“Chocolate’s not good for dogs,” she said, taking another cookie and managing to get this one open. She scraped off the chocolate center with her teeth and then carefully extended the vanilla cookie to the dog.
Just as carefully, Beaker took it from her, his soft muzzle brushing her fingers. He inched closer, leaning against her leg, and set his chin on her knee.
A dog. A huge, quiet, burned-out dog that was trained to kill.
And he was hers.
“Where’s he going to sleep?” she asked.
“With you,” Ben answered.
“What if I roll over in the night and squish him? He might get mad.”
“We can make him a bed on the floor.”
Emma looked back at the dog. “That’s not very comfortable. You said he needed peace and quiet and plenty of rest because his nerves are frazzled.”
Atwood suddenly began coughing.
“Get Mr. Atwood some tea, Mikey. And Mr. Skyler, too. Gentlemen, come sit down and have some cookies.”
The men looked at Ben, as if seeking his approval.
“We don’t stand on ceremony here,” Emma said with the authority of a hostess in her own home. “Just grab a mug from the cupboard and Mikey will pour you some tea. Have you had supper?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Skyler answered, doing as he was told.
“Please drop the ‘Mr.,’” his brother-in-law added, joining them at the table. “It’s just Atwood and Skyler.”
“I will, if you stop calling me ‘ma’am,’” she told them, smiling at the table full of testosterone. Her kitchen looked like a convention of warlords.
“Are you feeling up to telling us what happened yesterday?” Ben asked, once they were all seated and sipping tea.
So the cease-fire was over, and the interrogation was about to begin. Emma shrugged, and immediately regretted it as pain shot down her arm and across her back. “You know about the coordinates I found in Wayne’s room.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Mikey and I decided to go see what they were.”
“What did you find?” Ben asked, leaning forward.
“Nothing.”
He stared at her.
“There wasn’t anything there, Dad,” Mikey added, sitting beside her—and away from Beaker.
“Are you sure you had the right spot?”
“Yes,” Emma answered. “We checked and double-checked. And I know I wrote them down right.”
“We think it was probably a drop site for running drugs,” Mikey said.
“You mentioned something about drugs last night, but I couldn’t make it all out.” Ben cleared his throat, again frowning at Emma before he looked back at his son. “You were bombarding me with all sorts of news.”
“There was just forest for miles and miles,” Emma said, drawing Ben’s attention again. “So we started guessing why Wayne would have kept those coordinates in his desk, and the only thing that made sense was a drug drop.”
“We found a road nearby,” Mikey said.
“And we found recent tire tracks,” Emma added. “That’s when we decided to come home.”
“And your plane had been vandalized?” Ben asked, his eyes darkening.
Emma nodded. “Someone had cut the fuel line and taken an ax to one of the floats.”
“I don’t get it,” Atwood suddenly interjected. “You may have been able to repair the fuel line, but you never could have gotten airborne with a punctured float. How did you do it?”
Mikey answered, “Nem had a tire tube in the plane. We put it in the float and pumped it up, displacing enough of the water to float the Cessna well enough to take off.”
“And land?” Ben asked.
“And land,” Emma confirmed. “But someone started shooting at us just as we got airborne. We clipped a few trees, and the tube got damaged. So we had to crash the plane.”
All three men looked as if she and Mikey were missing some rooms upstairs. Ben had gone completely white.
“You crashed the plane on purpose?” Skyler asked softly.
“Mikey did,” she told the three horrified men. “It’s common practice when the alternative is certain death.”
Ben stood up, pushing his chair back with enough force to tip it over. Skyler and Atwood winced at the sound. Beaker lifted his head off her lap.
“Oh, for the love of God,” Emma said with exhausted impatience. “I’m a bush pilot, Ben. It’s what I do for a living. Yesterday wasn’t the first time I’ve lost a plane, and it probably won’t be my last.”
“Yes, it damn well will be,” he gritted out, leaning his hands on the table and glaring at her.
Beaker growled low in his throat, and Emma instantly warmed to the dog.
Without even thinking, she patted his head to let him know she approved of his courage. Even if she had fangs the size of Beaker’s, Emma wasn’t sure she would have the nerve to growl at Ben.
Clearly startled, Ben looked at Atwood. “He can’t growl at me,” he told his “secretary.”
Atwood smiled. “He just did.”
Ben sat back down, glaring at Emma’s new protector. He cleared his throat again, and seemed to be trying to remember what they’d been talking about.
“Did you happen to see who was shooting at you?” Skyler asked.
“We were kind of busy trying not to litter the
mountainside,” Emma answered, idly petting her new
guardian.
“What about you, Mike? Did you see anything?” Atwood asked.
“I had my eyes closed.”