“I’d like that.”

“Okay then, Dad—if we don’t turn around and start back, Nem’s going to come home to a dark kitchen and no supper on the table.” He gave Ben an inquiring look. “You don’t happen to know how to cook, do you?”

“I’ve been known to burn a barbecue. You got a grill at Medicine Creek?”

“Yup. Now, about those flowers. I hear they can take the anger right out of a woman. And since you and Nem are both being tight-lipped about what caused this particular feud, maybe you should give them a try.”

“Maybe sheshould be sending meflowers.”

Mike cuffed Ben’s arm. “Jeez, Dad. Even I know it’s a man’s place to cave in first.” He got that calculating look again. “No one—not even Galen Simms—ever sent Nemmy flowers.”

Ben was beginning to suspect he could take lessons from this boy. “Is that so?”

“And would you like to reallymake my aunt melt?”

Now there was a thought. He was almost afraid to ask his next question. “How would I do that?”

“Elmer Fudge cookies.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nem loves them. Have a whole case of them delivered with the flowers, and your any wish will be her command.”

Emma Sands at his command. Lord, he was loving this boy! “Can I get the cookies in Greenville?”

Michael wrapped his arm around Ben’s shoulders and steered him back toward Medicine Creek. “Just leave it to me, Dad.”

Within the embrace of his new lease on life, Ben couldn’t even feel the ground under his feet. Dad. As casual and natural as could be, Michael was touching him and calling him Dad. Well, damn if he didn’t suddenly feel like one.

Her hands too numb to work the knob, Emma rattled the door with kicks until Michael finally opened it.

“Jeez, Nem. What happened to you?”

“Where were you today?”

He took a step back as he shot a frantic look over his shoulder.

Emma followed his gaze. “I should have guessed when I realized Mr. Man of the Mountain here was missing, too. You played hooky, didn’t you?”

She directed her question to Mikey, but she was looking at Benjamin Sinclair, whose eyes were also wide with shock, moving up and down her wet, shivering body.

“Uh … yeah,” Mikey said. “Nem, what happened?”

She turned her glare on her nephew. “I’ve been swimming in Beaver Pond.”

“In your clothes?”

That question came from Sinclair, who stepped up—rather protectively—beside Michael.

“Get in here by the stove, Nem. You’re freezing,” Michael instructed, grabbing her sleeve and giving it a tug.

“No kidding, Sherlock.” She pulled free and waggled her finger in his face. “I called the school to get you out to help me. They said you weren’t there.”

“I … we … Dad and I went partridge hunting.”

Emma’s finger froze. He was calling Ben “Dad”? “I see.”

“Nem. Come on.” He grabbed her by the sleeve again and pulled her over to the woodstove. “Why did you need my help? Oh, God. Is Pitiful okay?”

“I have no idea where Pitiful is hiding,” she told him, fumbling with her coat buttons, finally snapping two off to get it open. She let it drop to the floor with a soggy plop. “One of our great white hunters saw a moose feeding in Beaver Pond and shot the damn thing. Right there—in five feet of water, over a hundred yards out!”

“Jeez.”

She glowered at her astonished audience as she held her hands over the firebox. “The damn moose sank right to the bottom. I wanted to tie a rock around that guy’s neck and sink himbeside his trophy bull.”

“Jeez, Nem,” Michael said again. He softly touched the frozen ends of her hair. “But you were guiding Martha Perry today. She shot the moose?”

“No. Martha’s husband was the brilliant one. I knewbetter than to agree to let him come along. I should have followed my rule about not guiding men. But it was Martha’s hunt, and she wanted him there.”

“You didn’t try to get it out by yourself, did you?” Mikey asked.

“Oh no. I had the gracious help of Mr. Perry. How in hell do you think I got soaked? At least he’s as soaked as I am. And so is Martha.” Emma grinned nastily. “My only satisfaction is that she’s madder at her husband than I am.”

“Where’s the moose now?” Ben asked.

Emma shivered. “With any luck, it will surface tomorrow.”

“You left it there?” Michael asked, sounding outraged.

“It’s a thousand-pound bull, Mikey. And it’s stuck on a sunken stump.” With squishing feet, Emma started out of the kitchen. “I’m going to change, and then you and I are going to pull it out with the truck. Dress warm. And grab some rope on your way to the truck.”

“Wait.”

Emma turned to face Ben, her eyes telling him to butt out. “Yes?”

“You’re not going out again tonight.” Apparently immune to her icy glare, he continued talking. “It’s dark, it’s below freezing, and you’re hypothermic. You need a hot bath, food, and then bed.”

“What I need, Mr. Sinclair, is for you to mind your own damn business while I mind mine. Get going, Mikey.”

Michael looked back and forth between her and his dad, his expression uncertain, his eyes filled with indecision.

So this was it. She had already lost him. Emma closed her eyes and turned for the bedroom, her shoulders drooping beneath the weight of her wet clothes and heavy heart. “Never mind, Michael. It’s time I learned to rely on myself anyway.”

“Nem?”

She didn’t stop at his hoarse plea. She squished her way to her room and softly closed the door, leaning back against it and lifting her face to the ceiling to keep her tears from falling down her cheeks.

Oh God, she had known this day would come. She’d been preparing herself for it forever, but there was no way she could everhave been prepared for the wrenching pain she felt.

The only person she loved would be leaving her life in just weeks, maybe even days. Michael would write and call and come to visit, but in between she’d be more alone than Jonah had been in his whale.

Standing by the door, with hands shaking either from the cold or the force of her heart shattering, Emma shed her clothes. She stepped out of the water that quickly pooled around them, then padded into her bathroom and turned on the shower. Not until she was under the hot, driving spray did her tears break free, washing down the drain with the mud and the last of her hopes.

She stood there until the shivering stopped and the tears ran out, then dried herself off and opened the bathroom door with a sigh of resignation. She wasn’t leaving that damn moose to rot all night. Even if Mr. Perry had been more enamored with the trophy than the meat, Emma refused to let it go to waste.

With her truck, a long rope, and her wits, she could drag the moose out of the bog and field dress it. Tomorrow she’d get it loaded and down to the tagging station—even if she had to camp out all night to guard the damn thing.

It was only a matter of logistics.

Emma was wrapping the towel around herself when she exited the bathroom, mentally making a list of the equipment she would need, when she suddenly stopped at the sight of two stockinged feet at the foot of her bed.

She snapped her head up and met Ben’s scowl.

“Get out of my room. Now.”

“I’ll get out just as soon as you get in bed.”

“I have work to do. And bed will be the front seat of my truck tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ve got to stand guard over that moose, or every coyote within fifty miles will be filling its belly.”

He slowly shook his head, and Emma finally noticed what he was holding. His hands were on his hips, his legs were spread for battle, and in his right fist was a rope.

“If that’s the best rope Mikey could find, he’s regressing. It needs to be a lot longer and thicker. It’s a thousand-pound bull.”

“This rope is plenty big enough. I’m guessing you’re not a pound over one twenty.”