“We don’t know how it happened. Somebody found the guy lying facedown in a small pond. He had apparently drowned during the night.”

“And you’re thinking that’s why Wayne reacted the way he did?”

Megan shrugged. “If so, it doesn’t explain why I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Exactly,” Cam said, looking back at the screen.

“Hey, how are you getting on the Internet, anyway? I haven’t had a phone installed yet.”

“The whole house is wi-fi. Joan and Bob had a high-speed cable connection, and they must have forgotten to shut it off. So you’ve got cable TV, too.” Camry made a sound of disgust. “I’ve found your Wayne Ferris, but the info on him only goes back five years.”

Megan returned to the couch, studying what Cam had found. “That’s him. He went to undergraduate school in British Columbia and got his master’s degree in Toronto.” She reached over and scrolled down the page, reading what little was there. “I wonder why there’s nothing else?”

“Maybe because Wayne Ferris didn’t exist until five years ago?” Cam said. “You knew him what, six weeks? Did he ever talk about his childhood?”

“Not much, now that you mention it. He had this way of always turning the conversation back to me.”

Cam rolled her eyes. “Every woman’s dream guy, and you fell for him hook, line, and sinker.”

“I do know he was raised by his grandfather,” Meg defended. “Or maybe his great-grandfather? His parents were killed in a car accident when he was nine. I think he was in it, because he’s got burn scars on his hands, but I could never get him to talk about it. I do remember him saying something about inheriting the house in Medicine Lake.”

Megan noticed the headlights of a fast-moving sled racing back to shore. “Jack Stone sure likes his new snowmobile,” she said, “He’s been out riding again.”

“Good. Come on,” Camry said, leading Megan to the counter. “It’s time you got Wayne Ferris out of your head once and for all.” She picked up the pie she’d baked and shoved it in Megan’s hands. “We are going over to Jack Stone’s house right now, and you’re asking him out.”

Megan shoved the pie back at her. “No.”

“Yes, you are,” Camry said. Then she sighed. “Okay, you don’t have to ask him out. But we’re going over there to introduce ourselves. You really need to see that nice guys still exist, Meg.”

“We don’t know that Jack Stone is a nice guy.”

“Chelsea liked him.”

Megan rolled her eyes. “She only saw him walking to his cruiser. For all we know, he’s a womanizing, chest-beating caveman who thinks women should stay at home, barefoot and pregnant.”

Camry laughed as she put on her coat and boots. “Then he should love your belly.” She walked over and took the pie while giving Megan a critical inspection. “When was the last time you had a haircut?”

“Never mind my hair,” Meg said, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. Dammit, when Camry got like this, the only way to shut her up was to play along to make her think she’d won. “Okay, I’ll go. But I’m not asking him out, and we’re telling him you made the pie.”

“But if he knows I baked it, that’ll defeat its purpose.”

“Not if he gets food poisoning, it won’t.”

“Fine, then,” Camry said, storming out the door. “If he really is as cute as Chelsea said, I’ll ask him out.”

Chapter Six

J ack was just stepping in the shower when he heard a knock on his kitchen door. He didn’t know anyone well enough who would drop by for a beer, and he was off duty; Simon needed to quit running to him with inane questions.

The knock sounded again, a bit louder.

With a growl of defeat, Jack wrapped a towel around his waist and strode out to the kitchen. “Dammit, Pratt, you better be here to tell me you caught the bastards.”

But as the door swung fully open, Jack found himself staring into the startled, bright green eyes of a woman holding a pie. He also saw Megan MacKeage as still as a stone slightly behind her, her complexion pale in the porch light.

“W-Wayne?” Megan whispered.

“Shit,” Jack growled at the exact same time.

“Wayne?” echoed the woman in front.

“Megan, sweetheart,” Jack said, stepping outside. He slipped on the ice-glazed snow covering the porch, and grabbed the railing to keep from falling.

Megan stepped back, turned, and bolted into the night.

“Dammit, no! Megan! Don’t run!” Jack shouted, taking a better grip on his towel to go after her.

But the other woman grabbed his arm. “Wayne Ferris?” She drew back and hurled her pie directly at his face. “You no-good, rotten bastard! You stay away from my sister!” She turned and ran after Megan—but first snatched the towel off his hips, tossing it in the snowbank as she disappeared into the darkness.

The attack sent Jack flailing backward, and he landed on his naked ass on the snowy porch. Scrambling to his feet with a curse, he stumbled into the house and slammed the door so hard, the windows rattled. Groping for something to wipe his eyes, he found a shirt hanging on the peg. “Dammit to hell! Four months of waiting and planning, and she walks up and knocks on my door! And what do you do? You stand there like a mindless idiot and curse at her!”

Talk about being caught off guard. He knew she was five months pregnant, but actually seeing her rounded little belly pushing out past her jacket had still been a hell of a shock. Jack strode back to the bathroom, stepped into the shower, and scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair to wash away the pie. He hung his head with a snort.

Recklessness obviously ran in the family; Megan’s sister certainly spoke her mind and backed it up with whatever weapon she had handy. She was a quick thinker, too, snatching his towel so he wouldn’t pursue them.

Megan had acted just as recklessly during their stay on the tundra. Once he’d had to stop her from heading into a fistfight between two rugged and nearly out-of-control young men. Armed with only a hiking stick, she hadn’t seemed to realize that stick wouldn’t have fazed the combatants, much less have protected her. It was as if she didn’t even notice their size; she had simply been determined to box in their ears.

Having spent the last two weeks in Pine Creek, Jack was beginning to understand why Megan didn’t equate size with danger. He hadn’t met one MacKeage or MacBain male under six feet tall. And their women walked around like they didn’t have a fear in the world. Of course, what woman wouldn’t feel safe and secure being shadowed by a Sasquatch of a husband?

Jack shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. Her utterly fearless approach to life was the first thing that had attracted him to Megan. She was passion personified. Megan brought an energy to her work that was almost spiritual in the way she interacted with the students, the animals they were counting, and the environment she was determined to protect.

He’d been caught completely off guard when she had suddenly turned that amazing energy on him. Megan had cranked her smile to full wattage and asked if she could buy him dinner as thanks for intervening in the student battle. He’d felt as if he were being trampled by a herd of caribou.

Reeling from her smile—not to mention her startling, vivid green eyes focused directly on him—he had stammered out something inane, like it would be his pleasure. So they’d walked to the mess tent, and she had cheekily told him to pick out whatever he desired from the food provided by the university sponsoring the study. From that moment on, that herd of caribou had taken up residence in Jack’s gut, turned his mind to mush, and infused every fiber of his being with hope.

Until the real reason he was there had suddenly reared its ugly head.

Camry leaned against the inside of Megan’s front door and fought to catch her breath. “Oh my God. That was Wayne?” she gasped. “What’s he doing at Stone’s house?” She slapped a hand to her chest. “Oh my God, he is Jack Stone!”