Even worse, what if he didn’t come?

Megan pushed away from the door to check on the chicken roasting in the oven. She was simply determined to clear the air between them once and for all. It was important for Wayne to see that she was utterly, completely, and positively over him. Tonight she was ending things on her terms, not his. She wouldn’t be the one packing her bags and running away—he would.

Megan jumped at the sound of the doorbell chiming. She pulled off her apron and tossed it on the counter, then opened the door with the brightest smile she could muster.

“Hello, Wayne.”

“Ah…hi.”

“Or should I call you Jack?”

His clean-shaven face turned a dull red. “Jack is the right choice. This is for you,” he said, holding out a six-pack of Canadian lager. “I’m pretty sure beer isn’t a proper hostess gift, but it’s all I had.”

Megan’s heart fluttered. For one insane minute, she flashed back to him sprawled comfortably in front of a campfire, enjoying a bottle of beer after a long day of wrestling the geese they’d been banding.

“Aw hell, I didn’t think. You can’t have alcohol,” he said, his gaze on her belly. He set the six-pack on the porch, then stepped inside, looking around the room as if expecting an ambush. “Is your sister joining us?”

“No, she’s at Gù Brath for the evening. What happened to your jaw? Did Camry do that when she hit you with the pie?”

Wayne—no, Jack touched the side of his face.

Megan gasped at the thick bandage on his left hand, then gave him an accusing glare. “You were in a fight.”

“And I eventually won, too.”

Megan spun on her heel and marched to the oven, stuffed her hands in her mitts, and pulled out the roaster—all while being acutely aware of Wayne—no, Jack prowling around her living room.

“This is a nice place you have here,” he said, stopping at the woodstove. “The fire’s low. Want me to add some wood?”

Megan caught herself just before she told him to make himself at home. “Sure. The large lever on the right is the draft.”

Realizing she was calmer when she wasn’t actually looking at him, she pulled out a platter for the chicken and casually asked, “So what are you doing in Pine Creek, calling yourself Jack Stone and pretending to be the chief of police?”

“I’m not pretending and I have the wounds to prove it,” he said. She looked over and he held up his bandaged hand. “Pine Creek advertised for a police chief, I needed a job, and Jack Stone is my real name.”

“Then who is Wayne Ferris?”

“A figment of my imagination that helped me get a position on your environmental study.”

She stopped in the middle of lifting the chicken out of the pan. “So you’re a cop, not a biologist?”

“I don’t have a degree in either field. I just read a few books on the tundra’s ecosystem so I could sound like I knew what I was talking about.”

“But why? What were you doing there?”

He closed the damper on the stove, walked over, and took the utensils from her, then lifted the chicken out of the pan, his back to her as he spoke. “My name is Jack Stone, I own a house in Medicine Lake, and I’m a highly specialized hunter.”

“You hunt the animals we were counting?”

“No—people.” He set the chicken on the platter, licked one of his fingers, then leaned back on the counter to look at her. “Specifically, I hunt runaways.”

“What kind of runaways?”

“Anyone who needs finding, but mostly teenagers. Worried parents contact me to find their kids and bring them back home.”

Megan gaped at him. He tracked down runaway kids? “Why don’t they just call the police?”

He led her to the chair by the woodstove, then sat on the ottoman facing her. “Because the ones I go after are usually out of the reach of law enforcement. They’ve disappeared in a large city like Toronto or New York, run off to join a cult, or else they’ve deliberately jumped off the face of the earth.”

“And you find them and bring them to their parents?”

He shrugged. “That depends on their age and how they’re doing when I find them. Under sixteen, I usually bring them home. But even then, if they’re surviving just fine and I have a good idea what they’re running from, I only report back to the parents that they’re alive and well and doing okay.”

Megan leaned back in her chair. “You decide if life on the street is better than living at home with their families? How wise you are, to know what’s best for those kids.”

He stared at her in silence for a moment. “You come from a close-knit community, Megan, and a large, loving, intact family,” he said softly. “Some kids aren’t so lucky. And if it’s wrong to judge their circumstances by my own set of standards, then so be it. Better me than no one at all.”

Megan’s face flushed with heat. “I’m sorry. Yes, that’s better than no one going after them.” She stood and went back to the kitchen to finish getting dinner on the table. “Who were you…um, hunting when we met?”

“Billy Grumman, though his real name is Billy Wellington. His parents had been searching for him for four years. I was their last hope.”

She turned in surprise. “But he’s only nineteen or twenty!”

“He ran away from home at sixteen, kicked around New York City for a year, then got drafted into some sort of cult.”

Megan was intrigued. “It’s hard to believe Billy’s a runaway. He seemed just like the others.”

“After four years, I doubt he considered himself a runaway any longer.”

“Yet he found a way to get an education, and his schoolwork was exemplary enough that he was a team leader.”

Jack walked to the kitchen and started opening drawers. “He’s very well educated because the cult he belonged to was paying for it. Where are your knives, so I can carve the bird?”

“Camry hid them before she left.”

Jack stilled. “Your sister thinks I’m dangerous?”

“No, she thinks I am.” Megan spooned the potatoes into a bowl, then carried it to the table. “What kind of cult pays for college?”

“A very sophisticated organization with an environmental agenda, apparently,” Jack said, setting the chicken down and taking a seat across from her. “I don’t mess with the organizations I’m infiltrating,” he said, driving his fork into the bird and pulling off a large chunk of breast meat. “I try to approach my target when they’re alone, to talk with them.”

Target. Infiltrate. Well, spit—Jack Stone was a damn warrior.

“So did you talk Billy into contacting his parents?”

He rested his arms on the table and looked her directly in the eye. “No, I stuffed him in a small plane and smuggled him back across the border to his parents in Kansas.”

“You didn’t give him a choice?”

“Sure I did. He just didn’t like either choice I offered.”

“And they were?”

“That I would take him home to his parents, or to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

“The police? Why?”

“You remember the government worker who died?”

She nodded.

“I’m pretty sure Billy knows something about his death.”

“Were they drinking together, and the man fell in the pond and Billy was too intoxicated to help him?”

Jack shook his head. “The guy wasn’t drunk, and it wasn’t an accident, Megan. He was murdered—which is why I wanted you out of there.”

Megan leaned back with a gasp. “And you think Billy did it?”

“No. But I think he might know who did.” He shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s my guess the organization paying for Billy’s education wanted him there for their own reasons.”

“What was going on?”

“I wasn’t able to find out, and Billy’s not talking. He was definitely shaken by the guy’s death, but apparently he was more scared of his benefactor than he was of facing murder charges. So I dragged him back to his parents and suggested they help their son disappear for a little while.”

Megan crossed her arms over her belly and stared silently at the man sitting across from her. It all sounded plausible—even his suggestion that he’d ditched her in some half-assed attempt to protect her. But then, he made his living by persuading people into doing what he wanted, didn’t he?