The Stranger in Her Bed Read online

  "I've seen your pickup, Gaylen. Two thousand, and you tell Clay Porter to stop sneaking pulpwood into your loads," she countered. "We manufacture lumber, not paper."

  "I get paid by the board foot hauling for Clay," Gaylen said, his bushy gray eyebrows coming together in a scowl. "And I've told him he's loading me up with marginal logs."

  "Then I guess I need to have a talk with your boss," she said. "He's been dirtying his loads a lot lately, and it's got to stop. Two thousand dollars, and you deliver the pickup to Loon Cove by six tonight."

  Gaylen sighed in defeat. "I'll have my wife drive it over while I'm unloading, so she can ride back with me." He gave her a quick glance, then began to downshift as they approached the mill. "You know there's an ongoing feud between the Knights and Porter, don't you? Clay had been trying to raise the money for Loon Cove Lumber, but the Knights bought it right out from under him."

  "So he started dirtying his loads to us? But he's only hurting himself."

  "The bad blood between them goes way back," Gaylen added. "Alex Knight's first wife ran off with Porter, and then there's the fact that Clay is forced to haul his trees over ten miles of Knight road, but they won't let him rebuild it." Gaylen drove through the open gate of Loon Cove Lumber. "It takes me nearly an hour each way to travel those ten miles, which means I can only make one trip a day instead of two. Their feud is cutting into my profits, along with all the other contract drivers."

  Anna shook her head. "Two thousand dollars for your pickup, plain and simple," she stated. "I am not asking Ethan Knight to pretty please let Porter upgrade their road so you can bring us two dirty loads instead of one each day."

  "Did I ask?"

  "You were working your way up to it."

  "Jeeze, Anna. You've somehow persuaded thirty hardheaded men to take orders from you. I just know you could talk the Knights into letting Clay fix their road. Though maybe Ethan isn't the one you should ask," he said with a frown, skillfully maneuvering through the busy mill yard toward the man directing him to stop beside the long row of logs. "Grady Knight's your go-to guy. I bet he'd listen to you."

  "I'm not a negotiator, Gaylen. I saw logs."

  "You just negotiated me out of a thousand bucks," he grumbled, the air brakes hissing as he brought the logging truck to a rocking stop. He started to open his door, then looked back at her. "I suppose if you persuade Clay to clean up his loads, that's something, at least."

  "I've left messages on his phone about this, but it seems I'll have to find some other way to get my point across." She gave her chauffeur a warm smile. "Thanks for the ride. We'll settle up when your wife gets here."

  "It's a good-running truck, Anna. You know I wouldn't sell you a lemon."

  She reached over and patted his arm. "I know you wouldn't, Gaylen. That's why I bought it without a test drive."

  "Bought what?" Ethan asked through her side window. "It's nearly four, Segee," he said, stepping down to open her door. "You're late."

  "It's my fault she's late," Gaylen said. "I'm having to baby my rig because those ten miles of your road are taking their toll on it."

  Anna rolled her eyes and crowded past Ethan to get out. "I just bought Gaylen's pickup. And I'm salaried, so I don't punch the clock," she told him as she headed toward their scaler, who was already measuring Gaylen's load. "Davis, continue to put the marginal logs in the pulpwood pile when you sort, and we'll start letting these drivers take them to the paper mill on Monday. We might as well sell this junk as let it sit here and rot."

  "But we don't actually own it," Davis said in surprise. "We only pay for the timber logs."

  "Yet Clay Porter keeps right on sending it to us," she drawled. "So he must want us to have it."

  "You'll start an all-out war," Gaylen sputtered in alarm.

  Anna looked at Ethan, who merely gave a slight nod, turned, and strode toward the office. She had, however, noticed a distinct sparkle in his deep blue eyes.

  Gaylen gave a soft whistle through his teeth. "So the wind blows that way, does it?"

  "What way?" Anna asked with a warning look.

  "You're obviously on the Knights' side in this feud."

  "I'm on your side," she snapped. "If Clay Porter doesn't stop loading you up with junk so you get full scale, then I'm giving you a back load to take to the paper mill so you won't have to run empty partway."

  Gaylen suddenly grinned. "That you are, missy." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "I'm sorry for implying you might have your eye on Ethan. I know you're smarter than that."

  "Smarter?"

  "You just moved here, so you might not realize that Ethan can be a hard-ass sometimes, especially with women."

  Anna chuckled. "Ethan doesn't scare me."

  "He should. He's dangerous, Anna. A woman's dead because of him," Gaylen said, leaning closer. "I'm not gossiping or nothing, I'm just trying to warn you so you won't be taken in by his good looks."

  "You think Ethan's handsome?" she asked, glancing toward the office to hide her smile. "I hadn't really noticed."

  Gaylen harrumphed and nudged her arm. "I'm serious, Anna. Everyone in town knows he's staying at Fox Run through the week, and I'm trying to warn you to keep it only business between you."

  She patted his sleeve. "Consider me warned."

  He harrumphed again, then ran toward the back of his truck with a shout, complaining that the log Davis was off-loading to the pulp pile was perfectly good timber. Anna left them to battle it out, and headed toward the office to pick up her paycheck— and push one or two of Ethan's buttons.

  But it's hard to rile a man who's disappeared. All Anna found in the office was a brand-new twelve-gauge pump shotgun sitting on her desk, a box of number four birdshot, and her paycheck with a note scribbled on the envelope: "I've gone home for the weekend. Lock the gate behind you, don't kill anyone, and try not to miss me too much. Ethan."

  Anna picked up the box of shells and snorted. Kill anyone? She'd be lucky to dent them with number four birdshot. She might as well be armed with a fistful of rocks.

  Chapter Nine

  Anna lay snuggled under her thick down comforter, staring at her bedroom ceiling and blaming Ethan for another sleepless night. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop picturing him chasing Pamela Sant down a pitch-black road, then seeing him frantically racing into Oak Creek after the woman carrying his unborn child.

  Anna didn't doubt that Ethan had gone in after Pamela and likely almost drowned himself as he'd desperately tried to save her. Hadn't he been just as determined eighteen years ago to save Abigail Fox from the boys who had trapped her in Frost Lake? He'd certainly taken an awful beating— though she knew that two of the boys who'd been taunting her had spent the night in the hospital, and the third boy probably was still running. Dangerous? Oh yeah, Anna knew exactly how dangerous Ethan could be, considering she'd carry to her grave the image of him battling her bullies that long-ago summer.

  Would anything have come of her childhood crush on Ethan if she hadn't been dragged off to Quebec? She had quietly adored him from afar, her young heart thinking he hung the moon. Hell, part of her still did. That was why she couldn't stop pushing his buttons every chance she got. She was finally getting to play out her childhood fantasy, only better, because Ethan didn't equate her with the shy, gangly daughter of Oak Grove's legendary tramp.

  Abigail Fox had ceased to exist the day André Segee had brought her, kicking and screaming, to his home in Canada, where he'd legally changed her last name and started calling her by her middle name, Anna. It would take more than a few bullies to intimidate her now, as she'd grown strong and self-assured under the watchful eyes of a quietly generous stepmother, four bossy half brothers, and a determined father who insisted the French Canadian blood running through her veins would give her the strength not only to survive, but to thrive.

  And she had, to the point where he'd been brought to tears four months ago when she'd told him she was accepting her inheritance from Gram
py Fox and moving back to Maine. When she'd explained that she needed to prove to herself that she was more than her Segee name, the blood in his veins had started to boil. And despite his hiding her SUV and managing to freeze all her assets, she had stubbornly boarded a Maine-bound bus with only a few possessions and the two thousand Canadian dollars her stepmom, Claire, had pressed into her hand on her way out the door.

  Anna finally sat up in bed with a sigh of defeat. Apparently it didn't matter which direction she crossed the border; she was doomed to be riddled with guilt, be it eighteen years of not seeing her Grampy Fox or four months of missing her daddy's frustrating habit of trying to micromanage her life.

  And since she obviously wasn't going to get any sleep thanks to all the maddening men in her life, Anna decided she might as well start the generator and go over her laughable budget. She threw back the comforter, picked up her flashlight as she scuffed her slippers, put on her dark flannel bathrobe, and went downstairs. She walked through the living room, shining the light on Bear in his bed next to the woodstove, then at the empty squirrel shelf on her way through the kitchen, and opened the back door.

  She hadn't taken two steps toward the generator shed when she heard a noise that sounded like something falling inside the cookhouse across camp. She immediately snapped off her flashlight and stepped back inside, quietly closed and locked the door, and covered her racing heart with both hands. Damn, she hated it when things went bump in the night!

  Especially with Ethan conveniently gone.

  Which meant that it was a vigilant, earthly someone snooping through her buildings. Still, even though her brain knew there were no such things as ghosts or tree-squeaks or side-hill gougers, she sure as hell wished her pounding heart would settle down.

  "It's raccoons," she said out loud, so she wouldn't feel so completely alone. "It's an animal or person going through my outbuildings, not a ghost. And I've had enough, dammit, and it ends tonight!" She marched into the living room and picked up the shotgun Ethan had loaned her. "At least I can scare whatever's out there." She kicked off her slippers and crammed her feet into her mud boots.

  Making sure the safety was engaged on the shotgun, Anna loaded a shell in the chamber, then filled the magazine with four more shells. She shoved her flashlight in her pocket, tightened the belt on her robe, and headed through the kitchen to go out the back door.

  Bear bumped against her leg, trying to squeeze out ahead of her. "No, pup, you can't come with me. I don't need to worry about you," she whispered, gently pushing him back inside as she slipped out the door.

  Anna straightened and peered into the darkness encompassing the old mill site, took a fortifying breath, then quietly crept off the porch. She wished the moon was out so she could see better, but the warm front that had arrived this afternoon was creating a thick blanket of fog— which meant her intruder wouldn't be able to see any better than she could.

  With her thumb resting on the safety, Anna worked her way around the side of the house and used familiar trees to guide her toward the shoreline so she could approach the cookhouse from the lake. The melting snow didn't crunch under her feet, so she wasn't worried anyone would hear her, but the dense fog fueled her imagination, making her jump at every little shadow she couldn't immediately recognize.

  When another loud bang came from the cookhouse, she immediately scurried behind a large boulder and went perfectly still. Oh God, what was she doing out here? "Courage is being afraid but acting anyway," she whispered. "I'm just going to scare those raccoons as bad as they're scaring me."

  But what if she found a two-legged creature? Exactly what did she intend to do then? March the man at gunpoint back to her house and call the sheriff?

  No, she would simply ask him what in hell he was looking for, and once she got an answer she'd give him a piece of her mind, then escort him off her land with a warning that the next time he showed up, she would shoot first and ask questions later. A shotgun blast over his head would tell him she meant business.

  Feeling a bit braver being armed with a plan as well as five rounds of birdshot, Anna started following the shoreline— but froze again when she spotted a large dark shadow on the lake. She waited, holding her breath and listening, but the shadow didn't move or make a sound. She silently crept closer, feeling the jagged transition from shore to lake with her feet as she stepped onto the ice.

  The large blob remained silent and unmoving as she drew nearer, then slowly took on a form she finally recognized, and Anna started breathing again. A snowmobile. So that's how her intruder had been coming and going without her hearing him; he arrived by lake and hiked in.

  Careful not to make any noise, Anna lifted the cowling, grabbed the ignition wire, and unplugged it so the sled wouldn't start when he turned the key. Then she closed the hood and headed to shore, mentally patting herself on the back for disabling his only means of escape.

  She grew braver with every step she took, barely flinching when another loud bang, this time followed by a human curse, came from the cookhouse. She could just make out the weak beam of a flashlight moving around inside, but when she heard whispering, Anna rethought her plan. There were two intruders? Maybe she should shoot first— to get their attention and immediate respect— and then ask questions.

  She quietly stuck the tip of her shotgun through one of the broken windows, aimed it toward the roof, and slid off the safety, then braced the butt of the gun against her shoulder and pulled the trigger. The muzzle blast was deafening and the recoil bruising, but she was prepared for both. She was not, however, prepared for the large hard body that slammed into her side.

  Anna twisted, elbowed his head, and drove the butt of her gun into her attacker's ribs, then before he could finish gasping for breath, she scrambled to her feet and swung the gun down over his shoulders as he rolled to his knees. He went back down with a pained grunt, and Anna was torn between hitting him again or running like hell for home when she heard heavy footsteps scrambling through the junk-cluttered cookhouse.

  Putting all of her weight into it, Anna kicked the guy in front of her as he tried to get up again, then ran around the building to head off the others as they made their escape. They didn't turn toward the lake, but headed at a dead run toward the road that led out of camp. Anna shouldered her shotgun and fired another round over their heads, then took off after them when they yelped in surprise and started running even faster.

  She lost them in the fog but stumbled onto the lane leading to the main highway and guessed that was where they were heading— while their battered accomplice beat a hasty retreat to his snowmobile. Boy, was he in for a surprise. But she'd deal with him later, once she made sure these guys were well on their way.

  An engine roared to life up the lane, and Anna ran toward it as she jacked another shell into the chamber. A set of three taillights appeared through the fog up ahead, and she could tell by their pattern that it was a pickup. She shouldered her gun and fired, aiming right between the lower two lights, smiling smugly when she heard the tiny lead missiles pepper the tailgate. By God, they'd think twice about snooping through her buildings again!

  For added insurance, and maybe because it felt so damn good, she jacked another shell into the chamber and pulled the trigger one final time— just as she was knocked off her feet by a heavy body slamming into her again.

  "Dammit, quit shoo— "

  Anna cut him off by shoving her elbow into the side of his head, but he managed to get hold of the shotgun before she was able to drive the butt into his ribs. There was a desperate tug of war over the gun, which Anna valiantly fought but eventually lost. Her attacker tossed the weapon away, spun her onto her back and straddled her hips, and caught her fist before it could connect with his face.

  "Quit hitting me!" he growled.

  Anna stilled and blinked up at the dark figure towering over her. "Ethan?" she whispered. "Dammit, I thought you were one of them!"

  He pinned her hands on the ground by her head, h
unching over until his face was only inches from hers. "If you hit me again, I'm going to stuff you down a fishing hole."

  "Then stop tackling me."

  "I was trying to stop you from shooting that damn gun."

  "If you didn't intend me to use it, then why did you leave it on my desk?"

  He lifted slightly but didn't let go of her hands. "I thought it would make you feel safer to have it. I didn't think you'd leave the house, much less actually shoot at anyone."

  Anna struggled to get free, but he only tightened his grip and shifted his weight over her thighs, his knees squeezing her like a vise. "Why in hell were you shooting at them?"

  "I wasn't shooting at them, I was aiming over their heads. I just wanted to scare them, so they'd realize there's a crazy woman living here who's willing to use a shotgun."

  He looked up the lane, but because she couldn't make out his expression, she didn't know if he was shocked or angered. She was getting madder by the minute. Her adrenaline rush was starting to wane, the wet snow was seeping through her robe, and her bare legs were growing numb with cold.