Tempt Me If You Can Read online

  “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.”

  “How about a guess, then.” Ben looked at Emma. “Who do you think was shooting at you?”

  She shrugged her good shoulder. “If I had to guess, I would say it was Wayne Poulin.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knew I had been snooping in his room. And if those coordinates are important to him, he was probably checking to see if I had been out there.”

  All three men silently mulled over her theory. Emma stood up and grabbed the cane Mikey had hooked on the back of her chair and Beaker stood as well.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” she said as she started hobbling out of the kitchen.

  “I’ll carry you,” Ben said, moving to intercept her.

  Beaker moved between them, the hair on his back raised, and growled.

  Ben stopped and his face reddened. “Goddammit! Beaker!”

  The dog advanced a step, his growl rising in volume.

  “Maybe you should try feeding him cookies, boss,” Atwood suggested, sounding like he was strangling on a laugh.

  “I’m going to feed him to the crows,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “Beaker. Sit!”

  The dog ignored him.

  Emma laid her hand on Beaker’s head. “It’s okay. Let’s go have a nap, and leave these men to contemplate the future.” Then she looked at Mikey. “Why don’t you call Stanley Bates and see if he’d be willing to haul our Cessna home.”

  Mikey nodded, staring at the dog as if it had two heads and a forked tail.

  Satisfied the remaining males could get on with their foolish little war without her, Emma led Beaker into her bedroom and softly closed the door. The dog stood looking up at her, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth and his eyes a soft liquid brown.

  “If I let you up on the bed with me, do you promise not to hog it?” Emma gingerly sat down and patted a place beside her. “You promise not to eat me if I wake you up from a sound
sleep?”

  Beaker eagerly accepted her invitation, jumping up and plopping himself down right in the middle.

  Emma carefully settled on what space was left, making sure she didn’t jar her throbbing shoulder.

  Beaker immediately snuggled against her.

  There was an advantage to having a big dog, Emma decided. Beaker radiated a pleasant heat down her entire back, supporting her at the same time.

  Maybe, just maybe, she’d keep him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Five days. Five long, boring days of being treated like an invalid by five males, one of which had four legs and a cold nose.

  She was totally sick of it. Her ankle was healed, her shoulder couldn’t move but it was out of the sling, and her beautiful house looked like a dust bowl. It was time to clean it out, and Emma started with her watchdogs—including the four-legged one.

  “Are you headed into town again this morning?” she asked Ben over her cup of tea, sitting across the table from the man who could, with just a look, send her pulse into overdrive.

  She’d been getting a lot of those looks lately—whenever he was home. Ben had been leaving the house every morning for the last five days, returning only for supper. He called her every noon to check on how she was feeling, but Emma knew he was really checking to make sure she was behaving herself.

  “Yes,” he said, his piercing gray eyes sending another ripple of awareness down her spine as she tried to remember her question. “And what are your plans for the day?”

  “I thought I would do some dusting.”

  “You’re not well enough to do housework,” he said with all the concern of a man who didn’t see dust or cobwebs or accumulating laundry.

  “I think I can manage a dustrag. And the first thing I’m cleaning out is all you men. Mikey’s going to school, and Skyler is taking him. I want him to pick him up this afternoon also. Atwood can go to cabin six and do ‘secretary’ stuff. And you’re taking Beaker with you into town. That poor beast is more bored than I am,” she finished, raising her chin.

  He merely smiled. “Are we driving you nuts, Emma?”

  “I can’t turn around without tripping over testosterone.” She set her cup on the table with a thunk. “It’s bad enough I have to stay cooped up all day; I don’t need an army of guards watching my every move.”

  His frown returned. “You’re liable to get an idea into your head and take off or something.”

  “A person can only take so much coddling, Ben.”

  He stared at her, his face chiseled stone. Emma felt another ripple run down her spine. Ben hadn’t said one word about her nearly getting his son killed six days ago. And not once had he commented on the tangle of metal, now sitting behind the garage. He didn’t speak of Wayne Poulin or the coordinates, of drug running or the shots fired at them. Nor did he mention the bullet wound in her shoulder.

  Ben looked down at Beaker, who had sidled over and set his chin on her knee. “I suppose you could use a break,” he said, his face softening. “You’re too independent for all this attention, and Beaker and I could use a little time together.”

  Immensely pleased with her little victory, Emma patted Beaker on the head as she took a piece of toast from her plate and fed her new friend.

  Ben pushed his chair back and walked over to the counter, where he grabbed the bowl of Elmer Fudge cookies. He returned to the table and proceeded to pick out a cookie, break it apart, and use a table knife to scrape the chocolate center into his plate.

  Beaker immediately raised his head to watch.

  Ben performed his little operation on two dozen cookies, making a huge pile of vanilla wafers. Then he swept them up and stuffed them in his pocket.

  “Bribery, Ben?” Emma asked with a laugh.

  “Self-defense,” he answered as he stood up. “Come on, Beaker. Let’s go for a ride.” The dog stood, his tail wagging as he stared at Ben’s pocket.

  Ben walked to the door and opened it. “Come on, Beaker. Outside.”

  Her faithful guardian obediently trotted to the door, but stopped and looked back at her with uncertainty. Emma nodded. “Go on, boy. Go for a ride.”

  The dog bounded outside.

  Ben let the screen door slap closed as he walked back to the table, and grabbed her chin in his hand. “Now that he’s out of the way …” he whispered, just as his mouth captured hers.

  Emma’s toes instantly curled, and she had to grab the table for support. Holy hell, he was dangerous to her heart. But she wouldn’t allow her fears to rob her of this enjoyment anymore. She wrapped her good arm around his neck and kissed him back.

  That was all the invitation he needed. He carefully pulled her to her feet and into his arms, wrapping her in his warmth and strength and sweet-smelling maleness. Her head reeled with unleashed passion. The very floor beneath them rumbled. Dishes rattled. A pot on the counter crashed to the floor.

  Emma pulled back and looked up at him. “How do you keep doing that?” she whispered in awe.

  His frown made her laugh out loud.

  “Jeez, Nem! That was a powerful one,” Mikey said as he ran into the kitchen, sliding to a sudden stop when he saw his aunt in the arms of his father.

  Emma realized she was clinging to Ben and stepped back.

  The kitchen door banged open, and Atwood and Skyler came running into the kitchen, Beaker fast on their heels. The two men’s eyes were nearly bugging out of their heads; Beaker was whining and looking for a place to hide.

  Emma laughed out loud.

  “What was that?” Atwood asked. “Maine doesn’t have earthquakes, does it?”

  She shook her head. “Not usually. But we do get

  little rumbles every once and a while. Just enough to rattle the dishes.”

  “That was more than a rattle,” Skyler interjected.

  “It’s the earth rebounding from being crushed by heavy glaciers thousands of years ago,” Mikey told them. “Or it might be the hot springs,” he said, looking at Emma. “They could be rumbling back to life.”

  Emma preferred the image of Benjamin Sinclair’s arms upraised, commanding nature to his will. She forcibly shook it away. “Well, gentlemen. Since you’re all here now, Ben has something he wants to tell you.”

  Ben looked at her, the spark of passion still in his eyes. “Maybe you should tell them, Emma, since you’re so full of … surprises this morning.”

  Fighting down the heat suddenly threatening to color her face, Emma looked at the three expectant men, and at Beaker, who was sitting and staring up at her.

  “Ah …” She looked at Mikey first. “Ben and I were thinking it’s time for you to go back to school.”

  The boy immediately shook his head. “I want to stay home a few more days.”

  “I think you’re over the trauma of crashing our plane, young man. You’ve milked it long enough.”

  “But—”

  “Go to school, Mike. Skyler, you’ll take him and pick him up,” Ben added, looking at Skyler, who nodded in return.

  “Atwood,” Ben continued, “why don’t you see about filling that woodshed out back.”

  Atwood quickly nodded, seeming relieved not to have to spend another day lurking close to the house.

  Ben turned to her. “And you won’t lift anything heavier than a dustrag?” he asked, looking skeptical.

  She placed her right hand over her heart. “I promise not to get into any trouble,” was all she said in agreement.

  He kissed her firmly on the lips. “I’ll be home early,” he said, and walked out the door, calling Beaker to follow.

  Emma went to the sink, and with a slightly trembling hand and pink face, she picked up the fallen pot. “Have a nice day, gentlemen,” she said without looking up as they silently filed out the door. Each of them stopped only long enough to dip into the bowl of cookies on their way out before letting the screen door slam behind them.

  Emma eyed the empty bowl. They were going through the Elmer Fudge cookies like
kibble. She didn’t know where they had come from, but there was a whole case in the pantry. And there always seemed to be a large bowl of them on the counter. She had decided it was magic, because one minute she’d notice the bowl was empty, and the next minute it would be full.

  Her little addiction seemed to be contagious.

  It was three o’clock before Emma heard the kitchen door slam again over the voice of Mary Chapin Carpenter coming from her earphones. She looked up from the paperwork scattered over the table to see Ben and Beaker walk in, both looking like they owned the place.

  Beaker trotted up and immediately pushed at her arm for attention. Emma pulled off her headset and shut off her radio, then reached down to greet her pet.

  “Something smells good,” Ben said, shedding his jacket. “What’s in the oven?”

  “I got sick of Mikey’s cooking.” Emma patted her dog. “He’s got this thing about spices. That’s turkey you’re smelling.”

  Ben looked concerned. “How did you get it in the oven with only one arm?”

  “I called in reinforcements. Greta put the turkey in the oven,” she explained, looking back down at her paperwork. “You can either wash the potatoes or help me figure out how I’m going to come up with the funds for a new plane.”

  “You said it was insured,” he said, scanning the paperwork from over her shoulder. “So what’s the

  problem?”

  “They’re not paying out until the FAA has finished its investigation. I … um … I don’t have an instructor’s license, and Mikey isn’t old enough to solo yet. And word’s out that he was at the controls at the time of the crash. The investigation could take months.” She tapped her pencil on her financial worksheet. “And I don’t have months. In the winter I change the pontoons to skis and fly ice fishermen into remote ponds and biologists in for animal counts. I need to replace my plane.”

  “I’ll give you the money,” he said, rolling up his sleeves and going to the sink, apparently confident the problem was solved.

  “No.”

  He stopped in midstep and turned. “No?”