Tempt Me If You Can Read online

  “I’m surprised Michael didn’t draw you a map that would take you to Canada.”

  Ben frowned darkly. “Michael’s got his own agenda, and I don’t think either of us will ever fully know what it is. Are you sure Kelly gave birth to him? You didn’t just find him in one of Medicine Creek’s hot springs, bubbled up from hell?”

  “I know he’s looking more and more like his father every—”

  He shut her up again, but with his mouth this time. Emma gasped at the bolt of heat that suddenly shot through her. She was wet and cold and she couldn’t breathe, but she was also hot and tingly and so very confused.

  Fire, of the delicious, feminine kind, flared deep in the pit of her belly. And Emma couldn’t stop herself from kissing him back any more.

  This was so dangerous. Her nephew’s father was seducing her, and she hoped he wouldn’t stop. She was setting herself up for a world of heartache, but all she could do was curse the clothes that separated them.

  “Slap my face, Emma.”

  She took her freed hands and pulled his growling mouth back down to hers.

  He kissed her again, opening her mouth with his tongue and taking in the taste of her, giving back his own sweet essence. His weight was no longer crushing, it was welcome. One of his hands began roaming her body, and Emma wiggled to give him easier access.

  “Stop me, Em.”

  She started doing a little exploring herself. He was so muscled and firm, and the canvas shirt under his jacket unbuttoned easily. The hair covering his chest sprang to life against her fingers, and Emma felt Ben take a deep, shuddering breath.

  “Last chance, Emma. Stop me now.”

  The bellow of a huge bull moose came echoing down over the ridge, followed by the cracking of branches. Ben threw his head up in surprise. Her own breath suspended, Emma watched as he slowly looked down at her, his expression turning to horror.

  Emma pushed him away. “Get off me!”

  He scrambled to his feet and turned his back, his hands tugging at the front of his pants.

  For a stunned second, Emma lay motionless. Lord, what an idiot she was—she’d nearly let Ben Sinclair seduce her!

  Was this what Kelly had felt sixteen years ago? Was this how quickly, how insanely, it had happened?

  “I’m … Emma, I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t look up at those softly spoken words. “Forget it, Mr. Sinclair.”

  He lifted her chin with two gentle but insistent fingers. His face was drawn, but flags of color darkened his cheeks. Leftover passion? Embarrassment? Anger?

  “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Damn right it shouldn’t have.”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Certainly not with your upper brain.”

  His eyes widened in shock, then he suddenly threw back his head and burst out laughing. He sat down on the ground beside her. “My God. What am I supposed to do with you, Emma Sands?”

  “You can go back and get Michael and take him home.”

  He instantly sobered. “Now? You want me to take him away right now?”

  Her throat closed tight, Emma nodded.

  “While you stay out here and hide?”

  She lifted her chin. “I am not hiding. Michael can call me once he gets settled.”

  He muttered something as he picked up her pack and shotgun and his own pack.

  Then, just to make the day even more delightful, it started to rain.

  “Damn. We’ve got to find shelter,” Ben growled.

  “Medicine Creek Camps is sixteen miles that way,” she said, pointing behind him. “If you start walking now, you’ll be there before dark.”

  He stood looking at her, her gun in his fist, his hands on his hips, both packs slung over his shoulders, and his eyes squinted against the rain. His jacket was open and his shirt was buttoned crooked.

  L.L.Bean should be here with their camera now.

  “I think I’ll stick around a while, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind. Go away, Mr. Sinclair.”

  He lifted her chin again, washing her face—and cooling her blush—she hoped—with rain.

  “Let me rephrase that. I am going to help you set up a shelter and then we are going to put on some dry clothes.”

  “Michael didn’t pack you a tent?”

  He shook his head, his face thoughtful. “Do you think it was an oversight?”

  Emma grabbed her backpack off his shoulder and started up the brook. “Knowing Michael, it wasn’t.”

  Ben seemed startled she was leaving, and ran to catch up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means he’s paying me back for not letting him skip school for the moose hunt.” She looked over her shoulder and gave him a nasty grin. “Either that, or he thinks a cold, wet night outdoors would do you good.”

  “He hauled me out of bed at four this morning and stuck a map in my hand. Your nephew comes by his sadistic nature quite naturally, I see.”

  “I’m not the one going around threatening to throttle somebody.” Emma stopped and turned fully to face him. “If you ever threaten to lay a hand on me again, Mr. Sinclair, you won’t live long enough to gloat about it.”

  He nodded, his expression serious—but for his laughing eyes.

  Chapter Five

  Well, that had been brilliant. Attack the woman. In the dirt, no less.

  Very brilliant, Sinclair.

  How in hell could he have known she’d go off like a keg of gunpowder? She was supposed to be in love with another man!

  On his cold, dark trek through the woods this morning, Ben had devised a plan to find out who the love of Emma’s life was. He’d intended to kiss her so that she’d slap his face and tell him that her heart was already taken. She was supposed to yell the bastard’s name and threatened to have him kill Ben for making advances.

  Instead, the little minx had blindsided him.

  Thank God that rutting bull moose had made all that noise. For one short second, Ben had known exactly how the horny beast felt.

  Now Emma was mad enough to kill him. On top of nearly taking her right there on the ground, he could have gotten her pregnant. He hoped like hell there were no more Sands sisters. At this rate, he was liable to found a dynasty on them.

  Ben balled up his L.L.Bean shirt and threw it across the shelter Little Miss Wonder Guide had erected from a tarp and tree branches. It kept out the wet, but not the wind.

  “Dammit, it’s snowing!”

  “It does that in Maine sometimes,” came an equally disgruntled voice from the other side of the tarp.

  He tore into his pack and pulled out another shirt, this one flannel. He scowled at the logo stitched on the pocket, a deer leaping for joy. Ben crammed his arms in the sleeves before his shivering made the task impossible. “Are you sitting out there trying to get pneumonia, or is your stubbornness keeping you warm?”

  A green rubberized cape with a head poking out of it popped into his line of sight. “It will be a lot warmer with hot tea in our stomachs. You want to come out here and watch for the water to boil?”

  She disappeared before Ben could answer. Fine. Let the fool woman catch her death. What did he care?

  That brought Ben back to his problem, and his backfired plan.

  He’d seen the disgust in her eyes. If looks could kill, he’d be dead. “Couldn’t we have pitched this tarp near one of your hot springs? Damn it’s cold.”

  Two steaming cups preceded two small hands into the shelter, followed by a billowing green poncho sporting huge flakes of snow. The flakes weren’t melting because Emma’s smile could freeze a penguin.

  “You’re welcome to move on, if you like. The nearest hot spring is about three thousand miles west.” As angry as she obviously was, she was careful when she handed him the hot cup of tea.

  Ben sighed as he blew on his tea. “Let’s call a truce. This shelter is too small for a battlefield.”

  “I’m
sure Mikey packed you a poncho, Mr. Sinclair. And if you turn that map upside down, you should be able to follow it back the way you came.”

  “I thought you had six cabins of moose hunters arriving today. Shouldn’t you be seeing to your business?”

  “Mikey will settle them in. And I’ll be there early tomorrow to take them out.”

  “Why do you call him Mikey? It doesn’t quite fit.”

  Although it was small, Ben finally got a smile from her. “To remind him that he’s not a grown-up yet, and that I’m older and hopefully a bit smarter than he is.”

  “He calls you ‘bossy lady’ sometimes.”

  “Just when he’s pissed about something.”

  “He called you that the night you found me.”

  She held her tea up near her face, letting the steam warm her. “Every so often, his confidence slips. He had never landed on anything like Smokey Bog without me being in the seat beside him.”

  Ben suddenly didn’t need the tea for warmth, as his blood began to boil. “You put my son in a situation that could have killed him?”

  “No, Mr. Sinclair. Michael is an excellent pilot. I didn’t have any doubts; he did.” She shot him a grin. “And he forgot them once he got down to business.”

  “You were nervous. I saw how tense you were.”

  “I was worried about my plane,” she shot back. “Pontoons are expensive.”

  He was sorely tempted to kiss her again.

  Ben realized she was scowling at him and remembered he should be scowling back. “Plane floats are more precious than a boy’s life?”

  She looked immensely satisfied with herself; apparently convinced she was keeping the battle lines drawn. No cold war for this woman. She would go down fighting to the bitter end.

  It was a survivor’s defense, one Ben imagined she had developed to survive all that she’d lost. She and Kelly had lost their mother when they were very young; then at fourteen she’d lost her father rather violently. And at just nineteen, she had suddenly found herself alone to raise a five-year-old boy. Oh yes. Emma Sands was definitely a survivor.

  He was going to have to sneak up on her tonight.

  While she slept.

  While her shotgun was out of reach.

  And he would not lose control this time. He would kiss her once, just to prove to himself that he could. He wouldn’t jump all over her, or get lost in that luscious body that could drive a man to insanity.

  Ben felt himself get hard just remembering the feel of her beneath him.

  “I’m turning in for the night, Miss Sands. I’m not used to getting up at four in the morning and then walking half the day over half the mountains in the state. Good night.”

  He crawled into the sleeping bag Michael had packed him and zipped it up to his neck, hiding the evidence of his lustful thoughts.

  The soft glow of the battery lantern cast Emma in a halo of deceptive warmth. Shadows danced beside her on the tarp, which was beginning to sag with the weight of wet snow. The forest had grown eerily quiet, and Ben imagined their little shelter looked like a cocoon of peace in these woods his son called home.

  Through half-closed eyes, he watched the woman who had raised Michael. She sat motionless as she contemplated the snowflakes pooling at the entrance of their temporary lodge. Emma Sands also called this place home. She was as comfortable here in a crude shelter in the middle of a snowstorm as a squirrel was nestled in a tree of leaves and downy fur. This beautiful woman, with long, wavy blond hair and a face angels would envy, was the most remarkable woman Ben had ever known.

  She held strong convictions toward many things. If she found men driving spikes into trees, she’d try to stop it. If she found men beating up another man, she would step in with her shotgun blazing. When she loved a boy like a son, she would do anything to protect him. And if she gave herself to a man, she would give herself fully.

  Would she have let him make love to her today if he hadn’t stopped?

  Maybe. But why? Because of her nephew? Because Ben held the power to take the boy away from her?

  He would bet his business that Emma hadn’t been thinking of Michael when she’d exploded with a passion so strong Ben had been blinded to everything else, too.

  It seemed an eternity before the cause of his lust finally crawled into her sleeping bag two feet away and turned out the lantern. Then she set her shotgun between them, rolled over, and rested one hand on the stock—not at all worried about sharing a tent with him.

  Which was the first mistake he had seen Emma Sands make.

  There was a very sensuous woman behind the prickly manner she showed the world. All she had to do was give a little sigh, and the throbbing ache of his groin went from fully aroused to solid stone.

  It amazed Ben how erotic waiting could be. And how horny the sound of a carefully lowered sleeping bag zipper could make him. And how anticipation had turned into a whole new form of foreplay.

  He had to remember he was on a mission—that what he accomplished here could mean the difference between having his son or alienating him forever.

  She was an abandoned sleeper, and it made him imagine her being abandoned in other ways. Carefully, knowing the longer he kept her sleeping the more manageable she’d be, he brought her hands together and slowly lifted them over her head. She stirred, but merely mumbled in her sleep and tried to turn over.

  Ben moved closer as he pinned her hands over her head and eased his leg over her thighs. She arched against him. He thought she was awake and trying to throw him off, but when he moved more fully on top of her, she mewled deep in her throat.

  This isn’t smart, Sinclair.

  Ben felt a moment’s hesitation as he softly touched his lips to her cheek. He’d never forced a woman in his life, but his actions were drawing close to that invisible line. What he was doing was dirty pool. It was also erotic as hell, a challenge to his ego, and a means to an end.

  Emma came awake with a start just as his lips settled over her mouth.

  “Easy, Em. It’s me, Ben.”

  “Get … off.”

  It was a weak command at best, lacking conviction because she was confused. Ben brushed the hair from her face even as he tightened his grip on her hands. “I want to show you that I’m not an animal, Em. Let me make my mistakes up to you. Come on, pretty lady. Kiss me back.”

  With no light to see her face, all he could rely on was what her body told him. And when she sighed and relaxed her muscles, he knew he was nearly home free.

  “This isn’t a good idea. It wasn’t smart earlier today, and it still isn’t.”

  “We’re two mature adults—and I would very much like to show you how civilized I really am. Just a kiss, and then we’ll stop.” He let go of one of her hands, testing his luck.

  That was a mistake.

  Her free hand connected with the side of his head with enough force that he actually saw stars. Then she gave him an impressively strong shove, knocking him over and scrambling from the prison of her sleeping bag.

  She snapped a light on, and Ben found himself staring down the barrel of her shotgun.

  “Get dressed, Mr. Sinclair. We’re heading home.”

  Ben squinted at his watch. “It’s not even five in the morning!”

  “Which will put us there in time for me to take out my sports. Move.”

  She lowered her shotgun to find her boots, and Ben jumped her, covering her mouth with his hand as he pinned her down.

  Her eyes widened just before he turned out the lantern—although her shock might have had something to do with the Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand.

  “Sshhh. Someone’s out there.”

  She quieted her breathing to listen. A truck engine died, and several voices carried down the hill to their shelter.

  Emma started to struggle. “That’s the loggers! I’ve got to warn them about the spikes.”

  “You can’t know that. We can barely hear them, much less tell who they are.”

 
; She turned the light back on and frantically started making a tangle of her sleeping bag. “Ohmigod. I don’t want them to find me here like this. Someone will surely tell Galen—” She snapped her mouth shut as Ben set the revolver on his sleeping bag. “Where did you get that?”

  “I brought it with me.” He grinned at her astonishment. “Don’t look so shocked. I may be a city sport to you, but I’m not a defenseless one.”

  “You need a permit to carry a gun.”

  “I have one.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Where was it when Durham was beating you senseless?”

  “In its holster, tucked deep into the back of my belt.”

  “Why didn’t you use it?”

  It was Ben’s turn to be astonished. “I sure as hell wasn’t going to escalate things by drawing a weapon.”

  At the sound of a large diesel engine starting, she once again scrambled for her clothes.

  Ben decided he’d better get dressed as well. “For the wilderness, it sure is damn busy around here.”

  “You stay and pack up camp while I go tell them about the spikes.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No! I mean, no thank you, that’s okay.”

  Ben narrowed his eyes at her. “You aren’t marrying Galen Simms, Emma.”

  “What?”

  “Michael’s worried you’re going to marry Simms so he’ll be free to go away with me. You’re not marrying the man.”

  “You’ve got no right to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

  Ben dropped his gaze to the sleeping bags and then back up to her. “Maybe not”—he moved his nose to within an inch from hers—“yet.”

  She reached up and grabbed the pole holding the tarp and gave it a yank, pulling the canvas and heavy snow down on his head while she scooted out the open end. By the time Ben was able to toss the entrapping canvas aside, all he could see of Emma were puffs of steam coming out of her nostrils as she disappeared up the hill to the loggers.

  Ben looked around in the dim light of the slow-breaking dawn, expecting to see scorched earth in all directions from their shelter. The heat from that woman should have melted the snow all the way to Canada.