The skin surrounding the scar on his cheek twitched, and he started toward the woman in question. Best get this over with.
“Ah, good, Simon,” Paul said as he neared. “Sorry to hear about your accident last year, but glad to have you back.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he muttered.
“True, true,” Paul said. “Once you get the woodsman itch, there’s no going back.”
Simon opened his mouth to correct Paul’s misunderstanding of his words, but Victoria interjected, “This year I’m putting Wall as leader of the Devil May Cares, and he will also be sharing responsibility over the timber beasts.”
“What?” Simon snapped his attention to Victoria and her challenging stare. He fought the urge to intimidate her by closing the distance to tower above her, and instead clenched his fist. Inside, the beast within him roared. Although he didn’t want to be at the camp in the first place, he was completely capable of performing his tasks without a blasted Devil May Care dogging his every move. “They have their own problems to deal with every year. I mean, hell, you saw what happened last season with the saboteur.”
“I’ve made my decision.” Her eyes darkened and dared him to argue. “Wall will lead the Devil May Cares, and he will preside over the railroad logging. The winter crew has downed enough trees to keep the summer team busy all season. Both inland and near the lake. You will take your usual position as leader of the timber beasts, preparing the logs for a river run.”
“Goddammit, Victoria. I don’t need a nanny watching over the way I do things with my team. I did a hell of a job last year.”
“Yes, but look at you. You are in no condition to take over the entire workload. We’ve doubled the number of loggers from last year to accommodate the new system. We need someone on top of their mountain, not buried under it.”
Simon widened his stance and clenched his fists. “You’re saying that because I was injured, I’m no longer capable of leading my men?”
“No. I’m saying because you are too liberal with your whiskey consumption, you’re not capable of leading your men alone. At least not until you get your mind focused on the job at hand and not the booze.” Victoria motioned toward his disheveled clothes, caked in mud from the cottage floor, and shirt slightly askew. “Paul has pushed to let you stay on as leader, and I trust his instinct. But you smell like a pig who bathed in liquor and horse manure. You’re not ready to return to work as a leader without help from someone else.”
“This may come as a surprise to you, Miz Harrison, but this is the way a logger looks.” Simon tucked his shirt into his waistband. “We work hard, and we drink like lumberjacks. Because we are.”
“I cannot risk the lives of the men under my employ to satisfy your ego.” Her dainty stance widened beneath her lace-ridden skirts. “Paul tells me that you are highly regarded among your men, and a top performer. Which is the only reason I chose to give you a second chance, but I cannot let you do it alone. Either take my offer to share responsibility with Wall, or resign. Your decision.”
“I was drug up here to do a job, and I’ll do it.” He flared his nostrils to take in more air, but all it did was dry out his throat. What he really wanted to do was curse loud enough to startle his prim new boss. This whole thing was a disaster. A mess caused by Carrie and her scheming accomplices. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t even be here. He’d be comfortable at home, away from the curious stares of his coworkers. Where had the little minx gone anyway? He searched his surroundings for a flash of Carrie’s blond hair, but without luck. He needed to have a nice long chat with her, maybe even put her over his knee. “Are we finished here? I’ve work to do.”
Victoria smiled and inclined her head. “Excellent. Now if you prove that you are capable of handling things on your own by the drive, then I will let you have full responsibility once more.”
“How generous of you.”
“I’ll leave you to it then.” In true socialite fashion, Victoria ignored his tone and shooed him away with her gloved fingers. As much as he despised everything she represented now, she was his boss. And whether he’d come here willingly or not, this was where he was. He may as well do his job. Take out some anger on a hundred-year-old ponderosa.
But first, Carrie.
Simon scanned the group of men in the cook camp, but no small figure in a frilly skirt swayed between the filthy loggers. Aunt June’s brown, plump body bustled through the crowd and motioned for him.
He took a deep breath and closed the distance.
“Good. Glad you’re back. It’s getting close to supper time, and I have no serving cook.” She searched the space behind him. “Where’s Carrie?”
A frown creased his face, and he took a step back. “I haven’t seen the little wench since the train.”
The crease between Aunt June’s brows deepened. “She set out to find you after her chores were done.”
“Probably got sidetracked bamboozling some other poor fool.”
“Bosh!” Aunt June slapped his arm. “That’s no way to speak about a lady. Get your handsome, grumpy butt out there and look for my goddaughter or you won’t be eating my bear stew. I need her here in time to serve the men. You’ve got one hour to find her.”
“More than likely she’s with Beth.”
“Go find her quick, and get back.” Aunt June hurried off toward the cook fire, leaving Simon standing alone.
Victoria and Paul had disappeared, and the loggers busied themselves with business. Off in the distance, the train squealed, followed by a loud thump of a tree hitting the flatcar. He headed in that direction. Even if Carrie wasn’t there, Elizabeth would be. Chances were she had something to do with her friend’s absence, or at least knew where to find her. Whenever there was trouble, Beth was usually at the center of it all.
Just as he’d anticipated, his sister stood next to her new husband as he directed the off-loading of some new machine. Simon gave a quick whistle and beckoned his sister closer when she looked. In less than a heartbeat, she started toward him.
He took the distance between them, and stopped when she drew close. “Have you seen Carrie? Aunt June is looking for her.”
Beth took a deep breath and placed her hands on her hips. “She said the same thing about you earlier this afternoon.”
“And?”
“And I told her as far as I knew you were still at Mother Goose’s Cottage. She promised not to go up there. I assumed she went back to camp.”
“She’s not there.” Simon’s heart twisted in his chest, and his fingers grew numb. Had she defied good sense and braved the dangers of the mountain in a vain search to find him? She damn well better not have.
“Try the outhouses or by the lake,” Beth suggested. “She usually doesn’t wander too far away from camp.”
“Thanks.” If Carrie was anything like his sister, and she was, then she’d gone up the mountain. Regardless, he took a quick look by the lake and outhouses, but as he suspected, she wasn’t there.
With a silent curse, he took the trail he’d come down only an hour before. He crested the top of the hill where the Grove used to be located and spotted a small footprint deep in the mud on the side of the path. He searched the ground near the print but found nothing but another, leading toward Mother Goose’s Cottage. He studied the widowmakers lining the trail. A chill sent goose pimples plummeting down his skin. “Goddamn woman,” he said aloud, but knew he stood alone. The men who chopped trees farther up the trail had long since gone to camp for the evening. Simon studied the sun, halfway submerged behind the Mission mountain range. His chest tightened like an outlaw’s neck in a noose, but he didn’t know if worry or anger tied the forbidden knot. He’d kill the blasted troublemaker, if she wasn’t already dead.
Simon followed the prints up the trail until his lungs burned along with the thick muscles in his legs. With each new bout of pain,
he widened his gait—his steps matching the speed of his runaway heartbeat. What would he do if anything happened to her?
Images of her body twisted and bloody beneath a cougar dominated his thoughts. His stomach burned with a hollow ache and suppressed vomit. Oh, God.
“She damned well better be alive and well when I find her,” he told the trees surrounding him. She was a sharp pain in his backside, but if she were gone then who would visit him in town when no one else would so much as glance his way? Who would bring him those damned yellow flowers she kept arranging in his study, regardless of his insistence that she toss the smelly things?
He shook his head to clear it of foolish thoughts. Most likely he’d find her bouncing down the trail before him, once she failed to locate him at the cabin.
A quick search of the ground for another print made him skid to a stop. Ahead no more little dimples made from a woman-sized boot marred the ground. The only evidence was that of the logger’s spikes worn by most men in camp.
Damn. He turned to backtrack. His breath grew to short bursts when he failed to find another sign, almost as if she’d disappeared into the trees above—or from the side. Oh God. Had she been attacked by a predator?
Flashes of red followed by the tops of the trees along the river where he’d been attacked took over the imaginative images he’d had of Carrie’s bloodied body. The cougar latched onto his shoulder and dragged him into the brush as the beast’s body quivered. His vision tunneled. He scanned the ground for signs of blood or drag marks. Dear Lord, don’t let her end in a fate like mine. She was too good, too pure to deal with anything this cruel.
His brain fogged and he realized he’d held his breath. He took a deep inhale as he searched the vegetation surrounding the last print on the trail. He was about to turn to the other side when the heel of her footprint, tucked beneath a fern, caught his attention.
Simon brushed the plant away, and the blur and panic dissipated. The depth of the indentation mirrored that of those on the road, and no blood soiled the ground. So why had she strayed from the hike? A quick survey of the forest around him showed an animal path, and on it another print. He breathed easier when he headed in the direction she’d taken.
He followed the trail of unintentional breadcrumbs, doubling back a few times, until the land began to grow familiar around him. A hollow pit grew in his stomach, and he headed toward a hidden cliff where his friend had fallen to his death years before.
Simon rounded a large tree as the sound of a woman’s sniffle pierced his concentration. Near the brush skirting the cliff’s edge, Carrie sat atop a large boulder, her knees tucked up to her chin.
“Carrie!” He cringed when he realized the word vibrated with emotion he didn’t want her to hear.
“Simon!” She shouted his name as if he’d pulled her from the icy depths of a raging river. Before he could respond, she flung herself in his arms, and he squeezed her tight. The noose around his heart snapped with her touch, and he let her have her moment. A moment she needed as much as he did.
The rich aroma of her hair tickled his nose, and he dipped his head to take in as much of her as he could, desperate for the small comfort the scent allowed.
He stood unmoving until the beat of her heart beneath his palms slowed. Once he was certain he wouldn’t show his weakness, he tugged on her shoulders so she would step back and look at him. What he wanted to do was swoop her up until the heat from their bodies entwined into one. Set his lips against hers in a kiss she would remember the moment she took her last breath.
He needed to fight the urge to scoop her up and comfort her. The damned fool could have gotten herself killed. And all because she couldn’t wait for him to come to grips with her deception and make his way down the mountain.
No. The little fool had to know she couldn’t traipse about the outskirts of a logging camp. “Why the hell did you leave the path? Had you gone any further, you’d have died. Twenty feet behind you, through the thick brush over there, is Dead Man’s Cliff. One wrong step and your perfect body is nothing but vulture food. I’ve seen good timber beasts die here, and they were aware of its existence. You were not. But I suppose no harm could befall a thick-headed minx of a woman like you. One hell-bent on controlling even the air those around her breathe. The earth wouldn’t dare challenge your authority, right?”
She stepped away and her blue eyes darkened to a steel gray flecked with shards of sapphire—the bottom of her eyes puffy and red from the tears she’d shed only moments ago. Tears he’d caused. The thought pierced his soul like a black widow’s knife, but he couldn’t let her see. Refused to back down when he was right.
Carrie swiped at a wisp of hair that floated across her face with the breeze. She lifted her head and tossed back her shoulders. “If you hadn’t stomped away like a bratty child, I wouldn’t have needed to look for you.”
“A child?” He grabbed her hand and tugged her as he turned and headed back toward the trail. “I suppose you fancy yourself my mother then? There to scold me until I follow the narrow path of righteousness.”
“Hardly. If I had a son as difficult as you, I’d take a switch to his backside and force compliance. It seems to be the only way to get through to a hard case such as yourself.”
“I’m the hard case?” Simon didn’t hide the scoff tickling the back of his throat. Carrie struggled to wade through the thick grass hanging over the barely visible trail. He plucked her off the ground and set her on a dry patch of grass nearby. “I’m not the one who drugged a man and forced him to bend to my will. You are.”
She leapt over the muddy ground like a frog on lily pads. “You make it sound much worse than it is. Had you not wallowed in self-pity for the last year, I wouldn’t have been forced to take drastic measures.”
“Pity is for women and sick dogs. Not men.”
Carrie followed him onto the open path next to the old Grove and headed downhill toward camp. “Self-loathing, then. Whatever you wish to call it is on you. The fact is you are a strong and determined man who has not been behaving the way he should. Aunt June and I are here to set you right. Whether you like it or not. We aren’t going away, and we aren’t going to give up on you.”
“You think I’m strong?” He teased, but the words lacked the passion he once had for such a kittenish game. Before he’d play until his feminine opponent melted into his embrace. Not anymore. He refused to let any woman, let alone Carrie, grimace while she felt his jagged scars beneath his clothes. He tugged at the front of his plain blue shirt to pull any material that might touch his torso away. “I’ll take a switch to your rear and show you how strong I am if you ever wander off alone again.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’ll do no such thing.” Carrie sped down the trail to leave him walking slowly behind. Her backside swayed with each step and made her skirts dust the top of the ground. She wasn’t made for the harsh mountain terrain. Not like Aunt June, or even Elizabeth. God made Carrie to wander the well-manicured town streets while she shopped and gossiped with the local ninnies. She was fragile. If today’s excursion proved anything, it was that Carrie was not nearly as strong as she pretended to be. If she had to do anything other than stay in camp and cook, she wouldn’t survive.
Carrie rounded the corner and dipped out of sight for a split second before her piercing scream echoed through the trees. A coldness hit his core like a deep winter blizzard, and he launched into a run. He caught up with her in time to catch her as her knees gave out, and that’s when he saw the spiked soles of logger boots protruding from the brush near the path.
Carrie shook as he urged her to stand on her own. Unlike him, she’d probably never seen a dead body. If they were lucky, the logger in the brush was simply unconscious, but he doubted it.
Simon knelt next to the person’s spiked boots and moved the overgrown fern aside.
“Is it Beth?”
He shook
his head. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“What happened?” Carrie peered over his shoulder.
Simon surveyed the ground but stopped at a large branch near the man’s head. “Looks like a widowmaker.” He shifted to glance up at Carrie as he pulled the whistle from his inside jacket pocket. “Cover your ears.”
He studied the treetops, but no more dead branches hung precariously in the leaves above.
Once Carrie shielded her ears from the noise, he blew six long blasts—the lumber camp’s chilling signal for an injured man.
She dropped her hands and a tear filled the corner of her eye. “I heard that signal last year, but it’s more eerie when you’re close to the sound.”
Simon gave her a sad smile and made a futile attempt to check the man for signs of life. He didn’t know what else to say to her. She shouldn’t be here, watching as the team hauled a dead man off the mountain.
Within minutes men from camp came running. Somewhere in the midst a logger with Aunt June’s stretcher elbowed his way to the front of the mumbling crowd. “Who is it?”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Has anyone seen him before?”
No one in the crowd made claim to knowing the man. Who was he? Somewhere high on the mountain, the chilling screech of a cougar echoed off the cliffs and through the dense trees. Simon’s blood ran cold, and a lump formed at the base of his throat. “Let’s get him down to camp.”
Like times before, the men worked to get the logger secured on the stretcher, and then most followed as they hauled the man down the path. Carrie stood crying with Wall, Garrett, and Beth silent behind her. Garrett moved to where the body once lay and crouched down to examine the ground. Wall picked up the branch, weighed it in his hands, and turned it to peer at the broken end. “Does this branch look odd to you?”
Wild Passion Page 4
