by Norah Wilson
“I’m good.” Ember waved her own phone. “But I’d better go change,” she said. “Layer up. And dig out those hiking boots.”
Titus nodded his approval. He glanced at Scott, who hadn’t changed out of his leathers yet. “I guess you’ll be all right.”
“Always. I suppose I’d better dig your old truck out of the machine shed,” Scott said.
“No problem. But I’ve got it connected to a battery tender for the winter. We’ll have to unhook it.”
Arden waved a hand. “No need to go to that trouble. Just take the Jeep. I’m not going anywhere.”
Titus ducked into the pantry again and came out with rations for the others, including lots of bottled water for all, and plunked them on the counter. He just had one other thing to do.
“Dad could you do me a favor and call Faye, tell her not to worry? I know that mountain like the back of my hand. And tell her we’ll be on our way in five.”
“’Course, Son.”
With Ember upstairs and Arden on the phone, Titus had his chance. “I’ll take Ember with me in the truck,” he said to Scott. “You can follow. Okay?”
Silence. Scott was looking out the kitchen window. He was staring off toward Harkness Mountain.
“I know it’ll drive you crazy, sitting out there and twiddling your thumbs, so thank you,” Titus said. “Makes me feel a whole helluva lot better about letting Ember go off, knowing you can keep tabs on her by phone and that you’re reasonably close if she needs help.”
“I figured. And it’s no problem.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the window, but from his next words, it was obvious he was focusing on the foreground, not the mountain in the distance. “I’da thought you’d have the straw down on those fields, this late in the season.”
Dammit. Titus felt his throat go dry. “Been busy.”
Scott grabbed his jacket off the chair where he’d left it earlier and snagged one of the sacks with food and water. “I’ll follow on my bike,” he said. “I know Uncle Arden plans to stay put, but he should have wheels just in case, and I feel like a ride.”
“Good idea. My truck’ll be there for you to hang out in anyway.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “You’re trusting me with your new baby?”
Titus aimed a hard look at him. “To sit in. To get out of the weather.”
Scott just smiled.
Chapter 4
TITUS TIGHTENED his grip on the steering wheel as he made the left turn off the crumbling pavement of the main highway and onto the gravel road.
Five miles to go.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins. He always felt the rush of it when he was called in for any type of search and rescue mission, formal or informal.
It just kicked that much harder whenever he headed for Harkness Mountain.
He glanced out his side window, looking up through the foliage to the bright October sky beyond. A perfect Thanksgiving weekend. Or it would be if he didn’t have to deliver the news about the sale of the farm. Faye Siliker’s call had bought a little reprieve.
“Ten bucks for your thoughts, big bro.”
At the words, he glanced over at his sister. Ember sat in the passenger seat, one limber leg folded right under her, hands too excited to actually rest on her lap for any length of time.
Ten bucks.
The expression made Titus chuckle. It had started when they were kids—when Ember was twelve and he was sixteen. So long ago that they’d still had a few head of cattle and laying hens. And Ember’s pet goat, King Louie XV, who used to tag along after her. She’d followed Titus out to the cow barn one evening when he’d gone to do his chores. Normally, he’d have noticed the sisterly shadow behind him, but he’d been stewing over important matters as he’d mucked out the gutter. And he hadn’t just been silently stewing; he’d been talking to himself. Test-driving various ways to ask Sharlie Copeland to be his prom date.
He’d just about worked up the nerve earlier that day, after gym class, but she’d been swallowed up by a gaggle of girls when the bell had rung. He’d missed that opportunity, but he knew he had to act quickly, before Wes Allaby beat him to the punch. So he’d been mentally preparing himself, working on a script.
Fortunately, he’d noticed Ember lurking there in the barn before he’d blurted out Sharlie’s name. Of course, it had frustrated the hell out of Ember, not knowing who he was sweet on. She’d offered him a penny for his thoughts. Then a dollar, then a dollar thirty-six.
The negotiation kept going until finally she’d run to the house and come back with a handful of one-dollar bills. She’d also come back with Scott.
“Okay, Titus.” Ember had nodded once. “You want to play hardmall, we can play hardmall.”
Scott had scoffed. “It’s hardball. Not hardmall.”
She looked at him as if he were crazy. “No, it’s not.”
“Yeah it is.”
Ember huffed annoyance. King Louie bleated. “Okay, hardball, then,” she’d said. “So what do you say?” She’d fanned out the dollar bills confidently, as if they were C-notes, impossible for him to resist. “Let’s make it ten dollars for your thoughts. Who are you asking to prom?”
In the end, Ember had kept her money. Scott had lost out on the razzing rights. And Sharlie Copeland did go with him to prom. After which she’d puked red wine all over his shoes. Twice.
That had been many years ago. Many dates ago. Before his life had taken all those complicated turns.
“Do I have to up it to twenty bucks?” Ember said, studying him. “I can afford it now, you know.”
He shook his head. “I’m not thinking of anything, Em.”
“Yeah, right! I may not have been home much these last few years, but I know that look.”
He said nothing.
“Are you worried about the S&R calls?” she asked. “I know two at once is a real pain in the ass, but it doesn’t sound like anything we can’t handle, does it?”
“Never said we couldn’t handle it.” Titus swerved to avoid a pothole big enough to flatten a tire or bend a rim. Then he went back to worrying.
Despite his perturbance at Ember, he knew she was more than up to the task she’d vied so hard for. Medical school sure hadn’t dulled her competitive streak. She’d waved that M.D. around to beat Scott out for the assignment. Which was laughable. This was a straight up delivery mission. All that was needed was someone familiar with the trails who could find Old Man Picard’s camp. Ember had both those bases covered, all right, though it seemed she’d be delivering more than just the bag from the pharmacy. The guy apparently also wanted his briefcase carted in from his car, no doubt so he’d have something to do until his ankle healed enough to make the trek out. Danny Parker had relayed the keyless entry information to Arden.
He just wished his father hadn’t forgotten the hiker’s name. Rational or not, Titus would feel a lot better with even that little bit of information on the guy.
He took a deep breath and let it out. Which, of course, did not escape his sister.
“Was that a worried sigh?” She looked over at him. “What’s the trouble?”
He shook his head. “No trouble. I was just thinking fate must have known the three of us were about to sit down to our first meal together since last Christmas.” Not that their dad’s grilled cheese sandwiches and dill pickle chips were gourmet fare.
“Or maybe fate knew something else.”
Titus glanced over at Ember, but she’d turned to the window.
What was that about?
His sister was strong, confident and competent, and altogether too pretty for his liking. And, like most women, such a damned enigma to him. It couldn’t be easy for her heading back out to Old Man Picard’s camp. Even after all these years. What was their father thinking, giving the job to her over Scott?
Probably that they’d be there all day arguing about it if anyone suggested she wasn’t up to a two-and-a-half mile, cold, damp trudge along the river’s edge. She could be a rea
l bulldog.
But it was more than that. Titus supposed he’d always see her as his baby sister, but when Arden had told them about the call, it was like she’d turned into a different person. She’d instantly become Dr. Ember Standish. Ready, willing and able to help someone in need.
She’d only blinked once when Arden told her the destination was the Picard’s old fishing camp.
Wayne Picard had always said that anyone who needed temporary shelter could find it at the cabin, and the location of the key was well-known up and down the Prince River. So it wasn’t a surprise that the injured hiker would make his way there. But Titus wished it were otherwise.
That place held powerful memories for Ember. To spare her that, he’d have offered to switch assignments with her, if he could. But tough as she was, she didn’t have his muscle power, which could come into play.
Knowing when he was beat, he’d stood down.
He glanced over at her profile as she scanned the road ahead. Damn, but he was proud of her.
It had surprised no one when Ember had headed for university in Ottawa after high school. She’d been accepted into a pre-med track, after all. What had surprised folks was the way she’d departed, abruptly in the night. It had been fodder for gossip for a good few months. Their mother had died before she’d completed that degree.
When Ember had gotten into medical school after finishing her undergrad degree, she’d again been the talk of the quiet town. The hopeful talk. Like every other town and village in northern New Brunswick, Harkness needed a doctor, and they cherished the hope that Ember would come back and fill that void. Titus had his doubts about that happening. Ember had had offers from Victoria, Calgary, Hamilton, even a few places in the States…all with so much more to offer. Newer hospitals. Giant signing bonuses. Bigger worlds.
Titus’s hands tightened on the wheel again.
He’d once been on that path to a bigger world. After finishing an undergraduate degree at close-to-home UNB, he’d been accepted into the RCMP police training program. He’d been within weeks of boarding a plane for Regina to embark on his cadet training when his mother got sick again.
He’d put it off for a year to help out with the farm.
Of course, it hadn’t worked out that way. The closest he got to policing was the family tradition of volunteer ground search and rescue. Which was to say not close at all. Sure, it was important work, but it wasn’t what he’d envisioned for himself.
When it seemed he’d never get away from the farm, he’d cleared himself a corner in one of the machine sheds and turned it into his own shop where he repaired and rebuilt classic motorcycles, his other passion. Not that he had a lot of available time to devote to it, except in the dead of winter, so he wasn’t exactly churning them out. But to his surprise, he’d quietly built up a reputation among classic motorcycle aficionados.
Titus the Titan.
That’s what they called him. Not just among the biker folks, but at the gym too, where he worked like a demon to build his strength and stamina.
But would a titan’s hands be sweating on the steering wheel? Would a titan be feeling like he had a gut full of ground glass as he approached Harkness Mountain, hoping like hell Mrs. Siliker’s Audi wouldn’t be parked at the foot of it when he rounded the next corner? That Ocean hadn’t ventured onto that mountain.
Titus heard Scott closing in behind him. The noise of the bike’s engine built to a roar until Scott was riding right beside the truck. Titus glanced at his brother, who gunned it and blew past them. Grinning wickedly the whole time, no doubt. Scott always did have that need for speed. This brother of theirs was forever chasing excitement.
Brother. Titus could think of Scott in no other way.
Scott hadn’t just been treated like one of Arden’s and Margaret’s own, he’d become one of their own. They were as proud of his accomplishments as they were Ember’s and Titus’s. He got in just as much trouble when he broke curfew as Ember did. Mainly because they usually broke it together.
Ember laughed as Scott tore past them on the dirt road. He disappeared around the corner.
A moment later when Titus pulled into the gravel parking lot a half-mile from the foot of the mountain, Scott had already parked his bike beside one of the two vehicles there. One was a big, shiny SUV, but the other, dammit, was Faye Siliker’s red Audi.
“Is that Mrs. Siliker’s car?” Ember asked.
“Yep.” Looked like he was going to have to face that mountain again.
He pulled his pickup in beside Scott’s bike. Ember grabbed the plastic bag with the pharmacy supplies off the passenger-side floor and hopped out of the vehicle almost before the wheels had stopped rolling.
“You’re still such a show off,” she said.
Scott removed his helmet. “Always, Kid.”
Titus grinned as he climbed out of the truck. Kid. Another name Ember hated almost as much as Red. The boy was playing with fire.
Of course, Scott would be back on the road again after the weekend, ready for destination unknown. He must have figured he could get away with the jibe.
He’d figured wrong. Ember gave his shoulder another punch.
“Ow!” Scott lifted a hand to rub the sore spot. “I think I’ve got a bruise starting.”
“Then don’t call me Kid. Especially when you have just two months on me,” she said. “Fifty-eight days to be exact. Remember that. ”
“You’re shorter.”
“And you’re a butt-ugly jerk,” she retorted. “And being shorter doesn’t make me a kid.”
“Well, I’ve seen more of life.”
“Pffft. I doubt that.”
And they’d both seen more than Titus. Way more. “You two about done comparing war wounds and pub crawls?”
Their faces sobered, making him feel like a jerk.
“Right,” Scott said. “Work to do.”
Titus nodded in the direction of the second vehicle, the SUV. This time, he kept the sharpness out of his voice. “I’m guessing that monster belongs to the guy with the ankle.”
Scott moved for a closer look and let out a low, admiring whistle. “Whoa, Cadillac Escalade.” He glanced over at Titus. “Who belongs to that?”
Harkness was small enough that most folks knew what their neighbors drove. None of them drove a brand spanking new Escalade, at least not to Titus’s knowledge. He shook his head. “No idea. Never seen it before.” He turned to Ember. “Dad gave you the keyless entry combination?”
“Yup.”
“Still got it?” Not one for taking chances, he’d snagged a copy of the combination for himself. But he wasn’t about to tell her that unless he had to. She’d think he didn’t trust her.
“Of course,” she said. “And so do you, just in case I lost it.”
He tried to look wounded.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Titus. You’re so anal, you probably wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it in your pocket, texted it to yourself on your phone, and taped it to the door of the fridge at home, as an extra precaution.
She was wrong. He’d taped it to the side of the microwave.
“Anal? Me?”
“Yes, you.” She pulled a sticky note from the front pocket of her jeans and walked over to the Escalade, whose shiny black paint job was slightly dust-grimed from the trip over the dirt road. She punched in the code and the door locks released. She opened the driver’s-side back door, reached in and retrieved a slender briefcase—an expensive-looking one.
Whose?
Now he wished he’d looked in the bag to check for an invoice. A man wealthy enough to afford that vehicle might have a sense of entitlement that extended to women…
When he turned back to her, Ember had a completely blank expression on her face. She put the case down, then looked inside the pharmacy bag. And frowned.
Titus didn’t like it.
Scott noticed it too. “What’s wrong, Em?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
&n
bsp; “It’s not some kind of weird drug, is it?” Titus asked.
She looked up. “Weird drug?”
“Yeah. Like for…I don’t know…psychotic breaks or something?”
“What?” She looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “No. It’s just your standard painkillers, like Dad said. A pressure bandage, some cold packs.”
Titus held out his hand. “Can I see it?”
She drew herself up, her hand tightening on the bag. “Forget it. The man has a right to confidentiality, and I intend to keep it.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” She looked up at her brothers and the “kid” was gone.
Titus bristled. He didn’t like being outside of the loop. As the seconds ticked by, more and more he didn’t like the idea of his sister delivering anything anywhere, let alone two-and-a-half miles into the woods.
He unclenched his jaw. “Listen, Em,” he said, adopting the kind of reasonable tone he’d need to get anywhere with her, “I think Scott should—”
“Titus Leigh Standish, if you tell me you think Scott should go in my place, you’re asking for trouble. I don’t care if you are Titus the Titan.” She raised her eyebrows in a yes-I-know-they-call-you-that way. “I’m familiar with the terrain. I can find the cabin.”
Scott kicked a stone. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “You know, Ember, I wouldn’t mind tagging along. My ass is just about dead after the ten hours I spent on that bike to get here. A nice, brisk hike would—”
“And if Titus finds Ocean Siliker in trouble and needs backup? What then? She wouldn’t be the first person to fall—”
Silence. Cutting silence.
“God, Titus,” Ember whispered. “I didn’t mean…anything.”
He nodded grimly. “I know.”
“You also know I’m right. We’ll stick with the plan. I’m heading to the fishing camp. Someone needs help, and I’m going to help him. I’m a doctor; that’s what I’m trained to do. And that’s what I do damned well, thank you! Scott is going to stay right here in case either of us need backup.”
Man, she was stubborn.
Scott was watching him, waiting to see what he’d say, clearly as worried as Titus was.
