chapter Nine
Allison awoke to bird song and the gurgle of river water. Sunlight filtered through the tent to fall in a warming bath over her face. Freeing her arms from her sleeping bag, she stretched them above her head and drew a deep breath of crisp, clear air, a sense of contentment engulfing her.
She pulled herself up onto one elbow to look over to where Heath had been lying when she fell asleep. He was gone, his sleeping bag neatly rolled up atop his bubble mattress.
Stretching again, she stood. And shivered. She grabbed her vest that had served as a pillow and pulled it on. Spring in this country still boasted frosty nights that left a distinct nip in the morning air.
Coffee. I need a cup of hot, black coffee.
She unzipped the door flap and stepped out into a dazzling green spring morning where water droplets from melting frost glistened jewel-like on grass and trees. The sky boasted a flawless blue, and the river swept past in wild, majestic abandon. And squatted beside it, Heath Oakes, naked down to the waist, was splashing its icy water over his face and upper body. When he stood to towel himself dry, silhouetted against the surging water, he brought the words “noble savage” racing across her mind.
Get a grip. Remember what he did when you were a romantic teenager. Remember the hurt he caused Jack because of it. Remember what a mess you’re in right now because of him.
Running a hand through her tangled hair, she started toward him.
A noble savage wouldn’t have shanghaied me. A noble savage wouldn’t have scoffed at my fears last night.
“Good morning.” He turned at her approach and smiled a flash of perfect white teeth.
“Chilly for river bathing half naked, isn’t it?” She had to struggle to keep her gaze off his incredible body.
“I had to.” He headed across the gravel to where his packsack lay open. He took from it a snowy white T-shirt and pulled it over his head. “I couldn’t risk having you call me filthy or stinking again.” His eyes flashed with bitter humor. “A filthy, stinking, street tramp, to be exact.”
“I never did!” she gasped as he pulled a flannel shirt from his pack and thrust his arms into it.
“You most certainly did.” He buttoned it, narrowing those amazing golden-brown eyes as he looked over at her.
Oh, my God, I remember. I did.
“And what did you call me?” she countered, shame burning up her face in a hot blush. “‘Snotty rich brat’ isn’t exactly complimentary, either!”
“No, but at the time, it was accurate.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, it was ages ago. Let’s just drop it. We both said a lot of things.”
“Okay, fine.” He looked down at her and something inside did flip-flops at his nearness, his blatant maleness, his intensity. “What happened to your hair?” He reached out to touch the curls hanging below her ears.
She felt her breath catch in her throat. Don’t, a small warning voice whispered. Don’t let him charm you…again.
“I cut it.”
“It was the stuff romance is made of.” His perception startled her, the softness in his tone weakened her defenses. “So you had to get rid of it.”
How can he know me so well? Those penetrating eyes seem to be able to see right through to my soul.
He released the curl and stepped away. He tucked his shirttail into his bush pants, pulled on his vest, and headed to where a pot sat steaming on the camp stove.
Damn it, I won’t have him getting into my mind. As for what he’s doing to my body…
She grabbed her packsack and strode upriver out of his sight to freshen up.
When she finished her morning ablutions, crouched by the river, she paused and gazed about. Memories flooded back with that wonderful sense of awe she’d always felt and shared with her grandfather on mornings such as this.
The full flush of spring surrounded her. Birches and maples, their buds about to burst into leaf, stood laced in soft, transparent halos of palest green against a dark backdrop of spruce and pine. The moss under her hiking boots formed a natural carpeting, the river’s lusty rush voicing nature’s special baritone. In the branches of a thicket nearby, a flock of chickadees cavorted, chorusing their joy in the perfection of the season.
An osprey squawked as it slanted past her. Shielding her eyes against the morning sun, Allison watched it settle on its awkward nest of sticks and twigs high atop a dead tree several hundred yards away.
She remembered Gramps telling her the names of trees and birds and plants and animals, teaching her which mushrooms and berries were edible and convincing her that the snakes and frogs and toads that made their home on the Chance were harmless, valuable in keeping the insect population under control.
He’d taught her about the erosion caused by clear cutting of the forests and its far-reaching side effects, preached against sport hunting, and worried aloud about stresses on the environment caused by careless overuse of wilderness areas for recreational activities.
Finally she gathered up her toiletries and arose. She was letting the ambience get to her, and that was tantamount to falling victim to Heath Oakes’ plan.
Before she headed back to the campsite, she glanced once more up at the osprey nest and saw its mate lighting beside it on the rim of the crude nest.
Spring. Mating season in the wilderness. She clamped her packsack to her chest and turned away.
Heath had brewed coffee and made French toast, with butter and maple syrup to top it, for breakfast. Allison polished off her second slice and third cup and hated her admission. Delicious. It’s not bad enough the man looks better than a movie star…he can cook. I hope the way to a woman’s heart isn’t the same way as to a man’s…through the stomach. If it is, I could be in trouble.
When they’d finished eating, he replenished both their mugs and came to sit beside her on a log near the canoe. The sun had chased most of the chill from the air. Allison basked in its warmth.
“Gramps would have enjoyed this morning,” she said.
“Definitely.” Heath rested his elbows on his drawn-up knees, his coffee mug in his hands, and gazed out at the river. “And appreciated every minute. What about his granddaughter?” He glanced sideways at her before looking down at the coffee cup in his sun-bronzed hands.
“I never said this isn’t a gorgeous area, that I didn’t recognize its beauty. I just don’t want to spend the rest of my life tending it.” She stood, splashed the remainder of her coffee out over the grass, and headed for the river to rinse her mug. “Time to start packing. The sooner we get going, the sooner we get to the take-out point and the sooner I get on my way to Toronto.”
A half hour later they headed downstream, Allison in the prow, Heath piloting in the stern. As he guided the canoe around rocks, fallen trees, and other debris, she had to admire his skill. High water and strong currents that would have unnerved even experienced canoeists appeared to have little effect on his confidence in his ability.
She felt safe, an inane state of mind given the facts that the river was savage at this time of year and that she still—if only vaguely—suspected the one person capable of keeping her from injury or death of being involved in her grandfather’s passing. She wouldn’t have felt safe with Paul.
Where did that thought come from? Being shanghaied must have made me incapable of rational thinking. Paul would never force me into a trip like this. Paul would never…
She dipped her paddle deeper. I could handle this canoe alone if I had to. But she knew that was a lie. Her survival depended on the man sitting silently behind her.
She was startled out of her reflection as he touched her shoulder with the tip of a dripping paddle. When she turned to him, he held up a silencing finger, then pointed to the shore.
She looked. And gasped.
A massive black bear stood immobile as stone, staring down into a small pool formed by a semicircle of rocks near the shore. Suddenly, with lightning speed, it flashed a paw through the quiet water and flipped something twisting and gleaming onto the shore. Following immediately, the bear seized its catch. With the glistening Atlantic salmon dangling from its jaws, it lumbered into the bush.
“Wow! He’s good!” Allison’s delight colored her response.
“Could be as a result of thousands of years of practice…genetically speaking.” She glanced back at her companion to see a shadow of a smile brightening the lean planes of his face.
“Right.” She turned her back to him and took up her paddle. “I’d almost forgotten you’re a genuine degree-toting biologist.”
“True, but all the really useful stuff I’ve ever learned came from Jack.”
Allison felt her throat constrict. The wilderness was bringing her closer and closer to her grandfather’s memory, making her more and more aware of the enormity of her loss.
He never lets up trying to make me remember, make me feel the way I used to about this country, about Gramps’ hopes and dreams for it. He won’t succeed. After all, I’m Allison Armstrong, CFO of a major corporation. I’m one tough nut to crack.
“Put your body into it.” His voice cut into her thoughts.
“What?”
“Use your entire upper body, not just your arms.” He demonstrated. “Otherwise you’ll get sore muscles.”
The motion brought a rush of memories. Relaxing, she fell into it as easily as she’d done over a dozen years ago when she and her grandfather were running the river, in tune with the country and its inhabitants.
“Good.” He gave the canoe a powerful push with his paddle and sent it across the stretch of flat water near the pool the bear had deserted. “Time for lunch. There’s a stretch of tricky water ahead. I don’t plan to tackle it on an empty stomach.”
****
“Here.” He swung a cooler out of the beached canoe. “See what you can rustle up.”
“What?” She stared at him.
“Time you started acting like a shanghaied person. That means working your way. This isn’t one of your luxury cruises.”
“I’m well aware of the fact.” She stood with her hands on her hips and faced him. “But I’m not about to become your galley slave.”
“Slave? You’ve yet to lift a finger. It’s time you got with the program. I’ll show you how to light the camp stove. After that, you and the cooler are on your own.”
He removed the small stove from the canoe, carried it a short distance from the shore, and knelt beside it.
“Well?” He looked back at her. “Come on. I haven’t got all day.”
“Fine.” She pulled herself up proudly and marched to join him. “Show me.”
Ten minutes later she had water boiling on one burner, soup heating on the second.
Not bad for a city girl. She stood up to survey her handiwork, then gasped as her gaze fell on a promontory farther upriver. A doe and her white spotted baby stood at the water’s edge. The youngster was cavorting along the precipice.
“Heath,” she called. “Look. The fawn is too near the cliff. Oh, Lord!”
The baby’s hooves slipped, the little animal scrambled to regain its footing, then plunged, crying and pawing desperately, down into the roiling water. The doe leaped and screamed.
Images of Pride and her foal slashed across Allison’s mind.
“Heath!” she screamed, running to look down at the thrashing fawn, its head bobbing up, then under the water.
She was pulling off her boots when Heath joined her.
“Don’t be crazy!” he yelled above the roar of the rapids. “You can’t save it!” He grabbed her hands on her boot laces.
“I have to try! It’s only a baby!” She struggled to free herself, but he dragged her back from the precipice. “The baby’s going to drown!” she screamed up at him. “Don’t you realize? The baby is going to drown!”
He looked down at her, gaze scanning her face.
“Ah, damn!” He ran back to the lip of the cliff, sucked in his breath, and leaped, feet first, into the wild, ice-cold river.
The fawn’s head bobbed in and out of sight in the angry water. It was losing its fight for life as Heath struggled toward it, water to his armpits.
Her heart hammering, Allison scrambled down stream looking for a place where the shore was accessible. Horrified, she could only watch as the pair, caught in the river’s powerful flow, were swept along beside her. Oh, God, let me get to a shoreline where I can help them…soon. Her mind swirled like those crazy eddies that were threatening to consume man and fawn.
“Yes!” she yelled when she reached a low embankment and saw Heath grab the fawn and clamp it under his arm. In a split second her delight turned to horror when Heath, caught in the force of the whirling water, stumbled and fell.
“Heath!” she screamed. “Oh, God, Heath!”
She plunged into the icy water, reaching out for him, until, knee deep, she managed to clutch his shirt front. With her pulling, he stumbled to his feet, the little animal clutched under his arm. He staggered against her as she struggled to get them both to shore.
Once on dry land, he released the fawn and collapsed onto the shore, his chest heaving. The little deer shook itself, dog-like, then stood panting and trembling beside the couple. The doe trotted out of the bush and stopped, rigidly alert, one hoof raised as she stared at the trio.
“Here’s your baby,” Heath rasped. “Come and get him.”
The doe snorted. The fawn shook itself again, then gamboled on wobbly legs to her side. She paused a few seconds to examine her baby before she turned and bounded into the forest, the fawn close behind her.
“Strip.” Allison turned her attention back to Heath. He was quaking. Hypothermia leaped into her mind.
“Now? I haven’t had any oysters recently.” He slanted her an exhausted grin.
“You’ve got to get out of those wet clothes,” she yelled back over her shoulder as she ran toward the canoe. “I’ll get our sleeping bags and make a fire.”
Fifteen minutes later, Heath was huddled in both sleeping bags as she threw dry sticks onto a crackling fire near the river. She’d gotten it started while he divested himself of wet clothing. Once she felt assured he was comfortable, she’d pulled off her wet boots and socks. Now two pairs of boots huddled near the flames.
“Here.” She handed him a steaming mug of soup from the pot she’d been heating when she noticed the deer.
“What made you want to jump into the river after that fawn?” He cradled the mug in hands bleached with cold and looked up at her.
“I love animals,” she replied. “I’ve always had horses and ponies… My dad was a cowboy when he was young. It’s in my blood, I guess.”
“Cowboy to big-city surgeon. Big leap. I remember. Jack told me about it a lot of years ago. Your grandfather loved animals, too.”
“I know.” She measured coffee into the other pot. “He taught me about them and their environment. He said he learned his teaching technique from the mistakes he made with his first student.”
“First?”
“My mother.” She closed her eyes and leaned forward to inhale the aroma of the brewing coffee. “She’s an expert canoeist and outdoors person.”
“Myra? Hard to visualize under all the sophistication and style.”
“You should see her ride.” Allison opened her eyes and swung back to face him.
“Ride? As in horses, boots, and saddles?”
Proud of her mother and her accomplishments, she fell into the story of how Myra, until she was twenty-three and a college graduate, had called the Chance her home, how that summer she’d met and fallen in love with a young doctor who was a guest at the Lodge. They’d married and moved to Ottawa, where Cameron Armstrong had gained a reputation as one of the country’s leading neurosurgeons.
She told how her mother had become a leading fundraiser for needy sick children and how, in her spare time, Myra Armstrong had taken up riding to be able to accompany her husband, whose chief form of recreation still reflected his cowboy roots.
The story of her own riding career came out, too. She told him about Pride and, finally, haltingly about the death of little Joy.
“When I saw that doe’s distress, it all came back to me in a rush.” She feigned attention on the coffeepot. “I couldn’t allow another animal to suffer like Pride.” She drew a deep breath and hefted her shoulders. “Now Jake Morgan, my riding instructor, is suggesting I give her to my mother, with whom he says she’s more compatible. He says I should get a quarter horse and ride western like Dad.”
“He’s right.” Heath’s words startled her, bringing her attention back to him.
“What? How can you possibly come to that conclusion? You haven’t seen me ride.”
“I don’t have to.” He adjusted the sleeping bag around his shoulders. “I know freer in anything is what you need. That night you got soused on elderberry wine you were pretty terrific. That question about the oysters was almost more than a man could take and remain a gentleman.”
“Oh, really? Aren’t you the wise one.”
She pulled a towel from a packsack and strode around behind him to begin drying his wet hair.
“Hey, dry it, don’t remove it!”
She flung the towel aside and strode around in front of him, ready to continue their verbal battle, then unexpectedly laughed.
“What?” he asked squinting up at her in the sun.
“Somehow, with your hair sticking up in cowlicks and rooster tails, you don’t quite cut the glorious movie-star image you’re famous for.”
“Image? Me? Who said I looked like a movie star? And which one? There are all kinds, all types.”
“Careful, there. Your vanity is showing.” Damn, he was teasing. With an exasperated sigh she turned away to get a cup of soup.
“I’m relieved the doe took her baby back,” he said when she was seated across the fire from him. “I guess that blows away the old myth that a deer won’t take her fawn back after it’s been touched by a human.”
“It also blew away another idea,” she said, her gaze on her cup.
“Which is?” He set his soup aside, adjusted the sleeping bag about his shoulders, and looked at her.
“That you could have been involved in Gramps’ death.” She looked up to meet his gaze. “You could have let me jump into the river after that fawn. You knew I would have been drowned or died of hypothermia. With me out of the way through an accident, you’d probably have been able to have your way with the Chance.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but aren’t you forgetting the infamous two percent?”
“No, but I’ve no doubt that, left on your own, you could finesse whoever it is.”
“Nasty. And just when I thought we were on the verge of a lasting truce.”
“One death-defying moment does not a peace treaty make. Come on, you must have some ideas.”
“Someone wise and clear-sighted,” he said. “Jack was too caring and clever to give such an important trust to just anyone else.”
“But who?”
Heath shrugged. “It won’t matter if you come to the right decision, will it?”
“And if I don’t…in your opinion?”
“Then that wise, caring, third party will hold the deciding vote.”
“Pretty confident, aren’t you?” She finished her food and glanced over at him. “But then I guess you’d have to be, to risk criminal charges of, at the very least, forcible detainment by bringing me on this trip.”
“I know Jack’s fondest dream was that his Chance stay in his family. I’m not about to let that possibility die.”
“Gramps told you that? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He wanted you to make your decision of your own free will, not out of a sense of obligation.”
“So why did you decide to tell me now?”
“You were willing to risk your life for that fawn. I don’t need any further proof of your ability to care about what mattered to Jack. Now.” He stood. “I’m going to get dressed in dry clothes here, where it’s warm by the fire. Do you want to start setting up the tent? I’m sure Jack must have taught you how to do it. I don’t plan to portage around these rapids until tomorrow.”
“Portage?” Looking at the roiling water of the river below, she knew he was right. There was no possibility of passing through that section by canoe.
“Yes. You remember what that word means?”
“Of course I do…” He’d dropped his sleeping bag shroud. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Have a little modesty. And just for the book, you won’t gain any points from being naked in front of me.”
She swung away but not before she’d had a glimpse of broad shoulders, narrow hips, muscular thighs, and more. Wow! she thought as she struggled to set up the tent. Heath Oakes, you’re definitely a three-alarm wow.