chapter Twelve
Out of the fog leaped a creature, a hairy, dirty creature that hit Candace Breckenridge in mid-back and sent her face forward onto the ground. Oh, God, a baby sasquatch! The rifle discharged up into the fog, then flew from Candace’s hands to skitter across the wet grass toward Allison.
Amid the woman’s cries to get the thing off her, Allison grabbed the gun and stumbled to her feet.
“Jack!” The dog’s name was a gasp as she recognized the animal standing on the woman’s back and stilling her efforts with vicious growls and rolled-back lips.
“What the…?” Heath burst out of the fog. His eyes widened. “Sweet Jesus, what’s going on?”
“Jack appeared out of nowhere and saved my life.” Allison handed the gun to the man as he came to stand beside her. “She was going to shoot me.”
“Get this miserable thing off me!” Candace cried. She tried to rise, but Jack grabbed a mouthful of her hair and yanked her back into submission.
“It’s okay, boy.” Allison stepped forward to take the dog’s collar and pull him, protesting, off the woman. “But thank you, thank you, thank you.” She knelt and hugged the filthy animal, whose coat offered no evidence of its former snowy whiteness. Muddy and tangled, he did resemble a small sasquatch.
“Here.” Heath pulled off his belt and tossed it to Allison. “Tie her hands behind her back.”
“Stupid, ignorant, backwoods garbage!” Candace raged. “You could have had it all!”
“Get something I can use to tie her up with from our pack, Allie.” He thrust the woman against the grave marker as Allison finished her task. “Just to be sure she’ll stay available until we can contact the RCMP.”
Her hands suddenly shaking, her knees threatening to desert her, Allison did as instructed. When she handed a plaid shirt to him, his expression mirrored remorse and tenderness.
“All this was my fault, Allie,” he muttered, taking it from her. “None of this would have happened to you if…”
“Heath, what she said about you and her…”
“Fantasies.” He wrapped the material around Candace’s ankles and pulled it tight.
“Fantasies?!” Candace Breckenridge screamed at him. “Moonlight strolls, drinks in front of the fire, talking for hours over breakfast coffee… You call all that fantasies?” The woman glared at him. “You’re a backwoods gigolo, Heath Oakes. I hope you make this little bitch as miserable as you’ve made me.”
“Heath! Heath! Where are you?” Marty Mason’s voice echoed eerily out of the fog.
“Over here.” Heath stood from his task. “By Jack’s grave.”
Jack muttered a growl. “It’s okay, boy.” Allison held his collar and spoke reassuringly.
Mason and his three buddies from the service station appeared out of the mist. The former’s bearded face relaxed when he saw the restrained woman on the ground.
“Thank God!” he muttered and drew the back of his hand across his mouth. “This woman,” he indicated Candace, “Stole my ATV and my deer rifle. Told me I was fired, that she’d finish the job herself.”
“Fired?” Allison stared at the man. “Fired from what?”
“She hired me to play sasquatch and ruin the Lodge’s business so she could buy it cheap and easy.” He avoided her eyes. “A few days ago, when she called to see how things were goin’, I told her I’d heard from a couple of guys who were mindin’ the Lodge that you and Heath were gone down river campin’ for a few days. She got real upset and offered me a lot of money to dog you two along the trip, shake you up with sasquatch sightings, a few shots over your heads, and the like.” He turned to the man holding the rifle. “I really needed that money, Heath.”
“Leaving us without our gear was a notch or two above scaring,” Heath muttered. “We might have died.”
“Ah, Heath, you know I wouldn’t have let that happen. I called the Mounties after I accidentally knocked you off the boathouse roof. I only planned to take the ladder and leave you stuck up there for a while, or force you to jump into the river to get down. I was mad as hell for you sackin’ me. But now, serious hurtin’ or killin’? You know I wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“You were with me when we saw the sasquatch on the road to the Chance.” Allison looked at the man.
“That was me,” one of his companions admitted. “Marty set me up to do it while you were in the service station, when he said he had to gas up his Jeep.”
“But this woman,” Allison pointed at Candace Breckenridge, “was going to use your rifle to murder me!” She swung back on Marty Mason.
“She stole it, I tell you! She came to my place around noon. I was just getting back from giving you that last scare. I’d traveled pretty fast, had my ATV hidden in the bush. She questioned me about what I’d done, how shook up you’d been by my tactics. When I made some crack about scarin’ the two of you right into each other’s arms, she went crazy. Said she was takin’ the four-wheeler and my deer rifle back into the bush to check on the situation. Man, right then I got a sick feeling. I told her no way and turned my back on her.
“She must have hit me with something, because the next thing I knew I woke up face down in my driveway. The ATV and my rifle that was strapped to the back of it were gone.” He licked dry lips and wiped sweat from his forehead before he continued, “I figured you’d be gettin’ near Adams Landing, so I called my buddies to come with me. Just when we were ready to start out, Jamie arrived. Said he and Carl had lost that blasted dog, that it had run off early yesterday morning and they needed us to help find it.”
“Jamie and Carl?”
“The two men I had taking care of Jack and the Lodge.” Heath’s explanation was quick and terse. “Go on, Marty.”
“We agreed to keep our eyes open for the mutt, but right then I was more concerned about her,” he pointed to Candace, “And what she might do with that rifle.”
“I believe you, Marty.” Heath hefted the rifle onto his shoulder. “She could have gotten here on her own, given all the information she gleaned from me during our canoe trips last summer. She was an excellent student. Now let’s get her to the police. Allie and Jack and I are hungry and tired and cold and…really dirty.” He looked down at the young woman holding the dog, grinned, and wiped something she guessed was mud from her cheek.
****
Two hours later, when they got out of the RCMP Jeep that had driven them back to the Lodge, a couple burst from the front door to greet them.
“Mom! Dad!” Allison cried as Myra and Cameron Armstrong came down the steps to greet them.
“We decided we’d better come and see for ourselves how you were making out.” Dr. Armstrong watched as his wife embraced their daughter. “Your mother was getting a little concerned about the deal she’d made with Heath, and I don’t blame her. If she’d let me in on her scheme to make you appreciate the Chance, I would have nipped it in the bud. Apparently it was one rough voyage, judging from your appearance. The police presence alone is worthy of a detailed explanation. Good God, Jack, what happened to you?”
“He’s a hero.” Allison went from her mother’s arms to her father’s. “I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now I’m tired and cold and hungry…and, like Jack, really dirty.”
The Lodge door opened again. Paul Bradley emerged, cleanly shaved, every hair in place, wearing black pants and gray silk shirt. He had his cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Al!” He punched an end to his call and came down the steps. He started to take her into his arms as her father released her, then stopped short. “Damn it, you’re filthy!”
Jack muttered something unpleasant.
“Business as usual?” Allison stepped back and indicated the phone in his hand.
“Just checking in at the office. You’re really disheveled, hon.”
“She’s had a rough time.” Heath spoke from several feet behind her.
“Really? And what part did you play in it, buddy?” Paul swung to confront the dirty, bearded man.
“Paul, please…” Allison tried to intervene, but he pushed her aside.
“No, no, I have a right to know.”
“A lot happened to us these last few days.” Heath looked down at him, eyes narrowing in the feral cat look Allison had come to recognize as dangerous. “But nothing that would sully your…relationship…if there really is one. Is there, Allie?”
“No.” Her reply was abrupt and definite.
“Al, what are you saying?” Paul turned to her. “You can’t possibly prefer this dirty backwoods savage.”
“That’s exactly what I am saying, Paul. I plan to stay here and help him keep Gramps’ Chance intact.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Give up a job as a top executive at one of Canada’s fastest growing corporations? You’d have to be crazy.”
“Maybe I am. Crazy like Gramps. Crazy like a fox.” She smiled up at Heath. “Anyhow, I’m going to give it my best shot.”
“Argh!” Paul looked down as Jack raised his leg and peed down the sharp crease of his trousers. “Filthy creature! I don’t know how you can tolerate him, Myra.”
Shaking his leg every few steps, he headed back into the Lodge.
“You’re sure about this, Allison?” Her mother’s smooth forehead wrinkled into a frown. “It’s a big decision.”
“It’s what Gramps…and you…were hoping for, isn’t it? Furthermore, I’m quite sure I know who holds those two controlling shares.”
“Really?” Myra crossed her arms on her chest as her husband, grinning, put an arm around her shoulders. “Who?”
“Well, you have one.” Allison tried to look clever and sly all at once. “And Heath’s mother has the other.”
“When did you come to that conclusion?” Myra Armstrong held her ground.
“Oh, come on, Mom. Who else could it be? One dependable person from each of the opposing camps.”
“And just when did you figure this out?” Heath, his forehead furrowing, stared at her .
“It came to me in one giant epiphany right after Candace shot at us. Hitting the ground with you on top of me knocked away the cobwebs.”
“Hitting the ground with…” Cameron Armstrong’s arm dropped from about his wife and he faced Heath with a look Allison knew boded no good.
“Heath was pushing me out of the way of a bullet.” Allison took her father’s arm and looked up at him, grinning. “Dad, really. I’m a woman now. I can handle this guy with one hand tied behind my back.” She shot Heath a taunting look.
“Maybe.” She felt her father’s muscles relax. “But since you’re going to be staying up here with him, I’ll repeat the warning Jack told me he gave you many years ago. Any part of you that touches my daughter without her heartfelt permission will be amputated. As a surgeon, I’m perfectly capable of carrying out the threat.”
“Understood, sir.” Heath stepped forward and held out his hand.
“Good.” Dr. Armstrong accepted the offer, and the two men stood grinning at each other.
“Good Lord!” Allison linked arms with her mother. “I’m starting to feel like mere chattel. Let’s go inside. I’m hoping you’ll make tea and sandwiches while I take a shower and try to get back to being human.”
“Jack, you’d better come along with me.” Cameron Armstrong looked down at the dog. “I think a good bath is in order before you’re fit for the Lodge.”
Jack looked up at him and barked.
“Okay, okay, I know how you feel about baths, but we guys all have to do things we don’t particularly like, to please the ladies.” He turned to the younger man. “Remember that, Heath. Because, if you’re not already, I think you’re about to become involved with one very special one.”