“How do you know we just won’t take the hogs and run?”
“Because I’ve got your license plate number and video of you jacking elk on my property.”
She knew he was bluffing, but hopefully the men down there didn’t know it. She heard Donovan moving and she pried open one eye. He was going down there and leaving her up here with the dead hogs all around the tree.
“We got a deal? Or do I shoot out your other tires?”
“These tires are expensive,” one guy complained.
“So is jail time.”
“How are we going to get back with only three tires?”
“For an extra convenience fee, I’ll drive one of you back to a garage to get another tire while the other two of you dress the hogs and put them in the truck.”
“How much?” the complainer asked.
“Tack on another hundred so it’s an even thousand you owe me, and we’ll call it even.”
“Don’t negotiate with terrorists,” she hissed.
“Deal.”
“Oh, and don’t come back here again unless you’re a paying guest,” Donovan added.
“Deal.”
“What are you doing? You don’t want them coming back here, paying guest or not.” She was shaking with rage or fear, Emily wasn’t sure.
Donovan leaned his rifle against the tree and held his arms up to her. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you down from there.”
Emily didn’t think she could move, but she lay down on her stomach and dangled her legs.
“Drop. I’ve got you,” he said.
She didn’t have much choice—her legs and arms felt like rubber. True to his word, he caught her and set her gently on her feet. “I don’t feel well,” she said.
“Do you want to wait here while I get the truck?”
“No. We need to press charges.” She held on to him in a death grip. She wanted him to carry her back to the truck. She wanted to be in her room in the ranch house far away from rifles and hogs and elk-jacking trespassers.
“It’s handled. If it happens again, I’ll call in the cops. Right now, it’s a win-win situation.”
“They could have killed Ghost,” Emily wailed into his shirt.
“She wasn’t in the herd they were chasing.”
“How do we know they didn’t kill her first? Maybe that’s the gunfire we heard?”
“They wouldn’t have left their trophy. Are you all right to walk?”
She pushed out of his arms. “I’m fine.” Emily staggered a bit. “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t fine. Not one damned bit. Her knees were shaking and she felt like she was going to throw up. The poachers could have killed them instead of the elk. They were trespassing and probably half drunk. Emily had always felt safe on her own land. Now she would always look over her shoulder and wonder who was out there.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” she asked, rubbing her arms. She felt cold and shaky.
“Girl Scouts,” he quipped.
“Donovan, I mean it. You never missed. Not once. That’s almost impossible.”
“Not with the caliber of ammo I use. It’s not a big deal. I spent a lot of time practicing. You just have to keep cool and take your time on the shot.”
“You didn’t have a lot of time. You killed seven hogs. Doesn’t that register?”
“It’s a little exciting.” He flashed her a grin.
“Death excites you?” She stumbled down the hill away from him and then flinched away at the poachers from the red truck.
“How did you get here?” Emily demanded. Surely they hadn’t been bold enough to drive down the ranch’s driveway.
“We came through the state’s lands.” One of the guys pointed toward the west. “We didn’t know we were on private property.”
Emily bit her tongue before she went off on them. They weren’t supposed to be running through state land with their truck chasing down herds of wild animals either.
When they finally got back to Nate and her sisters, she refused to ride with the poacher.
“What happened?” Kelly asked. “We heard all the noise.”
“I’ll explain later,” Emily said shakily and made a beeline for Nate’s truck.
Squeezed in between Kelly and Janice, it was a bumpy ride for Nate, but after Emily explained what had happened, no one complained. The off-road vehicle hadn’t gone near where they had been. But there still hadn’t been any sign of Ghost.
Janice put her arm around Emily and Kelly kept handing her tissues. Emily didn’t know why she was crying—that was usually Janice’s preferred method of handling stress.
“The hogs would have killed him, right?” she said between sobs. “But then he shot all of them like a demented Doc Holliday. He shot all of them. He was so cold. It was nothing to him. Then he gave the meat to the poachers. They’re not going to jail.” She shook with fury and with sadness. “These so-called hunters don’t care about anything but their cheap thrills. We have to protect Ghost. We have to.” She couldn’t trust Donovan’s judgment when it came to these assholes. He’d give them the benefit of the doubt.
Hunter’s code, my ass.
“We will,” Kelly soothed. “We’ll find her again. I know we will.”
If the hunters wanted to hunt, they could hunt hogs. Emily’s mind quailed away from the thought of killing, but she had to toughen up and choose. She couldn’t stop Donovan’s hunts, but she could, at least, direct them.
Chapter Fifteen
Things were shitty with Emily, and not for the first time, Donovan wished Otto and his crew hadn’t booked this weekend. But they had and they were already here. And Emily was still distressed about what had happened with the hogs and the poachers. He knew it was upsetting to her to see animals die, but the gang of feral hogs who weren’t afraid of man, machine, or gunfire were not what he wanted to run into on a stroll through the woods.
Besides, the meat didn’t go to waste and he got paid for it. He did feel badly that she was traumatized by it. Emily was just too kindhearted, but it felt like it had pushed their relationship back to where it was in the beginning when they were adversaries.
“Just leave me alone for a bit,” she had said to him, so he gave her the space she needed.
Still, he missed her. Of course, maybe this was for the best. He was rapidly falling in love with her and their relationship had an expiration date. Getting his heart involved wasn’t part of the plan. Of course, it wasn’t that easy to ignore how wonderful she was—even if she was too tenderhearted.
Otto and friends arrived shortly before six and they had a barbecue with the ranch hands. The beer was flowing and everyone was having a good time telling stories. Then one of Nate’s boys decided to tell the story of the white elk.
Son of a bitch.
“We’ve all seen her,” the ranch hand said. “At one time or another. She’s pure white and the size of a car.”
That was a bit of an exaggeration. She was good-sized for a female, but she didn’t weigh more than seven or eight hundred pounds.
Otto laughed. “I wasn’t born yesterday, boy.”
“Ask Donovan. He’s got pictures on his phone.”
“That right, Donny?”
He sighed. “I was going to show you it tomorrow. And you’ve got to sign waivers that if you see Ghost, she’s off-limits.”
“Show us your phone,” Otto said. “I think you guys are full of shit.”
“I can do one better.” He went inside and got the digital picture frame that he’d loaded the video and pictures on to. It was only the size of a tablet, but it beat all of them crowding around him and his tiny phone screen. Donovan passed it to Otto and went back to finishing his dinner.
They must have played it back about five times before Otto looked up at him. “This is better than the zebra. I’ll pay you five thousand dollars for her head. Hell, I don’t even have to shoot her.”
“No. She’s protected. That’s a condition of my le
ase.” A verbal one anyway. “We are not allowed to hunt the white elk.” Not that he was going to lead them to her anyway, but he wanted that to be clear.
“Donny, you’re a terrible businessman.”
“Be that as it may, Ghost and any other white elk you see are off-limits.”
They grumbled about it, but in the end, what were they doing to do about it? After the fire was out and the beer was gone, they headed back into the hunting lodge and called it a night. They were going to get in the trucks at dawn and head out to bag what they could.
Donovan paused on the porch and looked toward the ranch house. He could just see the lights in the distance. He wondered what Emily was doing now. Walking back to his bedroom, he waffled about calling her. But she wanted some time and, truth be told, he didn’t want to hear her bitch about the hunting party, so he put his phone to charge and went to bed.
*
Emily couldn’t sleep. Creeping out onto the porch, she silently closed the door so as not to wake anyone. She could see the lights of Donovan’s hunting lodge in the distance. There had to be a way she could stop them from killing Ghost, or any of the other elk. She grudgingly accepted that the hogs were a problem and she wasn’t a hypocrite. She knew if they just relocated the hogs, they would be killed off-ranch. It was more humane for Donovan to kill them with one shot than it would be for them to be terrified until they were slaughtered.
But the elk weren’t hurting anyone. Nature was keeping their population in check.
She wished she didn’t care for Donovan as much as she did. It would have been so much easier to hate him if he was a stereotypical hunter and just out for himself. But she saw how kind and protective he was. She would never be able to repay him for keeping Alissa safe.
If he hadn’t shared his childhood with her, Emily wouldn’t be feeling guilty that he would be moving on. He needed a home and a family and she could give him both. All she would have to do was accept that he made his living killing animals.
Only she just couldn’t do that. She could compromise on the hogs, not because she wanted to but because there wasn’t an alternative solution that would allow them to live. And the meat went to feed the hungry—if not her own family, then the local soup kitchens and restaurants. She wouldn’t eat it, but the hogs wouldn’t die in vain.
But with every gunshot, she cringed at the turkey, javelinas, deer, and elk that would senselessly die for someone’s cheap thrills.
When she was in charge of the ranch, she could make those changes. But she wasn’t, and hopefully her father would be around for a long time so she would have time to learn from him and maybe bring him around to her way of thinking.
Rubbing her shoulders against the chill in the breeze, Emily wished she could go to Donovan and convince him to change his clientele to people who would appreciate the beauty of nature instead of wanting to destroy it. He was everything she wanted in a man, and everything she hated at the same time. Fate had a sense of humor.
Emily took a step off the porch and paused. He was leaving after his lease was up. Every night she spent with him would make it more difficult to let him go. What had started out as something fun and casual had developed into something more. She thought he felt the same way, but she knew he would leave all the same. He may be a hunter, but Donovan was also a protector. He would leave to protect them from his father.
The power company was coming out tomorrow to take a look at the property for the wind turbines and surprise—they weren’t charging her a dime to do it. If things went well, she could start construction on the first of the turbines by the end of the month. Emily needed to move forward for the sake of her family and the ranch.
But she wished that she could go back and have some more carefree zip-line adventures and wild tree-stand sex with Donovan before things had gotten so serious.
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Donovan split the group into two parties. He took two guys in his truck and told Otto to follow him with the other two guys in his truck. They drove back farther than Donovan had taken them before, but nowhere near the white elk rock, as he’d started to call it in his head.
He had gotten smart and bit the bullet, buying some high-end two-way radios. Donovan passed them out to the group. If they came up empty with elk today, they could always hit the whitetails that came at sunrise and sunset to snack at the automatic corn feeders he had set up. They parked the trucks and made sure that the ice chests were secure to store the meat in. He led them down to the blinds he’d set up along the area where he’d tracked the other herds and assisted in getting the men settled in them.
They’d stay here for a few hours and then move to another area. Donovan had set up a few salt licks there, so they may have better luck. As the hours passed by, the only thing they saw was a few javelinas and a couple of wild turkeys. The group decided to hold off on taking them so as not to scare off the elk. When it was time to move on, Otto and his group were itching to shoot something.
“Patience,” he advised. “But if you want to take out the smaller game, be my guest.”
They were hiking up an incline when they heard hoofbeats. “Hold up,” Donovan said. It didn’t sound like a herd.
There was a flash of white in the distance and Otto cried, “There she is.”
“No,” Donovan said, as Otto took aim.
He was too far away to stop him. Otto fired.
There was a very human scream. Donovan was already running in that direction. The panicked horse made high-pitched cries and fled, its hoofbeats thudding off in the distance.
Then he heard Emily shout hysterically, “Help me. Sunflower’s been hit.”
*
Emily was bruised and scratched up from being thrown from her horse. She was bloody, but it was from Sunflower. She was barely aware that Donovan had scooped her up and was carrying her.
“Is she all right? I didn’t hit her, did I?” Otto said, pushing in close.
Donovan shoved him back with his shoulder.
“He killed her,” she cried.
“Sunflower ran away,” Donovan said. “She’s probably heading back to the ranch.”
“You shot at me,” Emily said, getting some sense back. “Put me down.” She wiggled to be free.
Donovan reluctantly set her on her feet.
“What the hell were you doing out in an active shooter zone, girl?” Otto said.
Donovan whirled and punched him in the jaw. Otto staggered back and would have lunged at him, but his friends got in the middle of it and held both of them back.
“Hogs,” Emily panted. “They’re all over the wind turbine site. I can’t bring in the cell tower surveyor because they’re menacing anything that comes near. I wanted…” She took in deep gulps of air. “I couldn’t reach you on your phone. I thought…” She put a hand to her head. “I’ve got to find Sunflower.” Emily’s head felt like it had split open, but she couldn’t find a wound and it was getting awfully hard to think.
“I’ll take you back. Let me carry you to the truck.” Donovan moved to pick her up.
“I’m fine.” She staggered away from him. “You can’t leave these madmen out here alone. They’ll kill Ghost. They’ll kill everything.” Was she even making sense? She couldn’t feel her tongue.
“You’re more important,” he said, reaching for her again.
“No. We all go. Or I’m not going. I’ll make so much noise, you boys won’t even catch a cold.”
“This is bullshit, Link.”
“You shot at my woman, Otto. You deserved more than a punch.”
“Look, Neanderthals, pound your chests later. My horse could be dying,” Emily cried. Her vision doubled and things got blurry.
“I’m real sorry about that,” Otto said. “I thought you were the white elk.”
“Which you were told you weren’t allowed to hunt.” Emily sagged against Donovan. “I told you. I told you. Men like these can’t be trusted.” It hurt to breathe.
“You watch yourself, missy.” Otto pointed at her.
“Or what?” Donovan said between his teeth and would have gone after him again, but she tugged him away.
“Stop. Stop. Look, you can hunt all the hogs you want today or I can cuss you out until dark. And if my horse is dead, I may take a rifle to you myself. And if you think you can cut her up and send her to process for her meat…” Emily’s voice sounded shrill and hysterical to her ears and she fought to shut up, but her head was pounding and every bone in her body ached. “I hate you. I hate that you have to kill things to feel like men. I hate that you have to destroy beauty. That you have to eat it. I hate it!”
Her legs gave out, and everything went dark.
Chapter Seventeen
Emily woke up in her own bed and for a moment, she thought it had all been a terrible dream. But then the pain hit her and she closed her eyes and whimpered.
“Take this,” her father said. He handed her two tablets and put a glass of water to her lips.
“Sunflower?” she asked, trying to sit up.
Frank put the glass on the bedside table. “Easy there. Doc thinks you have a concussion.”
“Why does my arm hurt so bad?” She looked down and saw it was in a cloth sling.
“You dislocated your shoulder when Sunflower threw you.”
“Is she dead?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“She lost a lot of blood and you’re not going to be able to ride her for a while, but Janice and Pete are taking good care of her. It scared the life out of us when she came back shot and you weren’t on her.” Her father’s hands were shaking.
Emily reached out and held them. “I’m sorry for worrying you. Donovan’s hunting party thought we were the white elk and shot at us.”
“I know. He told us. You shouldn’t have gone out there.”
“I wanted to tell Donovan about the hogs.”
“It could have waited until they came back for the day. You did it to screw up the hunt.”
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