The Seduction of His Wife

by Janet Chapman

  “Are you at the cutting?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Grady said through the static. “And we’re stuck here because we couldn’t get one single engine started after we stopped for our morning break. Our pickups won’t start, the delimber and harvester won’t start, and not one of our skidders will crank over.”

  Alex stared at the snow on his windshield. “Dammit, our fuel was sugared! Did everything get fueled up last night? And all the pickup trucks?”

  “Yup,” Grady said. “Paul’s Mustang is the only thing that’s not diesel. He’s thinking of walking home to get it.”

  Alex snorted. “It’ll take him three hours to get home, and you know his car won’t go in this snow. Call Tate.”

  “I tried. Tate’s at an accident fifty miles from here. And Daniel’s in court in Dover all day,” Grady explained. “I called in one of our rigs, and Jason’s on his way out to get us.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Alex asked.

  “As soon as we get home, I’ll do some calling around to find us temporary transportation.” There was a hesitation on the other end before Grady said, “Then I’ll have to start calling around for new engines.”

  “Send someone out here to get us,” Alex said.

  “What for?” Grady asked. “There’s no need for you and Sarah to rush home, since there’s nothing any of us can do except get madder and madder by the minute.”

  “Where was our fuel tanker parked?” Alex asked.

  “Right beside our machine shed. They must have seen our guards watching the equipment at the cutting, so they hit our diesel fuel in our own damn yard.” There was a short silence. “This means it wasn’t teenagers messing with us after all. Sugaring our fuel tanker is too calculated. They must have done it sometime yesterday, while you were at the hospital with Sarah and before we got home.”

  Alex stared out the open truck door at the quickly accumulating snow. Dammit, they were dealing with an organized group of men. But smugglers? That still sounded surreal to him. The most exciting thing that ever happened around here was when someone’s wife suddenly ran off with someone else’s husband. Alex sighed and keyed the mike again. “Sarah and I will stay here for the night, then. But see what John can find out.”

  “Will do,” Grady assured him. “And we’ll be out to get you first thing tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, try not to let this ruin your plans, okay? Sarah means more to all of us than a few engines.”

  Well, hell. “Okay,” Alex said into the mike. “But I’ll check in with you again this evening, to see if there’s anything new. Try to keep your blood pressure in check, will you?” he ordered. “One ornery patient is more than I can handle.”

  Grady chuckled. “Sarah have a bit of a roar, does she?”

  “And claws,” Alex shot back. “I’m out,” he said, releasing the mike and snapping it into its cradle as he heard Grady’s own “Out” reply.

  Alex slid back out of the truck and slapped the hood down with a solid thud, pulled up the collar on his coat, and stared at the lodge through the falling snow before lifting his gaze to the smoke billowing out of the two chimneys.

  This rapidly escalating mystery was getting serious, and just when he needed to stay focused on Sarah. Alex tramped back to the lodge, stamping snow off his feet before he opened the door just in time to catch Sarah scrambling back onto her mattress. She stretched out, folding her hands over her belly.

  “Am I going to have to hobble you?” he asked, shedding his jacket. “If you want that knee to heal, you have to stay off it.”

  “Actually, it feels quite a bit better,” she said. “A good deal of the swelling’s gone down. You weren’t gone long enough to plow, and I didn’t hear the truck start.”

  “That’s because it won’t,” he told her, walking over and dropping into a chair at her feet. “Do you know how to use a gun, Sarah? Have you ever shot a rifle or a shotgun?”

  She lifted herself onto her elbow. “No. Why?”

  Alex shrugged. “I just wondered. I should probably teach you to shoot if you’re going to live out here. You never know when a gun might come in handy.”

  “Handy for what?” she asked in alarm. “I’d never shoot anyone.”

  Alex grinned. “You wouldn’t have to. Any guy who sees a gun in a woman’s hand usually runs the other way at mach speed. The loud crack of a rifle will scare off a bear nosing around, too.” He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “You need to get comfortable handling a gun, Sarah, for your peace of mind as well as my own.”

  “Okay,” she said, lying back down. “I’ll learn. How come the truck won’t start?” She suddenly sat up again. “Does that mean we’re stuck here? Can we at least use the radio?”

  “I just talked to Grady. They’ve got a bit of a problem out at the cutting, so they can’t come get us right now. None of the trucks or equipment will start.”

  “Why? Engines don’t break all at the same time.”

  “They do if they’ve got sugar in their fuel and are seized.”

  “But we drove here this morning. Our truck obviously ran okay.”

  “That’s because the sugar hadn’t reached the engine yet. When I started the truck this morning, the contaminated fuel spread to the engine and coated the cylinders with sugar. The moment you shut off the truck and the engine cools, the sugar hardens the cylinders tight.”

  “Can you rebuild the cylinders?”

  He shook his head. “No. The sugar has gone all through the engine and fuel system and created a bond as strong as a metal weld. It’s cheaper just to put in a new engine.”

  “In all three trucks?”

  “And in all our harvesting equipment. We fueled all our equipment last night, so everything is seized.” He stood up and rubbed his hands together. “How about lunch?” he said, changing the subject because he didn’t want to worry her.

  Sarah didn’t respond for several seconds, her frown saying she didn’t care for his changing the subject, but then she sighed. “I was about to start gnawing on my arm,” she said. “What’s for lunch?”

  “Leftover stew from last night,” he told her, laughing when she groaned dramatically. “And toast from this morning to sop up the broth.”

  Alex walked over to the reception counter and started rummaging through the bin of food. He smiled when he found something that would surely redirect her interest. “Oh, I forgot. You got some mail yesterday, and I just threw it in with the food so I’d remember to give it to you.”

  “I got mail? From who?”

  Alex picked up the two letters and read the return addresses. “One’s from a law firm in Machias, and the other one is from some gallery in New York City.”

  “Oh! That’s from Martha’s lawyers. They must have found Brian Banks.” Alex looked over to see her sitting up again. “Open it and read it to me. See if they found Brian and he wants to buy me out.”

  Alex opened the envelope and shook out the letter, only to have a check go floating to the floor. He reached down, read the amount of the check with a silent whistle, then unfolded the letter and read it.

  “Well?” Sarah asked.

  “They found Brian,” he told her. “And he sent you a bank check for fifty thousand dollars as down payment to buy your half of the inn.”

  “Fifty thousand?” she squeaked.

  Alex looked over at her. “Exactly how much is your inn worth, Sarah?”

  He saw her shrug. “One and a quarter million dollars, maybe even a million and a half by now. Last time it was appraised was five years ago, just after Roland died.”

  “That much?” Alex said in surprise, carefully tearing open the other envelope.

  “Like you, I’m land-rich but cash-poor,” he heard her say as he scanned the next letter with a frown. “The inn itself isn’t that valuable, but the nine acres of prime waterfront land it’s sitting on is. Island property doesn’t exactly grow on trees, and the more remote the better for rich out-of-state buyers,” she explained. Alex looked
up when he saw her motion with her hand. “You can give me the other letter,” she said, wiggling her fingers. “It’s not important. I’ll read it later, when I can see.”

  “Too late, Sunshine,” Alex said, walking over and sitting down in the chair by her feet. “I already opened it. I thought you wanted me to read them both to you.”

  Alex frowned when Sarah immediately lowered her head and started picking at her bandaged hand.

  “The gallery envelope contains a check for four thousand dollars and a note from a Clara Barton that says she’s expecting your other hanging to sell for nearly double that. She has an interested client who’s already been back twice.”

  No squeak of joy this time; Sarah merely continued to pick at her hand.

  “What’s a hanging?”

  “It’s a small quilt that you hang on a wall instead of putting it on a bed.” Her hair hid her face from him.

  “What kind of quilt is worth eight thousand dollars?”

  “One that looks like a painting, only it’s made of hundreds of tiny pieces of hand-sewn fabric.”

  Alex remembered the quilt he’d found in Sarah’s box in the attic. “That quilt of the bouquet of roses I bought you is a hanging? And it’s worth thousands of dollars?”

  She nodded, still picking at her bandage.

  Alex smiled. “You’re quite a talented artist, then, if your work commands that kind of money. Why aren’t you so excited you can’t contain yourself? As Martha Stewart would say, isn’t this a good thing?”

  She mutely nodded again.

  “Sarah?”

  Her shoulders squared, and her chin rose. “I am talented,” she said. “And if I wanted to devote more time to my hangings, I could make a good living.”

  “Then why don’t you?” he asked curiously.

  Just as suddenly as her hackles had been raised, she deflated. “The first time I got a check in the mail and I showed Roland that I could supplement our income, he came unglued. It was the only time I was ever actually afraid of him.”

  “But why?”

  “Because men who want the world to think they’re macho certainly don’t want their wives earning more money than they do. I also think he was afraid that if I became financially independent, I would leave. He carried all my fabric out to the lawn and burned it.”

  “I see,” Alex said softly, fighting to hold his outrage in check. “So the phone call you got last week when I was laid up, the one where you ran into your bedroom to talk, that was Clara Barton? And you didn’t want me to know you made good money selling your quilts because…because why? You weren’t worried about making money running these camps.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. The camps are different. Roland never had a problem with my running the inn.”

  Alex decided he’d like to have five minutes alone with Roland Banks. “So what’s this check for, if you stopped quilting after Roland came unglued?”

  “I met Clara when she stayed at my inn one summer, shortly after I’d gotten married. She saw one of my quilts and asked if she could take it back to New York to sell in her gallery. That was the one that ignited Roland’s temper when she sent me the check for it. I kept quilting, only I hid them in the attic at home. After Roland drowned and I had two bad seasons in a row because of rain, I sent several of my quilts to Clara.” She nodded at his hand. “That’s the fifth one she’s sold for me, although the other checks were only for two thousand and three thousand dollars. They make up most of the eight thousand dollars I have tucked away for my camps budget.”

  Alex still couldn’t get past the fact Sarah had been afraid of his reaction to her earning honest money. “Well, now you have twelve thousand in your budget. No, wait. Sixty-two thousand,” he said, waving the check from Brian Banks.

  He stood up, walked over to Sarah, and put the checks and the letters in her good hand. “Congratulations, Sarah. I’m really proud of you.”

  “Th-thank you,” she whispered.

  Alex walked back to the food bin, grabbed a box of crackers, a can of cheese, and a bag of pepperoni. He started assembling little sandwiches, placing the pepperoni on a cracker, squirting it with cheese, then capping it off with another cracker and pressing it flat. He made at least a dozen, arranged them on a paper plate, and grabbed her bottles of medicine before heading back to the mattress.

  He uncovered one of Sarah’s eyes as he had promised. “You’re supposed to take your pregnancy vitamin with food,” he told her, handing her a bright pink pill big enough to choke a horse. “And I know for a fact that the pain pill settles better with food in your stomach,” he added, breaking one in half and handing half to her. “And your antibiotic,” he finished, handing her one of those. “I’ll get you a soda to wash them down,” he said, jumping up and going back to the counter.

  “Is it still snowing?” she asked, her voice subdued.

  “Yes. And the wind’s picking up. We might be trapped more by snow than by engine trouble,” he said, sitting back down and handing her the can of soda.

  She grabbed his wrist. “I-I’m sorry, Alex. I reacted without thinking earlier,” she said. “I know you’re not like Roland.” She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m pretty sure you’re secure enough in your manhood to accept women being financially independent.”

  “Still,” he said with a sigh, “even manly men can get their egos dented.” He tapped his cheek. “Best way I know to soothe a dented ego is with a kiss.” He turned his cheek toward her. “It eases the pain.”

  She touched his face with her fingers, then leaned forward and softly kissed where she’d touched. “Is that better?” she whispered.

  “A little,” he said. “But if it starts hurting again, I’ll be back for another one,” he teased. “Now eat, before that half a pill knocks you out.”

  Alex added another log to the fire as she ate, stoked the stove across the room, then picked up the book he’d been reading earlier and started reading out loud.

  “I think I’d like to sleep now,” Sarah said before he’d even finished one paragraph.

  “But this is getting interesting,” he said. “Willow Foster just locked herself in a pub bathroom and is climbing out the window.”

  “You’re supposed to be checking out my camps.”

  “But it’s storming.”

  “You have boots, a hat, and gloves. Be a mountain man like Paul Bunyan, and brave the storm.”

  “Paul Bunyan was a lumberjack. You need to work on your character profiles.” He walked over and knelt down to pull up the blanket around her, then replaced the second eye bandage. “Will your broken fingers stop you from creating your quilts after they heal?”

  “No. Dr. Betters said that if I had to break them at all, I did a good job of it. They’re just hairline fractures from where I smacked the dash. He said twisted breaks might have needed surgery.”

  “That’s good.” He kissed her cheek. “Sweet dreams, Sunshine.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  S arah decided she wasn’t taking any more pain pills, not even a quarter of one. She was sorely tired of waking up to a solid wall of blackness, her mind stuffed with cotton and her muscles feeling like lead. And then there was the fact that someone was sleeping beside her again. Actually, he was surrounding her, more than lying beside her.

  “Good morning,” Alex whispered next to her ear, his arm tightening around her waist.

  “It is not morning. We just had lunch.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” The hand attached to that imprisoning arm slid up her belly. “But then, you can’t see, so you really can’t tell what time it is, can you?”

  Sarah halted his hand by covering it with her own, though his fingers continued to caress her ribs. “Your real name is Frankenstein, isn’t it? I shudder at the thought of Delaney and Tucker enduring your doctoring for two weeks.”

  He used his lightly stubbled cheek to move her hair so his lips could touch her ear when he spoke. “Careful, Sunshine, or you’ll have to soot
he my dented ego again.”

  His warm breath sent a wave of heat all the way down to her toes. “Is it still snowing?” she asked.

  He snuggled closer. “Last I looked,” he said, again into her ear, again making her toes curl. “Aren’t you glad you’re snowbound with Paul Bunyan? I chopped wood all afternoon just so you’d be warm.”

  But it wasn’t the fire in the hearth making her hot. “I need to use the bathroom,” she told him. “And I need to get up and move around. My muscles are screaming to stretch.” Almost as loudly as my hormones are screaming.

  Alex kissed her cheek, then unwrapped himself from around her and sat up. “It’s almost four o’clock, if you’re wondering,” he said. “The storm’s gotten worse, and it’s dark out.”

  Sarah rolled onto her back. “Is someone home with Delaney and Tucker?”

  “Everyone’s home,” he said, the mattress moving as he stood up. “Have you decided yet?”

  It took Sarah a minute to realize what he was asking. “No, not yet,” she said, not quite ready to admit her feelings to him. She sat up and held out her good hand. “Help me up?”

  Her hand was pushed aside, the mattress dipped, and he picked her up. And she was right back to feeling his warm breath and smelling his woodsy male essence.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked as he carried her across the room. “Our menu tonight is fire-toasted popcorn, melted chocolate and marshmallows served on cinnamon graham crackers, and spit-roasted hot dogs slow-cooked over glowing coals. To complement tonight’s three-course dinner, your chef has chosen a sparkling grape juice imported from…Massachusetts, I think.” He sat her on a hard chair in a much cooler room.

  “The powder-room attendant seems to be on break at the moment,” he added, his voice sounding as if he were looking around for said attendant. “Will madam be okay on her own?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, dismissing him with an imperial wave. “I shall call when I need your services.”

  She heard his footsteps move to the door. “Don’t try peeking past your bandages. There’s no light in here. I found some old lamps in the kitchen, but the kerosene had evaporated. I brought a gas lantern, though. Do you want me to get it?”