Secrets of the Highlander

by Janet Chapman

  “Maybe Matt should be the one to have a talk with him. Or Robbie.”

  “Un-uh. I don’t need either of them interfering. Wayne is my mess.”

  Winter suddenly jumped up and dragged Megan into the back office. “He just walked by,” she whispered, reaching over and snapping the lock on the back door that joined her shop to Dolan’s Outfitter Store. “I think he’s heading to Rose’s next door. Somebody stole her antlers again last night, and this time they also took the bulletin board right off the building.”

  Megan pulled free, smoothed down the front of her sweater, tucked her hair behind her ears, and walked back out to the counter. “I am not hiding from Wayne. If we bump into each other in town, that’s his problem.”

  “Okay,” Winter said, her cheeks flushed. “But promise me you’ll have your talk with him in a public place.”

  “Why? You think he’ll try to run off with me or something? I gave him that chance up in Canada, and he tossed my offer back in my face. I’m not about to give him the chance to do it again.”

  Chapter Seven

  Every muscle Jack owned ached, his left hand wouldn’t stop bleeding, and if he had the strength, he’d kick himself in the ass for breaking his rule of not working in law enforcement. He’d known better, but had that stopped him from taking this job to be near Megan? Nope. And today he’d gotten an up-close-and-personal reminder that every sleepy town, anywhere in the world, had a dark underbelly of abuse and oppression.

  He’d nearly had John Bracket calmed down enough to get him handcuffed and in the cruiser when that damn dog had come out of nowhere. The melee that had followed would certainly be etched in Simon Pratt’s psyche for a while, and it would take a month of Sundays before Jack’s gut unknotted.

  He’d nearly drawn his gun and shot the dog, when it had finished chewing on his hand and gone after Simon. Bracket’s powerful right uppercut was the only thing that had stopped him. And Mrs. Bracket hadn’t helped matters, screaming bloody murder as she’d scrambled after the dog despite her bleeding lip, black eye, and sprained wrist.

  He should have added the charge of assaulting an officer when he’d booked Bracket into the county jail. But remembering the two children who’d peered wide-eyed out the window, and knowing Bracket was their only means of support, Jack had persuaded Simon to overlook the incident by promising they’d keep a close watch on Bracket when he returned home. Which was another problem with small towns; not getting personally involved was nearly impossible.

  With a groan that was as much frustrated as tired, Jack got out of his truck and limped up his porch steps. He didn’t know which made him madder: that Mrs. Bracket would undoubtedly bail her husband out tomorrow morning, or that now he wouldn’t be able to talk to Megan like he’d been planning all day. He wasn’t about to show up on her doorstep looking as if he’d just lost a fight to a dog.

  Jack opened his storm door with a sigh of regret, and was just slipping his key in the lock when he noticed the envelope taped to the door. He opened the door and stepped inside, snapped on the kitchen light, then tore open the envelope.

  YOU’RE INVITED TO DINNER AT MY HOUSE AT

  EIGHT O’CLOCK. LEAVE YOUR GUN HOME.

  So she’d decided to make the first move again, had she? Jack smiled despite himself. He limped into the bathroom carrying the note with him, turned on the shower, then gazed down at her invitation. The wording was succinct, the handwriting bold, precise, and energetic. It also said, between the lines, that she was once again taking charge of their…relationship.

  Just like she had on the tundra.

  O-kay, then. Beat up or not, tonight they would talk.

  “You have to leave now,” Megan said, pushing Camry toward the door. “It’s almost eight o’clock.”

  “He just got home twenty minutes ago,” Camry protested, her hand on the doorknob. “He’ll be late.”

  “Just go, will you? I need some peace and quiet before he arrives.”

  Camry opened the door but didn’t step outside. “Tell me again why you have to confront him at all? If you’d just ignore him, he might go away.”

  “And that’s why you can’t keep a boyfriend more than six months. Go!” she said with one last shove. “Tell Mom and Dad I said hi,” she called out sweetly as Camry slowly walked to her car, “and don’t forget my alibi. I’m staying in Bangor late tonight to do some research, and you didn’t feel like spending the evening alone.”

  Cam opened her car door and looked back at Megan. “You only have butter knives to use tonight. I hid all the sharp ones.”

  “I told you, Wayne is not violent.”

  “It wasn’t your throat I was worried about getting slit,” she drawled. “You hold the upper hand tonight, sis. Don’t let him sweet-talk his way back into your life. I don’t care how good he looks naked.”

  Megan closed the door, then sucked in a calming breath and slowly exhaled. What was she doing, inviting the man who broke her heart over to dinner?

  Even worse, what if he didn’t come?

  Megan pushed away from the door to check on the chicken roasting in the oven. She was simply determined to clear the air between them once and for all. It was important for Wayne to see that she was utterly, completely, and positively over him. Tonight she was ending things on her terms, not his. She wouldn’t be the one packing her bags and running away—he would.

  Megan jumped at the sound of the doorbell chiming. She pulled off her apron and tossed it on the counter, then opened the door with the brightest smile she could muster.

  “Hello, Wayne.”

  “Ah…hi.”

  “Or should I call you Jack?”

  His clean-shaven face turned a dull red. “Jack is the right choice. This is for you,” he said, holding out a six-pack of Canadian lager. “I’m pretty sure beer isn’t a proper hostess gift, but it’s all I had.”

  Megan’s heart fluttered. For one insane minute, she flashed back to him sprawled comfortably in front of a campfire, enjoying a bottle of beer after a long day of wrestling the geese they’d been banding.

  “Aw hell, I didn’t think. You can’t have alcohol,” he said, his gaze on her belly. He set the six-pack on the porch, then stepped inside, looking around the room as if expecting an ambush. “Is your sister joining us?”

  “No, she’s at Gù Brath for the evening. What happened to your jaw? Did Camry do that when she hit you with the pie?”

  Wayne—no, Jack touched the side of his face.

  Megan gasped at the thick bandage on his left hand, then gave him an accusing glare. “You were in a fight.”

  “And I eventually won, too.”

  Megan spun on her heel and marched to the oven, stuffed her hands in her mitts, and pulled out the roaster—all while being acutely aware of Wayne—no, Jack prowling around her living room.

  “This is a nice place you have here,” he said, stopping at the woodstove. “The fire’s low. Want me to add some wood?”

  Megan caught herself just before she told him to make himself at home. “Sure. The large lever on the right is the draft.”

  Realizing she was calmer when she wasn’t actually looking at him, she pulled out a platter for the chicken and casually asked, “So what are you doing in Pine Creek, calling yourself Jack Stone and pretending to be the chief of police?”

  “I’m not pretending and I have the wounds to prove it,” he said. She looked over and he held up his bandaged hand. “Pine Creek advertised for a police chief, I needed a job, and Jack Stone is my real name.”

  “Then who is Wayne Ferris?”

  “A figment of my imagination that helped me get a position on your environmental study.”

  She stopped in the middle of lifting the chicken out of the pan. “So you’re a cop, not a biologist?”

  “I don’t have a degree in either field. I just read a few books on the tundra’s ecosystem so I could sound like I knew what I was talking about.”

  “But why? What were you doing there
?”

  He closed the damper on the stove, walked over, and took the utensils from her, then lifted the chicken out of the pan, his back to her as he spoke. “My name is Jack Stone, I own a house in Medicine Lake, and I’m a highly specialized hunter.”

  “You hunt the animals we were counting?”

  “No—people.” He set the chicken on the platter, licked one of his fingers, then leaned back on the counter to look at her. “Specifically, I hunt runaways.”

  “What kind of runaways?”

  “Anyone who needs finding, but mostly teenagers. Worried parents contact me to find their kids and bring them back home.”

  Megan gaped at him. He tracked down runaway kids? “Why don’t they just call the police?”

  He led her to the chair by the woodstove, then sat on the ottoman facing her. “Because the ones I go after are usually out of the reach of law enforcement. They’ve disappeared in a large city like Toronto or New York, run off to join a cult, or else they’ve deliberately jumped off the face of the earth.”

  “And you find them and bring them to their parents?”

  He shrugged. “That depends on their age and how they’re doing when I find them. Under sixteen, I usually bring them home. But even then, if they’re surviving just fine and I have a good idea what they’re running from, I only report back to the parents that they’re alive and well and doing okay.”

  Megan leaned back in her chair. “You decide if life on the street is better than living at home with their families? How wise you are, to know what’s best for those kids.”

  He stared at her in silence for a moment. “You come from a close-knit community, Megan, and a large, loving, intact family,” he said softly. “Some kids aren’t so lucky. And if it’s wrong to judge their circumstances by my own set of standards, then so be it. Better me than no one at all.”

  Megan’s face flushed with heat. “I’m sorry. Yes, that’s better than no one going after them.” She stood and went back to the kitchen to finish getting dinner on the table. “Who were you…um, hunting when we met?”

  “Billy Grumman, though his real name is Billy Wellington. His parents had been searching for him for four years. I was their last hope.”

  She turned in surprise. “But he’s only nineteen or twenty!”

  “He ran away from home at sixteen, kicked around New York City for a year, then got drafted into some sort of cult.”

  Megan was intrigued. “It’s hard to believe Billy’s a runaway. He seemed just like the others.”

  “After four years, I doubt he considered himself a runaway any longer.”

  “Yet he found a way to get an education, and his schoolwork was exemplary enough that he was a team leader.”

  Jack walked to the kitchen and started opening drawers. “He’s very well educated because the cult he belonged to was paying for it. Where are your knives, so I can carve the bird?”

  “Camry hid them before she left.”

  Jack stilled. “Your sister thinks I’m dangerous?”

  “No, she thinks I am.” Megan spooned the potatoes into a bowl, then carried it to the table. “What kind of cult pays for college?”

  “A very sophisticated organization with an environmental agenda, apparently,” Jack said, setting the chicken down and taking a seat across from her. “I don’t mess with the organizations I’m infiltrating,” he said, driving his fork into the bird and pulling off a large chunk of breast meat. “I try to approach my target when they’re alone, to talk with them.”

  Target. Infiltrate. Well, spit—Jack Stone was a damn warrior.

  “So did you talk Billy into contacting his parents?”

  He rested his arms on the table and looked her directly in the eye. “No, I stuffed him in a small plane and smuggled him back across the border to his parents in Kansas.”

  “You didn’t give him a choice?”

  “Sure I did. He just didn’t like either choice I offered.”

  “And they were?”

  “That I would take him home to his parents, or to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

  “The police? Why?”

  “You remember the government worker who died?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m pretty sure Billy knows something about his death.”

  “Were they drinking together, and the man fell in the pond and Billy was too intoxicated to help him?”

  Jack shook his head. “The guy wasn’t drunk, and it wasn’t an accident, Megan. He was murdered—which is why I wanted you out of there.”

  Megan leaned back with a gasp. “And you think Billy did it?”

  “No. But I think he might know who did.” He shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s my guess the organization paying for Billy’s education wanted him there for their own reasons.”

  “What was going on?”

  “I wasn’t able to find out, and Billy’s not talking. He was definitely shaken by the guy’s death, but apparently he was more scared of his benefactor than he was of facing murder charges. So I dragged him back to his parents and suggested they help their son disappear for a little while.”

  Megan crossed her arms over her belly and stared silently at the man sitting across from her. It all sounded plausible—even his suggestion that he’d ditched her in some half-assed attempt to protect her. But then, he made his living by persuading people into doing what he wanted, didn’t he?

  “I don’t believe you,” she said flatly. “I was there for two months, and I didn’t see anything odd happening. I think that you realized you were a jackass four months ago, and that an apology won’t cut it, so you made up this fantastical story about a murder to make it seem like you gave me the boot for my own good.” She pushed her chair back and stood, pointing a finger at him. “I know exactly how you think, because I grew up surrounded by men just like you.”

  He looked angry—and confused. “Your father and cousins and uncles are no-good liars, who make up stories to…to what? Control their women?”

  “No, they’re warriors whose first thought is survival by any means, fair or foul. They act first and deal with the consequences later. When I told you I was pregnant, your instinct was to fight your way free. And now you’ve come up with this elaborate story to make me think you acted like a jerk that day for my own good.”

  Jack also stood up, his jaw clenched. “You can’t compare me to the men in your family. You don’t even know me.”

  Megan glared at him across the table. “I knew someone named Wayne Ferris. He was a sweet, gentle scientist who could soothe a frightened gosling we were banding, but he couldn’t talk a girl out of her clothes to save his soul.”

  “That is me,” he said, thumping his chest. “I am a good guy—and it’s not a crime to want to take things slow.”

  “You are a warrior clear down to your DNA, Jack Stone—if that’s even your real name. I’m giving you the boot.” She pointed at the door. “Good-bye Wayne, Jack, or whoever the hell you really are.”

  He stood staring at her in disbelief.

  Good! She hoped he realized he’d blown his chance four months ago, and that his heart was breaking just like hers had.

  She went over and opened the door, and waited.

  He finally set his napkin on the table and silently walked out, grabbing the six-pack of beer on his way by.

  Megan closed the door behind him, fighting back tears. She had done the right thing—the sensible thing—for her and her baby. If she couldn’t trust him with her own heart, how could she risk the innocent heart of her child?

  She had been smart to see him again, if only to learn that the man she’d fallen in love with didn’t exist. The man who’d sat across the table from her tonight, thinking she was gullible enough to believe such a story, was a complete stranger.

  Chapter Eight

  Jack set down his third bottle of beer, still burning at Megan’s little tirade. She thought he had a fantastical imagination? Halfway through his explanatio
n of why he’d sent her packing four months ago, the woman suddenly decides he’s lying through his teeth, he’s some sort of warrior, and that he definitely isn’t anyone she wants anything to do with.

  Couldn’t talk the clothes off a woman to save his soul, could he? And just when had rushing headlong into a relationship become a good thing? Maybe he’d gotten a little too caught up in playing Wayne Ferris the shy nerd, but Megan had seemed especially attracted to his nerdiness.

  She sure as hell wasn’t attracted to warriors—she’d said the word in a way that implied it was a bad thing.

  Which was weird. Jack had met a lot of her extended family now, quietly gleaning information from them about the woman who had charged into his life like a fast-moving storm. Having seen how protective the men were, he understood why Megan could have decided he’d sent her packing for her own safety.

  But as hard as it had been on her that day, it had been even harder for him to watch her expression change from disbelief to shock to anger, then see her cringe away when he’d had to get tough. Her silence had been the worst, as she’d packed up all her belongings that had slowly accumulated in his tent over the previous weeks. And Megan sitting on her suitcase by the makeshift airstrip, looking totally dazed and brokenhearted as she waited for the supply plane to arrive was an image Jack would carry to his grave.

  He gave a start when the cell phone in his pocket suddenly started vibrating. Who in hell was calling him at eleven-thirty at night?

  “Hello?”

  “Frank Blaisdell, who owns the restaurant on Main Street, said he heard a noise coming from the direction of the bakery when he was walking to his car. He said it sounded like someone was inside.”

  “Ethel? Are you at the office?”

  “No, I’m home in bed.”

  “Then how do you know what Frank Blaisdell heard?”

  “He called me, because he didn’t know your number.”

  “He’s supposed to call 911, not any of us personally.”