Holding Off for a Hero Read online

  “When I’m not around, you mean! When you can use phrases like ‘she could have imagined it’? And while we’re discussing your precious professor, why didn’t you tell him I’m in your cabin? We’re not doing anything erotic and, even if we were, we’re both adults of consensual age.” She stopped abruptly and stared at him. “Frasier MacKenzie, you’re not married, are you?”

  What an idea!

  “Yes.” He avoided her eyes. “Does it matter? We’re just friends.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ. We’re two people living in isolation. I think our marital status is definitely of concern to each other.” Her words heated up with each syllable.

  “So you think we shouldn’t be living up here alone together when one of us is married?”

  “It would appear to be rather an unhealthy situation—for the one of us who is married—wouldn’t you say?”

  “Agreed. Not good for me at all. Now you know why I had to lie to the Professor. Actually—” he drew a deep breath— “he’s my father-in-law.”

  “Great! And just what is the name of your beloved wife, his daughter?”

  “Margaret…Maggie.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Two years. We were married on June 30th. Maggie wanted to be a June bride.”

  “Children?”

  “Not yet, but we’re hoping.”

  “A difficult wish to fulfill with you up here and her…?”

  “In New York City.”

  “And what does Maggie MacKenzie do in New York City?”

  “She’s a book editor.”

  “What company?”

  “Look, I’ve told you I’m married to Professor Taylor’s daughter. That should be enough information to set the parameters of our relationship.” He stood and went to get his hiking boots from a tray by the door. “I’m supposed to be devoting all my time and energy to this project, not arguing with you. If the Professor thought I had someone, never mind a lady, distracting me, he wouldn’t take it well. He might even cancel the entire undertaking. Actually, it would be a whole lot easier if you were to move back to Carleton. I’ll help you look for a place that will allow the Pug.”

  “Why should I be the one to leave? I have as much right to be here as you do. Why can’t you find another ghost-chasing location? I’m sure other delusional people have spotted Eastern Panthers elsewhere in the province.”

  “My work requires me to be in the area; yours doesn’t. Anyway, I was here first.” Damn. I sound like a kid claiming first rights to a swing on the playground.

  Instead of the angry reaction he’d expected, a smug, calculating expression slid across her face.

  Oh, oh.

  Slowly she began to circle him, her gaze raking him up and down.

  “What?” He couldn’t stand the suspense.

  “Frasier MacKenzie, you’ve been lying to me. You’re no more a married man than Bruiser.”

  “You can’t tell if a man’s married just by looking at him!” He tried to scoff, but sweat broke out on his chest.

  “I can.” She paused in front of him, caught him by the shirt front, and pulled herself up to plant a major kiss on his lips. “For one thing, no ring. You’re not married, and I’m not leaving, so there.”

  She picked up a dishcloth, began to wipe the stove and countertops, and burst into the most off-key version of an old country-western standard he’d ever heard.

  “If you love me, let me know. If you don’t, please let me go…”

  Bruiser howled along with her. Frasier stifled the urge to cover his ears. Emma Prescott was stuck in his life like a burr on a dog’s tail. And after that kiss, pulling her out of it would hurt a whole lot more.

  ****

  “He’s not coming.” Frasier pointed at the Pug sitting alert on the doorstep. “He’ll stay here with Scout, who’ll be guarding the place.”

  “But we’ll be gone all day!” Emma’s tone reflected the depth of her concern. “And he’s wearing his camouflage gear! He’ll be so disappointed!”

  “That cutesy vest does not disguise his entire little white body or his doggie smell. He’ll be safe with Scout. I’ll leave food and water, and there’s a dog door in the back that opens into a good-sized run. If you’d had a similar setup at your cabin, we might have been spared the skunk incident.”

  “I’m not about to go cutting holes in a rented cabin. So what’s the itinerary for the day? A hike up the mountain, a drive on your four-wheeler through the bush?”

  “A canoe trip across the lake. The Professor wants me to check that area asap. I’ll be covering a lot of country. I won’t have time for anyone who can’t keep up.”

  “But wouldn’t it make more sense to go back to where I saw those eyes and heard that awful scream?” Her forehead furrowed. “I don’t understand…”

  “The search has to be conducted in a systematic manner, one area at a time.”

  “But we might find tracks!”

  “Last night’s rain will have obliterated them. Anyhow, it’s unlikely the panther, if it was a panther, stayed in the area. They’re furtive by nature. You and your noisy car probably scared the beegeebers out of it.”

  “My car was stopped! I’d just changed a tire, remember?”

  “Look, do you want to come with me or stand here arguing?”

  “Fine. Come on, Bruise. The associate professor is getting cranky.”

  ****

  It doesn’t get much better. Sitting in the stern of the canoe, he guided it across the lake’s glassy surface. The surrounding hardwood trees featured their finest autumn kaleidoscope of reds, golds, and oranges against the rich dark greens of the conifers. Their beauty doubled with their reflection in the calm water. Overhead a cloudless blue sky provided a perfect canopy. The silence was so intense he could hear each droplet of water fall from his paddle when he raised it to let the canoe drift. Only a loon’s haunting cry broke the stillness.

  Bruiser, sitting amidships, burped.

  “Ah, no, he’s not going to be sick, is he?” Frasier’s idyll shattered.

  “Of course not.” Seated in the bow, Emma raised her paddle and swiveled to face him. “He just had a larger than normal breakfast. I knew we’d be doing some serious traveling today. I wanted him to have lots of nourishment.”

  “You’re sure? Because this is a state-of-the-art cedar canoe that belongs to the research project. Getting Pug puke out of its ribbing would be—”

  “Oh, stop worrying.” She swung back into position and took a deep sweep with her paddle that sent the canoe lunging forward. “And stop talking. We don’t want to scare our quarry.”

  Ah, man! Now she’s including herself in my assignment.

  ****

  “Exactly what should I be looking for?” Emma hissed after they’d beached the canoe.

  “Big catlike paw prints and scat on the ground, any unusual tufts of hair caught on bark, and oversized felines up in the trees,” he whispered.

  Bruiser, his leash clipped to Emma’s belt, sneezed. A startled partridge rose into the foliage with a frantic drumming of wings.

  “Blast!” Frasier breathed.

  “Sorry. Feather allergy.”

  Frasier stifled a rude expletive, hefted his backpack, and headed off up the trail. When he heard no sounds to indicate Emma and the Pug followed, he turned. With one arm through a single strap of her backpack, she struggled to get the other into a similar position. Failing, she lost her balance and fell over backwards.

  Damn! Frasier turned back.

  “Here, let me help you.”

  “Thanks,” she smiled as he helped her to her feet and guided her other arm through the elusive strap.

  When she started to tilt backward again, he caught her by her jacket front to level her on her feet.

  “Try to lean forward,” he advised. “But satisfy my curiosity. What have you got in there?”

  “Just necessities. Sandwiches, cookies, chocolates, fruit, a novel to read while we’
re resting, a bottle of wine, dry socks…”

  “Give it to me!” He jerked the pack from her back. Kneeling he released the buckles and began to sort through the contents.

  “This stays here.” He set aside the wine. “And this.” The hardcover novel joined the bottle. “And these.” He removed a box of gourmet chocolates. “And these.” He couldn’t believe the can of escargot and a tin of imported cheeses. “You can keep the trail mix, water bottle, and dry socks. Now.” He refastened the sack and arose. “Turn around.”

  Her forehead furrowed as she gazed at the pile of rejects on the ground, but she did as she was told.

  “Better?” He adjusted the haversack between her shoulders.

  “Better.” Her frown smoothed.

  “They’ll be gone when we get back…bears have good noses for treats, but it can’t be helped. We’ll need to leave it far enough from the canoe so that it won’t get vandalized in a feeding frenzy.”

  The Pug sneezed again. Frasier glanced down to see the little dog wearing small, bulging saddlebags.

  “What is he carrying, caviar?”

  “Just a few of his own favorite treats, like cheese doodles and beggin’ strips.”

  “Why didn’t you just paint a big sign on him—Bear Snack?” Closing in on the end of his patience, Frasier removed the Pug’s packsacks and threw them among the stack of discards.

  “Let’s go,” he said, adjusting his shoulders.

  “Go where?”

  “Up there.” He pointed at the peak of the mountain looming out of the forest in front of them.

  Although he felt it was beneath his sense of fair play, he couldn’t help but derive a bit of satisfaction when he saw what he took to be dismay flash across her face.

  But it was only a flash.

  “Should be a challenge…and fun,” she said, her expression returning to one bright with enthusiasm. “Let’s go.”

  ****

  Halfway up the mountain, at a point where a brook bubbled across the trail, he paused to look back at the pair following him. After the constant uphill two-mile hike, they should be exhausted.

  Instead Emma’s face was glowing, the Pug prancing energetically on his leash by her side.

  “It’s gorgeous.” She spread her hands and looked around. “We have to do this more often.”

  “Can you keep it down? Remember there’s a purpose in all this.”

  “Oh, sure, sorry.” She lowered her voice, then drew a deep breath, her eyes widening. “Frasier, look!”

  He turned in the direction she was indicating and saw a pair of deer, the buck sporting a magnificent set of antlers, just ahead of them in the stream.

  The Pug sneezed.

  Both animals did an instant heads-up, glanced about, sniffed the wind, then bounded off into the bush.

  “Oh, Frasier, weren’t they fantastic?” She came to his side. “I’m so glad you brought us along. Let’s go. I can’t wait to see the view from the summit.”

  She started off up the trail, leaving Frasier to follow, favored with a view of the Pug from the rear.

  ****

  “It’s magnificent!” Emma’s words and expression mirrored delight when she stood on the summit of Mt. Carleton. She held out her arms and pirouetted. “Thank you!”

  “For what? For leaving your gourmet treats to the bears, for leaving him down there?”

  He pointed at the Pug tied to a tree twenty feet below. They’d had to leave him behind for the last few feet to the top. They’d scaled the last section up a perpendicular rock wall.

  “For bringing us along, for showing us this wonderful place.” She threw back her head, closed her eyes, and drew a deep breath.

  As he stood watching her uninhibited joy in the experience, he was glad he’d brought her…yes, and even her troublesome little dog. Emma Prescott exuded a joyful exuberance that enhanced every experience.

  The next instant he had to fight down images of her reaction to lovemaking…passionate, from-the-heart lovemaking. Damn, damn, damn! Where had that come from?

  ****

  Twenty minutes later, as they settled to their lunch back on the plateau where they’d left Bruiser, Emma unhooked the little dog from his leash.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Frasier paused between bites of apple as he watched the Pug scampering about the small clearing.

  “You don’t know Bruise,” she replied, peeling back the wrappings on a trail mix bar. “He never goes far when there’s food available.”

  “If you’re sure.” Frasier stretched out long legs and leaned back against the trunk of a massive white pine, his head resting against the rough bark. “Man, I love the woods at this time of year,” he breathed, gazing up into its wide branches. “And this day is perfect.” Relaxing, he closed his eyes.

  ****

  The Pug’s screams jolted him alert. The little dog burst out of the bushes, darning-needle-sized black spears protruding from his snout.

  “Oh, my God! He got a porcupine!” Frasier vaulted to his feet as Bruiser barreled into Emma’s arms. “Be careful! Don’t get them in your hands!”

  “Oh, Bruiser, my sweet, sweet little Bruiser!” Emma began to rock the squealing Pug. “Frasier, help us!” She looked up at him, green eyes wide and desperate. “Please, please help us!”

  “Take it easy.” He spoke reassuringly as he fished a collapsible device that looked like a jackknife from his knapsack and squatted beside them. “I have a pair of industrial strength tweezers included in this contraption. We’ll have the little guy out of his misery in no time.”

  ****

  Twenty minutes later, sweat trickling down his face, Frasier held up the last quill, clamped in the tweezers. “Done.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm.

  Bruiser, panting in Emma’s arms, looked over at him with sad, tired eyes and whimpered, bloody speckles dotting his snout where quills had been.

  “Thank you.” Emma’s words trembled as she looked up at him, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Oh, Frasier, thank you so much!”

  “No big thing,” he said. He wiped away a final tear trickling down her cheek with his finger. “The little guy will be fine, but you’d better reattach him to your belt. Some dogs come out of these experiences hell-bent on revenge. They head right back into the bush to exact it, mega-mistake though it is.”

  “You’re right.” She fumbled for the leash and snapped it to the little dog’s collar and her belt. “I’ll never let that happen again.”

  Frasier stood and stretched tense, cramped muscles. The procedure of removing quills from the screaming Pug had been stressful. Seeing any person or animal in pain had always been emotionally draining for him.

  Emma got to her feet. She looked up at him as she stood close in front of him, the snuffling Pug in her arms.

  “We weren’t much help, were we? We shouldn’t have come.”

  “An accident, nothing more.” The struggle began again, the struggle to resist Emma Prescott at her most vulnerable and appealing.

  “Nevertheless, you’re our hero…again, Frasier MacKenzie.” She stood on tiptoes, leaned over the Pug, and kissed him so lightly and quickly on the lips that for a moment he wondered if it had actually happened. She turned away, cooing over the Pug. When the now all-too-familiar reaction slid down his body, he knew it had.

  ****

  Frasier stepped out of the shower, toweled dry, and pulled on his best black underwear. Back in his bedroom, he opened the closet door and looked over his collection of shirts and pants. The tan Dockers with the green silk shirt? Or maybe the brown pants with the dark gold sweater? He didn’t want to look as if he’d dressed up. Maybe he should go with a pair of decently new jeans and the L. L. Bean sweatshirt he’d bought last month in Maine.

  Damn it! He was acting like a teenager on his first date. He was simply asking Emma over for supper…as a friend. After their adventure with the porcupine that afternoon, he figured she’d welcome a nice, quiet
dinner accompanied by a bottle of his best white wine.

  Then why the sexy underwear and the fine vintage?

  “Argh!” He grabbed the jeans from their hanger and pulled the sweatshirt from a bureau drawer.

  ****

  “Frasier.” Her face lit up with a full-fledged smile when she opened the door to find him on her front step. “I was just about to go over to your place.”

  Words failed him. He gaped.

  Emma Prescott stood before him in a short, shimmering emerald green dress held in place by sequined spaghetti straps. Her hair was caught up in some new kind of fancy coiffure with dangling gold earrings dancing above the most beautiful, smoothly tanned shoulders he’d ever seen. Her sun-kissed arm holding the door open sported matching bangles that caught the soft lighting of the room behind her and glittered out at him. She smelled sensational.

  “Frasier, what’s wrong? Aren’t you feeling well? You look a little dazed.”

  “No, no, I’m fine.” He struggled to recover, a warm glow beginning to wash over him. She was planning to spend the evening with him and had gotten all glammed up. Wow!

  “I didn’t expect…” He glanced down at his sweatshirt and jeans.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She reached out with a tinkling of bangles and drew him into a living room warm and romantic in the glow of muted lamps and a small fire on the hearth. “I wasn’t going over to see you… Well, not to spend the evening, that is. I have a date in town, and I was wondering if you’d keep Bruiser. I could be late getting back.”

  “Oh…sure…no problem. Glad to help.” A bucket of ice water thrown over him at that moment couldn’t have killed the glow any quicker or more sadistically.

  “Thanks.” She crossed the room and bent to pick up the Pug snoozing in his basket by the fire. Revealing long, smooth, shapely legs that seemed to go on forever in sheer black pantyhose, Emma Prescott took her damn good time. Frustration ripped at his innards.

  “Here.” She handed him the warm, sleepy Pug. “He’s fed and had his evening bathroom break, so he should be good for the night. Maybe, though,” she turned back toward the fireplace, “you should take his bed.”

  “I’ll get it.” Frasier barely avoided knocking her aside as he made a lunge for the quilt-lined basket. He didn’t need her bending over in front of him again.