Silent Hunter

She smiled politely and pulled her hand away. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other. Though unless I have him mistaken for someone else, I think Luke used to be a counselor at Ace Sports? Back when we were both teenagers?”

Neil’s grin grew so wide and toothy it reminded her of a shark. “Really? I didn’t know Ace Sports actually had an alumni working as a Toronto sports reporter.”

Luke pulled off his sunglasses. Gray eyes searched her face. “Sorry, I never actually went to Ace Sports or worked there. I’ve never been a camp counselor kind of guy. In fact, my first legit job was actually stacking newspapers in the warehouse at Torchlight News. George helped me get it.”

Nicky felt her heart drop a couple of inches. Did that mean he wasn’t who she thought he was?

“Well, it’s never too late to get the Ace Sports experience,” Neil said. “Me and Luke met at the hospital. I could hear the sirens all the way from the tennis courts, so figured I’d follow the ambulance to the hospital to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

She nearly snorted. It was more likely Neil had hoped to take advantage of George’s enfeebled state to snag a few of their potential donors for his latest vanity project. Neil might be the boss of the shiny camp next door, but he wasn’t an owner. He simply reported to a whole boardroom full of money-minded shareholders who’d probably love to snatch up Camp Spirit’s land to build another luxury sports complex. If the lodge fire did turn out to be arson, would police be questioning Neil and his staff? Neil might be both competitive and smarmy, but she hated to think he was actually capable of stooping that low.

“When I discovered Luke here was a sports reporter, I offered to put him up in one of Ace Sports’ deluxe chalets,” Neil added. “Just finished moving him in. In return, we’re hoping he’ll give us some positive press on our new facilities. An hour in our heated pool and he won’t be able to help himself from giving us a full spread.”

No surprise there. Nicky’s smile stiffened. Here George had assured her that Luke was a good friend, not the kind of person who would run to their competitor in exchange for a comfier bed and hot towels. Now she just had to hope she could keep the prospective donors from deserting them, as well.

* * *

Luke felt something twist in his chest as he saw the disappointment flicker in Nicky’s dark eyes. Not that the rest of her face gave that much away.

“Well, then, I guess Camp Spirit’s loss is Ace Sports’ gain.” She flashed him a crisp, professional smile, which somehow managed to make him feel even worse. What else had she expected him to do? George was in the hospital. The closest hotel was an hour away.

Luke ran his hand across the back of his neck. “Actually, Torchlight News has a policy of never exchanging publicity for perks. The paper will pay for my stay.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find it quite comfortable.” Nicky’s smile never faltered. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking a group canoeing this weekend and need to take a boat to the campsite to make sure everything is in order.” Before he could say anything more, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the woods.

Neil chuckled. “She’s a pip, isn’t she? I pity the poor fool who ever tries to tame her. Now, how about you and I go take a tour of Ace Sports’ new facilities? Maybe try out the pool? Or are you more of an archery man?”

Luke blew out a hard breath. Shooting off a few arrows sounded like exactly what he could use right now. In fact, he had his wooden bow stashed in the back of his car, just in case he was able to get some target practice in at the archery range. But, between the admission that he’d never actually been an Ace Sports counselor and where he was crashing overnight, he’d somehow just managed to make Nicky even more upset than she was already. He had to fix this.

“Maybe later.” He glanced down the hill, searching for some sign of her among the trees. “Thank you again for your help. I’ll find my own way back in a bit and check in with your front office later.”

Luke started down the hill, half jogging and half climbing. She’d been in such a hurry she’d just run off straight through the trees instead of bothering with the winding path. Same old Nicky. Sure, the past decade had softened some of the angles. But that fire in her eyes hadn’t dampened for a moment.

He lost sight of her at the beach, behind a rack of canoes, but saw her again by the docks. She disappeared into the boathouse. He followed, took a deep breath and slid the door open. The boathouse was built like a barn with thin docks forming two separate channels. Faint light filtered through the windows, bouncing off the water and sending refracted light across the walls. Two identical four-person speedboats sat side by side. The door swung shut behind him. “Hello? Nicky?”

A figure rose from the back of the nearest boat. A dark raincoat now engulfed her body. The hood framed her face, casting shadows down the curve of her neck. Dark curls trailed along her cheeks. His heart caught in his chest. All these years, Nicky had been like a phantom at the edges of his memory—and here she was even more beautiful than he’d remembered.

How much did she remember? Did she remember the long conversations on top of the cliff? How he’d opened his heart to her? How close they’d gotten? Or had everything they’d shared been destroyed by how he’d left, then been lost under an avalanche of time?

Her eyes opened wide. Then they narrowed, filling with a look that bordered on frustration. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that he’d walked out of her life for a reason. He’d needed to protect her then. He needed to protect her now. “Sorry to just barge in like this. We didn’t really didn’t get a chance to talk back there, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“Yeah, I’m just busy doing the work of two people, trying to get ready for tomorrow.” She shrugged. “Obviously, I’ll feel better when George is back on his feet again. I’m guessing you didn’t get a chance to talk to him?”

A bitter taste rose to his tongue. Yeah, he’d talked to George, for all of two seconds after he’d pulled him from the blaze. Just long enough for George to remind him he’d once been a liar and a thief who’d tried to steal the camp cash box. Which was the exact opposite of what he’d have ever expected from the old man, especially after George had pressed upon him how important it was to him personally that Luke come up this weekend. It made no sense.

“Not really. Just a few words. Do you keep anything special in your camp cash box? I thought he said something about my going back for it, but obviously I couldn’t.”

She blinked. “No. Just a couple hundred dollars in petty cash. Nothing worth running into a fire for. Maybe you misunderstood him.”

He shrugged. “Probably.” She turned to the boat. He crossed the floor in three steps. “Wait. Before you go, I owe you an apology.”

She didn’t even look at him. “Don’t worry about it. Please. You’re hardly the first person Ace Sports has lured away. Just make sure you double check your invoice carefully.” She slapped a button on the wall and the garage-type door rolled open. “Now, if you could close this door after I leave, I’d really appreciate it. The remote isn’t working and it’s going to rain.”

Why were they still talking to each other like virtual strangers? For years he’d pictured what it would be like to see Nicky again. He’d imagined her crying. He’d imagined her yelling. He’d even imagined her tumbling into his arms. He’d never imagined her just brushing him off.

She glanced back over her shoulder. Her eyes met his. Huge. Fathomless. Filled with questions she didn’t seem ready put into words, yet which still somehow managed to reach into his chest begging him for the answers. She slipped a key into the ignition. The engine roared to life.

“Nicky, wait.” He crossed the floor quickly, feeling all the words he wanted to say get mixed up and jumbled inside him. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“I’m sorry, but I really must go.” The boat inched forward. She didn’t even look at him. “I’ve got to get the camping site ready for tomorrow and the storm’s moving faster than I expected. I’m short-handed as it is—”

He grabbed the corner of the windshield. “I’m sorry I never showed up at the lookout that day and just left you standing there waiting. I never should’ve left without saying goodbye. As for telling you my name was ‘Louie’ instead of ‘Luke’ so you couldn’t find me, and pretending I was really a counselor at Ace Sports...that was pretty low.”

A long pause spread through the tiny boathouse, filling his ears with the sound of water lapping against the boat. Her hood fell back. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears. Her lower lip trembled. He slid his hand down the windshield and onto the console, inches away from hers.

But she kept both hands on the steering wheel. When she spoke, her voice was as clear and strong as the sound of the final whistle. “I don’t know what to say to that. Except, thank you for finally being honest. I thought I’d recognized you earlier, but I didn’t know what to think, especially when you said you’d never worked at Ace Sports.” She blinked hard. “I accept your apology. But I honestly don’t have time to talk about this right now. I just really have to go.”

“Okay.” He let go of the boat and crossed his arms. “Then I’m coming with you.”

THREE

The thick mass of towering rock and dense pines rose out of the water, deep in the middle of the lake. Black-and-orange clouds hung heavy in the trees. Nicky eased up on the throttle and steered the boat toward the island. They’d barely exchanged more than a word or two since they’d left camp. Not that it was always easy to make yourself heard over the rush of the wind and the smack of waves hitting the boat. Maybe he was simply waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t have a clue what to say.

So, her first love hadn’t just broken her heart, he’d lied to her about who he was and where he was from. Repeatedly and intentionally. Which probably meant he’d just been some bored teenager from a nearby cottage who’d thought it would be fun to sneak into a camp. Wouldn’t be the only time that had happened. Except, this time she’d been the foolish girl who’d been too quick to trust and to give her heart away. A mistake she wouldn’t make again.

Nicky focused on coasting the boat through an obstacle course of jutting rocks and yellow buoys. Whatever she’d once felt for this man was ancient history. All that mattered now was saving her camp. Luke was nothing more to her now than someone her boss had invited up for the weekend.

She cut the motor, filling the air with a silence that was so still it was almost deafening.

Luke whistled under his breath. “George told me that a former camper had given Camp Spirit an actual island in their will, but I’ve never seen it.”

She almost smiled. “It’s about a two-hour trip by canoe, though way less by motorboat. It was bequeathed to Camp Spirit about three years ago, but we haven’t been able to do much with it, to be honest. George has this vision of turning it into an offshoot youth camp for older teens that are either in trouble with the law or at risk of going that way. But we don’t have the resources to make it happen.”

“Do you get a lot of donations?”

She steered the boat toward a small strip of beach. “Not really. A few former campers give us twenty or thirty dollars a month. But even though George kind of runs the place like a charity, he’s never applied to legally become one because we don’t hit all the criteria, and that turns off a lot of donors. Sometimes business people or organizations partner with us to build something specific. And then there’s Mystery Donor.”

His eyebrows rose. “‘Mystery Donor’?”

“That’s what the counselors call him or her. Seven or eight years ago, someone gave George a huge, huge donation. Close to a million dollars, actually. With careful management, George was able to use it to fund new buildings and new projects. It kept us going for years. But as only George knew their name, the summer staff got into the habit of praying, ‘Thank You, God, for the Mystery Donor!’ and it stuck.”

She chuckled. But Luke frowned. His gaze ran over the steep stone crags. His brow furrowed. The whole trip there she’d been catching little sideways glimpses of him, without really meaning to. Evaluating the man he was against the boy she remembered. His shoulders had gone from husky to strong. Dark stubble on his jawline hinted of a man who didn’t like a close shave. No ring on his finger, implying he’d never settled down. There was still a slight curve at the corner of a mouth that looked just as soft as the day he’d first kissed her. “Well, I know things are tight financially, and I wish I had the kind of money that could help you guys out.”

“Oh, trust me, you’re not the only one. Just because I love working for George, doesn’t mean I’m ever going to have the amount of money to buy this place out from under him. The land itself is worth far, far more than the business standing on it.” She reached to touch his shoulder. Then caught herself midair. “You’re a sport’s reporter, not a millionaire.”

“George asked me to come up because he had something important to talk to me about before the canoe trip. Do you know what it was?”

She sat straight. “No. I honestly don’t.” For that matter she didn’t really know why George had wanted her to take down the old boxes of camp records and photographs. “I just presumed he wanted to talk to you about a newspaper article.”

To their left, an aquatic obstacle course hung over the surface of the water in a collection of nets, tires and climbing ropes. They glided past it. Then, to the right, they could see the small sliver of murky sand that formed the island’s only beach. A thin wooden dock ran along one side of it with a red-and-white sign that warned potential trespassers they were entering Camp Spirit property. She tossed the rope around a pillar, caught it on the first try and pulled the craft in to the dock.

They climbed out and she sighed. The beach was a mess of driftwood and seaweed. Trevor was supposed to have done a proper cleanup of the campsite earlier in the week. Apparently he hadn’t bothered.

“Looks like I’m going to need two pairs of hands, after all. I’ll run ahead to the campsite and make sure it’s not a mess. If you could stay here and clear some of this mess off the beach...that would be amazing.”

“You sure you’re okay going off alone, after everything that happened this morning?” Luke sounded concerned. He had no reason to be. Whether they were on the mainland or the island, this camp was still her baby.

“Absolutely. You’re probably more sore from catching me that I am from crashing into you.” Light rain began to fall, dimpling the water and denting the mud by her feet. She started up the beach. The ground was scuffed with footprints. Even worse. Trespassers always made a mess of things. “Also, it looks like the island had a visitor recently. Fortunately, whoever they were, they’re gone now, otherwise their boat would still be here. There’s nowhere else on the island they could’ve safely moored.”

Luke ran his hand through his hair. “Thanks again for letting me come with you. I know this isn’t the ideal place for us to talk, but I thought it was important we cleared the air as soon as possible.” There was a smile back in his voice again.

But this time she didn’t smile back. Between the rain, Trevor’s failure to get his work done and the signs of a trespasser, her evening had just gotten a whole lot busier. “I appreciate that. But it’s okay. Really. You’ve apologized. I’ve accepted it. And I had a whole half-hour-long boat ride to let it sink in.” Because that’s what adults did in situations like this. They got over things. They didn’t let themselves fall into a cute guy’s arms and cry, no matter how stressed, worried and tired they felt.

She turned toward the woods. Branches were broken along the path that led to the campsite. Whoever had stopped by the island had also done some exploring while they were here. There was an arrow imbedded in the tree ahead of her. Slim, vicious, with jagged metal in the head. A titanium hunter’s arrow. She grit her teeth and yanked it out of the wood. “Looks like our trespasser is also a hunter, and decided to use the trees for target practice.”

Luke snorted. “Well, that’s a super-expensive arrow for someone to go shooting into trees on a little island like this. That’s the kind of gear you’d expect from someone who’d just dropped a few thousand bucks on a high-tech compound bow because they figured they’d go illegally bag a few bears or moose.”

She blinked. He was absolutely right. But she hardly expected Luke to know that. “You know archery?”

“Now I do.” He stepped closer and looked down at the arrow in her hands. “Been taking lessons for years and brought my bow up just in case I got the chance to shoot a few at your range on the mainland. I didn’t actually know the first thing about archery back when you knew me before. Just pretended I did to impress you. But the way you used to talk about it left me itching to try it. Even learned enough woodworking to make my very own recurve bow.”

Her heart stopped. She’d been huge into woodwork that summer, too, and had spent days carving him something special. She could still remember the pounding in her chest when she’d handed him the wooden animal she’d carved. Not to mention her devastation when she’d run to their meeting spot the next day to find it empty and wondered if her clumsy attempt at a gift had been what scared him off. Despite everything her brain might say, her heart could remember it like yesterday.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” His chest was so close she could almost see his breath rise and fall. The raincoat he’d grabbed from the boat still hung open. The shirt underneath was almost soaked through. “Look, I know you said you’re okay to just head off alone. But I can tell you’re upset. I can see it in your eyes. I get you’re just being professional about everything and I really respect that. But don’t feel like you have to put on a brave face around me. We used to tell each other everything, Nicky. We used to be friends. If there’s anything I can do, I want to help.”

She bit her lip. The memory of his arms wrapped around her swept through her core like a visceral ache. Yeah, she wanted a hug. No, she wasn’t about to let him give it. “No, Luke. I used to tell you everything. I was honest with you. That apparently never cut both ways.” She sighed. “And it was probably a mistake to let you come along.”

She tossed the arrow onto the beach and strode up the hill.

* * *

He watched her go, feeling his gut sink into the sand at his feet.

He’d hurt her. Badly.

Did she honestly believe everything they’d shared back then had been a lie? Yes, he’d only given her a nickname and he’d hidden where he was from—both rotten things to have done. But everything he’d felt for her and everything she’d meant to him had made it the most real and honest human connection he’d ever had in his life. Not that she was likely to ever believe that now.

His mind filled with memories of just a few hours earlier—her body crashing into his arms, relief filling his chest, the smell of her smoky hair as they fell backward onto the ground.

Thank You, God, that I actually did right by her, at least once in my life.

He grabbed a hunk of driftwood and threw it hard into the bushes. It wasn’t as though things would be any better if he told her the whole story. He’d been a petty thief and a runaway, sleeping in an abandoned cabin and scrounging whatever he could steal. The last time they’d met, he’d realized they’d grown too emotionally close and he hadn’t wanted to risk getting caught. So he’d broken into George’s office and tried to steal the camp’s cash box. George had caught him and carted him off to the police to spend the night in a jail cell. Then, the next morning, the first man of God he’d ever met had come back, given him the cash box money for his bail, let him detox off drugs on his couch and helped him by offering him a chance to earn himself a life he could be proud of.

And I did everything in my power to pay him back for that, every chance I got.

The sound of Nicky running through the woods faded to silence. He had a pretty good guess about what would happen if he told her all that. Her walls would fall and her heart would overflow with compassion. She’d always been far more caring than a jerk like him had deserved.

He didn’t deserve her sympathy. And she deserved better than him.

A scream split the air. Loud. Terrified.

“Nicky!” He ran toward the noise. Branches struck his body. His heart smacked hard in his chest. Her screams seemed to come from all directions at once. Then the wall of trees gave way to a clearing and a ring of tent platforms on cinder-block bases.

Nicky was down in the dirt, her face pressed into the ground. A figure stood over her. The man’s form was lost in hunting fatigues and a green balaclava. A compact hunter’s compound bow hung on a strap across his back. With one hand the hunter clenched the back of her head. With the other he pressed the tip of a knife against her throat. She looked over at Luke. Tears poured down her cheeks.

Dear God, please don’t let him hurt her. Help me save her.

Thunder rumbled in the skies above them. Luke held Nicky’s gaze, steady and solid. “It’s going to be okay, Nicky. I promise.” The determination to keep her safe pulsed through his veins. It had been a long time since Luke had found himself at the wrong end of a criminal’s knife. But the instincts that he’d once learned as a teenaged runaway had never left him. Luke turned to face her captor. His hands rose in front of him. His palms were open. But his body was tensed for a fight, if it came to that. “Let her go and no one needs to be hurt.”

Silence filled the clearing—punctuated only by the sound of Nicky’s ragged breath and the light patter of rain. The hunter’s grip loosened just enough that she could crawl on her hands and knees, then he yanked Nicky’s head back. She winced, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of whimpering. Her eyes hadn’t left Luke’s face for a moment.

Luke stepped forward. “This is your last warning.” His fingers tightened into fists. “You so much as bruise her skin and I will take you down.”

Lightning flashed and then the skies opened. Heavy rain pelted the ground. The man tossed his head back and laughed. Nicky kicked back hard. Her heel caught her captor hard in the gut. Luke charged. He caught the masked man by the throat and tossed him to the ground. Within seconds the hunter had sprung back to his feet. The knife blade flashed in his hand. But before Luke could even raise his hand to land a blow, the man took off running through the woods.

For half a second Luke watched him go, fighting the urge to chase him down. Instead, he dropped to his knees beside Nicky. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m okay.” She raised her face toward him. Her hair fell tangled and wild over her face. Rain and tears ran mingled down her cheeks. “I don’t even know what happened. I walked into the campsite and he just jumped me from behind.”

He helped her to her feet. Nicky’s fingers ran down her muddy limbs as if she was taking inventory. “I didn’t even think he wanted to hurt me at first. It was more like he wanted to scare me. But when he laughed at you like that—”

The roar of an engine filled the air.

“No!” Nicky took off running through the trees. Luke pelted after her. The forest gave way to a slab of granite rock. In the water below, a small boat was speeding away from the island. She sank to her knees. “He just stole our boat.”

FOUR

“The keys were in the ignition.” The words slipped through her lips and into the pouring rain as little more than a sigh of frustration. It had never even crossed her mind the trespasser might still be on the island. Let alone that he’d attack her and steal their boat.