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“We have to save them,” Emma said around a large bite.
Barbara picked up Peony, who whimpered before she curled into a ball against Barbara’s chest. “Honey, you have convinced the toughest, by-the-book, hardnosed ranger in the state of Tennessee to break the rules for you and your babies. It’s up to us to protect him from the dire results of his actions. I don’t know what kind of hold you’ve got on him, but unless it’s blackmail material, it has to be pure sex appeal.”
“I don’t...”
“He’s my dearest friend. You be good to him, I’ll love you like a sister. You hurt him, honey, and you’re toast.”
* * *
SETH SPENT THE morning in his office. For a job that concerned itself with the great outdoors, much of his time was spent staring at a computer screen filling out paperwork. Today he wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to it. Emma French’s face kept intruding. Didn’t matter what program he was officially accessing. He picked up his desk phone a dozen times to call her and see how the babies were doing. Each time he put the phone back in its cradle without dialing. He’d stop by on his way home to see if he could give her a hand moving some of those boxes. He didn’t even have to look at the skunks or mention that they were there.
Just before noon Earl Matthews stuck his head in the door of Seth’s miniscule office. “Lunch? The café?”
“I had breakfast there this morning. Oh, shoot, doesn’t mean I’m not hungry. Let me shut this computer down first. How about we pick up some sandwiches and head on over to the lake to check fishing licenses?”
“You got a deal.”
Sitting in the official cruiser beside the dock on the oxbow lake that fed into the Tennessee River some five miles to the south, they checked to see how many bass boats were out fishing. This late in the morning, there were none in view, although that didn’t mean there weren’t a few latecomers around the bend, close to the downed trees. Bass, crappie and catfish loved to hide among the branches of trees long submerged.
Seth let Earl run the launch down to the bend while he leaned back against the leather seats, slid his Smokey hat over his eyes and allowed his mind to drift. Emma French probably wouldn’t stay long enough for him to get to know her. Obviously she was a cityslickeress. Way above his pay grade. He’d generally gone for what his father called pocket Venuses. Like Clare. Five foot three and practically boneless.
Emma’s flesh covered strong bones. She’d fight him over those blasted skunks or anything else she didn’t agree with. If they ever made love—unlikely—it would be like igniting a thermonuclear device.
“Heads up,” Earl said. “Party boat eleven o’clock.”
Almost hidden where the high weeds drooped in the water, and under tree leaves that weren’t fully open, a large, fancy pontoon party boat carrying a pair of powerful outboard motors was getting ready to hightail it away from them. There were half a dozen people spooling in fishing lines as fast as they could, and one man hunkered over the two motors attached to the stern. The engines sputtered, then kicked into action.
“Oh, goodie!” Earl said. “Blow the horn, please, Mr. Policeman. I do believe they plan to evade inspection.”
“Not if they don’t get their anchor up first,” Seth said. He shouted into the loud hailer, “Cut your engines now before you swamp!” At the moment that appeared to be an immediate threat. The party boat was built to run perilously close to the water on its pontoons with little freeboard. Normally, in calm waters, that was no problem. In wind and waves, however, the big boat was difficult to handle and swamped easily.
At the moment the two engines were attempting to back the boat against the anchor chain at the bow, but it showed no sign of lifting free of the mud bottom.
The louder the engines growled, the more the boat buried its engines deeper in the lake, lifting the bow perilously high. The people on board had run toward the stern—the opposite of what they should be doing—and now stood ankle-deep in water. The two women in the group were squealing and jumping around trying to keep their feet dry.
“Move forward toward the bow!” Seth yelled. “And somebody cut those engines! Earl, get me over there.”
“Be careful. Don’t get trapped between boats, and do not fall into those propellers. They’ll cut you to pieces.” Earl, calm as always, steered his boat until it gently tapped the left pontoon amidships. Seth said a fast prayer, leaped, slipped, then righted himself safely on the deck.
He was afraid his weight would sink the boat before he could cut the engines. He moved a woman who outweighed him by a good hundred pounds toward the bow. “Get up there! You, too, ma’am,” he snapped at her companion, as thin as she was fat.
He reached past one of the men and shut off both engines. Instantly the boat settled back on its pontoons. “The rest of you, go sit down amidships and don’t move until I say so.”
“You can’t tell me what to do on my own boat!” said a grizzled man close to Seth’s size, but flabby with age and unsteady on what Seth suspected were drunken legs.
“Yes, sir, I can. Sit down. All of you.” Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the smaller of the two women surreptitiously trying to kick what looked like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the edge of her seat.
“Hey, ma’am, don’t try that,” Earl called from the launch. She froze.
“Fishing licenses and boat registration,” Seth said. Now that the initial disaster was averted, he was starting to seethe. “Earl, can you tie up to us and come on over here?”
“Sure thing.”
Seth stepped back. “So, this is your boat, sir?” he asked the grizzled man who’d gone suddenly silent.
“Hell, yeah, it’s mine, and you all like to have caused an accident running up on us like that.”
“Uh-huh. How many passengers do you have on board this morning?”
“Can’t you count? Five. We got five. We was just taking us a little ride...”
“Looked to me like you were doing a little fishing along the way,” Seth said.
“Without fishing licenses,” Earl said. He shrugged. “That’s what he said.” He pointed at a small man huddled in the seat across from the large woman. “More drinking than fishing, I think.”
“Now, y’all lookee here...” The big man puffed himself up and huffed out what he must’ve felt was an intimidating breath. It didn’t work. And it stank of alcohol.
“No, sir, you lookee here,” Earl said. “There are signs all over this lake. No fishing without a license.”
“May I see your current boat registration?” Seth asked. So far he’d managed to sound cool and polite, but underneath, his temper was going from simmer to boil.
The man deflated slightly. “Uh, musta left it back at the marina.”
“We’ll check it when we get back to the dock.”
“Well...could be I left it back at the house.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” Earl said. “We can check the number and expiration date on our computer over there in our boat. By law you’re supposed to carry it on board at all times...”
“Lordy, young man,” the giant lady said from her seat, “ain’t nobody does that. This ain’t no big houseboat.”
“Shut up, Phoebe,” the grizzled man snapped.
“No one seems to be wearing a life jacket, sir,” Seth said.
“They in the lockers over there,” the big woman said. “Right close, where we can get ’em if we need ’em.” She sounded satisfied. “But you don’t need life jackets on party boats, do you? Not like they sink or anything. Can’t get drownd-ed off one of these things, now, can you?”
“Uh-oh,” Earl whispered. “Seth...” He touched Seth’s forearm in warning.
Seth thought he sounded calm, but when he saw the sudden fear in the woman’s eyes he realized that something in his demeanor had telegraphed his annoyance. He opened the life jacket locker and tossed a jacket to each of the passengers. “Ma’am, you all nearly capsized ten minutes ago. A party boat doesn’t care if it floats on its roof, and it doesn’t turn back over on its own. You could’ve been trapped underneath or caught in the weeds. Please put these on. We are now going to give you a tow back to the marina, at which point we’ll write up the offenses you’re being arrested for...”
“Arrested?” The gray man inflated again. “You jackasses, write me a damn ticket, and we’ll get our own self back to the marina when we feel like it.”
Earl reached down and pulled the half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s out from under the seat and held it up.
“That’s not mine!” the man swore.
“It’s your boat,” Earl said mildly.
Seth never thought of Earl as a big man. Compared with Seth he was just normal. Still, when the boat owner took a swing at him, the man wound up sitting on his rear end. Earl hadn’t even disturbed the equilibrium of the boat.
“Your name, sir?” Earl asked just as calmly as before.
“Grady Pulliam, not that it’s any of y’all’s business. And I’m gonna sue your asses for harassment. I know the governor.”
“So do I,” Earl said. “He’s my first cousin once removed.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#u49de7998-349f-53b6-9d13-2fb154474906)
AN HOUR LATER, Seth and Earl left the party boat locked in its slip. The keys were with the marina master. He had instructions not to allow anyone to have them, especially Mr. Pulliam, until further notice. The owner would not be partying on his boat for a while. He’d signed off on an expensive ticket and a summons to show cause why he shouldn’t lose his boat for drinking on board, plus a long list of other offenses. His wife was crying, and everyone else was shaking with embarrassment.
Earl and Seth could hear the burgeoning squabble behind them as they loaded their own boat on the trailer.
Earl said as they drove out of the parking lot, “Think old Grady will lose his boat?”
“If we were the Coast Guard, maybe, but you and I are small fry. He’ll have fines to pay, probably some community service. We didn’t actually see any of them taking a drink from that bottle of bourbon, and we don’t have the Breathalyzer, so we can’t get him on DUI just for having an open container aboard.”
“We both know they were drinking. The man’s breath stank like a still.”
“He’s lucky they didn’t capsize or pitch pole, dragging against the anchor chain like that. I suspect that one lady would either float like a whale or sink like a stone. No idea which. With the exception of Pulliam, they were nice enough people, but they don’t believe the rules apply to them.”
“Or why we have rules in the first place,” Earl said. “I gotta say, I was right proud of you about those life jackets. I know how you feel about wearing life jackets at all times, and I know how you get when a bunch of idiots stick them away so they can’t reach ’em.”
“Mrs. Pulliam could tell I was mad. I came close to punching everybody’s lights out and tossing them overboard. I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Wish you’d stop scaring the stew out of me jumping from boat to boat like that. One of these days you’re gonna miss and get yourself hurt.”
“Next time, you can do it.”
“Nunh-uh. Forget I said anything.”
As they drove off, Seth asked, “Is the governor really your cousin?”
“Turns out he is, but I doubt he knows it, much less knows me.”
* * *
“HAVE YOU DECIDED to come home where you belong?” David French’s baritone rolled smoothly down the phone line. No greeting.
“Hello to you, too, Daddy. How lovely to hear from you.” Emma let the honey roll off her tongue. He’d pick up on the sarcasm. He seldom missed nuances where she was concerned.
“Have you and Trip made up yet?” he asked.
“Not happening.”
“Now, honey. Newly engaged couples invariably hit a few bumps on their way to the altar. Prenuptial nerves. I talked to Andrea about it. She says it’s not unusual for a bride to be scared to make the final commitment.”
“She say whether she was scared to make a final commitment to you, before she married you?”
“Shoot, yeah! But she got over it and not only took me on, but my twelve-year-old motherless daughter, as well. Believe me, you were no picnic.” He laughed his professionally warm laugh.
Emma had wondered years ago if he practiced it in front of the mirror while he shaved in the morning.
“Sit down and talk to the man, at least, honey. He’s been calling me a dozen times a day. Says you won’t answer his calls or his emails.”
“He’s right. I haven’t and I don’t intend to. I’ve said all I’m going to say. Both of you need to get over it.”
“It’s all because you got laid off, isn’t it? You feel you’re letting him down. You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Emma. It happens to everyone sooner or later.”
“First of all, I didn’t get laid off. I got fired. F-I-R-E-D. By Nathan Savage, the boss of bosses. And I did not deserve it. Darn right I’m embarrassed. I had to pack up my stuff and drag my pitiful little box out to the car all by myself while the security guard loomed over me. A man I’ve known for three years. He didn’t lift a finger to help me, just glared, as though I planned to steal the office computer. He didn’t even want me to take my own Rolodex until I proved it was mine. Letting Trip down was the last thing on my mind. I was concentrating on holding my head high and stalking out while everybody slunk into their offices and didn’t even tell me goodbye. It was horrible, Dad.” She felt her eyes begin to tear up, gulped and refused to allow the tears to slide down her cheeks.
“I’m sure Trip doesn’t blame you, sweetheart. He knows that frankly you got screwed. And if we can manage, it’s not going to be long before Nathan Savage knows it, too.”
“Dad, Geoff Harrington is the one who signed off on all the contracts, not Nathan and not me. I advised against them. I told Geoff they were a bad idea, that we’d wind up with egg on our faces. I knew we couldn’t possibly meet the deadline to implement a complete new marketing plan. He said he took full responsibility, and my job was to do what he told me. Period.
“I should’ve gone over his head straight to Nathan, but Nathan was in Switzerland and Geoff was supposedly in charge. By the time Nathan got back, the whole thing was a done deal, and all my memos to Geoff warning against the completion schedule for the new website and ad campaign had somehow disappeared from the original file as well as mine. Geoff convinced Nathan that I talked him into signing off on all of it. But, please don’t try to intervene. You’ll embarrass Nathan so badly, he’ll never talk to me again. He hates anyone’s catching on when he’s wrong.”
“How long do you intend to stay out there in the country? You can’t possibly find another job working from Martha’s old house sixty miles east of Memphis. At least here you’d have the support of your friends and family. You can lick your wounds in comfort. We all miss you. If you don’t want to stay in your town house, you can always have your old room back here. Andrea will feed you properly. She told me she’d love to have you back. You could do with some spoiling.”
Andrea was an excellent stepmother. She and Emma were fond of each other. Andrea already had her hands full with her committees and her charities and Emma’s half brother and half sister. “Thank Andrea, but tell her having a grown child move home is too darned big a cliché.”
Emma jumped as something touched her foot. She looked down to see Sycamore patting her toes and mewing like a hungry kitten. “You little devil!” she whispered, scooped him up and held him in the crook of the arm not holding the phone.
“I beg your pardon,” David French said.
She giggled. “Not you, Dad. I can’t come home, I have responsibilities.”
“What kind of responsibilities?”
“Look, don’t worry. I’m starting to send out résumés today and signing up with some headhunters. Tell Trip to get on with his life. Thank God we didn’t have an official engagement party. Give my love to Andrea and the monsters. I really am all right, Dad. I promise I’ll call every day from here on. Love ya. Bye.” She hung up the phone, lifted Sycamore up and butted noses with him. “Mr. Hungry, huh? Where are your baby sisters?”
Neither Peony nor Rose had made it across the threshold from pantry to kitchen, but they were gallantly trying to follow their brother. She scooped them up, as well, and deposited them back on their towel. “Okay, you guys obviously need a barricade.” She grabbed the big laundry basket, picked up babies and towel, and laid them in the bottom of the basket. Then she carried it into the kitchen, setting it where she could keep an eye on them while she warmed her syringe under the hot water. “Okay, guys. Four hours from now we’re going to try mashing a tad of dog food into the milk. We’ll see if you can figure out how to handle that. Peony, sweetie, I’ll help you, I promise.”
CHAPTER SIX (#u49de7998-349f-53b6-9d13-2fb154474906)
“HOW’S IT GOING with the skunks?” Seth stood on the front porch in clean jeans and a navy polo shirt. His short brown hair was damp, so he must have taken a shower after he came home from work.
“Do you really want to know? Barbara Carew said she’d advised you to ignore them.”
“Not easy to do. I worry.”
Emma moved aside so he could come in. He stayed on the porch.
“I brought you something that may help.” He slid a folded baby’s traveling playpen across the step.
“I thought Barbara said you didn’t have any children.” Her heart had given a major lurch. Children meant wives. She did not want this man—this almost stranger—to have a wife. Go figure.
“I don’t. I have it for raising puppies. I don’t need it, and I thought you could borrow it to use in place of a crate.”
