Rogue's Revenge - By Gail MacMillan Page 0,52

a lot of years ago. Your grandfather loved animals, too.”

“I know.” She measured coffee into the other pot. “He taught me about them and their environment. He said he learned his teaching technique from the mistakes he made with his first student.”

“First?”

“My mother.” She closed her eyes and leaned forward to inhale the aroma of the brewing coffee. “She’s an expert canoeist and outdoors person.”

“Myra? Hard to visualize under all the sophistication and style.”

“You should see her ride.” Allison opened her eyes and swung back to face him.

“Ride? As in horses, boots, and saddles?”

Proud of her mother and her accomplishments, she fell into the story of how Myra, until she was twenty-three and a college graduate, had called the Chance her home, how that summer she’d met and fallen in love with a young doctor who was a guest at the Lodge. They’d married and moved to Ottawa, where Cameron Armstrong had gained a reputation as one of the country’s leading neurosurgeons.

She told how her mother had become a leading fundraiser for needy sick children and how, in her spare time, Myra Armstrong had taken up riding to be able to accompany her husband, whose chief form of recreation still reflected his cowboy roots.

The story of her own riding career came out, too. She told him about Pride and, finally, haltingly about the death of little Joy.

“When I saw that doe’s distress, it all came back to me in a rush.” She feigned attention on the coffeepot. “I couldn’t allow another animal to suffer like Pride.” She drew a deep breath and hefted her shoulders. “Now Jake Morgan, my riding instructor, is suggesting I give her to my mother, with whom he says she’s more compatible. He says I should get a quarter horse and ride western like Dad.”

“He’s right.” Heath’s words startled her, bringing her attention back to him.

“What? How can you possibly come to that conclusion? You haven’t seen me ride.”

“I don’t have to.” He adjusted the sleeping bag around his shoulders. “I know freer in anything is what you need. That night you got soused on elderberry wine you were pretty terrific. That question about the oysters was almost more than a man could take and remain a gentleman.”

“Oh, really? Aren’t you the wise one.”

She pulled a towel from a packsack and strode around behind him to begin drying his wet hair.

“Hey, dry it, don’t remove it!”

She flung the towel aside and strode around in front of him, ready to continue their verbal battle, then unexpectedly laughed.

“What?” he asked squinting up at her in the sun.

“Somehow, with your hair sticking up in cowlicks and rooster tails, you don’t quite cut the glorious movie-star image you’re famous for.”

“Image? Me? Who said I looked like a movie star? And which one? There are all kinds, all types.”

“Careful, there. Your vanity is showing.” Damn, he was teasing. With an exasperated sigh she turned away to get a cup of soup.

“I’m relieved the doe took her baby back,” he said when she was seated across the fire from him. “I guess that blows away the old myth that a deer won’t take her fawn back after it’s been touched by a human.”

“It also blew away another idea,” she said, her gaze on her cup.

“Which is?” He set his soup aside, adjusted the sleeping bag about his shoulders, and looked at her.

“That you could have been involved in Gramps’ death.” She looked up to meet his gaze. “You could have let me jump into the river after that fawn. You knew I would have been drowned or died of hypothermia. With me out of the way through an accident, you’d probably have been able to have your way with the Chance.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but aren’t you forgetting the infamous two percent?”

“No, but I’ve no doubt that, left on your own, you could finesse whoever it is.”

“Nasty. And just when I thought we were on the verge of a lasting truce.”

“One death-defying moment does not a peace treaty make. Come on, you must have some ideas.”

“Someone wise and clear-sighted,” he said. “Jack was too caring and clever to give such an important trust to just anyone else.”

“But who?”

Heath shrugged. “It won’t matter if you come to the right decision, will it?”

“And if I don’t…in your opinion?”

“Then that wise, caring, third party will hold the deciding vote.”

“Pretty confident, aren’t you?” She finished her food and glanced over at him. “But then I guess you’d have to be, to risk criminal charges