his mouth confirming he hadn’t changed his mind...about her...about anything.
“Kenny and I saw a pickup in the woods across the cove last night.” He kept his voice low as they followed the group being led by Neil. “Might have been parkers, and we apparently scared them off. But...”
He hesitated, and his reluctance to finish the sentence stopped Summer in her tracks. “But maybe it was someone planning to go digging for mammoth bones.”
Ricked shrugged. “That idea did enter my mind.”
A fierce, protective anger shot through her. “No one can do that!” She turned and paced the opposite direction to gain more distance from the kids. “The mammoth molar was found on my property!” she spewed. “My parents’ property. Whoever it was has no right!”
“Thieves generally aren’t great respecters of other people’s rights.” Rick had followed her.
His hand slipped around her bicep to slow her down, but she jerked out of the grip, pulling the cell phone from her pocket. “I’m calling Sheriff Blaine right now—”
Rick snatched the phone from her hand and stopped the call. “I’ve already spoken with him.”
“And?”
“And he said he doesn’t have enough deputies to patrol areas accessible only by water with any consistency. He’ll do what he can, but that’s not going to be much. Marshall County has miles and miles of shoreline, and the areas that don’t have residents near are always going to be a problem.”
Summer’s mind whirred. She turned again to follow the campers. She walked fast out of frustration and to catch up. “We’re only talking three more nights until this session is over. Then Dr. Shelton’s group will be here. I’ll sleep down on the beach if I have to.”
“No, you won’t.”
Her jaws clenched at Rick’s commanding tone.
“Why don’t we move the group after-dark activities to the beach?” he suggested. “Then Kenny can keep watch down there the rest of the night. That’s really all we can do.”
His words conjured memories of the after-dark activities the two of them had enjoyed on the beach, and she swallowed hard. How long would it take until those thoughts stopped popping unbidden into her head?
Stop it. She mentally slapped herself. More pressing matters were at hand. She didn’t have time to moon over a man who thought the worst of her.
“After lights-out, I’ll stay on the beach until I’m ready to go to bed,” Rick said. “And then Kenny will include the area in his rounds every half hour or so.”
“I’ll stay on the beach,” she corrected. “It isn’t right for you to give up your own time for this.”
Rick seemed unaffected by her insistence. “I don’t want you down there alone. We’ll stay on the beach together.”
Hours alone on the beach with Rick? That would be torture her heart couldn’t bear. It threatened to gallop away now merely at the thought. She could hear the blood pulsing in her ears. “No. This isn’t your problem. It’s my problem, and I’ll handle it.” She cast a sidelong glance at him. The muscle in his jaw twitched, but he said nothing.
Neil turned onto the path that led to the Byassee homestead, and Summer’s breathing finally caught up with her stride. This was where she needed to be. The place and its guardian angels would calm her.
The past two mornings, they’d been treated to the view of a skulk of red foxes that had made a den in the old house. A vixen and six kits—Rick made sure everyone called them by the correct names—identical in their furry red coats and white-tipped tails. Mama would scurry out each morning as she heard the group approach and make for the woods, leading her babies to safety.
This morning, the vixen didn’t appear, leaving the kids disappointed, but an apprehensive twinge ran between Summer’s shoulder blades.
“She probably moved ’em,” Carlos suggested. “My cat moved her kittens. My mom said we bothered ’em too much.”
“I’ll bet you’re right, Carlos.” Rick smiled his approval at the boy’s observation, but Summer couldn’t shake her odd feeling. The area was too quiet.
“But look who’s here.” Neil pointed to a log that had four box turtles nestled beside it.
While the campers got a short lesson on the species from Rick, Summer ambled toward the back of the house. A couple of minutes by herself in the peaceful sanctuary should slow the world down some.
The bit of fur, fluffed by the morning breeze, drew her eye and then sucked her breath completely out of her lungs.