September 2019
Salt licks were fascist. Emily glared up at the tree stand and then back down to the stump where the large block of solid salt was perched. That wasn’t hunting. That was waiting. You sat up all comfortable in your perch and waited for an unsuspecting deer to wander over and take a lick of the tasty treat. Then blamo! Bambi’s an orphan.
Looking around, Emily didn’t see any deer or hunters for that matter. Picking up the bait, she put it into the large rucksack bag she had on her back. Emily couldn’t stop Donovan Link from hunting on her family’s land, but she could even up the odds a bit.
Realistically, she knew she couldn’t cover the one hundred and twenty-five acres her father had leased to him that bordered state forest land, but it wasn’t in her nature to just sit back and let hunters kill animals. Getting back on her horse, Sunflower, she continued through the dust and the scrub brush looking for more bait traps.
Her persistence paid off, and after about a half hour in the saddle and squinting up into the trees, she found another tree stand. Sliding off the back of Sunflower, she patted her horse’s neck and watched as she ambled over to the pond to take a drink of water. The grass had patches of green with brown around the tree. It had been a blistering summer and some of the grass hadn’t survived. She didn’t see any salt licks. Taking a long glug from her canteen, Emily figured it had to be around here somewhere. Why else sit up in a tree stand if you didn’t expect something to come wandering by? As soon as she found it, though, she had to hurry back home. Her mother was making a vegetable lasagna especially for her, and there would be hell to pay if she was late.
Glancing back at Sunflower, she figured the mare would stay put for a bit. Emily should have taken the Gator, their secondhand all-terrain vehicle, or borrowed Nate’s truck, but she didn’t want there to be evidence of her thievery.
After walking around the area and still coming up empty, Emily went deeper into the woods. Her eyes on the ground, she pushed away scrub brushes and stepped over ruts. Her father wasn’t kidding about the feral pigs being a problem. They had done a number on the trees and the ground. If they got into the cattle pastures, their cows would have a hard time finding food. The ranch would have to buy more hay and grains to supplement—and that would cut into the ranch’s dwindling bottom line.
As Emily continued to look around, she heard some rustling and crashing from the underbrush ahead. Squinting into the distance, she didn’t see anything, but she made her way back toward the tree. The noise got louder and she peered over her shoulder. Thundering toward her was a large hog, grunting and snorting. Enormous and ugly, it bore down on her, moving swiftly for its size.
Shit.
Emily turned on her heel and sprinted for the tree. Planks had been nailed to the tree to form a ladder up to the tree stand. She was a few steps up it before the hog caught up to her. Lunging at the tree, it leapt for her. Its tusks grazed her ankles and the material on her boots tore. Emily swung to the left, almost losing her grip. She knew that more than a nasty fall would await her if she let go. The animal’s grunts and squeals helped her get her footing out of sheer panic, and she scrambled up onto the platform. Lying prone, she stared down at the beast. Emily grimaced as it rocked its body against the trunk, as if it wanted to push the tree down.
“Go away,” she yelled. She was much braver thirty feet above it. A whirring and clicking sound caught her attention and she found herself staring into a game camera that had been pointed at the ground. “Please tell me that wasn’t just recorded for posterity?” Or worse. Her family. Her father had just gotten out of the hospital and rehab from his second heart attack. With his temper, he would blow a gasket if he saw what she had been up to.
And if this was Donovan’s camera—which it surely was—it probably wasn’t the only one and that meant she was more than likely busted for stealing his salt licks. The good news was, he was probably on his way to rescue her from the boar right now. The bad news was, he was going to be insufferable.
They had spent the last few months as adversaries, with her going from being outright hostile to him, to trying to kill him with kindness. Nothing worked. He had skin thicker than the hog below her. Then, they had come to an understanding of sorts, a wary détente. Donovan could be a charmer when he wanted to be, and Emily found it hard to breathe when he smiled at her instead of scowled.
He wasn’t immune to her either. Emily had caught him looking at her when he thought she wasn’t aware of it. Just for shits and giggles, she had convinced him to go zip-lining with her. She was surprised that he was just as big of an adrenaline junkie as she was. They had such a good time one-upping each other, they had made it a weekly occurrence to do something that would have turned her mother’s hair white if she had known about it.
Bungee jumping. Off-roading. And skydiving. Next week, they were going to go on a hot air balloon ride.
They weren’t really dates. But if he hadn’t been a hunter, they could have been. She had a good time with him, despite what he did for a living. Lately, though, Emily had stopped thinking of him as an adversary. She’d started to notice little things, like how he had laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and his cheeks got five-o’clock shadow on them by midafternoon.
Donovan Link was beginning to be a distraction and she didn’t like that it distracted her from her mission to stop him from hunting on her family’s land.
Now that his hunting lodge had been built, the best Emily could do was inconvenience him and delay the inevitable. And try not to think about how nice his butt looked in faded Wranglers.
Below her, the hog rubbed his full length against the tree, knocking off one of the boards that served as part of the ladder up the tree.
“Shoo,” she said, considering dumping the salt lick from her bag on top of the hog. Its rough shoulder skin was like armor and it would bounce right off it, but it might give the big bastard the idea to leave. Instead of heeding her instructions, however, he burrowed his snout deeper into the dirt. As she watched, four more pigs of varying sizes came out and started rooting around the tree.
Groaning, she pulled herself into a sitting position and glanced around the tree stand. This one had a camp chair and a large cooler filled with everything from a first aid kit to extra bottles of water and granola bars. She sat in the camp chair and took out her phone. Emily wasn’t surprised that she didn’t have a signal. Who was she going to call anyway? She didn’t want her family to come all the way out here. She wasn’t risking the lecture for a rescue—she’d rather stay in a tree all night.
After a particularly loud shouting match with Donovan a few weeks ago, her mother pulled her aside and told her in no uncertain terms that she was embarrassing the family and that it was time to grow up. It stung, probably because her mother had been right. Then Sarah Sullivan reminded her that this was her father’s land and her father’s decision and she didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. Since he once kicked her sister Kelly out when she was six months pregnant, Emily knew what he was capable of. Although a part of her was sure he’d never do that to her. To him, she was still the baby of the family—even though Alissa now had that honor.
Trent, who was now her sister Kelly’s fiancé, was still recovering from having his leg shattered after he was thrown by a bull. He could bring the truck to rescue her. He might be convinced to keep her secret. But there was no way he would keep a secret from Kelly. And then the lecture would come from Kelly, who forgot that Emily was her sister and not her daughter when it came to scolding. Besides, Kelly was no angel no matter how much domestic bliss Trent was showering down on her.
Their ranch foreman, Nate, would come and get her if she called him. But then, everyone would know she had been screwing around on the land her dad had leased Donovan. The ranch hands loved Donovan. He was their poker buddy and the guy who supplied them with pork for their weekly barbecues. Emily couldn’t risk being hated by them. She’d never be able to get anything done around the ranch. Eventually, when she took over for her father and ran the ranch, she would need their support.
Of course, every time she mentioned it to her father, he dismissed it and said something sexist like she’d be better off looking to be a rancher’s wife. Or that women couldn’t keep up with men on a cattle drive, which didn’t make any sense. He was the one who demanded she and her sisters could pull their weight alongside the ranch hands.
Emily knew she had a long way to go before she could even think about stepping up and taking on more responsibility around here. She wanted to be business savvy and a professional rancher. She didn’t want to be a rancher’s wife. She wanted to run the whole damn thing.
Her father thought that was cute.
She was going to have to hope that when Donovan came to gloat, he wouldn’t tell her father about her antics. Because nothing destroys your credibility to be a professional businesswoman than petty thievery and sabotage.
Perhaps she should have thought this through before she acted out.
“Can you hurry up?” she said to the camera. Maybe if she annoyed him, he’d come faster so he could bawl her out. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Emily knew there was no way she was going to live this down. What was worse, she was going to have to witness Donovan shooting the hogs.
Emily didn’t want to think about that. She took a hopeful look downward. Maybe the boars had gone away. But no such luck. In fact, more were coming and heading toward the pond, tearing up the ground as they went. She knew they were destructive and dangerous, but she didn’t want to see them killed.
She hoped that Sunflower would have the good sense to stay away. The horse knew her way back to the ranch, but Emily still fretted about her. The hogs probably wouldn’t attack the horse, but nothing was certain.
When Sunflower screamed, Emily nearly fell out of the tree. Listening desperately, she heard retreating hoofbeats and could only hope that Sunflower would outrun the hogs. She heard squeals and wondered if the hogs were chasing her beautiful horse.
Sharp rifle shots broke the relative silence of the late afternoon, and Emily covered her ears. She counted five quick shots. Then five more. Her breathing came in short, panicked pants and she blinked to keep the tears back. The hogs at the foot of the tree scattered, but she was shaking too hard to climb down. Had Sunflower survived?
Emily knew the rifle shots had to be from Donovan. What was taking him so long? Was Sunflower all right? Emily started to climb down, but wondered if she should just stay put. She didn’t want to miss Donovan and have to walk all the way back to the ranch at sunset, even though it probably would serve her right. It would be dark by the time she got back. Settling back on the camp chair, she snitched a granola bar and ate it, wishing it was her mother’s zucchini lasagna instead.
Much later, she heard an engine approaching and sure enough, Donovan Link walked into her line of sight.
“You can come down now,” he drawled. “The coast is clear.”
Donovan Link looked like a Hemsworth brother working as an L.L.Bean model, posing for the camera. When he flashed a grin, it made her choke on air. He looked like a movie version of a big game hunter and Emily should hate him on principle. But he wasn’t a stereotypical trophy-mad jerk with a gun. And God, did that piss her off. In his own way, he was just as concerned about conservation as she was. But nothing she’d said or done these past few months could convince him to stop his hunts. He’d built his hunting lodge and had signed a three-year contract with her father.
“Where’s my horse?” she asked, aware that her voice was trembling. If something happened to Sunflower, she’d never forgive herself.
“Heading hell-bent for leather back to the barn last time I saw her.”
“Do you think she made it?” Emily took a shaky breath.
“I think she might have got cut up some by the brush and brambles, but yeah I think she’s all right. Do you want me to come up there and get you?”
“No,” she said sharply. “I can do it.” That was the last thing she needed—to be rescued like a fairy princess from his tree stand.
With her fingers shaking, Emily forced herself to climb down. When her boots were firmly on the ground, she had to rein in the urge to throw herself into Donovan’s arms.
“Are you all right?” he asked, frowning at her ruined boot.
“Yeah,” she said and forced herself to meet his eyes. “Can we get out of here?”
He gestured for her to go in front of him and she noticed that he carried his rifle as easily as if it were a part of his arm.
“Did you kill the hogs?”
“Why are you asking questions that will upset you?” he said. “Just don’t look in the back of the truck.”
Emily stopped dead in her tracks. “The hogs are in the back of your truck?” For a moment, she wondered how he got them to run up into the back of the pickup, and then she realized she was an idiot. Forcing herself to get into the cab of the truck, she shuddered at the senseless loss of life.
Donovan secured the rifle in the gun rack behind them, reversed the truck, and headed back toward the ranch.
Emily couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
She waited for him to launch into an “I told you so” speech about the dangers of the hog population or to justify his killing of them. But he didn’t.
“What are you going to do with the…?” Emily couldn’t finish her sentence.
“They’re dressed, so I was going to run them down to The Hut.” He looked over at her. “I don’t suppose you want to join me?”
Pressing her lips tightly together, she shook her head.
“Shame. I think you at least owe me a beer.”
She owed him more than that. “Are you going to tell my father about this?”
“I don’t think I need to, do you?”
“No.”
More dreadful silence.
“Are you going to tell my sisters?”
“Not my place. But Janice will probably wonder how Sunflower got hurt. And Nate’s going to wonder why I took off in a hurry.”
“How many cameras do you have out there?” she asked, trying for nonchalance.
“Enough,” he said.
Emily closed her eyes. Busted. “Salt licks are cheating.” She sounded defensive instead of righteous. Damn it.
“When you’re paying $300 a day to bag a deer, you get mighty testy if you don’t see one. And mighty testy hunters don’t come back, and they certainly don’t tell their friends about what a wonderful time they had.”
“It’s barbaric,” she whispered, but without heat.
“Circle of life, sweetheart.”
Glaring at him, she crossed her arms. “Tell that to Bambi.”
He snorted. “We’re after the bucks. Not the mommy deer.”
“Did you just say ‘mommy deer’?”
Donovan continued on as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “And they’re eating up your cattle’s food and your mother’s garden. But you know all of that already, so why are you busting my balls about it?”
“I don’t agree with what you do.”
“You don’t have to. But you do have to stop stealing my property and you do have to stay off my land.”
“It’s not your land.”
“It is, as long as your father has leased it to me for hunting. He wants me to thin the population because there’s not enough food to sustain all the deer and hogs. Not to mention the destruction they’re causing.”
“Can’t you trap them? Relocate them?”
“The trapped animals go to the slaughterhouse. You can’t relocate them because they’re an invasive species. All of which, again, you already know. It prolongs their terror and it isn’t a humane or clean kill.”
She winced. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to stay out of my way.”
“Fine,” Emily said. And this time relished the silence until they made it onto the paved driveway that Janice had installed for her retreat clients. Then dread filled her. She had missed dinner. Her horse was still missing and she was going to have to talk fast to keep her father from losing his cool. The doctors said he had to take it easy and keep calm. And with his infamous temper, that was not going to be easy.
Donovan drove her up to the ranch house. “Leave the salt lick,” he said, placing the truck into park.
Digging into her bag, she dropped it on the seat.
“I hope you saw how dangerous it can be going out around sunset without a rifle.”
She sighed. Here was the lecture. “I got the message. I learned my lesson.”
“That’ll be the day,” he muttered.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but forced herself to remember that he wasn’t ratting her out or pressing charges or anything else that he had a right to do because she had acted like a brat. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I truly know better, but I seem to lose all sense when I’m around you.”
“Pardon me?” He turned to face her, raising an eyebrow.
She slugged him in the arm. “Cut it out. I’m trying to do the right thing here. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Thank you for being decent about it and for not telling my family what a dumbass I was.” Then before she could think better of it, she leaned in and kissed him quick on the cheek.
It should have been the cheek, but the son of a bitch turned his head at the last minute and she got him on the lips. It was like static electricity jolted through her and the kiss was less of a peck and more of a sultry smooch. She pulled back, feeling the heat rising to her cheeks. Fumbling with the door handle, she nearly pitched out of the truck on her ass.
“Anytime,” he drawled.
She managed not to slam the door.