Heck, Jack literally had raised himself.
Safely out of sight of the trail, Megan tramped down a place in the snow. She slid her suit down to her knees, sat down on top of it, and pulled off her boots so she could take the suit completely off. She stuffed her feet back in her boots, dug around in her pocket for a tissue, then dropped her pants and long johns to her knees with a sigh. This was so much easier for men!
“I’m beginning to hope you’re a boy,” she told her baby, cradling her belly while leaning against a tree to support her back. “And I won’t mind if you want to write your name in the snow.”
A full five minutes later, huffing and puffing as she wrestled her snowsuit back on over her layers of clothes, she heard Jack call out, “Everything okay back there?”
“Just peachy!” she shouted.
She growled under her breath when she heard him chuckle, and swore out loud when she had to put her foot down in the snow to keep from falling. She plopped down and brushed her sock clean before pulling on her boot with a sigh. It was going to be a long day.
Jack handed her a bottle of water when she returned to the sleds. “I prefer hot cocoa,” she told him. “You said you’d bring some.”
“In the interest of not slowing us down with bathroom breaks, I thought you should limit your cocoa intake, since it contains caffeine. But you need water so you don’t dehydrate, which can happen fast in winter.”
“You don’t need to lecture me on winter survival,” she said, shoving the bottle at him and stomping back to her sled. She picked up her helmet and took a calming breath. “I’m pretty sure this spur circles back onto the ITS trail in three or four miles. We might as well continue on it, since this whole area is part of the watershed I’m studying.”
“You’re just pretty sure it circles back?”
She glared at him. “I won’t get us lost.”
“Still, I think I’ll leave a trail of bread crumbs.” He pulled his own helmet down over his head, effectively shutting her out.
Megan sat down on her sled and turned the key, then shot up the narrow spur. The man obviously had no sense of adventure.
She drove eight or nine miles before she started thinking she might have to eat crow. The trail wasn’t going in the direction she thought it would; it was taking them northeast.
She came to another intersection and stopped. Should she go right or left? Even though left was east and she wanted to head west to get back on track, tote roads could be deceiving. Why weren’t these stupid trails marked?
Jack walked up to her sled and flipped up his shield. “I vote we go right,” he told her loudly, to be heard over their idling engines.
“Why? That’s east. We want to go west to get back to the lake.”
“Just a hunch.”
Megan looked around. Directly in front of them was a small mountain, though she wasn’t sure which one. She looked left and right, but both directions showed only a short piece of the trail, since it was winding through dense forest. She looked back at Jack. “And if I think we should go left?”
“Then we’ll go left.” He shrugged. “Either direction, it’s got to come out someplace.”
He turned and walked away, and Megan watched in her mirror as he got back on his sled and waited. She looked up the new trail in both directions again, then gave her sled the gas and turned right, having learned long ago that when someone had a hunch and she had nothing, it was smarter to go with the hunch.
Within four miles the knot in her gut began to unwind as the trail slowly curved westward, taking them up and over the mountain, heading back toward the lake. She smiled. Jack might not want to admit it, but some of his great-grandfather’s magic must have rubbed off on him.
Then again, maybe he was just lucky.
It was another ten miles before the area began to look familiar. The ridge to their right was the north end of Scapegoat Mountain, and she was sure the peat bog that she’d glimpsed through an opening in the forest was Beaver Bog. That meant the mountain ahead of them was Springy, and the deer yard she was looking for was…
She raised her left hand to warn Jack she was stopping, and brought her sled to a halt. She set the brake and got off, lifting her visor as she walked back to him. “I think the deer yard I’m looking for is just over there,” she said, pointing to a nearby ridge. “Let’s find a place off the trail to set up camp. If the yard is there, I don’t want to spook the herd by getting any closer with the snowmobiles.”
“That’s fine with me. I’m starved.”
“It’s ten-thirty.”
“I overslept and didn’t have time for breakfast. Did you remember the gravy?”
“Did you bring a pot to warm it in?” she asked, eyeing his small saddlebags.
He nodded toward her sled idling in front of them. “I’m sure your father stashed a pot in that pack basket.”
“For a man who grew up in the wilderness, you certainly don’t carry much survival gear.”
He grinned up at her. “Give me a good knife and some rope and I can live like a king.”
“Then you can set up camp and cook dinner while I check out the deer yard.”
“That’ll take you at least a couple of hours.”
“So have a nap.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. Pick a sunny spot out of the breeze,” he said, waving her toward her sled and flipping down the visor.
Once again, Megan found herself stomping back to her snowmobile. She had to stop letting him rile her. What had happened to Wayne-the-nerd, anyway? She actually missed him. Yet Jack-the-jerk was much more…stimulating.
Which was scary, considering she’d sworn off all men four months ago. Too bad her hormones hadn’t gotten the memo.
Chapter Thirteen
J ack added more twigs to the small fire he had going, gave the remaining gravy a stir, and licked the spoon clean. He then settled back on his leather jacket and ski pants, which he’d taken off and laid over some fir boughs to make a bed. He closed his eyes with a sigh, thinking that if he got any smarter he might scare himself. Being out here alone with Megan was just like when they’d been out on the tundra, only better. This time there weren’t any squabbling students to babysit or honking geese trying to peck him for messing with their young; it was just the two and a half of them in the middle of miles of wilderness.
Yup, he sure loved seeing a plan come together. Jack fell asleep with a smile, thinking life didn’t get any better than having the little woman off at work while he kept the home fires burning. With that thought warming his heart, he drifted off into dreamland.
His mother visited him first, her radiant smile surrounding Jack with familiar serenity. “I like her family,” Sarah Stone said. “Grace MacKeage will make you a wonderful mother-in-law. She’s exactly the feminine influence I’d hoped you would find.”
“Maybe she’ll be my mother-in-law,” Jack told the childhood vision of his mother. “I need the cooperation of her daughter for that to happen.”
“Megan will come around. You heeded your grand-père’s warning to send her home, and now you’ll simply have to undo the damage.”
“But how?”
“By being who you truly are, my son. The longer you deny it, the harder your journey will become.”
“You sound like Grand-père.”
“Because I am his granddaughter, Coyote.”
“Where are Dad and Walker? I want to see them.”
“They’re fishing with my father. Grand-père’s here, though. He has something to show you.”
“I’m not in the mood for one of his lectures.” Jack’s voice rose when his mother began to fade into the shimmering light. “Stay and talk to me about how to fix things with Megan. I need your help, Mama. I miss you.”