Kenzie shrugged. “It’s more of a smell, but nothing I recognize. It’s…unnatural. Pungent.”
“I’ve felt nothing,” Matt said. “Have you, Winter?”
“Nope. The only thing I’ve been feeling lately is tired. I had no idea growing a baby was so hard.” She looked at her mother. “How did you survive five pregnancies, especially two sets of twins?”
“I wasn’t running an art gallery, getting married, building a house, and saving the world while carrying any of you girls,” Grace said with a laugh. “You’ll start feeling better now that you’re into your second trimester.” She looked at Megan. “You seem to have gotten your energy back all of a sudden. And from the glow on your face, I’d say trouble’s brewing. What are you up to now?”
Megan gave her an innocent look. “I’m five months’ pregnant. I’m supposed to glow.”
“What’s up, daughter?” Greylen demanded. “I’ve also noticed that look in your eyes that ye get whenever you’re scheming.”
“Maybe I’m just thinking about Cam’s suggestion that I ask Jack Stone on a date.”
Cam choked on her food and Megan reached over and slapped her on the back.
“You don’t have to jump out of the frying pan into the fire,” Cam said. “And you do realize the man carries a gun for a living?”
Ignoring her, Meg looked at Chelsea. “How tall is Jack Stone?”
“A couple inches under six feet, I guess. Simon pointed him out as he was walking to his cruiser.”
Megan went back to eating, satisfied that she’d turned her parents’ scrutiny away from her.
But Cam, apparently, wasn’t done causing trouble. “Then let’s double-date,” she suggested. “You can ask out Jack Stone, and Kenzie, you can be my date. We could all go to dinner in Greenville tomorrow night.”
Several bites of food got stuck in several windpipes at that announcement.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve gone on a…a date,” Kenzie said into the silence. “I’m not sure what’s expected of me in this century.”
“You don’t have to do any thing,” Cam drawled. “Just leave your sword home and be your big, handsome self.”
Megan glared at Cam. “For all we know, Jack Stone is married.”
“No, he’s not,” Chelsea piped up. “Simon told me he helped Stone move into the Watson place on the lake, and that he’s definitely a bachelor. He doesn’t own enough stuff to fill a pickup.”
Megan wanted to strangle both of her sisters.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea, Megan,” Grace said. “You should wear that new maternity outfit Winter gave you for Christmas.”
“I can’t go out tomorrow night,” she said, quickly backtracking. “I’m driving to Augusta to apply for a position that just opened up.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for a job,” Grace said.
“Meg found a posting for a field biologist right here on Pine Lake,” Cam said. “But I think there’s something strange about it. What are the chances of a job suddenly opening up right here, right now?”
“Why is that strange?” Greylen asked.
“It’s being privately funded. You remember what happened to Aunt Sadie, don’t you? This could also be a scam.”
“It isn’t,” Megan countered. “A freelance biologist named Mark Collins is heading up an impact study of the wildlife in this watershed. It’s required, to build a new resort.”
“We didn’t have to do an impact study when we built our ski resort,” Grey pointed out.
“That was thirty-six years ago, Daddy. Today you can’t build anything without first studying the consequences.”
“But why do you want this job? You’re going to be very busy in four more months.” He cradled his arms as if he were rocking a baby.
Megan smiled. “I’ll get one of those baby backpacks.” She looked at her mother. “That’s how you carried Robbie when you brought him home from Virginia, and you told us Daddy carried all us girls in a pack until we could walk. I can’t think of a better way to spend my first summer with my child—out in the field doing what I love.”
“It sounds like a wonderful idea,” Grace said.
“And you’ll still be able to live here at Gù Brath,” her father added.
Megan shook her head. “I’m going to look for my own place.”
“Why?” Elizabeth asked.
“Because I’m too old to be living at home with my parents. And because I need to start building a nest in which to raise my child.”
No one disputed that reasoning, though her father looked like she’d just kicked him in the shin.
“We will discuss your moving out tomorrow night, when you return from speaking with Mark Collins,” he said.
Megan sighed and nodded. She might be twenty-nine and living on her own for ten years, but there was nothing like running back home to Daddy to make a girl feel nine years old again.
Chapter Four
B eing the chief of police had its perks, Jack realized as he walked around Pine Creek PowerSports. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had let him shop after-hours. Then again, thinking Jack was about to drop ten grand on a snowmobile might be the real reason Paul Dempsey didn’t mind missing dinner.
“If you’re looking for speed, this is the baby you want,” Dempsey said, patting the dark cherry cowling of a snowmobile that looked as if it belonged in a Star Wars movie. “Don’t let the fact that it’s a four-stroke scare you off. She’s got plenty of get-up-and-go, and her top end is one hundred and nine miles per hour right out of the crate.”
Get-up-and-go sounded good. Apparently this machine could live up to its looks. “I don’t see a hitch for a fishing sled.” Jack bent over to study the mess of wires and engine parts exposed when Dempsey lifted the cowling.
“This baby isn’t for fishing!” Paul said. “It’s designed for trail riding.”
“So I can’t ride trails and fish with it?”
Paul looked wounded. “Well, you could. But it’d be a sin to hitch a sled behind this beauty.” He gently closed the cowling with a sigh and crossed the crowded showroom. “If you’re looking mostly to fish, you’ll want this one,” he said, stopping beside a bigger and definitely less aerodynamic snowmobile. “It’s got a longer track, the clutch is geared lower for towing, and it’s a two-stroke. This is the workhorse of the fleet.”
It was also three grand cheaper.
Jack looked back at the dark cherry snowmobile.
Dempsey immediately returned to the expensive machine. “People sit up and take notice when a man shows up on a sled like this one.” He pulled a rag from his back pocket and he started to caress the hood, more than polish it. “Ain’t nothing on this lake that can catch it. And being a four-stroke, it’ll give you better gas mileage, as well as run quieter and cleaner.”
Jack looked back at the fishing machine. Damn, it was ugly. “If I buy one tonight, can you deliver it to my house tomorrow? I’m renting the Watson place in Frog Cove, out on the end of the point.”
Dempsey shook his head. “Don’t gotta deliver it. You can just drive it home.”
“It’s got to be ten miles out to my place.”
“Don’t matter. You just go down the side of this road here, cut through the center of town to the lake, and head up the western shoreline. It’ll take you twenty minutes, tops.”
“It’s legal for snowmobiles to travel on plowed roads?”
“Not really, but no one will bother you. We do it all the time.” Paul’s face suddenly reddened. “Leastwise, no one used to bother us. You gonna start enforcing that ordinance? ’Cause I gotta tell you, that would kill business downtown. Snowmobilers make up half of Pine Creek’s winter sales, especially at the restaurants.”
Jack gave him an easy smile. “I’ve only been here a week. I’m not sure yet which ordinances I’m supposed to enforce and which ones I’m not.”
Dempsey relaxed and started polishing the snowmobile again. “I’ve got a helmet that perfectly matches this paint. You show up in that and a black leather suit, and you’ll have to beat the snow bunnies off with a stick.”