Emma doubled over in laughter.
“Goddammit! Don’t get hysterical on me! If that crazy beast gets in here, you crawl out the window. Emma!”
She instantly sobered when she saw he might try to shake some sense into her. She opened her mouth to explain, but the shed door finally caved in, splintering the casing and ripping the door off its hinges. Ben swung around with his weapon raised, putting himself between her and danger.
Emma jerked the oar from his hands and threw it to the back of the shed.
“What the—”
“Pitiful! You bad boy! Stop that!”
The startled moose cocked his head to the side, looking at them from only one eye, then let out a bellow that shook the rafters.
Emma shoved at her rescuer’s back and jumped off the water tank. “Pitiful! You stop that hollering this minute. Now get out of here, you silly bull. Go on. Get!”
If ever a moose could look contrite, with an orange bow around its neck and one heavy antler tilting its head, Pitiful looked sorrier than a kid caught raiding the cookie jar. Startled to have her scolding him, he took a step back, shook his head, then bolted for the forest. Clods of muddy earth spewed up behind him, showering the shed and slapping Ben smack in the middle of his heaving chest.
Emma silently peeled the dirt off his expensive canvas shirt. Darting a curious look at his face, she quickly snapped her eyes back down and industriously began to brush at the mud that was left, fighting to keep her shoulders from shaking and her giggles from bursting free.
She lost the battle. The picture of his wild tangle of dark brown hair, his cheeks crimson, and his eyes widened in shock was indelibly burned into her brain. A giggle erupted before she could catch it.
Then the broken door slammed shut and she found herself pressed between it and a hard, unyielding chest.
It seemed Benjamin Sinclair was not amused.
“I just lost ten years of my life, and you think it’s funny?”
Emma frantically shook her head, not raising her eyes above his chest, which vibrated like a deep-rooted oak weathering a gale. Two large hands came to rest on her shoulders, their thumbs nearly touching across her throat.
“That’s good. Because I don’t see anything funny about nearly getting killed by a deranged moose.” He used his thumbs to raise her chin. “Do you?”
Emma finally found the nerve to lift her gaze and immediately wished she hadn’t. Benjamin Sinclair sure as hell wasn’t in shock now. His eyes were narrowed, and his jaw could probably chisel stone.
The sound of crashing branches and a pitiful wail came from the forest.
A loud, exasperated sigh blew over her head, all but parting her hair.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t want to, but those two thumbs became insistent. Emma looked up again … into the eyes of a man whose agenda had suddenly changed.
“Don’t, Mr. Jenkins.”
His mouth descended as if she hadn’t spoken. His lips, which had looked so hard a minute ago, softly touched hers. His hands shifted to cup her head, holding her just firmly enough to deepen the kiss. Then he tilted her head back and used those so-handy thumbs to open her mouth and invade it with his tongue.
Warmth. Unholy heat. Emma’s knees went weak and she grabbed his shirt, steadying herself against his salacious assault. Her world began spinning, a charge of sensuous energy suddenly filling the shed. Damn, the man could kiss. Every nerve touched by him, from her knees to her hair, crackled to life as Emma fought to contain the passion building inside her.
He came here to steal my nephew.
He is huge and scary and not the least bit nice.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, going on tiptoe, turning her head and touching her tongue to his.
Pitiful bellowed again, the mournful sound pulling Emma back to reality. She tore her mouth free and rested her forehead on Ben’s throat, her eyes closed and her heart pounding so violently her ribs hurt. “Don’t, Ben,” she pleaded.
Every muscle in his body went rigid. His breathing suspended and Emma felt his own heart pounding with enough force to bruise her.
“What did you just call me?”
She looked up, meeting his gunmetal stare. “Ben. Michael’s father. The man who’s come to take my nephew away.”
She was suddenly back up against the shed wall, all signs of passion completely gone. “How long have you known?”
“Since I found you on the logging road.”
His hands went back to her shoulders, and those damn thumbs lifted her chin again. “Does Michael know?”
“Probably.”
He slammed a fist into the wall over her head, shuddering the entire building. She closed her eyes when that hand returned, this time wrapping ever so securely around her throat.
“My son was stolen from me fifteen years ago—and you, Miss Sands, are directly responsible for the last ten of them. Tell me why I shouldn’t hate you.”
“Because that would take your son from you forever, Mr. Sinclair.”
He pushed away from her, kicked the water tank, and spun back to face her. “Why didn’t you try to find me when Kelly left?”
“Because Michael wasn’t ready to know you yet. He was only five. Did you expect me to introduce a child to a father who had abandoned him before birth when he’d just been abandoned by his mother? Michael needed stability. He needed me.”
“I didn’t abandon him. I never knew about Michael! I never knew Kelly was pregnant! Why didn’t you contact me later?”
Emma just stared at him.
“Dammit! Who the hell do you think you are, playing God with my life!”
“Your identity has never been kept from him. I expected Michael to look you up himself, once he was grown. The decision is his, not mine.”
Emma turned and opened the door, then looked back. “I don’t know if I believe you. Kelly said she told you she was pregnant, and that you didn’t seem all that concerned. But I do know you have a wonderful, very precious son, Mr. Sinclair. And if you ever do anything to hurt Michael, I will hunt you down and kill you.”
It took every ounce of courage Ben possessed to walk into the kitchen that evening. He nearly faltered when he saw there were only two places set at the table, and that Michael was sitting at one of them.
The boy knew who he was. Maybe. Probably,Emma had said. Michael had probably known all along that the bastard who’d seduced his mother and then walked away sixteen years ago had sat across the table from him every day for the last seven days.
How had he done it? How did a fifteen-year-old boy look a father he had never seen before in the eye, and talk to him about the history of his home, his problems with a generator, his schoolwork, and the weather? Everyday things. Meaningless, casual conversation.
“Your aunt’s not joining us tonight?”
“Nemmy’s away.”
Ben stood behind his chair and looked at his son. “But her truck’s still here. So’s the plane.”
The boy stared back at him, his eyes a calm gray ocean of unreadable depth. “She’s gone into the woods.” He took Ben’s plate to the stove and filled it.
Ben pulled out his chair and sat down. “What does that mean, she’s gone into the woods?”
Michael set a plate of stew and dumplings in front of him. “It means she’s troubled.” He sat down and picked up his fork, resting his arms on the table, looking at Ben with still calm but questioning regard. “Do you happen to know what could be troubling her, Mr. Sinclair?”
Ben picked up his fork. “She told you who I am.”
“No. I’ve known since you walked up to me at Smokey Bog.”
Ben snapped his gaze to Michael’s. “Then why the pretense all week? Why didn’t you say something?”
“You chose to come here under another name. It was your move.”
Ben took a deep breath and blew out a heavy sigh. “Only once I got here I couldn’t decide how to make that move. I didn’t know how to walk up to you and say, ‘Hi, I’m your father.’” He shrugged. “I still don’t know what to say to you.”