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“I’m so sorry,” Chad whispered, actually wringing his hands.
She shook herself, and squared her shoulders. “His manners aren’t your fault,” she said, reaching for the reins of the dark bay before he could take it into his head to wander off.
Chad helped her get the horses unsaddled and watered, and the supplies put away in her tent. She wouldn’t have much room to move around, but that didn’t matter; she wouldn’t be in the tent much anyway, and this way everything was at hand, plus no prowling predator could get into their supply and destroy everything, at least not without alerting her. She not only kept her rifle at hand, but she also had a pistol, and she slept with it.
As she’d expected, Chad was moving a little gingerly, but he didn’t complain. Soon enough they had all the chores done, though the work would have gone faster if Davis had stirred himself to help. She noticed Chad kept darting little anxious glances at the tent, and finally he said hesitantly, “Should I … I mean, were you planning to do any hunting today?”
“It’s wasted time if we don’t at least scout around,” she pointed out. “I know where I found bear sign before, and we need to see if there’s any fresh sign.” Taking a bear wasn’t an easy proposition; Montana didn’t allow hunters to put out bait for bears or use scent to pull them in. They had to find the bear, if possible call one in using a bear call, and their hunting time was limited from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.
“I’ll, uh, I’ll call Mitchell,” Chad said, squaring his shoulders, and went off to Davis’s tent.
Angie got out her hunter orange vest and put it on, checked her two cans of bear spray to make certain she could get to them without having to move anything out of the way. She loaded her rifle, put an extra box of ammo in one of the vest pockets. She had her binoculars, her bear call, a bottle of water, and while she was waiting for Chad to come back out of Davis’s tent she hastily ate a protein bar, chasing it with water. The biscuit she’d eaten for breakfast had long since worn off and she was starving.
Chad came back out of the tent, his face the dark red that had become so familiar on the ride into the mountains. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “He, um, he said when you found the bear he’d come along. Until then, he isn’t interested.”
Now was a very good time to begin meditating. Angie held her breath for a few seconds, then let it out slowly. Again. There, that was better. Maybe there really was something to this breathing stuff. She didn’t think she had any huge anger issues—other than where Dare Callahan was concerned, then all bets were off—but she supposed she had her moments. Everyone had a breaking point, and she was well past hers where Davis was concerned.
Most of the time she loved her job. Almost all of her clients were perfectly nice people who enjoyed the outdoors, who loved a challenge, who simply liked to hunt. When they weren’t hunting they were telling stories, talking, joking, laughing. They came up here to relax, to have a good time.
This week wasn’t going to be like that. She’d never refunded a fee and walked away in her professional life, and she wouldn’t this time either because she needed the money, but oh, boy, she wanted to. Whether or not she and Dare agreed on a deal they could both live with, she had bills to pay, so she’d stick.
It hit her that this might very well be her last job as a hunting guide—here, anyway. She didn’t have anything else scheduled, and the odds were that come spring she’d be living in a new place, getting accustomed to a new job and new neighbors. Maybe she didn’t have any choice, but damn it, she didn’t want to go out like this, annoyed and stressed to the max.
But it looked as if that was what she was going to get. Maybe this was a sign that she was doing the right thing, selling out and moving on.
“He’s an ass,” she muttered, then realized she’d said that aloud and looked at Chad with an appalled expression. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I apologize. I should never have said that.”
Chad mopped his shiny face, then gave her a shy smile. “Yeah, I know,” he said, keeping his tone low. Then he gave a helpless shrug, as if to say, What can you do?
She should have known, should have expected it when Davis had left her to take care of all the horses, not even tending to the bay he’d been riding. He was a decent horseman, she’d give him that, which made it even more incomprehensible that he hadn’t offered to take care of the animal that had hauled his ass up here. His personality would be vastly improved if he were more like the horse he’d ridden: silent, and gelded. Come to think of it, that would apply to a certain other man she could think of, though it totally pissed her off that she couldn’t put him completely out of her mind.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Chad said, darting an anxious look at the closed tent on the far end. “I know he likes to hunt, he talks about it all the time. I really enjoyed going out with you last time, and I thought, well, I had no idea he’d be …” He let his sentence trail off, evidently not wanting to call his client a bastard.
“Not your fault, Chad,” Angie said honestly. She smiled at him, trying to ease his discomfort. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and both of you will bag a bear tomorrow. I don’t think anyone would mind if this trip ends early.”
Chad shrugged. “If he gets a bear, I’ll be happy to call the hunt done. I mean, I have my permit for a bear, but I’m really not much of a hunter. I just don’t get into it.”
That was kind of sad, that he forced himself to go on this kind of a trip with a man who seemed bent on making everyone around him miserable.
“Then why don’t you take it easy the rest of the day,” she said, thinking of his sore muscles, “while I see what I can find.”
A relieved expression chased across his face before he blinked and said, “But isn’t that dangerous, going out on your own?”
“Dangerous enough, but I’m armed, and I have the bear spray.” She thought about saddling up the roan and riding it, but the idea was to not spook any nearby bear. Besides, she wasn’t going that far, and the horses needed a rest. The trail was rough and mostly uphill, and the brush was thick where she needed to go. She felt her stomach draw up tight at the idea of going in alone, but she’d done it before when she scouted up here. All she wanted was to find some fresh bear scat, then she’d quietly and quickly retreat, and tomorrow they’d go hunting.
Breathe.
Dare thought about calling Harlan so Harlan could remind him again why this was such a good idea. What else was the satellite phone good for if he couldn’t call an old friend who’d convinced him to act like a stupid idiot, so he could reinforce the idea?
Fishing. He wanted to fish. That was definitely a good idea. Angie wouldn’t need any help from him, or accept it even if she did, but he could use some down time. Fishing was just the ticket.
Even though guiding hunters and fishermen was his job and he spent a lot of time in the mountains, he still loved it here. The solitude, the rough landscape, the smell of the mountain—they never got
old. When he’d been a hell-raising teenager he’d spent a lot of time up here on his own, but now he was a damn adult, responsible, a small-business owner, and he’d been too damn busy to enjoy life. He’d make trips up this way to resupply, or take care of repairs, but coming alone to fish? No. There was always too much to do, and taking a little vacation of his own was so far down on his list that he didn’t even know it was there. Maybe he was way past due for this kind of break.
The fact that Angie was also on the mountain with the men who gave Harlan the willies … that was a coincidence. Nothing more.
Yeah, right. After dismounting, Dare turned so he faced the direction of the camp Angie had leased for the week. He had a great sense of direction and he knew this mountain better than anyone, so he mentally placed the camp almost immediately. If not for the mountains, trees, and the distance, he’d be looking right at Angie and her hunting party. He’d been there a time or two himself, knew how far it was from his camp, which paths led to that camp. It wasn’t the best, nor was it the worst. What it was, was acceptable.
