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“Now we’ll have to carry all this gear an extra quarter of a mile! Why don’t you go back and drop us off? Then you can go park.”
She laughed and turned off the engine. Then she climbed out of the vehicle without dignifying that with a reply.
Martin met her at the back of the vehicle with an apologetic look. She gave him a smile meant to be reassuring. It wasn’t his fault. In fact, she was thrilled he was along. He offered a nice buffer between her grumpy guide and her downright rude peer.
She got her gear on her back and headed up the road without waiting for Craig. She was in a hurry to dispel her growing suspicion that Tucker had severely sabotaged her.
He met her by the road with Sundance by his side. The smug look on his face told her all she needed to know, and her growing fondness for the dog wasn’t enough to tamp down her wrath. “What have you done?” she said through a tight jaw.
“I got us more eyeballs. I’ve already gone up—”
“No toad is going to walk out into a giant crowd.”
His eyebrows went up. “As I was saying, if you’d let me finish ... May I finish?”
She glared at him. Maybe she should fire him. Did she really need him anymore?
“I’ve already gone up the trail and found a few spots where the trail widens out. I figured we’d drop a small team at each spot. We can go to the top one if you want, so your spot will have had the least commotion.” He stopped talking and studied her.
She wasn’t sure what to say, so she glanced away from his penetrating eyes and looked at the group of men instead. Most of them were staring back at her. “You don’t have any female friends?” she said because she couldn’t think of anything else to say and she was feeling snarky.
Without looking, he pointed at the crowd, and she realized one of the shorter men was in fact a woman.
“Meet Blade, the toughest person here.”
The woman with the absurd name waved, and only then did Wynona see her cousin Holden standing there beside her. She glared at him too. Good grief, the whole state was ganging up on her.
“It’s going to be chaos,” she said. “None of these people know anything about the project.”
The readiness of his answer suggested he’d been expecting this particular protest. “They have all been clearly told to call you immediately if they see anything resembling a toad.” He touched his radio as if to remind her that she was carrying one. Then he stepped closer and lowered his voice. “And these are hunters. They know how to be quiet in the woods.”
Of course this was true. She glanced at them. They were all dressed appropriately. Most of them even wore camo. They looked like they knew what they were doing. But how was she going to explain this to Sarah?
“Why are you so upset?” He seemed completely shocked by this notion.
“Are you kidding? You’ve completely blindsided me! Why didn’t you tell me you were assembling a small army?”
“I didn’t realize I had to ask permission. And you know what? I didn’t! This is a free country. You feds haven’t shut down the forest yet, so these people have every right to walk into it.”
She felt her eyes grow wide. “Are you challenging me to shut it down?” Her eyes locked with his, but she could see Holden drifting their way.
“Wynnie,” he said softly. “This is a good thing, or I wouldn’t be here.”
She turned on him. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
He didn’t even flinch. Of course not. Nothing ever rattled Holden.
“Tucker has been smart. You have plausible deniability. You didn’t ask these people to come here. They just showed up. And you had no authority to make them leave. So ...” He glanced at the sky. “Let’s get going, unless you’re thinking the sun might not set today.”
“Fine.” She looked at Tucker. “We only have one light.”
He pointed to the crowd. “I got more. They’re carrying them.”
Of course he’d thought of that. His smarts were annoying. “And they all know what the western Blake toad looks like?”
“They don’t need to. They know what a toad looks like, and they’re going to call you for any toad.”
Oh yeah, he’d said that already. Now she was making a fool of herself. “Let’s go.”
