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  You’re involved with somebody else, she reminded herself sternly. And he’s a doctor. He could still be a jerk, for all you know. Tried to bring her temperature back down, and failed miserably.

  “You all!” Alma came out and called to them, giving a welcome interruption to her wayward thoughts. “When you finish with the kindling, come on in here and get these cookies and lemonade to take back to the men.”

  “Thanks for the lesson,” Mira said, bending down herself to pick up the last pieces of kindling with Maria-Elena’s help.

  “Anytime,” Gabe said, hefting the box of wood. “I’m happy to teach you. Anytime at all.”

  “OK if we have the girls walk us back?” Alec asked Alma when they had delivered the kindling and collected the pitcher of lemonade, the basket full of cups and cookies. “They could bring this stuff back to you afterwards.”

  Alma nodded grudgingly. “As long as you don’t dilly-dally,” she told Mira. “I need you both in the garden after this.”

  “How’s your training going?” Alec asked Mira, somehow beside her again as they began the hike back to the woods.

  “Harder than I expected,” she admitted. “There’s so much to do. And we haven’t even got there. When do you think it’ll happen?”

  “Soon, I’m betting. The shooting’s the last big thing I can think of. Could be tomorrow, even. You excited?”

  “I really am. Nervous, but excited too. We all are, I think. Well, except maybe Chelsea and Melody,” she corrected. “Even Maria-Elena’s got into it a bit.” She heard the girl laugh from behind her, and glanced back to see Gabe helping her over a fallen log.

  Alec followed the direction of her gaze and smiled. “The young ones always go for him. Every time. He’s so safe.”

  “Safe?” Mira asked, startled. “Gabe?”

  “Yeah,” he said in surprise. “What, you don’t think so?”

  “No,” she said, then stopped short. No, he didn’t feel safe to her. The way he’d touched her, the meaning she’d seen in his eyes . . . It was heat she was sensing, not safety.

  “Don’t tell me my brother’s muscling in on my territory,” Alec complained.

  “I’m not your territory,” Mira said with alarm. “Or your brother’s, either. I have a boyfriend, remember?”

  “Yes, you do. But I’m supposed to be sweeping you off your feet here, making you forget about ol’ Scott. I’m the one with the bad-boy cred that says I can do it.”

  “I don’t believe you’re a bad boy,” Mira smiled. “You’re too nice.”

  “Worse and worse,” he groaned. “I guess this means we’re not going to be having a hot affair out here.”

  She laughed out loud. Outrageous as he was, he was so disarming. “I guess it does,” she said, still laughing as they approached the men again. “Too bad.”

  Gabe heard the delighted laugh and scowled. Alec, putting on the charm again. What gave him the right to pull that with Mira? He glanced at the group of men, working under John’s guidance to trim branches off the big pine, and was taken aback by the look of naked hatred on Scott’s face as the four of them approached. He, too, had heard that laugh, it seemed, the easy way Alec and Mira were walking and talking together, and had drawn his own conclusions. Well, Scott hadn’t liked either of them, not since Day One. Nothing new there.

  When the women had delivered their cookies and drinks and taken away the remains, and John had set Gabe and Alec to sawing branches along with Scott, Gabe was forced to revise his opinion. This was something new. Scott was working furiously, his expression grim, thin lips set in a hard line. He was always competitive, but now he seemed determined to outdo Alec, constantly sneaking glances at his progress across from him.

  “Whoa,” John said as Scott threw a large branch behind him with savage abandon. “Hang on there, son. The tree’s not going anywhere. It’s not a race. Slow and steady.”

  Scott looked up at him furiously from under his wide-brimmed hat. “I’m fast,” he snapped. “Is that a crime?”

  “It is if you’re too wore out to finish the day,” John said pragmatically. “From what I understand, you’ll be seeing enough contests to satisfy even you, soon enough. No point starting them now. The tree didn’t do anything to you, and these two boys didn’t either. So you can just slow right on down.”

  Scott muttered under his breath. He backed off his furious pace a little, but the dark looks he sent Alec’s way throughout the afternoon didn’t bode well for the future. Gabe wasn’t feeling too warmly toward his brother himself, but he made sure he stayed nearby, closed ranks in the way that was as familiar to him as breathing. Whatever else happened, he’d always have Alec’s back.

  “You should stop sniffing around Mira,” he said abruptly when they were back in their cabin again after dinner, pulling off their sweat-soaked shirts and dirt-encrusted jeans. Gabe hung the jeans on a hook in the rough wall with a grimace. He still wasn’t used to putting on dirty clothes, but he’d have to get there fast. Surely it was about time for the show to begin in earnest.

  Alec laughed, and Gabe felt his blood begin to boil. Why did women always go for his brother? Couldn’t they see how little he was offering? Didn’t they want more? Alec wouldn’t mean any harm, but that wouldn’t stop Mira from getting hurt. And Gabe was more than done with consoling Alec’s brokenhearted exes. He’d had a lifetime’s worth of that during high school. “I mean it,” he insisted. “Quit messing with her life. You aren’t serious, and it’s not right.”

  “Calm down, Galahad.” Alec hung his jeans next to Gabe’s and stripped his T-shirt over his head with a groan. “Damn, I’m sore. And hard as it is to believe, she isn’t falling for my devastating charm.”

  “She sure sounded like she was.”

  “She likes me. I’m nice,” Alec said with disgust, tossing the shirt onto the floor, then picking it up with a sigh at his brother’s frown and stuffing it into the laundry bag. “And you know what that means. Kiss of death.”

  “You made kind of a fool of yourself flirting with Alec today, don’t you think?” Scott was asking Mira at the same moment. She had just come out of the bathroom after a quick shower and was wrapped in one of the thin towels, her hair inadequately turbaned in another.

  “What?” she asked in confusion, hitching her towel a little higher.

  “Sweetie, you need to realize, guys like that are used to women wanting to get with them. You don’t think he’s really interested, do you? You just made yourself look ridiculous.”

  “I wasn’t flirting with him,” she protested, feeling the humiliation start to burn. Had it really looked like she was throwing herself at Alec? Had he thought so? “I like him as a friend, that’s all. And I’m sure that’s how he feels about me too.”

  “I explained this, remember? We’re not here to make friends. We're here to win.”

  “But wouldn’t it be easier to win if we did make friends?” She was sure she was right. Pretty sure, anyway.

  “If we made alliances,” he corrected. “And I’ve been working on that. Cultivating Martin, for one. I’m working on Calvin too. You need to be cozying up to Arlene, like I told you. And it wouldn’t hurt to get to know the blondes. They don’t seem to have any alliances yet, and I know I can manipulate them to do what I want. They shouldn’t feel threatened by you,” he mused, “so you can probably get on their good side.”

  She caught his meaning perfectly. She knew she couldn’t stack up against the blondes’ slim, long-legged perfection, but she wasn’t actually unattractive, was she? Scott hadn’t used to think so, anyway. She didn’t know how to pursue the topic, though, without sounding insecure and needy.

  “I know I haven’t watched that many of these shows,” she said, pushing the uncomfortable thoughts aside with an effort, “but I do think it takes more than alliances to win. They don’t always work anyway, do they? Especially if you don’t have a real bond. It seems to me that developing friendships, real ones, could be as important as strategiz
ing. And don’t you think a lot of it is just about getting along with people and being helpful to your team, so they’d rather get rid of somebody else?”

  “Sweetie,” he sighed. “You must know how naïve that sounds. Don’t you think it’s time you grew up and learned how the world works? This isn’t a party, full of nice people all being nice to each other. It’s a game, and we’re trying to win. We can only win if everybody else loses. That’s the real world. And I’m doing all the heavy lifting. I’ll take care of the planning, and any manipulating that has to be done too. The only thing, the one single little tiny thing I’m asking you to do is to follow my lead. I know you can do that.”

  A stubborn streak had her digging in her heels. “I think my approach could win just as well.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he snapped, losing the patient tone. Then made a visible effort and continued. “Look, sweetheart. You may think you can charm them and get ahead that way, but let’s be realistic here. You know I love you, but take a look at yourself in the mirror, and then look at Melody and Chelsea. Now ask yourself, in all honesty, do you think Alec, or any other man here, is going to be looking at you with the two of them around?”

  “I never said he was looking at me,” she said, trying to rally her defenses. “I know he isn’t interested. You’re the one who said I was flirting, not me.” The treacherous tears had shown up, right on schedule.

  “Aw. Come here,” he said, pulling her to him. “Don’t be so sensitive. I’m just trying to help. You don’t know how guys think, that’s all. They can be pretty cruel about girls who throw themselves at them. You stay away from him, and work harder to make friends with Arlene and the blondes. I’ll do the rest.” He tugged the towels away so she was standing naked before him, wrapped his hands in her hair, and pulled her in to kiss her.

  “Scott,” she protested, “my hair’s all wet. You should go take your shower.”

  He pulled her to the bed, pushed her down onto it and came down on top of her. “Not yet. I want to do it right now.”

  It should be exciting, she thought in dismay, being desired like this. But she kept getting distracted by the dirty, sweaty clothes he pulled off, not to mention the dirty, sweaty body underneath them. His words had made her feel frumpy and unattractive, too, with her wet hair and her skin mottled from the evening chill in the unheated cabin.

  And, as so often happened, it was too much, too fast. He’d made even less concession to foreplay than usual. Hadn’t kissed her, or talked to her, or even looked at her much. Just straight into the main attraction.

  Relax, she told herself. She closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the sensation, but she hadn’t had enough chance to get going, and it wasn’t even that comfortable, let alone stimulating. Her mind began to drift as Scott continued on. And on. Driving hard, as if he were making some kind of statement.

  She found herself thinking about Gabe again, the way he’d smiled down at her. I’m going to give her her lesson. He hadn’t meant anything sexual by it. But imagine if he had. She let herself explore the possibilities of that, and began to warm at the thought. And then, as abruptly as he’d started, Scott was done.

  “Was it good for you too?” he asked as always, still breathing heavily.

  You are responsible for your own orgasm. If she didn’t tell him what she needed, how would he know? And she was tired of mediocre sex. Or downright bad sex, nights like this. “Could you touch me some more? I need a little more to get there.”

  He sighed and obliged. But after ten minutes, his lack of enthusiasm, not to mention the fact that she kept having to gently nudge his hand back to the right spot, broke through the fantasy she’d been determinedly working on. She thought about faking it, but she was sick of pretending.

  “That’s OK,” she said. “You can stop. I’m not going to get there. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, getting up and heading to the bathroom. “I’m going to grab a shower and go to sleep. I’m beat.”

  But when she was alone, there Gabe was, right back in her head, moving into her fantasy and taking control. Those hands, moving over her. Taking their time. The dark blue eyes looking into hers as he talked to her, said all the things she wanted to hear. That mouth, chiseled but so generous, moving slowly down her body as his hands parted her legs.

  Luckily, it was a long shower. And by the time Scott came out of the bathroom, she was feeling much better.

  Hitting the Target

  “Right,” John said the following morning. They had got into the vans again for the first time since their arrival and been taken to an outdoor shooting range, a simple affair of a few targets nailed to the face of a grassy bank about fifty yards away. “Who’s shot before?” He looked at Stanley. “Bet you have.”

  “Me and my boy both,” Stanley agreed.

  “Did you serve?” John asked. “I’ve been wondering.”

  “Yeah. Marines.”

  John nodded. “Thought so. You’ve got the look.”

  “You were a Marine?” Mira asked.

  “He is a Marine,” Gabe put in. “That’s the deal, right? You never quit?”

  Stanley laughed, a pleasant rumble in the morning air. “You got it. Sounds like you’ve been around a few.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe agreed. “I practice sports medicine, and I’ve worked with some of the amputees, once they’re back in business. And when they get competitive, they mean it. Even on one leg. Especially,” he grinned at Stanley, “the Marines.”

  “Anyone else?” John looked at Hank. “You?”

  “Nope. Never in the service, and haven’t shot a gun in years. It’s not too dangerous out there on the folk rock circuit. Plus all that singing about peace and love, doesn’t really fit the image, you know. When I was a boy in Texas, though, back before the earth cooled, I handled a firearm a time or two.”

  “I have too,” Lupe said in her usual quiet tone. “Rough neighborhoods,” she explained when the others looked at her in surprise.

  “Gabe and I’ve done a little bit,” Alec put in. “Scout camp. At least, that’s the last time I shot.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Gabe agreed.

  Mira could feel Scott’s restlessness beside her. He didn’t like to be second-best at anything, and she knew it was rankling that he didn’t know guns.

  “All right, then,” John said. “First thing I want to say today is, I don’t care if this is the hundredth time you’ve heard all this, or the first. You need to listen, and listen good. Gun safety’s no joke. Any time you’re holding a firearm, you take it seriously. Always assume it’s loaded. Always assume you could kill someone, if you get it wrong. So don’t get it wrong.”

  “Can I just say something?” Arlene interjected.

  “Go right ahead,” John said resignedly.

  “Martin and I would prefer to sit this out. We’re pacifists, and we’re not comfortable handling a weapon. We wouldn’t shoot anything anyway, so there’s no point in our learning.”

  “You planning on telling ol’ Mama Grizz you’re a pacifist, when she comes for you?” John asked. “Or when a pack of wolves shows up? You can call yourself anything you like. They’ll just be calling you dinner.”

  “Bear attacks are extremely rare,” Martin snapped. “And there’s never been a documented case of a wolf attacking a human in the United States. I read up on it before we came.”

  “Have the bears and wolves signed your mutual nonaggression treaty?” Kevin asked innocently. “And what about livestock? Have wolves been given a bad rap on that too? Or do your rules of interspecies harmony require us to share our cattle with them?”

  “You got a point there,” John said. “A nice calf, that’d be a mighty tasty dinner for a hungry wolf pack. You aren’t required to kill anything, just scare them off. Wouldn’t manage it anyway, not unless you got lucky, not with the birdshot we’ll be giving you. But with a 12-gauge and a good dog, you’ll make ’em think twice.”

 
“But why do the women have to learn?” Arlene objected. “If we’re going to be stuck in the house all the time? There isn’t likely to be a wolf in the kitchen.”

  “Just in case,” John said. “You need to learn how to handle this thing safely, at the very least. I don’t want anyone getting shot on my watch. Now, first rule: never point your gun at anything you’re not intending to shoot.”

  Scott shifted restlessly beside Mira as the safety lecture continued. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. “We get it. Don’t keep it loaded, don’t point it at anyone, blah blah blah.”

  “You said we aren’t going to be able to kill anything,” he said more loudly, interrupting John’s lecture. “Why not? Wouldn’t they have been shooting deer anyway, back then? We’re going to get pretty tired of eating beans, otherwise. I’m tired of it already.”

  “Fish and Game might have something to say about that,” John said. “Hunting season’s not till October. And having you all out there with axes and saws is bad enough. Add buckshot to the mix, somebody gettin’ excited and making a mistake, and we could have a corpse on our hands. I’m sure that’d be real good TV, but you probably don’t want to be providing that kind of entertainment.”

  “Unless it was somebody really unpopular,” Kevin murmured, his mischievous gaze darting to Scott. “I smell ratings bonanza.”

  One by one, after the safety lecture was concluded, the sixteen of them took turns handling, loading, and firing the old-fashioned double-barrelled shotgun. Mira waited nervously for her chance, watching Melody exclaim at the recoil, turn to Gabe to ask a question that John answered. And then Zara, handling the gun as easily and competently as she did everything else. No fuss whatsoever. And hitting the target, too.

  Then John calling Scott forward. Scott taking the gun from him, going through the steps, nodding impatiently at John’s reminders. Pulling the trigger . . . and nothing happening.

  “What the hell?” he asked, beginning to turn the gun in his hands.