Pain burned behind her eyes. She had to stop thinking about Rich.
The gunfire hadn’t been about him. Could it have been hunters? Olivia thought of the poachers she’d seen in the region killing deer out of season, and how furious she’d been. She’d reported them to the local game warden, but they had never been caught.
Zach tensed and stepped from the shadows and into the light, his form now silhouetted in the cave entrance.
“Stay here.” He didn’t bother glancing back to see if she agreed, but stepped from the cave, expecting her to follow orders. Simple as that.
She ground her molars.
Then exhaled.
Her reaction to his instructions hadn’t been fair to him. He’d only been trying to protect her. It was in his blood. Olivia should appreciate his protective nature. She should give him a break and be grateful, as well.
Crossing her arms, she waited.
And waited.
After twenty minutes, Olivia wasn’t waiting anymore.
She crept from the cave, the gray light blinding her for a moment as she hugged the wall. She knew her way around, but wasn’t certain about Zach. Inching along the rock wall that led out of the hidden entrance, Olivia pushed back her concern that something had happened to him. He was skilled and trained to handle criminals. He knew what he was doing.
Finally, she came to the place where she’d have to climb down over the snow-covered boulders. But she spotted Zach’s path cutting into the thick white layers and followed his trail down as gusts of wind tossed snow around her. She tugged the hood of her jacket tight around her face.
Come on, Zach. Where are you?
She hadn’t realized his searching the area meant disappearing for this long. At the bottom of the boulders, she hopped to the ground and sank to her waist. Great. She followed his more than obvious plow through the depths of white and then she spotted him. Hidden behind a thick fallen tree trunk that was almost unrecognizable after the storm, he peered out into the quiet forest, cold gusts making the white-frosted trees clack together and drop loads of snow.
She crept in close and, just as she reached forward to touch him, he whirled on her with his weapon aimed point-blank.
Olivia lifted her hands in surrender. “It’s me.”
Dropping his shoulders, he released an exaggerated breath and lowered his weapon. Eyes blazing, his gaze turned on her. “What were you thinking? I told you to stay in the cave.”
Olivia moved next to him behind the trunk. “I’m not much for following orders.”
He didn’t answer for the longest time, so she risked a glance and caught him studying her. When she looked at him, that half grin cracked his face. And her heart skipped a little. Oh, no, not that. Please not that. How could his smile do that to her after a decade? She’d once thought her reaction to him had been the fluttering of a young woman’s heart, but apparently her age and experience had nothing at all to do with it.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
He dropped the grin and turned serious. “No reason that matters.” Zach nodded, gesturing toward the woods. “There are a couple of guys out there.”
“You think it’s the shooters?”
“Could be. Or maybe it’s someone else. I was waiting and watching, trying to decide.”
She dragged in a breath. “Poachers, maybe it’s my poachers.”
“Your poachers?”
“Just a couple of men I’ve seen hunting the last two winters during the off-season. There was a sweet doe I’d see hanging around the woods near the house. She got to where she wasn’t even afraid of me. I think the men killed her. I’d seen them out there in the area one day, and the next day she never came back. Makes me so mad. I’ve been hoping to take them down.”
“I’m sorry about your doe.”
“She wasn’t my pet. That’s not legal for one thing. And the other thing, it wouldn’t have been best for her.” Olivia thought of the doe’s soft brown eyes when she’d lift her head and catch Olivia outside. The doe would stare at her for a few moments then go back to foraging. Olivia hoped it wasn’t the doe’s lack of fear of humans that had gotten her killed. “It was like...we had an understanding.”
The half grin again, this time revealing his dimple. “I have no doubt that you’ll succeed in getting your poachers. Surprised you haven’t already.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that. Had he meant it as a compliment or was there a hidden meaning behind his words? “Thanks for the vote of confidence...I think.”
“I meant that as a compliment, Olivia. You were always the nurturing type. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.”
Now, don’t go complimenting me, please. I don’t want to like you, at least not in the same way I once did.
Then she saw the men between the trees, heading in the opposite direction—one of them carrying a smallish deer—a doe?—over his shoulders. Now she understood what that gunfire had been about. They had illegally killed a deer. The two men wore the same hunter’s garb she’d seen them in before. One wore a bright orange beanie, and the other a camo face mask. “It’s my poachers!”
And this time, she had Zach with her. He was an officer of the law. He could do something. The hardest part about stopping them was catching them in the act. That was what the game warden had said. In the act or holding the illegally killed animal for evidence.
“Hey!” She ran out from behind the boulder after them. “Hey, you!”
* * *
This was a bad idea. Probably why she hadn’t bothered to ask Zach his opinion. She knew what he would’ve said. And now he had to expose himself to run after Olivia. She’d given them both away. “Come back!”
But it was too late. Still, poachers weren’t usually murderers, too. They’d get slapped with a fine, if that. Poaching wasn’t a capital crime.
She expected him to confront the hunters, but she didn’t know he was no longer a police officer, wasn’t carrying a badge, though even if he were, he’d be operating outside of his jurisdiction. Still, in Oregon the law would simply require him to obtain authorization, when practical, after the fact.
That is, if he were still a law enforcement officer.
Olivia wanted him to use the force of the law behind his badge and arrest these men carrying hunting rifles and an illegal kill. She’d always been passionate about animals, about wildlife. And with her sad story of the doe she loved, poachers beware.
Reluctantly, he trailed after her. With what they had faced, he wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation of this nature. Yet somehow he found himself wanting to do something to please her, to make her happy. Hence, he’d talk to these hunters. See what was what and do what he could.
Add to that, if they hiked out of here with these two men, maybe there would be safety in numbers. They had to make it to Gideon. Even if the men weren’t willing to accompany them, Zach owed them a warning about the two dangerous men. They should leave these woods and stay clear for a few days, at least.
The two men had stopped and, instead of running away to make an escape, were waiting for their approach.
Realization slowly dawned. It washed over him along with dread. Too late, he saw his