“
You need to be careful out here, Ms. Sinclair. Smoke is tame, but there are lots of animals around that aren’t. This is grizzly country. There are black bears and moose. If you’re going to go hiking, you had better take someone with you who knows the terrain.
“Funny, I must have missed the line of people offering to take me on a sight-seeing trip.”
He started to speak and for a moment she thought he meant to volunteer for the job. Instead, he clamped down on his jaw. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to the cabin.”
They weren’t very far away, but she didn’t point that out, just let him fall in behind her as she made her way back down the trail. She could feel him there, just behind her shoulders, purposely curbing his longer strides to keep from overrunning her shorter ones.
As soon as they reached the bottom of the hill, he whistled to his dog, who had run off after a squirrel.
“Remember what I said. Be careful out here.”
She didn’t answer, since she had no desire to do battle with a moose or a bear, and instead watched his tall figure retreat out of sight down the path beside the creek.
Call Hawkins was truly an enigma. Charity wondered if there was anyone else in his life besides the wolf-dog he kept for a pet.
”
”