LITMIR.BIZ

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sighed. Sam wanted to get angry, to tell his brother to mind his own business, but he knew Leo was only looking out for him—and he appreciated that, even if his brothers did tend to be a little overbearing at times. But wasn’t that what older brothers were for?

      “I’m going out to the site, Leo.”

      “That’s fine.” His brother’s tone shifted again, back to business. “And I’m on board with you working on your day off, but you can’t drive out there. There are literally live wires in the road. Aaron took his horse, Hera, through one of the back trails to set a roadblock at the other end about an hour ago, and apparently the trails aren’t bad. A little muddy and some minor debris, but at least there are no live wires. And the denseness of the forest means a trail is going to be easier going than the road in terms of debris size. Are you taking Kara with you? Is that wise?”

      Sam closed his eyes. “Yes, I think so, and yes. If she’s a target, she’s safest with a trained and armed RCMP officer by her side. I know those trails outside of town better than anyone, and for that matter, I highly doubt there’ll be other people around at six in the morning after a severe storm.”

      “Take Zephyr and Brenik,” Leo suggested. “They could use the exercise. Zephyr is looking a little pudgy around the middle these days.”

      “Speak for yourself,” Sam teased, then hung up and joined Kara on the porch. She blinked her teardrop eyes at him, waiting. “We’ll take the horses. I’m going to be fully geared up, but stay close. So far, the cowards who’ve bothered you have fled when I’ve come on-scene, so I’m not too worried. But a little extra planning and caution doesn’t hurt.”

      Her eyebrows raised, and she took a literal step back. “Extra planning? I guess a lot has changed, hasn’t it?”

      “Follow me,” he said, ignoring her dig at his past tendency to skate through life without a care, expecting the world to bend to him instead of considering his future. He led the way outside. The sky still held the yellowish tinge of a recently passed storm, and the roads were littered with broken branches, sopping-wet leaves and loose papers, and plastic patio furniture. Sam worried that he might open the station’s stable to find frightened, skittish horses, but he needn’t have been concerned. The three horses for their detachment munched calmly on their breakfast and greeted him with soft whinnies. He readied the two most experienced horses of the group, Brenik and Zephyr, and handed a set of reins to Kara. “You remember how to ride?”

      She leveled her gaze at him, then patted Zephyr on the snout. The creature’s eyes flicked nervously toward Sam, but she almost immediately succumbed to Kara’s curled fingers scratching behind her ears. “It’s been a while, but I think I can manage. These horses are massive. I’ve never seen horses this big before.”

      “Brenik is seventeen point three hands. Zephyr is sixteen hands, and Hera over there is sixteen and a half. RCMP horses used to be primarily Thoroughbred, but now have Hanoverian in the bloodline for temperament.”

      “Did you train these horses yourself?”

      He couldn’t help but smile at the wonder on her face. She looked as innocent as a child, staring at these massively powerful but gentle giants. “No, the farm is located in Pakenham, Ontario, in the Ottawa Valley. At three years old, they’re transferred to a training facility at Rockcliffe Park Equestrian Center in Ottawa. Their handlers are total pros and do a fantastic job. Most horses are raised for a career in the Musical Ride. It’s an incredible spectacle, if you ever get a chance to see it. Aaron participated for a few years before coming to Fort Mason.”

      “That’s the only time the RCMP wears those red uniforms anymore, eh?”

      “It’s iconic, but yes—the red is really only ceremonial these days.” He waited until she’d settled herself in the saddle before getting situated, then led the way out and onto the road. The town felt unnaturally still and quiet after the intensity of the night before, and he couldn’t help but keep a constant watch on their surroundings. While he felt mostly certain that Kara’s attacker wouldn’t dare try anything while she rode with him, letting his guard down would be a mistake.

      At the edge of town, Sam waved to his brother who sat in an RCMP patrol car, lights flashing. Bright orange pylons blocked the road, and one look down the main stretch out of Fort Mason showed exactly why. Leo hadn’t been exaggerating about the amount of debris on the road—Sam noted several fallen trees and multiple downed wires. Some of the power line posts leaned dangerously toward the road and would need to be righted before the route could be opened again. Anyone who needed to leave town would have to take the eastern road and add a solid forty-five minutes to their journey. That was both a benefit and a disadvantage of living in the mostly uninhabited wilds of northern British Columbia—it provided peaceful isolation from the frantic pace of urban life, but also meant an occasionally frustrating lack of accessibility to the rest of the province.

      He steered Brenik toward a blue-and-white provincial parks sign that denoted the start of a maintained trail just outside town. “This should bring us fairly close to the dig site,” he said, looking back at Kara. “I assume you brought something to take photos with?”

      She nodded. “I used a portable battery to charge my phone at your parents’ place. The resolution of the images won’t be nearly as high as with my camera—my cell phone is a few generations old—but it should do as proof for Gaida Industries.”

      Sam’s shoulders tightened at the reminder of Ed Tigh’s attitude the day before. “Do you deal with a lot of pushback in your line of work? His hostility seemed uncalled for.”

      Kara’s nostrils flared as she drew Zephyr up alongside him. “I wish I could say it’s unusual, but it’s not. I’m a woman working on contracts with industries that are male-dominated. Like any line of work, I run into people who respect my expertise and those who resent it, though I suspect I might encounter more resentment because government-regulated survey work, by its very nature, causes delays for companies looking to conduct large-scale digging and building operations. They often see my purpose as a waste of time and money, regardless of the necessary historical value in local archaeology.”

      “So I shouldn’t be concerned about the way he spoke to you?”

      Kara stared straight ahead at the path. “I can fight my own battles when it comes to my job, Sam. I appreciate your intervention in the physical ones, but I’ve handled these types before. I’ll just get the photos I need as proof, and then he’ll have to back down and let me work. If the survey isn’t complete, the government can swoop in and shut Gaida Industries down, so regardless of whether he thinks I’m making it all up or not, he needs me here to do this work.”

      Sam ground his teeth, thinking about what her attacker had said last night at the motel. Gaida Industries might need the survey done, but someone didn’t want her here at all, and they’d gone out of their way to make sure she didn’t start digging. But if they successfully ran her out of town, wouldn’t another archaeologist just come along instead? Where was the sense in trying to scare her away?

      After another kilometer or so, he pulled them off the trail and into the forest. The ground was damp, but not nearly as wet as the exposed ground that hadn’t received the benefit of cover from trees overhead. Kara had remained silent, and he didn’t know what to say—how did he talk to her about anything other than work and the attacks without dredging up old hurts and angry emotions on both sides?

      Still, he didn’t mind the silence all that much. It gave him a chance to think over what had happened the day before. Even if Kara didn’t think anything of Ed Tigh’s hostility, something about the man’s attitude and the attacks didn’t sit right with Sam.

      “It’s right up here, I think,” he said as they broke through a dense line of trees. “You can see the forest starting to thin here. Must be why they chose this area. You’re going to have quite the stretch of earth to survey, aren’t you?”

      She nodded as the disturbed ground of the site came into view. “Yes, my team and I have several weeks of work at minimum, but the good news

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