Dylan’s features stiffened as if he’d heard her panicked thoughts. He turned his shoulder to Alice and faced Jim. Feeling utterly dismissed by him, Alice’s anger and helplessness swelled.
“I see you think you already know the answer,” Dylan said to Jim.
“I wouldn’t say that. If it’s anything close to what I’m thinking in my wildest imaginings, though, I can’t quite make out why I’ve been left in the dark.”
“You haven’t been left anywhere. But if you had, surely there would be good reason for it,” Dylan replied. “Whatever you’re thinking, coming out here to the woods and badgering Alice isn’t warranted.”
“Stop talking like I’m not even here!” Alice blurted out, their private little conversation infuriating her.
All three men gave her startled glances. She met Sal Rigo’s gaze straight on, zeroing in on the most comfortable target. The man had been her watchdog for the past several weeks, slinking around, following her every move on Dylan’s request. The reality of her invaded privacy suddenly seemed all too real. After she and Dylan had made love in Addie Durand’s old room last night, she’d suddenly had an unpleasant thought and asked Dylan about Rigo’s and Peterson’s nighttime duties. He assured her that her “bodyguards” were finished for the day once she was with Dylan, a fact that had relieved her greatly.
Certainly, she wouldn’t have made love later on that night in that window if she’d thought otherwise.
But had Rigo or that other Durand security manager—Josh Peterson—been skulking in the trees every time she met up with Dylan in the woods at night? Did they exchange information about it and smirk knowingly to each other? Had one of them been secretly watching on that day when she threw up after completing the zip line when Thad had comforted her, holding her against him while they talked?
Had Rigo run and told Dylan about her seemingly private interlude with Thad? Is that why Dylan had been so prickly that night when he’d found her on the beach with Thad? Nothing major had happened between Thad and her, but just the idea of her privacy being breached at such a vulnerable moment suddenly felt like a hand tightening on her throat.
“Look, I don’t know what you hoped to gain by coming here today,” she told Jim in a pressured, quiet tone, “and I don’t know why you,” she glared at Rigo, “felt it was important to run and tell Dylan about it, or why you,” she glanced at Dylan, “thought it was necessary to come here to the woods, but I do know one thing: I’m working. I don’t have time for whatever game you three are playing.” She started to walk off, then paused, frowning at Rigo. “And don’t follow me right now. Got it?”
“Alice, wait,” Dylan called tensely. He clearly wasn’t faking his concern, but she was too angry at that moment to feel any compassion for him. For the first time since she’d known him—for the first time since she’d begun to fall hard for him—she ignored his request to stop. If Dylan had his way, he’d keep her under wraps for an eternity, treating her like a fragile piece of glass that would shatter with the smallest pressure.
He still had a lot to learn about Alice.
She hauled up short with a gasp, stopping just shy of the wooded path back to the zip line platform. Sebastian Kehoe stepped into the clearing, his curious gaze running over her face. She held her breath when she saw his eyes move rapidly over the other three men.
“Dylan. This is a surprise,” Kehoe said after he’d gathered himself. “And Jim. It?
?s good to see you,” Kehoe said, stepping past Alice’s frozen form, hand outstretched. He shook hands with Jim. “To what do we owe this honor? I hope nothing is wrong at the camp?”
“No, everything is fine from what I’ve seen so far,” Jim said, returning Kehoe’s handshake. “As usual, you have Camp Durand running like a well-oiled machine.”
Kehoe looked bemused. An awkward silence fell in the clearing.
“Then what, may I ask, are the sheriff of Morgantown, the CEO of Durand, and one of my managers doing standing in the woods with one of my counselors? It must be something important. I hope Alice isn’t in any kind of trouble.”
“No, of course not. It’s nothing to worry about,” Dylan said evenly. “Jim came to see me at the office. He said he’d heard reports of extensive storm damage in the woods nearby.”
“A couple trees fell onto electrical wires, causing some outages,” Jim added, playing along with Dylan’s slight of hand admirably. “Thought we’d better come out and have a look.”
“So . . . you came out to the camp woods to check?” Kehoe asked Dylan incredulously, his tone making it clear he found the idea of the CEO of Durand Enterprises checking on possible downed trees in the woods ridiculous.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
A shiver rippled beneath Alice’s skin. Dylan’s tone was quiet, but chilling. In combination with the palpable ice in his stare, she was surprised Kehoe wasn’t frozen to the spot.
“Of course not,” Kehoe assured quickly.
After a pointed pause, Dylan spoke. “I checked the camp schedule and knew the kids were in the woods today, so I wanted to be sure everything was safe. We saw Sal up at the lodge and he said he’d show us the way to where all the activity was.”
“Thank you for the concern,” Kehoe backpedaled. “I’ve been in the woods all morning, and I haven’t seen any storm damage. Have you, Alice?”
“No, I’d already told them,” Alice said. She swallowed thickly when the four men’s attention transferred to her. She shifted on her feet awkwardly, wishing that the forest floor would swallow her whole. “I better get going to meet up with my kids for lunch,” she said, pointing in a vague direction in the forest.
Her gaze landed on Dylan before she turned. His handsome face was frozen into a steely mask, but his eyes shouted all sorts of messages at her.
Just as she entered the woods, she heard Sebastian Kehoe speak in an annoyed tone to Rigo: “I’d like a word before you go, Sal.”
ALICE arrived at the distant platform only to discover the Gold Team counselor and some managers had taken her hungry kids to lunch along with a bunch of others. After another five minutes of walking quickly but aimlessly in the woods, she still hadn’t blown off enough steam to calm down very much.