Emma found Ben in the guest bathroom, where he was using a hand towel to wipe the dirt from his face. There were three scratches on his cheek and several running the length of his bicep but they weren’t deep. She leaned against the doorframe.

“So, you want to tell me what that was about?”

“This is a bad idea. It’s too dangerous. This person has gone from spray-painting to slaughtering animals. It’s insane that you want to invite trouble right in your front door.”

Emma arched a brow. “Insane?”

He dropped his hands to the counter and bowed his head forward for a moment before turning to pin her with a pointed look. “Yes, Emma, insane. As in you’re deliberately putting yourself in harm’s way. Rational people avoid that.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Um, didn’t we just have this conversation? You know, the one where I told you how my job and relationships don’t mix well because it’s dangerous. And,” she tapped a finger against her cheek, staring up at the ceiling, “weren’t you the same guy who told me we’d figure it out?”

“That was about working with dangerous animals, not some crazy guy out to get you.”

“Protecting my sanctuary from some guy trying to get it shut down is part of my job. Safeguarding this place and the animals housed here is my job. This is my job, Ben. This,” she said, circling her hand in front of him, “is why I don’t date and do relationships.”

“I’m trying to protect you, Emma. Not some animals, not some land. You.”

She took a deep breath and looked up at him. His eyes begged her to understand, to agree with him, but she didn’t. She laid her hand against his cheek, feeling the stubble on his jaw, rough but seductively so.

“Ben, I’ve never asked you to protect me and I’m not asking for your permission. I am a grown-ass woman and this is my business to protect.”

Maybe Andrew was right, even if he was acting like a dick about it. Ben wanted to save her from her troubles. He did. But the fact was, Emma didn’t want to be rescued. She wanted someone to believe she could be her own savior. She’d thought Ben understood that but, apparently, he was no different than anyone else in this town. Emma knew what she had to do, had known this was a bad idea from the start, but it didn’t break her heart any less to utter the words.

“You should go.”

Ben could feel the sweat trickling over his skin as the late afternoon sun bore down on them and they tried to turn the grass fire back toward the pond nestled in the center of the pasture. The dry pastureland had been a perfect opportunity to give the two probies experience fighting grass fires with plenty of veterans to help out if there was any trouble. Unfortunately, as a lieutenant, Ben always ended up working behind the newbies, carrying the hose. A boring, thankless job if there ever was one on the crew.

“Hey, probie,” he said. Ben tugged the hose, pulling Ryan back slightly as he corrected his trajectory and aimed at the fire he was supposed to be putting out. “Watch the flames instead of Angie. You’re crossing the fire line.”

“What?”

Ryan looked down at the ground where he’d stepped outside the charred grass, taking his focus off the fire ahead of him. The kid had been mooning over Angie ever since she’d gone home with him. Ben knew several of the others were already razzing him about it. He needed to get his head back on straight or they were going to have to cut him loose. Ben dreaded the talk he was going to have to have with the guy.

“This is why you don’t sleep with women on the crew, kid.”

“I’ve got this under control.”

Ben heard the defensive note in Ryan’s voice. He didn’t have time to pander to some joker playing fireman when it was his life on the line. “Then maybe next time you should turn the hose on the fire before you start walking through it.”

“Do you want to take this end?” Ryan sounded pissed. Ben could hear it in his voice but he really didn’t care. The kid was reckless and he wasn’t putting his neck on the line for reckless people anymore.

Images of Emma filled his mind. She wasn’t just reckless, she was impetuous, hot-headed and irrational. Why the hell couldn’t that woman recognize the fact that she needed help, whether it came from him or someone else, and stop taking risks she had no business taking?

“You coming or are you going to keep daydreaming?” Ryan jerked at the hose Ben was carrying for him, tugging him off balance.

Shit! He’d just done exactly what he scolded Ryan for doing—losing focus on the task at hand. It was something he didn’t do. At least, he never had before Emma. He wasn’t going to start doing it now.

They finished dousing the fire and headed back to the trucks. Angie moved closer, sliding her goggles onto the top of her helmet before tugging it off.

“What’s your issue, Ben?” He shot her a sideways glance and kept walking, ignoring her question. “Hey! I’m talking to you.” Angie reached up and jerked the back of his turnout coat in her gloved fist. “What the hell gives you the right to interfere in my relationships when you can’t even manage your own?”

“Relationship?” He leaned over her, shadowing her with his much larger frame, hoping that it was enough to convince her to back off. This wasn’t a subject that was up for discussion. “You’ve slept with half the guys on the crew and propositioned the other half. How is that a relationship?”

“Wow! I had no idea what a son of a bitch you could be. I thought you left that up to your brother. Good to know.” She shoved him back a few steps, not intimated in the slightest by him. “Ryan is different. If you ever got your head out of your ass you’d realize that not all relationships look the same.”

“He’s five years younger than you.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

Ben looked over at Ryan laughing with one of the other guys near the engine as they cleaned up. Angie and Ryan? As in a serious relationship? She’d never had one, not even for the six months they’d been together.

She arched a brow at him, daring him to question her again. “Things aren’t always the way they first appear, McQuaid. Just because we started out as a one-night stand doesn’t mean it can’t turn into more, or that we have to get married. Quit being such a judgmental prick.”

He opened his mouth but she shook her head and slammed her helmet into his chest. “For almost screwing up my date for tonight, you can take care of my gear. No bitching either since I saved your ass last week.” She winked at him. “Oh, the joys of having you owe me favors.”

Angie walked to Ryan and Ben didn’t miss the way the guy’s eyes lit up. It was easy to see he was head over heels for Angie. Ben had no doubt that Angie was going to tear him up and rip his poor infatuated heart to shreds. She had never been serious about anyone. Angie smiled at the kid, grabbing him by the front of his coat and tugging him close for a kiss. The look on her face as they separated suddenly made him question his own presumptions.

If that wasn’t love in her eyes, he’d clean every engine at the station single-handedly.

And it was the same way Emma looked at him.

At least she had until yesterday.

Emma watched as the crowd made their way to the gate of the main compound. She’d already been through the facility, double-checking all of the locks and making sure the animals were fed before hanging signs and rope barriers where she didn’t want visitors wandering. During her last walk-through, most of the animals had been sleeping, full and happy, after breakfast. She glanced at Andrew, who walked in the lead, directing the visitors to an open area at the sanctuary gate. She almost laughed at seeing him decked out in cargo shorts and a polo shirt bearing the sanctuary’s emblem.

“If everyone will come this way and gather around, we can start the tour,” she instructed. “We’re going to split everyone up into smaller groups. Some of you will follow Sadie.” Her volunteer raised a hand and waved at the crowd. “And some of you will follow Drew.”

Andrew glared at her but recovered quickly, waving at the group. They’d planned it the day before in hopes that most of the people attending wouldn’t recognize him. Since each volunteer carried a clipboard with them, Emma had written him a script to use while taking his group on the tour. They had invited twenty people from the community, including a Make-a-Wish child and the reporter from the local paper who had been writing the articles. While there were several people with cameras ready, there was only one with a lens long enough to capture every individual hair on Buster. That had to be the reporter. Emma would make sure that he ended up in Andrew’s group where they could keep an eye out for suspicious activity as well as his reactions to the animals.

She handed out colored slips of paper to the group, including the three children in the group. She knew the Make-a-Wish girl wanted to pet a wild animal and Sadie had been instructed to let them all pet Millie since she was tame. “Everyone with a yellow card will follow Sadie. She’s going to take you to the see the cats first.”

Emma glanced at Andrew as he jerked his chin toward the man she suspected was the photographer. “The rest of you are going to go with Drew and start with our aviary and the birds we house in there.”

Andrew nodded as he headed for the bird enclosure, with the group following him closely. It was an easy place for them to start and for no one to be suspicious when she followed since she would be taking Winger, their red-tailed hawk out for them to see up close. She heard Andrew making small talk with the reporter as she hurried to grab the gauntlet from the trunk and meet them outside the aviary.

“Emma.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of Ben’s voice behind her. Part of her wanted to rejoice at his presence. Part of her ached with pain at his return, knowing they could never make it work. She kept her back to him, hoping that if she didn’t turn around, it would hurt less and she could maintain her restraint. Especially when her legs were twitching, wanting to turn and run into his arms.

“Why are you here? You made your thoughts about this clear the other day, Ben.”

“I was wrong.”

She turned hesitantly. She had no idea what had caused this change of heart and, as much as she didn’t want to, she had to question his sudden backtracking.

Before she could ask him, he closed the distance between them, looking far too handsome in his jeans and a polo shirt matching Andrew’s. “I’m here to do whatever you need, even if you just want me to go to hell.”

He started to raise his hand, reaching for her, but she sensed the hesitation in him. She wanted to reach for him, to drag him down to her, to feel his mouth on hers, to savor the taste of him again. But nothing had changed. He was still trying to rescue her, to save her.

“You promised me once that you’d be whatever I needed. I need a friend. Not a lover.” His hand dropped back to his side and she saw the defeat flicker in the depths of his eyes. “Ben, we both know that neither one of us can go back to that.”

He dropped his chin toward his chest, disappointment clear, and closed his eyes. When he looked at her again, there was something different in them. She no longer saw the softness, the gentle gaze he always seemed to have when he looked at her. There was a fierce determination in them she’d never seen before.

“You’re right. This is exactly why we set up the ground rules, isn’t it?”

She took a step backward, unsure how to react to the new man she saw in front of her, a man she didn’t know. A man who sounded harder, more self-assured. A man who seemed more like his stubborn brother than the gentle man she’d met only a few weeks ago in this very same spot.

“I can follow them and go back.” His mouth formed a thin line as he set his jaw stubbornly. “Are you saying I can do something that you can’t?”

She’d never been one to turn down a challenge and she could hear it in his tone.

“If you can, I can. Let’s go get Winger. You think you can keep from dropping her this time, wimp? No woman likes to be let down.”

“Bring it.”

It had been a joke. She’d been teasing. But instead of being funny, it sounded more like a dare. And she wasn’t so sure he was talking about holding the bird.

The group was already waiting for them as Ben slid the gauntlet onto his arm. The hawk flew from her perch as soon as he stepped into her enclosure and he held her tether between his fingers, sliding her hood on the way Emma had shown him. He knew he should be concentrating on the bird on his arm but he couldn’t help but watch Emma instead.

He was waiting for the right moment. Somehow he’d managed to lie to her face, telling her he could be just a friend. But, like Angie said, their relationship didn’t have to look a certain way. It had started burning hot and, in spite of the trouble dogging her, it hadn’t cooled the way others had, or the way she’d suggested it would. If anything, he was burning even hotter for her, yearning for her. Not just physically. Ben wanted to be with Emma, to be a part of her life, for her to be part of his. Even if it meant watching her put herself in danger on a daily basis. She was trying, exciting, challenging and sexy as hell. A life with her would be a never-ending game of tug-of-war, but it would also never be boring or predictable. He’d thought that was what he’d wanted. Maybe it was, until he’d met Emma.

If that meant telling her he’d be nothing more than a friend, for now, then that’s what he’d be. He had no doubt that, somehow, they’d work their way full circle. He’d make sure of it and this was merely the first step. Any other answer would have ended with her pushing him away permanently.

Ben stood where Emma directed, waiting for her to indicate he should take the bird’s hood off.

“This is Winger, a red-tailed Hawk. As you can see, she’s a beautiful bird with a very wide wingspan and very sharp talons.”

As if understanding Emma’s spiel, the hawk shifted, digging her talons into the thick leather of the glove, climbing higher on his wrist. Ben lifted his arm slightly and she shifted back toward his hand.

“Red-tailed hawks are very intelligent and have been trained to hunt for falconers since medieval times. However, they are wild animals and they can become frightened so when Ben here removes her hood, I need everyone to stay quiet and still, okay?”

A hand from the crowd raised and Emma pointed at a woman standing close to what appeared to be her husband. “Can we pet her?”

“Because most of the animals here are not tame pets, only trained personnel can handle them. The volunteers have been instructed on how to hold her and even we don’t pet her. Here at Sierra Tracks, we try to keep the animals’ environment as close to natural as possible, even for those like Winger, who are unable to be released back into the wild.”

The woman raised her brows at Ben, as if still questioning. “That’s a no,” he clarified. The last thing he wanted was to have his eyes clawed out by a spooked hawk just because some woman decided to rush in.

Emma shot him a warning glance. Okay, so maybe he could have been a bit less blunt. “Go ahead and take her hood off, Ben.”

He cupped his hand over the hood, lifting it up and sliding it down the bird’s beak quickly. Winger immediately looked around, curious at her surroundings and the people circling them. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine the bird spreading her wings and beating at him with them as she shifted nervously. Ben raised his arm slightly and Winger spread her wings wide for a moment, eliciting an awed gasp from the group as she beat the air slightly before ruffling her feathers and settling on his arm again. Ben saw a man in front drag a massive camera to his face and take some quick pictures.

“You can see that, while she’s calm right now, those wings can pack a lot of power. The red-tailed hawk uses them to rise above the air currents.”

Emma continued to talk to the group about the hawk as the man shot pictures, moving quietly around the crowd capturing several angles. Ben shot his brother a warning look and caught Andrew’s that mimicked his own concern. If this was the man they were looking for, he was gathering plenty of information, including how each and every cage was locked and the layout of the facility. While it may have given them a face to the anonymous reporter, they had also opened the door wide and knowingly escorted danger inside.

Ben watched as the group came back together at the end of the tour for lunch, catered by a local butcher shop and included in the price of the tickets. He had to admit that the outreach event had gone well and everyone seemed to be having a good time, however he couldn’t shake the doubts about the guy with the camera. In spite of Emma’s insistence that he be there as a friend and that she didn’t need rescuing, Ben wasn’t about to let a man who could be putting her life in jeopardy escape without a warning.

Looking around the group, Ben saw Emma chatting with a mother and her child. She’d already told him that there was a Make-a-Wish child on the tour and he had no doubt the cute little girl was who she’d meant. Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, Ben tried to get his brother’s attention as he made his way toward the man who’d been far more interested in taking pictures all day than what Emma or Andrew said about the animals.

The guy just seemed suspicious. Ben had no doubts he was making a snap judgment, based on nothing more than his suspicions, but when it came to Emma’s safety, he’d rather be overcautious than look back and wish he had spoken up. He slid into the chair next to the man.

“Having a good time?”

“Um,” the man mumbled around a mouthful of tri-tip sandwich. Wiping his hand on the side of his pant leg, he held it out to Ben. “Sorry. I’m Charlie Sims.”

“Ben McQuaid.” Ben hoped this guy recognized his name. He wanted him to know Emma had people at her back. He shook the man’s hand and tried to read what was going on behind Charlie’s hazel eyes. “This your first time at Sierra Tracks?”

He’d hoped Charlie’s reaction to the point-blank question would tell him something but the man’s gaze never faltered. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t have expected there to be so many animals here. It’s a really nice facility compared to a lot of the others I’ve seen.”

“Oh, you’ve been to a few?” A niggling doubt started to circle in his gut but Ben latched onto the statement. He glanced up in time to see Emma frowning at him from across the tables she’d had set up.

“Yeah. I’m a wildlife photographer by trade so I do a lot of work with advertisers and magazines. I’ve even had a few pictures in National Geographic.”

Ben nodded, trying to lull the guy into a false sense of camaraderie. “Newspapers, that sort of thing?”

Charlie laughed. “Newspapers don’t have the budget for my photos. I actually came today to see if Emma would be interested in working together. I wanted to volunteer my services so she’d have photos for promo, maybe something to start with on her website.”

“What’s in it for you?”

Charlie shrugged. “It’s philanthropy. This place is local and I can help. Between you and me,” Charlie said, lowering his voice and leaning toward Ben. “I’ve seen the articles the paper’s been running. I was concerned enough to want to see for myself. Now that I have, I think if other people could see what I’ve seen today, they’d realize those articles are complete B.S. She’s got one of the best facilities I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re here to help Emma?” Ben narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better read on this guy. As much as he wanted to distrust him, Ben had the feeling that Charlie was being completely honest. But he wasn’t going to bank Emma’s safety on his gut. He looked around for Andrew, hoping his brother could talk to Charlie and they could compare notes.

Charlie turned back toward his lunch, obviously uncomfortable under Ben’s intense scrutiny, and popped the top on a can of soda. The fizz cut through the tense lull in their conversation. “Ben, have you talked to people in town recently? Emma needs all the help she can get. There are a few who have already started a petition to get her shut down.”

“A petition?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you read the last article?”

Ben frowned. He’d been so wrapped up in protecting her physically that he hadn’t stopped to keep his finger on the pulse of activity around town, to even listen to gossip that seemed to flow like a leaky faucet. He’d forgotten one of the most important things about living in a small town—gossip could cut as deeply as any knife. If someone couldn’t scare her away, they could put pressure on her from the rest of the community until she had no other choice but to close her doors.

“Apparently some ex-employee has come forward and claims the animals are being abused.”

Ben’s jaw clenched tightly and he felt the muscle cramp. He looked up to see Emma standing beside him with a suspicious look in her eyes as she gazed down at him and Charlie. She wouldn’t be happy with him for meddling but she had no idea that they may have been horribly wrong about the reporter being behind the vandalism and loose animals. From what Charlie said, Ben was almost positive Jake was the man set on destroying her.

“Thanks, Charlie. You’ve helped Emma more than you’ll ever realize.” He leapt from his seat, leaving Emma to wonder where he was going. Ben needed to get to Andrew. The two of them needed to find Jake and when they did, Ben was going to make him pay.