Carolyn McSparren - Tennessee Rescue

“Hey!” called a female voice. “I’m Barbara Carew, the local veterinarian. Seth sent me to give you a hand.”

Emma didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she let it out in an explosive gasp. She opened the door to her visitor.

The vet stood only about five feet three, wore bright blue scrubs with a beige hoodie cardigan and had the widest, bluest eyes Emma had ever seen outside of a contact lens store. She swept past Emma and handed her a paper sack in passing.

“Here. Breakfast. Figured you hadn’t had time to eat or go out for anything. Where are they?”

“Uh—the pantry. Are you supposed to know about them?”

“Too late now. Sit.” She pointed to one of the bar stools at the breakfast counter between the kitchen and living room. “Eat. You get any sleep? Food is an excellent alternative to sleep. Trust me. I know.”

Too stunned to disobey, and suddenly ravenously hungry, Emma sat, opened the sack and inhaled. Then she began to devour.

Barbara swept past her, opened the door to the pantry, cooed, “Oooooh,” and fell to her knees beside the skunks’ nest. “The precious!”

“We have to save them,” Emma said around a large bite.

Barbara picked up Peony, who whimpered before she curled into a ball against Barbara’s chest. “Honey, you have convinced the toughest, by-the-book, hardnosed ranger in the state of Tennessee to break the rules for you and your babies. It’s up to us to protect him from the dire results of his actions. I don’t know what kind of hold you’ve got on him, but unless it’s blackmail material, it has to be pure sex appeal.”

“I don’t...”

“He’s my dearest friend. You be good to him, I’ll love you like a sister. You hurt him, honey, and you’re toast.”

* * *

SETH SPENT THE morning in his office. For a job that concerned itself with the great outdoors, much of his time was spent staring at a computer screen filling out paperwork. Today he wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to it. Emma French’s face kept intruding. Didn’t matter what program he was officially accessing. He picked up his desk phone a dozen times to call her and see how the babies were doing. Each time he put the phone back in its cradle without dialing. He’d stop by on his way home to see if he could give her a hand moving some of those boxes. He didn’t even have to look at the skunks or mention that they were there.

Just before noon Earl Matthews stuck his head in the door of Seth’s miniscule office. “Lunch? The café?”

“I had breakfast there this morning. Oh, shoot, doesn’t mean I’m not hungry. Let me shut this computer down first. How about we pick up some sandwiches and head on over to the lake to check fishing licenses?”

“You got a deal.”

Sitting in the official cruiser beside the dock on the oxbow lake that fed into the Tennessee River some five miles to the south, they checked to see how many bass boats were out fishing. This late in the morning, there were none in view, although that didn’t mean there weren’t a few latecomers around the bend, close to the downed trees. Bass, crappie and catfish loved to hide among the branches of trees long submerged.

Seth let Earl run the launch down to the bend while he leaned back against the leather seats, slid his Smokey hat over his eyes and allowed his mind to drift. Emma French probably wouldn’t stay long enough for him to get to know her. Obviously she was a city slickeress. Way above his pay grade. He’d generally gone for what his father called pocket Venuses. Like Clare. Five foot three and practically boneless.

Emma’s flesh covered strong bones. She’d fight him over those blasted skunks or anything else she didn’t agree with. If they ever made love—unlikely—it would be like igniting a thermonuclear device.

“Heads up,” Earl said. “Party boat eleven o’clock.”

Almost hidden where the high weeds drooped in the water, and under tree leaves that weren’t fully open, a large, fancy pontoon party boat carrying a pair of powerful outboard motors was getting ready to hightail it away from them. There were half a dozen people spooling in fishing lines as fast as they could, and one man hunkered over the two motors attached to the stern. The engines sputtered, then kicked into action.

“Oh, goodie!” Earl said. “Blow the horn, please, Mr. Policeman. I do believe they plan to evade inspection.”

“Not if they don’t get their anchor up first,” Seth said. He shouted into the loud hailer, “Cut your engines now before you swamp!” At the moment that appeared to be an immediate threat. The party boat was built to run perilously close to the water on its pontoons with little freeboard. Normally, in calm waters, that was no problem. In wind and waves, however, the big boat was difficult to handle and swamped easily.

At the moment the two engines were attempting to back the boat against the anchor chain at the bow, but it showed no sign of lifting free of the mud bottom.

The louder the engines growled, the more the boat buried its engines deeper in the lake, lifting the bow perilously high. The people on board had run toward the stern—the opposite of what they should be doing—and now stood ankle-deep in water. The two women in the group were squealing and jumping around trying to keep their feet dry.

“Move forward toward the bow!” Seth yelled. “And somebody cut those engines! Earl, get me over there.”

“Be careful. Don’t get trapped between boats, and do not fall into those propellers. They’ll cut you to pieces.” Earl, calm as always, steered his boat until it gently tapped the left pontoon amidships. Seth said a fast prayer, leaped, slipped, then righted himself safely on the deck.

He was afraid his weight would sink the boat before he could cut the engines. He moved a woman who outweighed him by a good hundred pounds toward the bow. “Get up there! You, too, ma’am,” he snapped at her companion, as thin as she was fat.

He reached past one of the men and shut off both engines. Instantly the boat settled back on its pontoons. “The rest of you, go sit down amidships and don’t move until I say so.”

“You can’t tell me what to do on my own boat!” said a grizzled man close to Seth’s size, but flabby with age and unsteady on what Seth suspected were drunken legs.

“Yes, sir, I can. Sit down. All of you.” Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the smaller of the two women surreptitiously trying to kick what looked like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the edge of her seat.

“Hey, ma’am, don’t try that,” Earl called from the launch. She froze.

“Fishing licenses and boat registration,” Seth said. Now that the initial disaster was averted, he was starting to seethe. “Earl, can you tie up to us and come on over here?”

“Sure thing.”

Seth stepped back. “So, this is your boat, sir?” he asked the grizzled man who’d gone suddenly silent.

“Hell, yeah, it’s mine, and you all like to have caused an accident running up on us like that.”

“Uh-huh. How many passengers do you have on board this morning?”

“Can’t you count? Five. We got five. We was just taking us a little ride...”

“Looked to me like you were doing a little fishing along the way,” Seth said.

“Without fishing licenses,” Earl said. He shrugged. “That’s what he said.” He pointed at a small man huddled in the seat across from the large woman. “More drinking than fishing, I think.”

“Now, y’all lookee here...” The big man puffed himself up and huffed out what he must’ve felt was an intimidating breath. It didn’t work. And it stank of alcohol.

“No, sir, you lookee here,” Earl said. “There are signs all over this lake. No fishing without a license.”