you ever smelled skunk?”
“Of course. I was— Never mind.” She was amused by the word, that was all. Maybe he wasn’t a hard case all the way through. “Let’s rescue Howie before he’s sprayed.”
“I’ll go,” Jake said. “You keep the little girl out of range.”
Lia almost laughed at the way Kristen’s upper body swayed forward. Her lower lip protruded. “I’m not a little girl. My name is Kristen Rose.”
Jake was moving silently along the path, but he stopped to look back at them. “Kristen Rose, huh? Pretty name.” He shot a look at Lia. “After my sister?”
She nodded. “I told you we were friends.” When she’d gone into labor, Rose had stayed home from work to look after Sam and Howie while Lia delivered the new baby. During the especially tough times immediately after her divorce, Lia had learned to treasure such small acts of kindness.
Howie’s voice floated from the trees. “Mo-om?”
“Don’t move, Howie,” she called. “Stay there and tell us where you are.”
“I’m sitting on the step of one of the little houses.”
Lia crept after Jake, trying to keep Kristen behind her. They moved past the first two cottages and came to the third, where Howie perched on the doorstep, his arms and legs pulled close to his skinny body. A skunk sniffed through the long grass at the cottage’s foundation, barely two feet away from the boy. Its silky tail swept the ground. A faint but distinctly bitter aroma scented the air.
Jake stopped. He rested his hands on his hips, as casual as if they were on a Sunday afternoon stroll. “Howie? Don’t move, okay?” He spoke in a soft, even voice. “I’m Jake. I live here and I’ve seen this skunk before. Don’t worry. He’ll go on his way in a minute.”
The creature lifted its head. A moist black nose twitched in Howie’s direction.
He cringed. Behind the glasses, his eyes were big and scared. “It’s gonna spray me,” he whispered in a quavery high pitch.
Jake moved closer. He squatted. “No, see how his tail is down? The skunk’s curious about you, but he’s not afraid. He uses his sense of smell and hearing because he can’t see very well. He needs glasses like yours.”
Lia chuckled to ease Howie’s fear, but he didn’t seem to be persuaded that this was a laughing matter. “You’re sure he won’t spray me?”
“Yep,” Jake said. “Only if he thinks you’re going to hurt him.”
Howie’s chest hitched. Lia’s heart melted at how brave he was trying to be. “Uh-huh. I kn-know that. I read about skunks in my science and nature book.”
“What else did you read?”
Howie watched warily as the skunk lowered its head and the tail came up slightly. “I read—I read—” He closed his eyes. “Skunks are mammals. And they’re nocturnal.”
“What does that mean?” Jake asked gently.
Howie squinched his nose. “They sleep in the day. So how come—” He gasped as the skunk turned toward him.
“Slide over,” Jake directed. “Slowly.”
Howie inched sideways until he sat at the very corner of the step. The skunk ambled out of the grass, toward the path blocked by Jake.
He kept his eyes on Howie. “Now you can stand. Do it slowly. That’s right. The skunk’s okay, just going for a stroll. He’s not even looking at you.”
Lia stooped to see past the obscuring evergreens. Jake was right. The animal was ignoring Howie because it was waddling toward Jake. She held her breath.
Jake didn’t move. His voice remained calm. “Keep going, Howie. Walk past me toward your mom. You’ll be fine.”
Jake waited until Howie had crept by, then rose slowly off his heels, keeping himself between the boy and the skunk. His boots scuffed the ground as he edged backward, widening the distance.
Lia caught Howie’s eye. She gave him an encouraging smile. He grinned sheepishly, hitching his thumbs in his belt loops and swaggering just a little, as if he’d never been frightened in the first place.
Kristen pushed against Lia’s leg. “Can I pet the skunk?” she whispered.
“That’s not a good idea with an untamed animal.” Lia reached down and swung Kristen up in her arms in case the girl got it into her head to run toward the small striped creature.
“But it’s pretty.”
“We’re in the wild, honey. It’s not like a petting zoo.” Lia turned back in the direction of the car, keeping her eye on Howie to be sure he was following. But he’d stopped, too busy looking up at Jake with awe to worry about escaping from the skunk.
Which was when disaster struck.
“Hey, guys!” Sam’s shout was impatient. The sudden blare of the car horn shattered the silence as she punched it over and over again.
“Sam!” Lia shrieked. “Stop it!”
Too late.
The skunk’s tail had shot straight up. Jake let out a shout and sprang backward, his arms pinwheeling as an overwhelmingly putrid, eye-watering stench coated the air.
CHAPTER TWO
JAKE PLUNGED INTO THE cold water of the river, a bar of soap in hand. His eyes and nose stung with the acrid stench that rose off his body. He dived for relief, surfacing quickly as he remembered that he wasn’t alone.
The boy stood shivering at the shore, stripped to shorts and T-shirt. He’d hadn’t received the full brunt of spray like Jake, but had insisted that he needed to bathe in the river, too, once he’d seen that was what Jake intended. The kid’s mother had been hesitant, staring up at Jake with big, blue, scaredy-cat eyes. And sure enough, he could see her through the trees at the top of the hill, wringing her hands as she watched over them.
“Jump in,” Jake said.
Howie waded deeper. “How come it’s so cold?”
“It’s a fast, deep river. It’s always cold, even in July.” Jake began scrubbing with the soap. Little good that would do except maybe take the edge off. The skunk smell was so strong he could taste it.
The boy’s eyes were watering. He squeezed his shoulders into his neck and took another wobbly step deeper into the swirling water.
His timidity made Jake impatient. “C’mon. Get dunked.” He thought of his father, Black Jack, roaring with laughter as he tossed a five-year-old Jake and his even younger brother into the deep water although they could barely dog-paddle at the time. Your mother doesn’t want you drowning, he’d said. Be men, not pansies. Swim!
Jake had swum. He couldn’t remember if he’d been scared
