Wilderness Target by Sharon Dunn Page A

given up on finding her, driven by his sense of duty to watch over the others. He was relieved when he came back and saw that she had returned to her tent.
    He had to hand it to her. She must have wandered pretty far from the camp for him not to be able to find her. And yet she’d managed to navigate her way back in the dark. She’d demonstrated some innate survival skills. But why had she wandered off in the first place? He clenched his jaw. She’d popped her head out of the tent as though nothing had happened.
    He’d heard the voices of the men in the forest. She must have had some sort of planned rendezvous with them. He could only guess at what she was up to. The deep woods provided the perfect hiding place for any number of illegal activities. He wanted to think the best of her, he really did. But she owed him an explanation big-time. As soon as he could be alone with her, he had some questions that she needed to answer, for the safety of everyone else in the group.
    He was stuck with her. They were too far into the hike to turn back. He couldn’t leave the other clients to fend for themselves or cut their adventure short. And that meant that he needed to know what was going on—needed to know what steps he might have to take to protect everyone.
    He watched as she rose to her feet and poured coffee into her metal cup. The dark circles under her eyes revealed the kind of night she’d had. She hadn’t met his gaze since she’d stepped out of the tent.
    “Everything all right?” Leonard slapped him on the back. “You look kind of upset.”
    Ezra pulled himself free of his speculation about Clarissa’s motives for coming on the expedition. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” He took his eyes off her and addressed the whole group.
    “Eat up. We’ve got a long day ahead of us. We’ll break camp in twenty minutes.”
    They hiked through the day, stopping only briefly for lunch. The group stayed together for the most part, giving Ezra little opportunity to confront Clarissa.
    Bruce walked beside him at one point, asking questions about hunting. Clarissa came up on the other side, holding a compass in her hand. “Can you explain how this works? Like, say, I wanted to navigate to where that little town you mentioned was.”
    “The compass is so old-school,” said Bruce, breathless from keeping pace with Ezra and talking at the same time. “Why aren’t we using GPS?”
    He addressed his answer to Bruce. “The idea is to get away from technology, keep it as primitive as possible without making it so unpleasant no one wants to come along with me.” Ezra was grateful for the man’s interruption. Clarissa’s questions were starting to bother him. Why did she need to know how to navigate to New Irish?
    Her questions earlier in the day had made more sense. She had wanted know the best places to find food, and how to catch small game. But all her inquiries came with such urgency. Most people relaxed when they got out here. She seemed more revved up than ever. He wanted to know what she was planning.
    They hiked through the afternoon and made camp about a hundred yards from a river. The plan would be to teach them how to fish in the morning. “All right, people, let’s see if we can forage to add to our meal.”
    “When are we going to learn how to get something with protein in it? I only have a couple more MREs left in my pack,” Bruce said.
    “Tomorrow morning we’ll fish.” Ezra turned toward the river. “Next day, I’ll teach you how to catch rabbits and squirrels.”
    He watched the group divide up, the men going in one direction and the women in another. He doubted he was going to have any chance to talk to Clarissa alone before the day was over.

SIX
    C larissa breathed in the heady scent of coffee brewing as she crawled out of her tent. The others were already sitting around the fire, all of them smiling in welcome. Ezra stood a few feet away, holding his steaming metal coffee cup. She averted her