Free Physical Distraction: A Sinful Suspense Novel by Tess Oliver

were being dropped into the water. A large man dressed in a red flannel shirt and matching beanie pulled low over his head worked the levers in the boat. His size made the boat look like a toy as he maneuvered it between the floating logs and debris.
    I took a bite of sandwich and slowly chewed as I watched Jem balance on one log and push others around with the pole. He stood as easily as if he was standing on solid ground. Now his ease at hiking the slippery, steep terrain at Phantom Curve made sense.
    The man was most definitely cocky, confident and annoyingly hard to ignore. Without any effort at all, he managed to evoke an entire array of emotions in me. One minute I was blushing with shyness, the next, I was tightening my fists in anger. And in between, I was thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, and not just any kiss, but as he’d so richly described, a long, hard and getting down to business kiss.
    I finally dragged my gaze away from the scene on the river and plucked a grape off its stem. Tomorrow was Saturday, and Everly had promised to introduce me to Alice, the bookshop lady with the old newspaper collection. I’d decided, as hard as it would be, I would find the original article about my dad’s death. I hoped it would give me some kind of clue. There had to be something to explain how I’d ended up at the forest ranger station. As blank as that piece of memory was, I was certain it had something to do with the accident. I’d been so dazed and tired and in shock when the ranger found me walking along the road, I couldn’t even remember my name. By some incredible coincidence, a woman who’d worked in a grocery store near my childhood home had been visiting a cousin in Blackthorn Ridge. She saw my face on the local news channel and called the police to let them know who I was and where I lived. The police matched my name, Younglove, with the name of the trucker whose charred body had been found in the ravine several days earlier. While I’d had plenty of bumps and bruises when they found me, there had been no evidence that I’d been in the truck when it went off the road. Nothing about that slice of time made sense. Even the police had been stumped. They’d eventually gotten hold of my only living relative, my mom’s sister, Aunt Carly.
    I sucked on a grape and turned my attention back to the water. Jem hopped from one log to the next moving closer to the splash area where the logs were being dropped into the pond. With the help of his pole, he rode the final log like a paddleboard, never losing his balance even when giant ripples of water rolled beneath him.
    As I watched him, someone from shore yelled, “Watch out!” An out of control log fell from the giant yellow claws, but instead of dropping into the water, it spun wildly around once and landed perpendicular to the shore. On its errant path, it knocked the man from the tiny boat. His body flew several feet, landing, mercifully, in an area of water that wasn’t covered by solid logs.
    I jumped up from the chair and pressed my face to the window. The man disappeared beneath the surface. My gaze shot back to Jem, who had been balancing on a log a good twenty feet away. Without hesitation, he dove through the wood debris. Just like the boat operator, he vanished.
    I raced into the office. A bell had sounded outside in the yard, and Hal was just leaving his desk chair to see what the commotion was about.
    I raced past him to the front door. “They’re both in the water. The man on the boat was knocked overboard, and Jem dove in after him.”
    Hal was grabbing his megaphone and walkie-talkie as I spoke. A voice came through the radio the second it was in his hand. “Hal, we’ve got an accident on the pond. Finn is in the water. Jem went in after him. Over.”
    Hal lifted the walkie-talkie. “Do you see either of them yet? Over.”
    “Negative,” the voice returned.
    I followed Hal out of the office. The man who’d been knocked into