Northern Exposure

Northern Exposure Debra Lee Brown New York photographer Wendy Walters had come north for peace and quiet, and a photograph of a rare Alaskan caribou. Nothing–and no one–would stop her.Not even the sexiest man in Alaska. One look at rugged game warden Joe Peterson made Wendy's temperature rise. But the stoic Joe wasn't about to let the sassy city slicker wreak havoc with his game preserve or his libido. She was leaving ASAP.But when a rock slide left them stranded in the frozen wilderness, Joe and Wendy had no choice but to hike their way to civilization together. Could they find a way to safety before attraction gave way to temptation? “Who put you in charge of my life?” “You did, the second you stepped onto this reserve.” Ouch. She couldn’t argue. She knew that, regardless of her own choices or actions, Joe Peterson felt responsible for her as long as she was on his turf. He was more than ready and willing to “take care of things,” as he’d put it. And in the end, that was what she feared most of all. That was why she hadn’t told him about the other incidents, or about the man in the dark clothes she’d glimpsed near the train two days ago. Joe’s rugged good looks, the obvious physical attraction between them, his strength of character, the concern he tried, but failed, to mask behind that stony expression of his…all of it, taken together, set off cautionary alarms inside her. It would be far too easy to lean on a man like him, to let him take over, make her decisions, solve her problems for her. But she’d done that once already, and with disastrous results…. Dear Reader, A new year has begun, so why not celebrate with six exciting new titles from Silhouette Intimate Moments? What a Man’s Gotta Do is the newest from Karen Templeton, reuniting the one-time good girl, now a single mom, with the former bad boy who always made her heart pound, even though he never once sent a smile her way. Until now. Kylie Brant introduces THE TREMAINE TRADITION with Alias Smith and Jones, an exciting novel about two people hiding everything about themselves—except the way they feel about each other. There’s still TROUBLE IN EDEN in Virginia Kantra’s All a Man Can Ask, in which an undercover assignment leads (predictably) to danger and (unpredictably) to love. By now you know that the WINGMEN WARRIORS flash means you’re about to experience top-notch military romance, courtesy of Catherine Mann. Under Siege, a marriage-of-inconvenience tale, won’t disappoint. Who wouldn’t like A Kiss in the Dark from a handsome hero? So run—don’t walk—to pick up the book of the same name by rising star Jenna Mills. Finally, enjoy the winter chill—and the cozy cuddling that drives it away—in Northern Exposure, by Debra Lee Brown, who sends her heroine to Alaska to find love. And, of course, we’ll be back next month with six more of the best and most exciting romances around, so be sure not to miss a single one. Enjoy! Leslie J. Wainger Executive Senior Editor Northern Exposure Debra Lee Brown www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) DEBRA LEE BROWN Award-winning author Debra Lee Brown’s ongoing romance with wild and remote locales sparks frequent adventures in the Alps, the Arctic—where she has worked as a geologist—and the Sierra Nevada range of her native California. An avid outdoorswoman, Debra loves nothing better than to strand her heroes and heroines in rugged, often dangerous settings, then let nature take its course. Debra invites readers to visit her Web site at www.debraleebrown.com or to write to her c/o Harlequin Reader Service, P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269. Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 1 A flash of camouflage through a stand of spruce, gunmetal reflecting afternoon sun. That’s what had caught his attention, and was the reason he now found himself out of breath, scrambling up a hundred-yard stretch of loose volcanic scree toward a ridge topping eleven thousand feet. This was not how he’d planned to spend his Sunday. He sized a muddy boot print and considered that tracking a man was a hell of a lot easier than tracking an animal, especially over rugged terrain. Dead easy when the target was as green as this one obviously was. A bald eagle circled overhead, checking him out. There were nests in the area, but those didn’t concern him, not today. He paused and watched as the majestic bird dipped out of sight below the jagged tree line flanking the scree field. The storm that had been building all morning had come to a head. Dark clouds slammed together in the sky above him. A whiff of ozone cut still air. Not unusual for late August. He resumed his climb, picking up the pace. When he topped the ridge and the sky opened, letting loose a torrent of rain, his effort was rewarded. Twenty yards below him his prey crouched on a slab of basalt jutting into space over a thousand-foot drop-off. The man was as small as the muddy boot print had indicated. Dressed in khaki, a baseball cap pulled backward over his head, he looked wrong, somehow. Certainly not what he’d expected. Then again, it was hard to tell much about him from this distance. Freeing the forty-five holstered at his hip, he picked his way carefully down the loose rubble. Wind shrieked up from the canyon below, eddying wildly, forcing rain into horizontal sheets that changed direction without warning and threatened to knock him off balance. He was drenched in seconds. His target fared no better. The man used his hands for balance as he edged farther out onto the precipice. As the distance between them was swallowed up, the man’s intention became clear, and his own suspicions were confirmed. A black case, the kind used to house a high-powered rifle, held his attention as he negotiated the last few feet and stepped silently onto the wet volcanic slab where the man now crouched dangerously close to the edge. It wasn’t a straight shot to the bottom of the canyon, he remembered. Jagged rocks protruded from the cliff face all the way down, providing a natural staircase for animals. But no man, to his knowledge, had ever attempted the climb. The rock was slippery, and the rain an icy torrent that pummeled him from every direction as he edged out behind the intruder. They were both soaked to the skin. He paused, a stride away, to swipe a hank of wet hair from his eyes. Something wasn’t right. Khaki, he thought, tightening his gaze on the man’s narrow shoulders. Khaki from head to toe. The target he’d been tracking for the past two hours had worn camouflage. He was sure of it. Predator gray, flecked with green and brown, perfect for their surroundings. Lightning flashed as a bone-white hand shot toward the black case. “Hold it right there!” He leveled his weapon. The man whipped his head around, and he found himself staring into clear blue eyes gone wide with shock. A woman’s eyes. Thunder cracked behind them in a detonation so powerful it threw him off balance. He pitched forward, scrambling for purchase. The woman jumped back, realized her mistake, then grabbed his shirt to keep from slipping over the edge. It was no good. She screamed as she went over. He hit the rock hard, prone. Just in time, he dropped the gun and caught her wrist. This kind of thing wasn’t in his job description. Out of the corner of his eye he caught another movement, one he’d expected. Below them, on another basaltic slab, a rare woodland caribou leaped clear of the impending danger their presence forewarned. The woman’s cap blew off, jerking his attention back to their predicament. A tumble of blond hair whipped violently in the wind, framing her heart-shaped face. She gazed up at him in mute terror. He watched as her whole life flashed before her eyes. A heartbeat later he pulled her up and rolled with her to safety. She was on top of him; they were both drenched. Lightning shattered the sky around them, rain beat down in sheets. She’d nearly killed them both, but all that registered was how warm she felt. Warm and soft. “Wh-who are you?” Her voice was thin and shaky, her face inches from his. He stared at her, silent, as water dripped from her trembling lips onto his mouth. After a quick fantasy about her with him in a dry place that was anywhere but here, he came to his senses. “Game warden,” he clipped. He rolled her over, pinning her under his weight. “You’re under arrest.” The terror in her eyes vanished. Confusion replaced it, then rage. “Get off me!” “No.” She fought him, but knew it was useless. He outweighed her by a good eighty pounds. Straddling her, he gripped both her wrists in one hand, pinioning them over her head, then retrieved his gun. “Wh-what are you doing?” Fear returned to her eyes. “Let me go!” “Woodland caribou are protected. Poachers are prosecuted.” Rain beat at them. Another clap of thunder rent the air. The storm was a good one. He liked storms. They made everything clean again, absolved nature of her sins. Too bad it wasn’t that easy with people. She blinked through a hank of dripping hair that obscured part of her face as his words sank in. “Poachers? You mean you think I’m a hunter?” “Don’t play me, lady, I’m not in the mood.” “Where is he?” She tried to get up, but he wouldn’t let her. For a moment he thought she meant the man he’d seen earlier through the trees. Then she twisted around, her gaze sliding to the narrow protrusion of rock where the caribou had stood. “That bull’s long gone.” She swore. It surprised him. She didn’t look like the swearing type. “It’s your fault. If you hadn’t—hey, wait a minute!” Ignoring her protests, he dragged her, one-handed, away from the edge, propped her against a boulder, then motioned with his gun toward the black case. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s not a rifle.” She looked at him as if he were crazy. “That’s what this is about?” She nodded at the case. “You think I’m a hunter and that’s a rifle.” “A poacher,” he corrected. She sucked an angry breath, and he was suddenly aware of her small breasts pushing against the wet fabric of her shirt. She caught him looking, and abruptly crossed her arms over her chest. “Open it.” She nodded at the case. “I intend to.” His weapon still trained on her, he knelt in front of the case and flipped the latches. What he saw inside didn’t register. “That’s right,” she said. “It’s a tripod.” A tripod? He swiveled toward her and gave her a good once-over. Her clothes were new. Even wet, the khaki pants still had creases pressed into them. Her boots were new, too, but not the knapsack he noticed wedged under an overhang next to where she sat glaring up at him. “I’m a photographer.” “The hell you are.” He didn’t like being wrong. He was never wrong, not about something like this. Instinct told him she was lying. “Hand it over.” He motioned with the gun toward her knapsack. Another crack of thunder made them both jump. She stared at his forty-five. “Please put that away. I’m not a criminal. And shouldn’t we get off this rock? We’re awfully exposed up here.” She was right about that. Lightning flashed, closer this time. He fumbled, one-handed, with the knapsack, got it open and checked the contents. Film, leather canisters of varying lengths, and a heavy, professional-looking camera. “It’s a Nikon F4 with a motor drive, in case you’re interested. The canisters have lenses in them. I told you, I’m a photographer, a wildlife photographer, on assignment for my magazine.” Her fingernails were polished in soft pearlescent pink, her eyebrows neatly plucked. She didn’t even have a tan. “What magazine?” In a cool gesture that screamed arrogance, she tipped her chin at him. “Wilderness Unlimited.” He knew it, and most of the photographers on staff. She definitely wasn’t one of them. “Let’s see some ID.” He watched rainwater catch in the hollow at the base of her throat as she swallowed, flustered by his demand. “I…left it back in my rental car. On that little road off the highway.” “Yeah, right.” The west road was six miles away, over rough terrain. He couldn’t believe she’d made it as far as she had on her own. Maybe she was working in concert with the guy in the camo. He did a quick three-sixty, his gaze darting over the rocky landscape toward the tree line. Nothing. “What are you doing here?” “I would have thought that was obvious.” She blinked against the rain in the direction of the caribou’s escape. “This is a wildlife reserve. Woodland caribou is a rare species in this part of the state.” “That’s exactly why I’m here.” She seemed way too sure of herself for a woman who, not five minutes ago, tumbled over the edge of a thousand-foot drop-off. “Get up.” He slid his weapon into its holster, snapped the leather trigger guard, and hoisted her knapsack off the rock. She got to her feet, and for a long moment they just stood there, sizing each other up. She looked even smaller standing. Five-two, five-three tops. Her blond hair was plastered to her head, her clothes soaked through. The temperature was dropping fast, and he realized she was shivering. “Come on. Let’s go.” “Where?” He relatched the tripod case and picked it up, pointing it in the direction from which he’d come. “That way. South.” “But my car’s back there.” She pointed west along the barren ridge that ran for a mile or so, then dropped off into a long valley flanking the road, peppered with thick stands of timber and open meadow. She was out here in a rainstorm with no jacket, no survival gear and no food. And a story he didn’t believe. No way was he letting her out of his sight until he found out whether or not she was connected to the poacher he was sure he’d seen. It was his job to protect the animals in the reserve against unusual disturbances. That included hunters, harebrained tourists, camo-clad mystery men and small, wet women with attitude. “This rain could turn to snow. You’ll never make it back before dark.” He glanced at the roiling sky. “My station’s closer. Come on.” She blocked his path, shot him a hard look that seemed comical, given her bedraggled state, and matter-of-factly relieved him of her tripod case and knapsack. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. Besides, it’s summer. This is Alaska. It doesn’t really get dark until nine or ten.” She turned and started back up the ridge, doing a better job of negotiating the loose volcanic scree than he expected. Stubborn, he thought. And damned attractive. He’d been out here a long time, a year. The only other women he saw on a regular basis were Department of Fish and Game co-workers, and he only saw them a few times a month. He ought to just let her go. Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe she was who she said she was. Still, something about her was off. He watched her as she climbed steadily up the dark blanket of broken rock, and had the strangest feeling he’d seen her before. He shook off the feeling, and scanned the tree line again for movement. Out there somewhere was another intruder, dressed head to toe in camouflage and toting more than a tripod case. Until he found out who he was, he wasn’t letting Ms. Wilderness Unlimited out of his sight. He let her get to the top of the ridge before he moved up behind her and looped a finger under her leather belt. It, too, looked new. He tugged. “This way,” he said, and motioned for her to follow. “I told you, my car’s that way.” He watched her as she slipped her arms through the straps of the knapsack, then redoubled her grip on the case. Rain ran in rivulets down her face. Her soaking clothes clung to her like a second skin. She was trim, athletic, fitter than he’d judged her to be from that first impression—the soft feel of her against him when she lay on top of him on the rock. He moved his hand to the holster of his department-issue weapon. “Don’t make me take this out again.” She shot him an incredulous look. “You can’t force me to go with you.” “Wanna bet?” Two strides later he was chin to forehead with her, his hand closing firmly over her slim upper arm. She looked him up and down, openmouthed, not the least bit afraid of him, appraising his wet uniform, her gaze flicking from his gold-tone Department of Fish and Game badge to his eyes. “What are you, some kind of wannabe cop?” Now that pissed him off. “Lady, out here I am a cop. The only cop.” She glared up at him. “It’s Wendy.” “Yeah, and I’m Peter Pan.” He plucked the tripod case out of her hand and pushed her toward a little-used game trail. “Move it.” What a jerk. The longer they walked, the angrier she got. Wendy stopped for a moment to readjust her knapsack, which had been digging into her shoulders for the past two hours. Her feet were killing her—blisters from the new boots—and her wet clothes chafed against her skin. At least the rain had stopped. “Keep going.” Warden Rambo poked her in the back. “It’s not much farther.” “Good.” Not breaking her stride, she shot him a nasty look over her shoulder. When she turned her attention back to the trail, she was immediately thwacked by a faceful of wet spruce. Behind her, she heard him stifle a laugh. “It’s not funny.” She kept moving, and every step of the way could feel his eyes on her. They were green, flecked with gold, projecting a confidence and strength that was burned forever into her mind the first time she’d looked into them—as she dangled in space over a glacier-cut canyon, her life in his hands. Or hand, she remembered with a shudder. A clearing opened up ahead of them, and she stopped to catch her breath. “Another hundred yards and we’ll be there,” he said as he came up behind her. She turned to face him, and was startled for a moment by his rugged good looks. He’d been walking behind her all this time, barking out directions. She studied him now, as a photographer studied a subject, striving for analytical clarity, for truth. What she got instead was a fluid, visceral impression that was all man. He was tall and built. Even in wet clothes she could tell he had a great body. She should know. She’d seen enough naked hunks to last her a lifetime. His forearms were big and tanned. The muscles of his thighs were outlined in the olive drab uniform pants that, wet, fitted him like a glove. His hands were rough from work. She knew because he’d taken one of her hands in his twice in the past hour. Once to help her over a downed spruce blocking their path, and another time because she’d gone off in the wrong direction, which wasn’t hard to do out here. As she appraised him, he cocked his head, eyeing her with more of the same suspicion he was determined not to let go of. A hank of wet, tawny hair spilled into his eyes, and she had to physically stop herself from her first reaction, which was to reach up and brush it away. He read her intent. She saw it in his eyes and felt suddenly uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable, too. She could tell by the way he stepped around her and pretended to look for something in the trees. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that. He’d stopped about an hour ago and had motioned for her to be quiet. He’d stood there, listening hard, eyes narrowed, darting at every shadow, as if he expected someone to pop out of the bushes and surprise them. On impulse she said, “Thank you.” He turned to her and frowned. “For what?” “Saving my life.” “If I hadn’t stumbled, you wouldn’t have gotten spooked and slipped.” “If you hadn’t pointed that gun in my face,” she corrected, “maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have happened.” His eyes turned cold. “Come on. The station’s over there.” Anger rippled up inside her, but she worked to keep it in check. That wasn’t going to help her now. Besides, most of her irritation stemmed from the fact that Warden Rambo was exactly like Blake—domineering, pushy, directive. In short, overbearing. She could think of a hundred synonyms to describe that kind of behavior. All of them got her fur up, as her dad would say. As she followed him across the clearing, she made a minor correction to her initial judgment. He and Blake had one distinct difference. Blake’s bad qualities were hidden, wrapped up in a package that was all charm. Blake was a manipulator, a snake. This guy was up front about who he was. Which reminded her of something she’d meant to ask him. “What’s your name?” He held a broken branch aside, ushering her through a thicket choked with gooseberries, then pointed to the white lettering engraved on the black plastic name tag hanging limply from his wet shirt. “Peterson.” His arched brow told her he thought she was an idiot if she’d spent the past two hours within ten feet of him, and hadn’t noticed it. She had. “So, what should I call you? Mr. Peterson? Warden Peterson? Just plain old Peterson?” “Joe,” he said. “Or whatever.” He moved quickly through the small stand of trees, and she followed, thinking it was a nice, simple name. Joe Peterson, game warden. “Here it is.” She stopped in front of what he’d described to her as a station. It was really just a big cabin, one that looked as if it was built a long time ago. Constructed of rough-hewn logs, it was painted over a dull brown, like so many Forest Service or National Park buildings were these days. A big deck ran all the way around it. There was a drop-off on the far side where the deck hung out over the forest, reminding her of a tree house she’d once had when she was a girl. Joe fished a set of keys out of his pocket, opened the door and waved her inside. The front room had a huge picture window looking out over the deck. A snowcapped mountain range loomed in the distance. A set of French doors led outside. The room was half office, half living quarters, and the contrast between the two halves was almost weird. A computer, a multiline phone, a fax machine, and what looked to her like a shortwave radio all sat perfectly aligned on a clean desktop. Files were piled in neatly spaced stacks, sharpened pencils stood in a clean glass jar, points up, like a bouquet of flawlessly arranged flowers. In contrast, the other side of the room looked like somebody’s grandfather’s mountain cabin. She liked it. Big comfortable furniture sat crowded together in front of a stone fireplace that looked as if it was used every day. Stuffed fish and a pair of deer antlers hung on the walls. A pair of snowshoes stood in a corner jammed with skis, a rifle and a couple of pairs of well-used boots. Joe’s, she thought, gauging their size. Magazines were scattered in disarray across a coffee table that held the remains of what she guessed was his lunch: a half-eaten sandwich and a big glass of milk. Wendy’s stomach growled. “I’ll get this cleaned up.” He snatched the plates from the table and disappeared into another room. While he was gone, she moved to the fireplace and studied the single, eight-by-ten photo housed in a silver filigree frame that sat alone on the varnished wooden mantel. It was of a young woman. A blond, like her. Only not like her at all. Tall and willowy with long straight hair, the woman in the photo wore a short black cocktail dress and the most fragile, deadly innocent smile Wendy had ever seen. She’d noticed Joe didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean anything these days. Wendy picked up the photo as he breezed back into the room. “She’s beautiful. Is she your wife?” “Put that down.” She felt as if she were ten years old again, caught with her hand in the cookie jar. The heat of a blush warmed her cheeks. “Sorry.” She quickly replaced the photo and clasped her hands together in front of her in contrition. Wait a minute. What was she doing? So she picked up a photograph of the guy’s wife. So what? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Her reaction to his censure told her she still had baggage to unload, lots of it, from her years with Blake. “Okay, let’s do this.” Joe grabbed the phone off the desk and plunked down into the single office chair. “Do what?” “Your magazine. What’s the number?” “What?” He was going to call them? “Wilderness Unlimited. The number.” “I heard what you said, I just don’t know why you’d want to—” “You said you were a photographer. I’m checking it out.” “Why?” “To find out if you’re telling the truth.” She couldn’t believe it. “Of course I’m telling the truth. Why would I lie?” “You tell me.” “This is ridiculous.” She fisted her hands on her hips and bit back a curse. “Fine. We’ll do it the hard way.” He retrieved a back issue of the nationally renowned magazine from the pile on his coffee table. A second later he was dialing the number. “It’s in New York.” You idiot. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited. “It’s what, one in the morning there?” She checked her watch, noting the four-hour time difference. Their gazes locked. Gently, in a motion that screamed control, he placed the receiver back on the hook. She could tell he was hopping mad—not at her, but at himself for being so stupid. The moment stretched on, until she couldn’t stand the tension. “All right, fine.” She walked over to the phone, dialed and handed him the receiver. “My editor’s a night owl. She’s probably still up.” “You know her home number by heart?” Wendy shrugged. “She’s a friend of mine.” Her only friend right now. “What’s your last name?” “Walters.” “Wendy Walters. Sounds made up.” The irony of that made her laugh. Joe looked at her hard as he waited for someone to pick up. No one did. “She’s not there,” he said, and replaced the receiver. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me, then.” He struck her as a man who didn’t trust anyone. He liked to be in control, have things his own way. And that was fine with her, because she was leaving. “I’ll pay you whatever you want to drive me back to my car. It can’t be far from here.” “It is. You have to backtrack out of the reserve and drive around that mountain range—” he nodded at the snowcapped peaks framed in the window “—before you hit the highway again.” “I have traveler’s checks and cash.” She hoped he didn’t want too much. All the money she had left in the world was tucked away in the small wallet in her pants. “Doesn’t matter. My truck’s in the shop. Tomorrow I’ll get someone to drive you. Tonight you’ll stay here.” “Not a chance.” She grabbed her knapsack off the couch where she’d dropped it, and tried to get by him. “I’ll walk.” She knew she was being ridiculous, but his bossiness irritated her. She’d spent her whole adult life being cowed by men who ordered her around. Well, one man. But that was over. She was done with being a “yes” girl. He grabbed her arm as she passed. “This is your first trip to Alaska, isn’t it?” “Stop manhandling me.” She pulled out of his grasp. “What if it is?” “For starters, you have no damned idea how dangerous it is right outside that door.” He nodded at where they’d come in. “Weather, bears, other predators—you wouldn’t know what to do if you got into trouble.” “What makes you so sure?” He glanced at her outfit, her boots, then swiped the knapsack out of her hand. “It’s new. All of it. You’re green as a stick.” Add judgmental to his list of character flaws. She bristled but let his impression of her stand. It wasn’t worth correcting. She’d be gone in the morning. She took a couple of deep breaths and resigned herself to it. “Where would I sleep?” Their eyes met, and for a millisecond she knew the same thought that flashed across her mind also flashed across his. Now that was scary. At least she had an excuse. He was drop-dead gorgeous, and it had been a long time since she’d been with anyone. On the other hand, he was exactly the kind of man she swore she’d never get involved with again. But chemistry was a funny thing. It defied logic, ignored rules. Joe Peterson was a man who lived by rules. His own. But the room they were standing in told her that he occasionally broke them. His eyes told her, too, as he looked her over candidly in, what she knew in her gut was for him, a rare, unguarded moment. “The sofa makes into a bed,” he said quietly. “There’re clean towels in the bathroom. I’ll get you something dry to wear.” After they’d both showered and changed, he fixed them a hot supper of leftover chicken, tinned biscuits and homemade gravy. It was good. She was starved and ate two helpings. Through the entire meal they didn’t talk, but every once in a while she’d glance up and catch him looking at her. She’d gotten that same look a lot lately from strangers. It was as if he knew her but couldn’t place her. It unnerved her and she looked away. Later he built a fire, and they settled in front of it with steaming cups of tea. Joe paged through an Alaska Department of Fish and Game bulletin, while she stared at the photo on the mantel of the waiflike woman in the black dress. Wendy suspected that’s whose clothes she was wearing. The arms of the pink sweatshirt were too long for her, the jeans a joke. She had to roll the denim cuffs up six inches so she wouldn’t trip. She frowned, suddenly recognizing the backdrop in the photo. “That’s Rockefeller Center,” she said without thinking. “A professional shot, too.” Why hadn’t she noticed that before? “What is she, a model?” Joe looked up, and his face turned to stone. Definitely sensitive turf. It was the second time her mention of the woman in the photo had angered him. She opted for a swift exit from the subject. “This place is about as far from New York as you can get.” “That’s the point,” he said, and went back to his reading. Joe watched Wendy as she slept, curled on the sofa, a pillow tucked under her head. He wondered if her hair was as soft as it looked. The cut was short and tousled, and suited her delicate features. In the firelight it glinted gold. From this angle she reminded him a little of Cat. Glancing at the photo on the mantel, he allowed himself a rare moment to remember her, what she was like when they were both young. Wendy stirred, came awake in a slow, sleepy aura that was sexy as hell. Joe felt a tightening in his gut. Maybe Barb, one of his few friends in the department, was right. He needed to get out more. “What…time is it?” Wendy propped herself up on one elbow and blinked the sleep from her eyes. “Late. You fell asleep. I’ll get you some sheets for the sofa bed.” He padded down the hall toward the back bedroom, which was used mostly for storage of department supplies. He flipped on the overhead light and went directly to the closet. He’d never had an overnight guest at the station before. He grabbed a set of sheets, a couple of blankets, and was ready to switch the light off when he spied a stack of tabloids he’d meant to burn. Barb brought him all kinds of reading material on her once-a-week trips to the station. He’d told her to stop buying him these trashy newspapers, but she just kept on. Might as well read something fun once in a while, she’d say. He grabbed the stack to take them out to the fire, and did a double take. The edition on top was dated three weeks ago. He stared at the photo on the cover. Two men and a woman. The shot barely disguised the fact that they were naked. He remembered now. He’d read the tabloid article because he recognized the name of one of the men in the picture. Cat had known him, had talked about him. But it wasn’t the man who concerned him, it was the woman. That’s why she looked so damned familiar! Joe committed the tabloid headline to memory before carrying the blankets and sheets back down the hall. He paused in the doorway to the front room. His guest was looking at Cat’s photo again. He glared at her back, the headline playing in his mind like a bad record— New York Fashion Photographer Willa Walters Overexposed in Deadly Sex/Drug scandal. Chapter 2 If he was cool to her before, he was downright icy now. Wendy stepped barefoot onto the wet wood deck and closed the French doors behind her. Joe stood with his back to her, gazing out at a late-night sunset whose colors looked as if they’d jumped off an artist’s palette. She was tempted to go back inside and get her camera. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. Dark clouds still thrashed above them but eased into violet tipped with brilliant orange near the horizon. The snowcapped peaks in the distance looked like pink snow cones from a county fair. Wendy had never seen a more beautiful sky in her life. Or a more tightly wound man. Aware of her approach, Joe began to pace back and forth along the length of the deck, his hand skimming the railing. He reminded her of a caged predator. A very irritated caged predator. The question on her mind was Why? He’d dumped the sheets and blankets on the sofa bed, mumbled a good-night, then had retreated outside to the deck, seemingly to watch the sunset. She knew that wasn’t the reason he was out there. He didn’t know her well enough for her to have made him so angry, but apparently she had. Or something had. At this point she didn’t care. She had her own problems. She had three weeks to get those caribou photographs to the magazine. Three short weeks. When the senior editor at Wilderness Unlimited, a sorority sister from college, had agreed to Wendy’s proposal, she’d been ecstatic. It was the first break she’d gotten since the incident, since life, as she’d known it, had blown up in her face. She knew it was the only break she was likely to get, and she was determined not to waste it. A cleansing breath of cool air laced with wet spruce cleared her head. Supper, and the nap, had bolstered her strength. She was still a bit jet-lagged from the long flight west. That, and the fact that there were about sixteen hours of daylight at this latitude this time of year, played havoc with her internal clock. “Warden,” she said as she moved toward him across the wet deck, thinking it best to keep their communications formal. He stopped pacing, his back to her, but didn’t respond. Unfolding a map she’d retrieved from her knapsack, she said, “There’s something I want to ask you.” He didn’t even acknowledge her with a look when she joined him at the railing. “That buck today, the woodland caribou…” “Bull,” he said. “Excuse me?” “Caribou males are called bulls in Alaska, not bucks. I thought you would have known that, being a wildlife photographer.” “I, uh…” He had a way of flustering her with his offhand comments. She was determined not to let him back her down. “The point is…I need to find him again.” “Why?” “I told you. For the magazine. My assignment.” He turned to look at her, crossing his arms over his chest and hiking a hip onto the railing, as if settling in for a friendly chat. His eyes, however, were anything but friendly. “Wilderness Unlimited. So you said.” She moved closer, spun the map around and spread it across the railing so he could see it. “I left my car here.” She pointed to a spot on the highway, then traced her finger along the route she’d taken into the reserve. “I first saw the bull here, where you—” “How much experience do you have?” “What?” She looked up at him. “With wildlife photography. What other animals have you photographed?” Besides the menagerie of pets she’d had growing up and her college’s mascot, a Clydesdale, the answer was none. Well, except for some small animals she’d seen earlier today. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. His smug expression and arched brow told her he couldn’t wait to point out her shortcomings. Blake had been like that. Always making sure she knew she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t experienced enough. At every opportunity, hammering it home that she was nothing without him. Well, here’s a news flash: Blake was wrong. It had taken her a long time to see it. Weeks of getting over the shock of what had happened in New York, lying in the dark on the twin bed in her old room in her parents’ house, thinking about her life—what she wanted, what she was, what she could be. Her new life started now. And she wasn’t going to let any man, particularly one who didn’t even know her, tell her she wasn’t capable of handling it. “Moose,” she said. The lie came easy. “Deer, wolves, humpback whales, penguins. You name it, I’ve photographed it.” “Really?” He perked right up, seeming to believe her. She felt good all of a sudden. Better than she had all evening. “Where’d you shoot the penguins? Antarctica?” She supposed she shouldn’t make up anything that seemed too farfetched. If you’re going to lie, stick as close to the truth as possible. She’d read that once in a detective novel. “No,” she said. “Right here in Alaska. In the, uh, arctic.” “No kidding?” Joe smiled, his eyes glittering appreciatively in the last of the light. It was the first smile she’d seen from him, and a little shiver raced through her. Things were back on track. “Anyway, about that bull…” She pushed the map toward him again. “You must be pretty famous, then.” “Who, me? No, not at all. I’m just another photographer.” She pointed to the spot on the map where they’d last seen the bull, but Joe Peterson wasn’t looking at the map. He was looking at her. “I’ll have to disagree with you, Wendy.” He said her name as if it were a foreign word. “It would take one hell of a photographer, wildlife or otherwise, to shoot pictures of penguins in Alaska.” Why was he so antagonistic? What did he care if she had or hadn’t photographed— “Because, Wendy—” there it was again “—there aren’t any penguins in Alaska.” “There…aren’t?” “They’re a southern hemisphere species. Any wildlife photographer would know that.” He pushed away from the deck and started back inside. She followed him. “All right, I lied. So what? I still need to get those photos for the magazine, and to do that I’ll need to find that buck or bull or whatever it is again, or another one like it.” He marched into the kitchen and started washing their supper dishes as if she wasn’t even there, banging plates around, sloshing water out of the sink. She muscled in beside him and spread the map out on the dish drainer. “You’re right. I don’t know anything about penguins, okay? But I do know that there are only a handful of woodland caribou in Alaska. They’re rare, elusive, completely unlike the native species that roams the tundra. No one has ever photographed them before.” “There’s a reason for that,” he said, and plopped the dish he was working on back in the water. “It’s dangerous. The males are rogues. They’re skittish as hell and thrive in cliff settings just like the one you nearly got us both killed on.” She couldn’t think about that. “I need those pictures. It’s important. I’m not asking you to help me, I’m simply asking you to show me on this map where I might find more caribou, bulls especially.” He snorted and went back to his dishwashing. She noticed how strong his hands were, how tanned they looked against the white plastic plates. For a millisecond she recalled them on her body that afternoon. In a blood-heating thought that had nothing to do with photography, she wondered what the contrast would be like of his bronze hands against her bare white skin. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and grabbed a towel. “That bull we saw today, along with any others in the area, will have bolted to the other side of the reserve. You can’t drive there. You’d have to go on foot.” He gave her a once-over, his eyes lingering for a second on her mouth. “A woman like you would never make it.” She knew it was Joe Peterson, game warden, standing before her, saying the words, but it was Blake Barrett’s voice she heard in her head. “Oh, really?” She stormed out of the kitchen, slapped the map on the coffee table—which, earlier, she’d moved out of the way—and proceeded to make up the sofa bed with the sheets he’d delivered. Joe leaned in the door frame and watched her. The longer he looked at her, the angrier she got. What was it about men that they assumed—assumed without even knowing her—that she wasn’t up to the task at hand, no matter what that task happened to be? From something as simple as carting out the garbage to something as complex as managing a runway shoot, or as challenging as finding a couple of caribou in the mountains—guys like Blake Barrett, and now Joe Peterson, thought she was helpless. Well, hide and watch, boys. She snapped the crisp white sheet over the foam mattress. Hide and watch. Joe thrashed around in bed until the top sheet was twisted around his legs like a rope. He ripped it from his body and tossed it aside, then punched up the pillows, ramming his head into them like a Dall sheep in full rut. It was no good. He’d been lying there for the past hour and a half, wide awake. The bright-green numbers on the digital clock by the bed read just past two in the morning. After their conversation on the deck, which had turned into an argument in the kitchen, he’d left his overnight guest to fend for herself and had retreated to the bedroom to sleep. Only sleep hadn’t come. He’d reread the tabloid article he’d found in the back bedroom, paying particular attention to the reporter’s assessment of Willa Walters—the woman who was sleeping on his sofa bed. He knew these kinds of newspapers twisted the facts to suit their story and sensationalized every tidbit. All the same, he couldn’t get the sordid details out of his mind. He couldn’t shrug it off and let it go. The other thing he couldn’t let go of was the idea that the two of them weren’t alone out here. He’d definitely seen a man in the woods that afternoon. On the hike back to the station earlier that evening, he could have sworn that someone was following them. It could be a poacher, as he’d first suspected, or maybe a lost tourist. Hell, for all he knew it could be a tabloid reporter following the Walters story all the way to Alaska, though he didn’t think it very likely. He rolled onto his stomach into a sprawl, working to get comfortable, forcing all thoughts of mystery men and lying photographers from his mind. He willed himself to sleep. A few minutes later, relaxed at last, he was almost there, hovering on the edge. Then he heard it, the faint creak of board outside on the deck. A second later he was up, pulling on jeans and a shirt in the dark, scrambling for his boots, taking care to be as quiet as possible. He realized his heart was beating fast, much faster than normal, but it wasn’t because he feared what was out there. He’d run into all kinds of things in the night out here—hikers, department personnel on reconnaissance, even wildlife photographers. Most of the time it was animals: a disoriented grizzly, groggy from hibernation, ambling onto the deck, raccoons digging in his trash bin, the odd moose or mountain lion. None of them were dangerous if you respected their space. No, the reason for his accelerated heart rate wasn’t that he feared for his own safety. He did, however, fear for the safety of the woman sleeping in his front room. More accurately, he feared she’d wake up and do something stupid that would land her in trouble. That creaking board wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Joe stepped lightly down the darkened hallway, peering into the bathroom and kitchen, and out the kitchen windows before slipping silently into the front room. His house guest was asleep, the covers pulled over her head. Everything was quiet except for the nighttime sounds of crickets and a light wind breezing through the trees. Joe moved to the window and looked out. He stood, frozen in place, for a full minute, his gaze sweeping the deck, the steps leading up to it, and the forest beyond. A sliver of moon poked through the clouds, casting an eerie light on the trees, painting every surface ghostly gray. Light exploded from the room’s overhead fixture. Joe whirled toward the switch. “What’s up?” Wendy leaned sleepily against the wall flanking him, squinting against the light, her hand still on the switch. In a lightning-fast move, he flicked it off, grabbed her around the waist and backed them away from the window. “Hey, what the—” “Quiet!” Setting her on her feet, he looked at her hard, his eyes readjusting to the dark, and made a sign for her to be still. “What’s wrong?” she whispered. He didn’t answer. Pushing her back into the shadow of the door frame, he moved to the corner of the room by the fireplace and plucked his rifle from where it stood upright next to a jumble of snowshoes and skis. He knew it was loaded, but checked it anyway, then listened hard for a moment to the ordinary sounds of the night. Wendy stood stock-still in the door frame, listening, too, moonlight bathing her face in a soft pearl wash. Her hair shone silver and swished lightly against her neck as she turned toward him. It suddenly struck him how beautiful she was, standing there in nothing more than the old T-shirt he’d loaned her to sleep in. His T-shirt. It looked entirely different on her than it did on him. Of course it did, doofus. The fire in the hearth had died, and the room was cold. Her nipples stood out against the fabric of the thin shirt. She pushed off suddenly, from bare foot to bare foot, as if the floor were icy. His gaze was drawn to her small feet, upward along lithe, toned legs to the hem of the T-shirt. For a long moment he thought about what was under that T-shirt. “Is something out there?” She looked pointedly at the rifle in his hands. “I don’t know.” He moved up beside her, then in front of her, and, when the moon disappeared behind a cloud, strode quickly across the room to the front door. Wendy followed. He turned, ready to tell her to go back, but it was too late. She was right there with him, her face lighting up in anticipation, as she waited for him to open the door. No fear. Not even a hint of it. Just wide-eyed curiosity. It genuinely surprised him. She was a New York fashion photographer for God’s sake. He knew native Alaskans, women born and bred to the life here, who would have been fearful, at least cautious, in the same situation. But not Ms. Wendy, Willa, whatever-her-name-was Walters. Caution was not a part of her makeup. That had been apparent yesterday on the cliff face. “Are you going out there?” “Yeah. Stay here, and lock the door after I leave.” She placed a warm hand on his arm as he turned the lock, and the shock of it sent an odd shiver through him. “Be careful,” she said. The whole idea of her saying that to him made him smile. It was a slow smile that rolled over his features. He felt it inside, too. It was the damnedest thing, her telling him to be careful. Their gazes met, and for a few seconds he allowed himself to look at her. It had been a long time since he’d slept with a woman, even longer since he’d had one in his life on a regular basis. He missed it more than he’d let on to himself. He missed it a lot, he realized, his gaze slipping to her mouth, her breasts, those tiny bare feet. He told himself he wasn’t attracted to her, just her body, her looks. She was a woman, and he was a man in need of a good— She removed her hand from his arm. The sordid facts of the incident involving her in New York, described in raunchy detail in the tabloid article, crash landed in his mind. It was all too close to home, and made him remember things he’d tried for the past year to forget. “Go back to bed,” he said stiffly. Redoubling his grip on the rifle, he eased the front door open and stepped into the night. Wendy came awake with a start, sitting bolt upright on the sofa bed’s lumpy foam mattress. Bad dream, she realized, and forced herself to draw a calming breath. Nightmare, really—the same one she had over and over about her and Blake and what had happened that night in a Manhattan loft. Swiveling out of bed, she banished the memory from her mind and wondered if Joe was still outside. The luminous dial of her watch read 3:00 a.m., about an hour from the time he’d left the cabin. She’d waited up for him awhile, curled on the sofa bed, but had fallen asleep. Walking to the window, she looked out. It would be dawn soon. The cloud cover had dissipated, revealing a cobalt blanket of sky peppered with stars. When she turned toward the hall, pausing in the doorway, she glanced at the stack of skis and snowshoes in the corner of the room by the fireplace and noticed Joe’s rifle wasn’t there. Maybe he was still outside. Maybe he’d found something. Yesterday, from the moment she’d discovered the caribou and had started tracking it, she could have sworn she wasn’t alone. Someone, not Joe, had been out there with her. She knew it wasn’t Joe because he’d shown her on the map yesterday afternoon the route he’d taken from the station. He’d only intercepted her by chance. She’d covered territory he hadn’t even been in that day, and she’d had company. The thought of it gave her the creeps. Shaking it off, she padded down the hallway toward the bathroom and noticed that the door to the bedroom was open. On impulse she moved toward it. Joe Peterson was a strange animal. He reminded her a little of the rogue bull whose photo she’d been so desperate to shoot yesterday on the rock. He lived out here alone, miles from anywhere and anyone, in a world where he was master. At least, he thought he was. That made everyone else a mere minion, a position with which Wendy was overly familiar and was determined never to assume again. She’d spent years working with all kinds of people. Except for her bad judgment where Blake was concerned, she considered herself a pretty good judge of character. Something told her there was a good reason for Joe Peterson’s less than friendly behavior toward her. By the end of the evening his cool indifference had turned to outright irritation, and it bothered her that she couldn’t fathom a reason. Intuition told her he was a man in pain. That alone should have set off a loud warning bell in her thick head. Men in pain were a problem for her. The problem was she couldn’t not help them. Her natural instinct was to nurture, be a helpmate. That’s what had gotten her into trouble with Blake. Over the years being a helpmate had turned into being a doormat. Never again. At the door of Joe’s bedroom she stopped, remembering the fleeting moment before he’d gone outside, rifle in hand, recalling the way he’d looked at her mouth, her body, and had made her heartbeat quicken. There was no doubt she was attracted to him, and he to her. She hadn’t bothered fighting it because in the morning someone would take her back to her car and she’d never see him again. The thought of that wasn’t as soothing as it should have been. The bed in Joe’s room was empty, pillows askew, sheets twisted into a pile on the floor. Moonlight flooded the airy space. The room smelled like him, cool and green and unstable. Those were the impressions that had taken hold of her when she’d touched his arm, when she’d stood so close to him she’d felt his breath on her face. With a start she realized the rifle he’d taken outside with him was propped against the wall by the bed. Without thinking, she took a step into the room, then swallowed a gasp. Joe sat in a big Adirondack chair by a row of old-fashioned windows overlooking the deck. Clad only in jeans, his chest was bare, the muscles in his arms tight. There were no drapes on the windows. His face, reflecting some terrible pain, was bathed in the bright light of an August moon. Her gaze followed his to the framed photo he’d moved to the antique nightstand. Wendy hadn’t even noticed it was missing from the mantel. All at once she knew. “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Slowly, as if he’d known all along she was standing there, Joe turned to look at her. “Yes.” “I’m so sorry.” “Why?” She felt awkward all of a sudden, her tongue thick in her mouth. “I…” “Go back to sleep, Ms. Walters.” “I wish you’d call me Wendy.” He rose from the chair and placed the photo facedown into a drawer. “How about Willa?” Chapter 3 It was hard to pretend she hadn’t gotten under his skin, but he forced himself. Joe poured Willa Walters a cup of black coffee, and while she sat at the kitchen table and drank it, he fixed them a quick breakfast. “It’s not my real name,” she said after the silence between them stretched to a breaking point. “Wendy?” “No, Willa.” She shot him an irritated look. “It was made up for me.” “By who?” She shrugged. “A man I used to know.” “One of the guys in that picture?” The shock that registered on her face turned instantly to annoyance. “I didn’t know game wardens read those kinds of newspapers.” He flashed her a look, but didn’t respond. He divided a panful of scrambled eggs between two plates, topped them with buttered toast and handed her one. He expected her to refuse it, but she didn’t. Silently she accepted the food and began to eat. That was another thing that surprised him about her—she had one hell of an appetite for someone so petite. “That picture isn’t what you think.” She glanced up at him as he joined her at the table. “We weren’t…you know.” “Buck naked?” She speared him with a nasty smirk. “The male models were wearing Speedos. I was in a strapless tank suit. The tabloid cropped the photo to make the situation seem like something it wasn’t. The whole thing was completely innocent. I was on a shoot—at a public beach, for God’s sake. Besides, that photo had nothing to do with the incident.” He let that bit of information sink in while he watched her viciously jab a forkful of scrambled egg. This morning she had dressed in her own clothes again, and had left Cat’s sweatshirt and jeans in a neatly folded pile on the made-up sofa bed. Her feet were bare, except for the squares of moleskin she’d applied to her blisters. She sat sideways on her chair, her legs crossed, affording him a good view of her slender ankles. Her toenails were polished, too, he noticed. “New boots?” He nodded at her bandaged feet. “New everything. My luggage was stolen at the airport, so I had to buy all new stuff.” “Fairbanks or Anchorage?” That kind of thing didn’t happen too often in Alaska. “Anchorage, when I first arrived. A guy nabbed my suitcase off the conveyor and took off with it. Thank God I had my camera bag on me. I’d never be able to afford to replace my Nikon.” He watched her as she finished her toast. A dab of butter clung to the edge of her lip, and he caught himself wondering what it would feel like, what she would taste like, if he flicked it away with his tongue. His attraction to her disgusted him. He adjusted his position on the hard kitchen chair and croaked, “Tough break,” not really meaning it. Someone like her deserved what she got. “Yeah, well…” She waved her fork in the air in a dismissive gesture. “That’s the least of my worries at this point.” “I’ll bet.” She shot him a cool look and continued eating. With his back to her, as he rinsed out the coffee carafe and ground beans for another pot, he asked her about some of the things he’d read about her in the tabloid article. She immediately changed the subject. “The only other road into the reserve is this one.” She whipped the folded map—the one she’d tried to get him to look at last night—out of her pants pocket and spread it on the table. “If I leave my car here—” she pointed to a remote spot on a little-used Jeep trail “—and walk in from the east…” “You’re likely to get yourself killed.” She glared up at him. “Besides, the caribou won’t be there. They’ll be here.” He leaned over the table and jabbed a finger at another spot, more than forty miles from where she was planning on leaving her car. “Oh.” Her expression darkened as she considered exactly what a forty-mile hike in a remote Alaskan wilderness area meant. He felt the beginnings of a smile edge his lips. It vanished as she cleared her throat, sat up tall in her chair—those ridiculously perky breasts of hers jutting forward—and in a bright voice said, “Fine.” He snorted. “You’re a piece of work.” And that was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Her blue eyes glittered with anger. She pressed her lips tightly together and waited, as if counting to ten, then she let him have it. “What is it with you? You’ve been rude to me from the moment we met. You read a bunch of twisted half-truths in some supermarket tabloid and you think you know everything about me. Which you don’t,” she emphasized. “Even if all of it were true—which it isn’t—what do you care? What business is it of yours? That badge—” she flashed her eyes at the Department of Fish and Game emblem on his shirt “—doesn’t give you license to be a jerk.” He enjoyed watching her while she ranted at him. Her cheeks blazed with color, her eyes turned the warmest shade of blue he’d ever seen. Abruptly she stood and came around the table at him. He didn’t know whether he wanted to toss her out the door onto her very shapely ass or back her up against the refrigerator and lay one on her. A snappy retort died on his lips as the sound of an approaching vehicle interrupted their conversation. “What’s that?” she said, turning toward the window. “Your ride outta here.” “About time.” She followed him into the front room as the sounds of a car door slamming and footfalls scrunching across gravel drew their attention to the front door. It opened, and Barb Maguire, dressed in a neatly pressed department-issue uniform, breezed into the room. “Hi-ya, Joe!” She saw Wendy and did a double take. “Oh.” Her gaze washed over first Wendy, then him. When she recovered from her obvious shock, a smile bloomed on her face. “Hi, I’m Barb, Joe’s delivery girl, so to speak.” She handed him a stack of mail and what looked like a month’s worth of department paperwork. “Thanks,” he said. The two women shook hands. Wendy introduced herself and made some polite small talk as Barb assessed the situation: Cat’s clothes on the sofa bed next to the pile of neatly folded blankets and bed sheets, two empty tea cups on the coffee table and a heap of dead ashes in the hearth. She flashed him a conspiratorial look, grinning like the cat who ate the canary, when Wendy turned to grab her knapsack off a chair. He put on his best it’s-not-what-you-think expression, but it didn’t deter her. Barb Maguire, a DF&G technician who was married to the department’s local wildlife biologist, had been trying to play matchmaker for him for the past year. Her goal was to get him into town so she could fix him up with one of her girlfriends. Joe wasn’t interested, but Barb was relentless. “So, you’re a wildlife photographer. That’s…well, perfect!” She winked at Joe. “Uh, yeah. I’m here to photograph woodland caribou.” “Whoa. Tough assignment.” Barb nodded in admiration. Joe had had enough. “I told her she’d be a damned fool to go looking for them on her own.” “Do you think everyone is a helpless idiot, or is it just me?” He started to answer, but Barb cut him off. “No, he thinks that about pretty much everybody.” She grinned. “Don’t let it put you off.” “I don’t intend to.” With a dismissive swing of her hair, Wendy did an about-face and retrieved her socks and boots from where they’d dried overnight by the hearth. She struggled to get them on comfortably over the moleskin. Joe resisted an overpowering urge to help her. “Why not hire a guide?” Barb said. “Can’t afford it.” Wendy laced the stiff boots, grimacing. “I’m covering my expenses myself. Besides, I don’t want a guide.” “Why don’t you take her?” Barb arched a thick, dark brow at him. “You know every inch of the reserve and exactly where those caribou are likely to hole up.” “No!” he and Wendy said in unison. “Whoa. Sorry. I thought you two were…uh, friends.” “We’re not,” Joe said. “My mistake.” Wendy’s cheeks flushed scarlet. “I’ll, um, be right back.” She headed down the hall toward the bathroom, and when they heard the door close, Barb was all over him. “Who is she? She’s great! Where did you meet her? What happened with the two of you last—” “I want you to take her back to her rental car out on the west road, then follow her to the highway. I want her out of here. Got it?” Barb’s brown eyes widened. “Got it.” “And don’t ask,” he said, as she opened her mouth to fire more questions at him. A moment later Wendy’s footsteps cut short their conversation. “Okay, I’m ready.” She turned to him and stiffly offered her hand. Feeling awkward, he shook it. “Thank you for your…hospitality.” Her tone pushed the sarcastic-meter off the scale. At the door their gazes met and, for the briefest moment, in her eyes he read the same unguarded fusion of emotions he’d seen in them last night when she was standing in his bedroom: compassion, longing, regret. He was familiar with the last one. God, was he ever. Barb called to him over the roof of her department pickup before she climbed inside. “Almost forgot. Your truck’s out of the shop. Couple of guys from the garage are bringing it up later this morning.” “Thanks,” he said, then stood in the open doorway and watched as Barb turned her pickup around and drove Wendy Walters out of his life. Good riddance. But fifteen minutes later, he couldn’t stop himself from making the call. “Wilderness Unlimited,” the operator uttered in an East Coast accent. When Joe reached the senior editor, Wendy’s story was confirmed. She was out here to shoot the caribou, only it wasn’t the magazine’s idea. It was Wendy’s. A photo essay slated for next month’s edition had fallen through, and Wendy had cut a deal with the editorial director to hire her as a staff photographer if she could deliver the caribou photos before the issue went to press. No small feat. “No one’s ever photographed them up close,” Joe said into the receiver. “That’s exactly why our little Wendy picked that particular project. She knew the magazine’s director would be champing at the bit for a coup like that. He couldn’t resist.” “She must want that job pretty bad.” “She’s desperate,” the woman said. “Can’t say I blame her. After what happened in that loft with that model—geez, he was only twenty-nine, Wendy’s age. So sad. They say it was an overdose of ecstasy or crack, I don’t remember which. Anyway—” “I get the picture,” Joe said, not wanting to rehash the details he’d read in the tabloid. “She’s trying to start over, make a new life for herself. Getting away from Blake Barrett is the smartest thing she’s ever done. She should have done it years ago. That snake didn’t even have the decency to speak to the police on her behalf.” Blake Barrett. Joe wondered who he was. Ex-husband, maybe? Lover? Her boss? “You take care of our girl, now. I worry about her out there on her own.” Joe didn’t bother telling her that the photographer formerly known as Willa Walters was on her way back to the highway as they spoke. Next month’s issue would have to run without those caribou photos, and the petite blond who’d initiated a wild night of kinky sex and drugs resulting in the death of a male fashion model would have to find herself another assignment. Preferably as far away from him as possible. “You don’t say?” Barb slowed the green Department of Fish and Game pickup into the turnoff from the highway onto the spur road where Wendy had left her rental car. “Yeah. The issue goes to press in three weeks. I’ve got to get those photos.” She rummaged around in her knapsack, searching for her sunglasses. She pulled them out, along with an envelope crafted of high-quality stationery on which she’d scribbled some phone numbers. She’d been carrying the envelope around in her camera bag for the past ten days, ever since it had shown up in her parents’ mailbox. The letter inside had been from Blake. When Wendy realized it, she’d kept the envelope with the phone numbers, and tossed the letter, unread, into her parents’ recycling bin—which was exactly where it belonged. “Joe’s not gonna like it,” Barb said, jolting her back to the present. “You going in there on your own.” Wendy stuffed the envelope back in her bag, and made a huffy sound. “It’s none of his business.” “Don’t try telling him that. Joe Peterson thinks everything that goes on within a hundred miles of him is his business, and he wants it run his way.” “Tell me about it.” Wendy smiled at her, and they both laughed. Barb Maguire, a sturdily built woman in her early thirties with springy black ringlets framing a cherub-like face, was a breath of fresh air after spending the past fifteen hours with Warden Bug-up-His-Butt. Although, Wendy had to admit, it was a pretty nice butt. “Seriously, if you’re planning on hiking into the east side of the reserve, you’d best be prepared for bears and bad weather.” “I’m no amateur, despite appearances.” And despite the fact that it had been years since she’d done any camping or hiking. But she didn’t mention that fact to Barb. “I’ve got a carload of backpacking gear I know how to use and some emergency flares in case I get into trouble.” Barb glanced speculatively at her half-empty knapsack. “This is just my camera bag. I had no idea I was going to be out for more than a quick stretch of the legs yesterday. I spotted that caribou, and when he took off, I had to follow. There wasn’t time to go back to the car to get my gear.” “Yeah,” Barb said, “those rogue bulls are just like men, aren’t they? Let ’em out of your sight for a minute and they’re history.” Wendy laughed. “Speaking of history…and rogue bulls…” She looked pointedly at Barb. “Ahh, so I was right about you two. Good. It’s about time he started living again.” Wendy shook her head. “No, you were wrong, but I’m still curious. What’s his story?” “Joe?” Barb sucked in a breath and readjusted her hands on the steering wheel. Shaking her head, she said, “He just can’t seem to get over it. Cat’s death, I mean.” So that was her name. Cat Peterson. It fit her. “She was a beautiful woman.” “You saw the picture.” Wendy nodded. “She was just a kid, really. Twenty-two. Nine years younger than Joe when she died.” Wendy wanted to know more, but didn’t want to seem as interested as she obviously was. The question was why was she so interested? Men like Joe Peterson were bad news. The last thing she needed was another warden in her life. Blake had given an award-winning performance in that role for the past seven years. “Joe lived for Cat,” Barb said. “When she died, he just retreated. Took that job up in the reserve, closed himself off from everyone and everything.” “I didn’t know the Department of Fish and Game made remote assignments like that.” Before she’d left New York, she’d done some checking on the game reserve’s management. “They don’t. But when that herd of woodland caribou were discovered out here last year, Fish and Wildlife Protection wanted somebody in the reserve for at least a season. Couldn’t get any takers.” “So Joe volunteered.” “You got it. First time the two agencies ever collaborated like this. Fish and Wildlife is technically part of the Alaska State Troopers.” Wendy remembered Joe’s handgun. “Well, he certainly seems to be into the role, if you know what I mean. He really is a control freak, isn’t he?” “Big-time. Which is probably the reason he blames himself for Cat’s death. Though I don’t know what he could have done to have stopped it. Cat was a grown woman. He couldn’t keep her under lock and key, now, could he? No matter how much he wanted to protect her.” Joe was the protective type. Wendy knew that for a fact from yesterday’s little adventure. She could have made it back to her car last night before dark. She would have been dog tired, but she could have done it. All the same, no way a guy like Joe Peterson would have let her hike all that way on her own. “How did Cat die?” she asked. “Drug overdose. In New York last year. She was a fashion model, just starting out. Got mixed up with the wrong crowd, I guess.” “Oh, God.” Wendy felt as if someone had punched her. In her mind she sifted through the faces of the young female models she’d met at parties and industry events. Her own work with Blake had been mostly for men’s magazines like Esquire and GQ. She generally didn’t work with women. She knew she’d never met Cat, but wondered if Blake had. “I, uh, recognize you from your pictures,” Barb said. Wendy’s stomach continued to roll. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, she couldn’t get away from her past. Barb shot a glance at the supermarket tabloid sticking out from under a fast-food bag on the dash of the pickup. “They’re still following the story.” No wonder Joe Peterson had looked at her as if she were the lowest form of life on earth. Sometimes that’s exactly what she felt like. She wasn’t proud of some of the things she’d allowed herself to be sucked into, but that was over now. And no wonder he was so angry—at her and himself. Wendy knew Joe was physically attracted to her, and had been from the moment he’d pulled her up onto the rock and saved her life. Once he’d realized who she was—sometime after supper and before bed, she guessed—that attraction would have been hard to reconcile, especially for a man like Joe. Given the way Cat had died, and given what he’d read about Wendy in the papers… “Pull over,” Wendy said, reaching for the door handle. She thought she might be sick. “Just about to. That’s your rental, isn’t it? A blue Explorer?” She nodded, working to keep her breakfast down. Stepping out of the truck, Wendy took a few deep breaths and felt better. Fishing the SUV’s keys out of her pocket, she frowned at the driver’s side door. It was unlocked. She was sure she’d locked it. “Everything okay?” Barb called from her pickup. “Um, yeah. Fine.” But it wasn’t fine. She was sure she’d locked it. “Barb, about those tabloids…” “Oh, heck, don’t worry about it. No way I believe all the stuff they wrote about you.” She tossed her knapsack in the Explorer, then smiled. “Thanks.” “All set, then?” One last question burned inside her. She had to ask it. “How long were they married? Joe and Cat,” she added, when Barb’s thick brows wrinkled in confusion. “Cat wasn’t Joe’s wife,” Barb said. “She was his kid sister.” Joe snatched the phone on the fourth ring. “Peterson.” He’d been outside fixing a broken water pipe that ran from the spring up the hill into the cabin. “Hey, it’s me.” Barb’s normally cheerful voice had an edge to it he didn’t like. “What’s up?” “Wendy Walters. I just thought you’d want to know.” Joe pulled the phone onto his lap and slung a hip on the edge of the desk. “Know what?” “She’s planning on hiking in over the east ridge after those caribou. That gun-sight pass—you know the one.” “Son of a bitch!” “I know, I know. Don’t kill the messenger. The whole first hour in the pickup I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s dead set on it.” “How long ago’d you drop her?” “’Bout two hours ago. My radio’s on the blink. Had to wait till I got back to headquarters to call you.” There wasn’t any cell coverage in the area. Hell, the closest town was 150 miles away. “All right, all right. I gotta go.” He started to put the handset down. “Goin’ after her?” He put the receiver back to his ear. “What do you think?” The last thing Joe heard before he slammed the phone down on the desk was Barb Maguire’s trademark titter. Chapter 4 It took him six hours to catch up to her. And when he did, Joe realized his temper had ratcheted to dangerous proportions. “Get a grip, Peterson,” he cautioned himself. He was determined to handle this like a professional. By the time he was able to gather his gear, get his truck out of the shop and break just about every traffic law on the books racing to the eastern edge of the reserve, Wendy Walters had gained a huge head start on him. Still, he would have bet his next paycheck that he would have overtaken her miles ago, that she would never have made it as far as the steep, glacier-cut canyon he was now traversing. He would have lost that bet, he realized, as he caught a flash of movement on the sheer rock face a quarter of a mile ahead of him. Instinctively he reached for the pair of Austrian-made binoculars secured to his chest by a well-worn leather harness. “I’ll be a son of a—” He bit off the curse as he peered through the field glasses. Wendy Walters, wannabe wildlife photographer, trudged up the steep, rocky trail toward the narrow gun-sight pass marking the little-used eastern entrance to the reserve. Joe checked his watch. 7:00 p.m. She’d made damned good time. The woman was fit, he’d give her that. But he was fitter, and right now he was fit to be tied. He secured the binoculars, hunched his department-issue backpack high on his hips, recinching the padded belt, and took off at a jog. The weather looked iffy. Another storm was moving in from the west, coming right at them. Dark clouds massed overhead, obscuring a late-summer sun that had already dipped well below the jagged, snowcapped peaks surrounding the canyon. Now that he’d found her, he didn’t intend to let her out of his sight, even for a second. He’d parked his truck next to her rented SUV at the end of the gravel road, miles behind them, and had spotted her small boot prints the moment he’d started up the muddy trail toward the reserve. What bothered him was that two miles back he’d picked up another set of boot prints, twice as large as Wendy’s and leaving deep impressions in the soft earth. They definitely weren’t alone out here. There hadn’t been another vehicle parked near Wendy’s Explorer, or anywhere along the gravel road, but that didn’t mean anything. There were dozens of spur roads, and twenty different ways to intersect the trail they were on, if one was prepared to hike cross-country. Remembering yesterday’s glimpse of Camo Man, Joe scanned the shadowed crevices of the canyon, then picked up the pace, fixing his gaze on the petite woman ahead of him, trudging steadily upward toward the pass, dwarfed by the bright-blue pack on her back. “What are you doing here?” Wendy said, when he finally caught up with her. “That’s my line.” He grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him. “Hey!” He eyed her up and down, inspecting her for signs of injury or fatigue. He saw neither. In fact, he noticed she’d barely broken a sweat, which was nothing short of amazing, given the steep climb. She was breathing hard, but he suspected it was because she was angry, not winded. Her cheeks were flushed with color, her eyes ice-blue darts that, because they reminded him a little of Cat’s, pierced him right through the heart. “Come on,” he said, crushing the impression, replacing it with memorized snippets from the tabloid article he’d read describing the police investigation into Willa Walters’s drug habits. “You’re outta here.” “The hell I am.” She wrestled out of his grasp. “This is state land, open to hikers and overnight backpackers.” “Yeah, backpackers with a permit. Got one?” He smirked at her, feeling good all of a sudden, strong, in control of the situation, professional all the way. He knew it would be dark by the time they got back to their vehicles, but that was fine with him, he had a flashlight and— “Right here.” She whipped a folded yellow receipt out of the breast pocket of her long-sleeved shirt. “See for yourself. I’m every bit as entitled to be here as you are.” For a long second he just stood there, mute, looking at the folded yellow paper flapping in the wind. He snatched it out of her hand. Only local DF&G or Fish and Wildlife officials could issue permits for the reserve, and he sure as hell hadn’t issued her one. The only other officer in the vicinity was— “Barb wrote it up for me.” He swore under his breath, mentally counting to ten. The next time he saw Barb Maguire he was going to drag her by that kinky black hair of hers down to the creek behind the station and drown her. He checked the dates and the signature on the receipt, confirming the worst, then slapped it back into Wendy’s waiting hand. “You can’t stop me, you know. I’m going to find those caribou, and when I do find them, I’m going to photograph them. And then I’m going to get out of here.” She glared up at him, her lips pressed seductively into a tight little rose. He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. He couldn’t stop her. This was state land, and she had a valid access permit. The only way to stop her now would be to judge her incompetent or unprepared. He had the authority to do it, against her will, if it came to that. “Why did you come after me?” The question caught him off guard. He ignored it. He’d been thinking about just how competent and prepared she actually seemed to be. An old but expensive compass hung from her neck by a nylon cord. Her topographic map was expertly folded into the kind of configuration a seasoned hiker would use and was protected by a plastic cover, peeking out from an easily reachable overhead pocket on her pack. Though the backpack itself was a blinding electric blue—that’s how he’d spotted her so easily—and was ridiculously big for her petite frame, it was high quality, as was her down sleeping bag, her tent and the short ice ax hanging from a loop near her liter-size water bottle. “You’re probably not going to need that,” he said, nodding toward the ax. “It’s August,” she shot back. “And this is Alaska. You have to be prepared for everything.” He shrugged but had to hand it to her. She was in good shape, was well equipped and had managed, so far, not to get herself lost or killed. “You didn’t answer my question.” “Hmm?” He caught himself staring at her mouth. Her lips had relaxed again, and she’d wet them unconsciously with her tongue. “Why…are…you…here?” Enunciating each word, Wendy pantomimed sign language in his face. He snapped to attention, irritated at himself for noticing her mouth at all, and her eyes, not to mention those cute little feet encased in top-grain leather. He wondered how her blisters were doing. “I…I’m here because you can’t go in there alone, permit or no permit.” “Why not?” She stiffened, every muscle in her face taut, daring him to come up with a reason that would hold water. He couldn’t. At least not any reason that wouldn’t sound stupid or steeped in emotion. Like the fact that she was a woman, alone. Whether a person was well equipped or not, the reserve was one of the wildest, most rugged places on the planet. There were animals, bears— Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/debra-brown-lee/northern-exposure/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.