The Lady's Man

by Linda Turner

  “Not if Fish and Wildlife has anything to say about it,” Irene retorted. “That’s why they’ve called in this McBride fellow—”

  Sure she must have heard her wrong, Elizabeth stiffened. “McBnde!” she said sharply. “Did you say McBride?”

  “Yeah. Zeke McBride. Why? Have you heard of him? He grew up in the area, which is one of the reasons the powers that be wanted him on the job. He not only knows the terrain, but the people. And he’s good. Damn good, from what I’ve heard. He has a degree in criminology and is one of Fish and Wildlife’s best troubleshooters. Not your average egghead, huh?”

  At that moment the main door to the office opened and Elizabeth looked up from her conversation just in time to see Zeke walk in. “Speak of the devil,” she told her boss quietly. “Einstein himself just walked in. I’ll call you back.”

  He started toward her as she hung up, and she was forced to admit that a woman would have to be stone-cold dead and in the ground a week not to appreciate a tall drink of water like Zeke McBride. And as much as she hated to admit it, she was far from dead where he was concerned.

  She’d thought about him last night, during the long hours between three and four in the morning when her defenses were down and she couldn’t control her own thoughts. His smile, the mischief in his eyes, the way her heart just seemed to roll over whenever she turned around and he was there. And it shook her She didn’t want to like him, didn’t want to think about him, didn’t want him in her world. And now she had to work with him? She didn’t think so! There had to be another solution.

  Agitated, aware of Tina’s and Peter’s interested eyes, she pushed to her feet and said, “We can talk in the back room.”

  Without another word she headed for the small room where the security monitoring system was set up, and turned on him the second the door shut behind them. “I can’t work with you. We’d be at each other’s throats inside an hour.”

  Far from perturbed—and apparently not the least bit surprised that she knew why he was there—he grinned. “She wants me. Yes!”

  She would not, she promised herself, laugh. The man was already full of himself as it was. But her lips still kept struggling with the need to curl into a smile as she said dryly, “Somebody has a hearing problem here, and it’s not me. I said ‘I can’t work with you,’ McBride. Not ‘I want you.’ There’s a difference.”

  “Oh, no, there’s not,” he argued, his eyes teasing “You can’t work with me because you want me.”

  “I do not!”

  “I understand, sweetheart,” he soothed. “But if we’re going to work together, there’s something you should know. I don’t play around on the job. I know you’re disappointed, but there’s a time and a place for a thing like that, and you’re just going to have to control yourself.”

  He was so outrageous that Elizabeth couldn’t help but strangle on a laugh. Drat the man! Why did she keep letting him do this to her? “I’m not the one who’s got a problem with self-control,” she finally told him when she could manage to do so with a straight face. “And even if I were, it’s not an issue, since we’re not going to be working together.”

  Far from discouraged, he only grinned. “One of these days we’ll see about that self-control of yours, but you’re right. It’s not an issue. Control or no control, we’re working together. The suits in Washington want me in on this, so it looks like we’re stuck with each other.”

  She wanted to argue, to cry out that this couldn’t be happening, but she’d worked for the government bureaucracy long enough to know that when orders came down from on high, they were followed to the letter if you planned to keep your job. Like it or not, he’d been called in on the case, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Frustrated, she tried to take consolation in the fact that it wouldn’t be forever. It wasn’t as if he was going to be involved in the project itself. His sole purpose was to catch the sicko who’d left that threatening meat for her wolves, which meant he would be working with Nick, not her. That she could tolerate, if it meant keeping her wolves safe.

  “All right,” she said, sounding resigned. “You made your point. We have to work together—but on a limited basis. If we’re going to do that successfully, I suggest that we both act as professional as possible. That means you don’t call me sweetheart.”

  “Whatever you say, Lizzie, darlin’,” he retorted, then chuckled when she groaned. His grin quickly faded, though, when he brought up the subject of last night. “Tell me about what happened. I already talked to Nick, but I’d like to hear your version of the story.”

  They returned to the main office then, and she told him everything from the moment she’d gotten the phone call last night, leaving nothing out. Jotting down notes, Zeke didn’t know if he wanted to shake her or lock her up in one of Nick’s jail cells to keep her safe when he learned that she’d spent the night at the holding pen. Crazy woman, didn’t she know what a chance she’d taken?

  Dead serious now, he said, “Tell me again about the phone call. Close your eyes and replay it in your head. Is there a possibility that you’ve heard this guy’s voice before?”

  Startled, her eyes flew open. “Oh, I don’t think so!”

  “Don’t be so quick to dismiss the idea,” he told her solemnly. “This is a small community. In the three months you’ve been here, you’ve probably talked to just about everyone in a fifty-mile radius without even realizing it. Think about it. At one time or another, everyone goes to the post office, the grocery store, church. And then there’s the town meeting the other night. Quite a few jackasses stood up and raked you over the coals. Could the caller have been one of them?”

  “Oh, surely not!” she replied. “The whole town was there, including the sheriff. What kind of nut would publicly criticize me, then threaten to kill one of the wolves? He had to know that would automatically make him a suspect.”

  “If he was playing with a full deck, yes,” he agreed. “But at this point we have no evidence that this man is completely sane, so there’s no way to say what he’s capable of.”

  “Are you saying he’ll carry through on his threats?”

  She sounded so horrified that he wished he could assure her that wasn’t going to happen, but he couldn’t. “He left poisoned meat for you to find,” he said flatly. “Frankly, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

  She paled at that, but he had to give her credit, she didn’t cower from the truth. “Then we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t get the chance.”

  Closing her eyes, Elizabeth concentrated on the conversation that had sent her racing out to Eagle Ridge last night, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember so much as a single inflection that sounded familiar. “I’m sorry,” she finally said with a shake of her head, “but if I’ve ever spoken with this man before, I have no memory of it. His voice was sort of flat, without much of an accent. And cold. Very cold.”

  “But you’d know it if you heard it again on the street?”

  “I’d know it on the other side of the moon,” she retorted. “Don’t worry—if I hear it again, you’ll know it. The whole town’ll probably hear me screaming for the sheriff.”

  Satisfied, he nodded. “Good. In the meantime, we’re not going to stand around with our hands in our pockets and wait for this jerk to give himself away. Get your coat. I need you to go with me out to Eagle Ridge and walk me through what you found there last night.”

  There was nothing the least bit flirtatious in his remark. Once he’d started questioning her about last night, he’d been totally focused on the investigation. Still, Elizabeth hadn’t forgotten that this was the same man who had teasingly asked her out every time he’d seen her over the course of the past few days.

  Hesitating, she eyed him suspiciously. “This is just business, isn’t it, McBride?”

  “Of course. What else would it be?”

  Another woman might have fallen for that wounded choirboy look, but Elizabeth knew better. She’d
seen it too many times on her father’s face to be taken in. “Then you won’t mind if we go in separate cars, will you?” she asked innocently. “Just so we can each leave when we need to?”

  She had him, and they both knew it. There was absolutely no reason why they had to drive out to Eagle Ridge together. Giving in graciously, he grinned, scoring her the point. “You’re quick, Lizzie. I like that.”

  Fighting a grin of her own, she tried not to be charmed. It wasn’t easy. “You’d be wise not to forget it,” she warned as she pulled her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk, then grabbed her coat. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  More than happy to trail after her, even if it was in a separate car, Zeke followed, grinning all the way. It wasn’t a date, but a man had to take his victories where he could find them.

  Unhappy with all the activity around their pen within the last twelve hours, the wolves, with Napoleon in the lead, greeted Elizabeth with a symphony of mournful howling that was truly something to hear Impressed, Zeke waited for the eerie serenade to end before arching a brow at her. “Do they always do that?”

  “Not to that extent, no,” she said. “But they’re still agitated from last night.”

  Nick had called someone to dispose of the dead coyote and marked the spot where the poisoned meat had been left with yellow spray paint, but the scent of death still lingered on the air. Restless, their hackles raised in warning, the wolves nervously prowled the inner perimeter of their pen, their gazes cold and steady as they watched their visitors suspiciously.

  Moving to the yellow X Nick had left on the rocky ground, Zeke studied it and the surrounding area thoughtfully, but there was little to see. Whoever had threatened the wolves was no fool. He’d chosen the perfect night to strike out at the wolves. The wind had kicked up last night, blowing snow and. covering tracks. With a windchill near zero, he hadn’t had to worry about anyone being out and about near Eagle Ridge. He’d had the place all to himself.

  Still, Zeke scoured the entire area for clues, but without much success. The wind had swept the landscape clean, leaving behind an unbroken expanse of snow that was free of tracks in every direction. If Zeke hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn another human being hadn’t been anywhere near the holding pen for at least a week.

  Returning to where Elizabeth waited for him by her Jeep, he said, “The place is clean, but I pretty much expected that.”

  “So what happens next?”

  His hands stuffed into the pockets of his down jacket, he said, “Once I get the lab report back on the meat and know what kind of poison it was laced with, I start tracking down the suppliers in the area.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “To get the lab results back? A week, less if we’re lucky. I know,” he said when she gasped in dismay. “That gives our boy a lot of time to cause trouble, but I’ve got other leads I can follow while I’m waiting on the lab. According to Nick, a lot of antigovernment thugs have moved into the county over the last couple of years, and more than a few of them were flapping their gums at the town meeting the other night. As soon as I get back to town, Nick and I are going to make some house calls and check out their whereabouts last night. In the meantime, you’ve got some decisions to make.”

  Surprised, she blinked. “About what?”

  He nodded to the holding pen and the wolves who watched them warily. “The wolves. With the way things are heating up, I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep them safe much longer. This area’s too isolated, and once word gets out about the poison, it’s only going to give the rest of the nutcases out there ideas. The next person might not be content with just scaring you and riling them up. He could bring a gun with him.”

  Following his gaze to the holding pen and the treecovered hills that rose around the meadow on all sides, Elizabeth felt her heart sink. Anyone who actually wanted to harm the wolves didn’t have to come anywhere near them. With a high-powered rifle, they could hide in the hills overlooking the pen and, just as last night’s caller had warned, pick the animals off like fish in a barrel.

  Sick at the thought, she looked up at Zeke with eyes that were dark with worry. “So what do you suggest?”

  “Release them early,” he retorted promptly. “Today. Trust me, they’ll be a lot safer on their own, running wild, than they will be in that pen. Unless, of course, they’re in quarantine or something. They’re not, are they?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “They’re disease free. They went through a battery of tests before they were even brought into the country. We’ve just kept them penned to make sure they were fully acclimated to the area before we opened the gates. After all the time and money that’s been spent on this project, we didn’t want them running back to Canada the first chance they got.”

  “They’re scheduled to be released on Friday, anyway, aren’t they? Is a few days going to make that much difference?”

  “Not to the wolves. The locals are another matter. I already announced the release date. They’re not going to be happy about moving it up, even if it is only a couple of days.”

  “They’ll get over it,” he assured her. “So you can release them. Today.”

  It wasn’t a question, but a statement, one she had no argument for. He was right. The time had come to open the gate. The wolves were already fitted with radio collars that would transmit their every move in the wild. All she had to do was make a call to the office, notify Tina and Peter that the release had been moved up so the monitors tracking their movements would be watched, then open the gate and step back.

  It should have been simple. Feeling a pang in the region of her heart, she reminded herself that she’d always known this day would come. She just hadn’t expected to feel like an overprotective mother sending her firstborn out into the big, bad world without a quarter to call home in case he got into trouble.

  When she hesitated, Zeke stared down at her quizzically. “Lizzie? What do you want to do? It’s your call.”

  Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t even think to protest the use of the nickname. In the end there was no choice, and she knew it. From the moment the wolves were first captured in Canada months ago, she and an entire team of people from Canada to Colorado had been working toward this day, the day of their release. Nothing was more important than that. If she was sad because she would probably never again be able to get close to Queenie and Napoleon, that was her problem, one she had no business bringing to the job.

  Forcing a smile, she said, “I’ve got to call the office.”

  Five minutes later, from the protection of the trees a thousand yards away, Elizabeth stood next to Zeke and watched the wolves eye the open gate to their prison with blatant suspicion. Not surprisingly, after three months of captivity, they didn’t trust anything that altered the parameters of what had grudgingly become their home.

  “The Yellowstone wolves wouldn’t go anywhere near the open gate of their pen for two days when it was finally time to release them,” she said huskily. Her gaze on Napoleon and Queenie, she never noticed that Zeke’s attention was focused solely on her. “I think they associated the gate with their captors and wouldn’t go anywhere near it. We eventually had to cut a hole in the fence at the back of the pen and bring in some roadkill before they could be tempted to leave the compound.”

  “You won’t have to do that here,” he said confidently. “The alpha male’s too bold. What’d you name him?”

  Caught off guard, Elizabeth jerked her eyes from the wolves up to his. “I never said I named him.” She’d been careful not to. Officially, he was Number Eight, nothing more.

  “You didn’t have to,” he retorted. “You can’t take your eyes off him or his mate.”

  She expected to find censure in his gaze—he was, after all, a Ph.D. and knew the value of maintaining objectivity in any kind of field work—but there was nothing there but amused understanding. And just that easily, she knew that he understood how difficult releasing the wolves wa
s for her, because he’d been where she was.

  “So what’d you name him?” he prompted again. “King? Duke? How about Bubba?”

  She had to laugh at that. “Does he look like a Bubba to you?”

  Grinning, he shrugged. “He does have a certain swagger to him.”

  “That’s pride,” she corrected him. “And his name’s Napoleon.”

  “Then his bride is...?”

  “Queenie,” she said softly. “It seemed to fit her better than Josephine.”

  Turning his attention back to the wolves, Zeke had to admit that the names did indeed fit. In a pack of twelve animals, Elizabeth’s favorites stood out like the rulers they were. Napoleon, in particular, had a real attitude, and after glaring at the open gate for nearly five minutes, he obviously decided he’d had enough of being intimidated. His hackles up, he dared to take first one step, then several, toward the opening. Encouraged when nothing happened, he lifted his head and scented the air. A split second later, before even his mate suspected what he was going to do, he streaked through the open gate.

  “Good boy!” Elizabeth whispered huskily. “I knew you could do it!”

  Left behind, Queenie barked sharply in protest, but she didn’t have to fear Napoleon would leave without her. Stopping well outside the gate, he turned to face her, then barked and yipped and danced in front of her, urging her to follow him. Cautious because of the unborn pups she carried, she was agitated and clearly wanted to follow him, but she had to work up her nerve. Another ten minutes passed while she hesitated, then she raced to join her mate.

  Fascinated, Zeke had never seen anything quite like it in all his years of studying wildlife. The two wolves greeted each other as if they’d been apart for days instead of minutes, then by unspoken agreement, they turned away from the pen and bounded across the snow to the western edge of the clearing. The rest of the pack, not liking the thought of being left behind, soon found the courage to follow, and within minutes, they’d all disappeared into the trees. For the first time since long before Zeke was born, wolves ran free in southwestern Colorado.