Northern Exposure

by Debra Lee Brown

  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 h
ad.

  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—”