Northern Exposure

by Debra Lee Brown

  “Don’t get any closer to him! Come back.”

  She shook her head, remembering, Joe knew, the incident that afternoon in the woods. Paralyzed, he watched, as the man nudged her breast with his gun. “Take ’em off.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Your clothes.” He smiled, his eyes roving her body.

  Joe felt rage coil inside him unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

  “Okay,” Wendy said, stunning him. “Just give me a minute.” Her voice was controlled, even.

  He’d seen her like this before—on the bridge a few days ago, crawling out onto the ledge that afternoon, and now, facing her attacker, a rapist and soon-to-be murderer, if Joe’s intuition was correct.

  Slowly Wendy turned her back to the man and unbuttoned her long-sleeved shirt. She met Joe’s gaze, tried to convey something with her eyes that he wasn’t certain he understood. Almost imperceptibly she nodded, then turned to face her attacker, slipping out of her shirt, her white satin bra shimmering orange in the firelight.

  “Nice,” Camo Man said.

  Joe had to forcibly hold himself in check as Wendy stepped into the man’s one-armed embrace. He couldn’t imagine what she felt at that moment, and had never seen anything more courageous in his life.

  The 9 mm wavered in Camo Man’s hand, distracted by Wendy’s apparent submission and his own mounting lust.

  A heartbeat later, she made the move Joe knew was coming, and he was ready for it. Like a mad dog, he launched himself off the hardwood and went for the gun. Camo Man fired. Wendy screamed. The shot missed, and all three of them went down, hitting the floor.

  His hand was on the gun, all his weight bearing down. A feral rage infused his blood, but Wendy was between them. Camo Man swore. Joe rolled left, wrenching the gun with him, and she slid free.

  “Run!” he cried. “Get out!”

  But she couldn’t get out. They were blocking the door. Struggling for control of the weapon, they rolled again, Camo Man on top. The guy was huge, had weight and experience on him, but Joe knew he would win. He knew it. He would win because he had more to lose.

  The gun went off between them, and Joe swore.

  Wendy screamed his name.

  Paralyzed, she stood over them for the longest seconds of her life, unable to speak or form a coherent thought. Her mind registered Joe’s voice, saw his blood-covered arm slide limply out from under their attacker’s prone form.

  “Oh, God.” She knelt, grabbed the man’s jacket and tried to pull him off. “Stop it! Stop it!” He wouldn’t move, was heavier than she’d expected. Panic closed her throat as her knee slid into something warm, blood pooling on the floor. “Get off him!”

  He couldn’t be dead! He just couldn’t! Why couldn’t she move the guy? Why wouldn’t he get off? She jumped as the handgun clattered onto the floor.

  “It’s okay,” Joe said softly. The breath rushed out of her as she heard his voice. With a grunt Joe pushed the man aside and was free of him.

  Wendy was suddenly there, pulling him to her, her gaze fixed in horror on his blood-soaked shirt.

  “It’s not mine,” he said, his hands going around her waist. “It’s…his.”

  Her arms slid around his neck, and they tumbled backward in an awkward embrace. She said his name over and over, couldn’t stop herself.

  “It’s okay,” he reassured her. “I’m okay.”

  “He’s…dead?” She glanced at the body lying next to them.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure, babe. He’s dead.”

  That’s why he hadn’t moved when she’d touched him. That’s why he’d felt so heavy. Dead weight, she thought, and now knew what the term really meant.

  “Oh, Joe!” She closed her eyes and relived the moment when the gun had gone off the second time, felt again the panic that had seized her.

  “You’re safe now. I’m with you.” He sat up with her in his arms, brushed the hair out of her face so he could see her. “You okay?”

  She nodded, letting her breath go.

  “Sure?”

  Nodding again, she said, “Yes.” As long as you’re with me, she thought. As long as you don’t leave me for a second.

  “Come on. Let’s get up.” He got her to her knees, then helped her up.

  She stared at the dead man at their feet. Now that it was over, she thought she would faint. Her knees buckled. Joe grabbed her around the waist and eased her onto one of the bunks.

  “No, I’m okay,” she said, suddenly chilled, aware of her bare midriff and white bra, her hands and face, all sticky with blood. Joe was covered in it. “We need to…clean up.” Again she glanced at the man.

  “I’ll take care of him. You take care of yourself. The water’s hot by now.” He nodded at the potbelly stove, where the forgotten bucket of bathwater sat simmering.

  “Okay.”

  He grabbed a tarp from the blue pack and some nylon cording, and in less than a minute had fashioned a drape across the back corner of the cabin. She watched him, still in shock over what had happened, as he poured the steaming water into the tub.

  “Be right back,” he said, stepping over the dead man’s body with the bucket, heading for the open door.

  She had to force herself to sit still, to nod, as if it was fine that he was leaving her alone for the minute it would take him to draw more water from the river. It wasn’t okay. She didn’t want him to leave her. Not now. Not ever.

  To calm herself she focused on the bath. How good it would feel. She searched inside the blue pack for her liquid soap. Biodegradable, good for dishes, hair, clothes, bodies, everything. Her mind was babbling.

  “Here we go.” Joe poured a bucket of cold water into the tub and checked the temperature with his hand. “It’s good. Go ahead. I’ll uh—” he nodded at the body “—take him outside.”

  “Wh-who is he?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” He glanced at the dead man again, then looked at her.

  She realized she was standing there in her bra, but she didn’t care. His gaze washed over her in the firelight, and she let him look, the natural instinct to cover herself nonexistent.

  “Wendy,” he said, and stroked her cheek.

  She wanted to rush into his arms, hold him, never let go, but didn’t. “I’ll just be a few minutes,” she said, and glanced at the bathwater.

  “Take your time.”

  She moved behind the drape and closed her eyes, breathing in, out, working to get ahold of herself. As she undressed, she heard the unmistakable sounds of Joe dragging the body outside.

  When he returned, she was sitting on one of the bunks wrapped in nothing but a blanket. Her hair was damp, her face still pale, but her eyes were themselves again, calm, alert, as blue as any summer sky he’d ever seen.

  “Where…is he?” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  He saw that she’d used soap and some of her bathwater to scrub the floor of the cabin where the fatal shot that had killed their attacker had been fired. A wet, blood-soaked T-shirt lay in the corner of the room. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a crime scene, that she probably shouldn’t have done it.

  “I would have taken care of that,” he said.

  “It’s okay. I’m fine. Really.”

  But she wasn’t fine. He could see it in her expression, in the way she moved, slow and mechanically.

  “Did you find out who he is?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled the guy’s wallet out of his pocket and read the name off his driver’s license. “Dwight Carson.”

  “Never heard of him,” Wendy said.

  He read a couple of phone numbers aloud that were scribbled on the back of a business card engraved with a name that Wendy said sounded familiar to her. One of the numbers had a New York area code, the other had a code he didn’t recognize.

  Wendy’s eyes widened. “The first one’s Blake’s number. The second one is my
parents’ house in Michigan. Oh, God.”

  “He can’t hurt you now. Or them.” He looked at her sitting on the bunk, and she seemed so small, so vulnerable. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her not to worry, that everything was going to be okay, that he was going to take care of it and take care of her.

  She stared at the blood on his shirt, then nodded at the tub in the corner. “We…need more water.”

  He sucked in a breath and looked down at his clothes, his hands. He wanted to tend to her but needed to clean up first. Besides, she hadn’t dressed—not that he necessarily wanted her to, but she would want to. He’d give her some time, a little privacy.

  “I’ll manage in the creek outside. There’re a couple of deep pools.”

  “You’ll freeze.”

  He knew she was naked under the blanket. He wondered what she’d do if he came over there, eased her back onto the bunk and kissed her. He wondered what she’d feel like with him inside her.

  Get a grip, Peterson.

  That’s not what she needed now. That’s not even what she wanted, not from him. She needed comfort, reassurance, not sex.

  He also knew what he was feeling for her wasn’t just sexual. And that scared the hell out of him.

  “It’ll do me good,” he said, grabbing the soap and his makeshift shaving kit, shaking off the foreign feelings. “Here, keep this with you.” He laid his forty-five, which he’d retrieved from Carson’s pocket, beside her on the bunk. “Just in case.”

  Leaving her sitting there, he retreated outside and closed the door.

  She waited for him, knowing what would happen when he returned. Wanting it to happen.

  When the door finally opened, she tensed. He froze in the doorway, clean shaven, barefoot and bare-chested, his trousers slung low on his hips, his belt undone, his shirt balled up in his fist, dripping water.

  “Oh,” he said, noticing she was still sitting there wrapped in the blanket. “You need more time. I’ll just—”

  “No.”

  He stopped, looked at her, his gaze locking on hers like a cruise missile.

  “I’m ready for you to come in. I’m…ready for you.”

  He didn’t say anything, just closed the door behind him, locked it, all without taking his eyes off her. He tossed his wet shirt in the corner with hers.

  Wendy opened the blanket.

  As he walked toward her, knelt on the floor beside the bunk, put his hand on her knee, she knew there was no going back. She also knew he was all wrong for her. Stubborn, controlling, used to getting his own way and making every decision, shouldering every consequence alone.

  But watching the firelight dance in his eyes as his gaze slid like silk over her bare skin, she didn’t care. She just wanted him.

  “You’re sure?” His hand moved up her leg, the electricity of his touch causing her breath to catch.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “That’s okay.” He climbed into the bunk on top of her, grazed a finger along her jaw, across her parted lips. “I am.”

  Chapter 13

  Abandoning her fears, all her good sense, turning off the voice in her head telling her she was making a huge mistake, Wendy closed her eyes and kissed him.

  He slid his arms beneath her, and her legs opened to receive him. Settling his weight on top of her, he deepened the kiss. His tongue was hot, but his skin was cool from the river, and the feel of his hard chest against her breasts forced her nipples to instantly harden.

  He shuddered, and she gasped, fearing to open her eyes and look at him. She knew if she did, she’d be lost. He breathed her name between kisses, his hands sliding downward to cup her buttocks, his erection pressing into her through the coarse fabric of his pants.

  When she felt his mouth on her breast, she cried out, throwing her head back, arching into him. Groaning, he gripped her almost viciously, undulated against her, kissed her with a raw hunger that made her wild with need.

  She responded, clawing at his back, his trousers, trying to work them off his hips. And then she made an uncalculated mistake. She opened her eyes, her gaze connecting with his, their lips a breath apart, and what she read in his face scared her.

  “Wendy.” He brushed her lips with his, looking at her with eyes she’d never seen before, dark and hooded, with more than lust reflecting back at her in the firelight.

  He grasped her chin, made her look at him, whispered endearments meant to calm her frenzy, slow her mounting passion so he could connect with her, engage her emotions.

  “Oh, Joe.” She needed him, yes, wanted him desperately to take her mind away from the events of the past hour, the past month, to make her feel safe, to help her forget, if just for a little while, who she was and all that had happened.

  Moments ago, sitting on the bunk waiting for him, she’d told herself it was just sex that she needed, a physical coupling, a release. That she could handle it, and that he could, too. But now, looking into his eyes, she knew it wasn’t just sex, not for him. Not for her.

  He kissed her, softly this time, rolling his hips gently into hers. “Wendy, I—”

  She kissed him hard, her heart pounding, fearing the words she knew were poised on his lips. Her hand slid between his legs, and he responded, giving in to the physical, kissing, biting, groping her, pushing himself into her hand, his need intensifying.

  She closed her eyes and lost herself in his touch, the feel of his bare chest against hers, the minty scent of his hair newly shampooed with her soap, dripping cool water on her heated skin.

  He was rock hard and ready. So was she.

  Together they eased his pants off. Seconds later he slid into her, both of them crying out with the shock of it, her legs wrapping tightly around his hips. No more thinking, no more fears. He thrust into her, over and over, giving himself up to her, and she to him, their eyes locked, their emotions laid bare.

  When he slipped his hand between them, she thought she’d go mad.

  He did when he watched her come apart.

  The sound of the river took his mind away, along with the cold. Joe stretched out, naked, on a long flat slab of basalt outside the cabin and gazed at the clear night sky. A billion stars winked back at him from a field of midnight velvet.

  He was so relaxed he didn’t hear the cabin door open, or Wendy pad barefoot across a late-summer patch of wild grass to join him.

  “Hey,” she said, startling him.

  He sat up and saw that she was wrapped in the down sleeping bag that they’d unzipped and had used as a blanket in the bunk.

  “Aren’t you cold?” She eased down next to him on the rock and offered him part of it.

  Smiling, he pulled her down with him, then zipped the sleeping bag around them so they were warmly cocooned. Together they stared at the sky, his arm around her, her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder, her hand splayed across his chest, her fingers toying with his hairs.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this good. Hell, maybe never.

  By silent consent they didn’t talk about Dwight Carson, or the fact that Joe had wrapped his body in a plastic tarp and stashed it in the narrow storage locker running along the outside of the DF&G cabin. It would have to stay there until he got Wendy out of the reserve and could call in the State Troopers to retrieve it.

  The incident lay heavy on both their minds, but he knew for tonight they wouldn’t speak of it. He’d push it from his thoughts until tomorrow, when the light of day would bring with it the reality of their situation.

  He was in love with her, but she wasn’t in love with him, or at least he didn’t think she was.

  Could he blame her? He couldn’t even protect her. He’d let Carson get to her twice.

  “Tell me about your boyfriends,” he said, not really wanting to know about them, but wondering why a woman like her had never married. Never even been close, he remembered her saying.

  She took a breath, exhaled with a little sigh. “There’s not much to tell, really.
I’ve had a few, but none were really serious. Well, they never got the chance to be.”

  “Why not?” He looked at her, and she shrugged in his arms.

  “I was always working too much.”

  “By choice?”

  “Not really. Blake was a bit of a slave driver, especially where I was concerned. He said I had to pay my dues.”

  “And I’ll bet those dues were steeper when there was a man in your life.”

  “You’re right, they were.” She rolled onto her back and looked at the sky. “Blake was jealous. Every time I started dating somebody new, he’d become impossible to work with.”

  “He wanted you for himself.” Joe couldn’t wait to get his hands on this guy.

  “He did. Only, I didn’t know that when I first took the job out of college. It never even crossed my mind. He was married.”

  “Doesn’t sound like that meant much to him.”

  “No, it didn’t. He was always having affairs—with women, I mean. I hadn’t known about…well, you know.”

  Joe didn’t want to think about it.

  “Blake always found a way to sabotage my relationships. I can see now that he was punishing me for refusing to sleep with him.”

  “Why did you stay? There had to have been other jobs you could have taken.”

  “There were. Lots of them in the beginning. But Blake was the best and kept telling me how lucky I was to be working for him, to have him as a mentor.”

  “Some mentor.”

  “I know.” She rolled into his arms. “I was stupid. I believed I wasn’t good enough, that I was nothing without him. But that part of my life is over. I’m different, smarter. No one’s ever going to manipulate or control me like that again.”

  He held her, nuzzling her hair, brushing kisses across her temple. The cut she’d sustained during the rock slide was still visible, a thin red line. The more he thought about Barrett and this guy Carson, the angrier he got.

  “You gave him the caribou film.”

  “Hmm?”

  Joe hadn’t wanted to talk about it, but needed to know. “When you gathered up the film to give to Carson, you saved the exposed roll from the loft, but were going to give him your magazine shots.”