She lowered her food bag from the bear line, removed her dinner from it, and carried her meal to the lake shore. Hanging a pair of binoculars around her neck, she settled onto a rock and munched her bagel and peanut butter as she watched night settle over Marmot Lake.
With darkness came a slight breeze. Water lapped gently against the rocky bank, a continuous whisper in the darkness. The soft breath of air was welcome against her sticky face, but the water’s murmur was a little bothersome: the noise could cloak human footsteps or the padding of a bear.
She raised her binoculars. Through the stand of slender vine maples at the far edge of the lake, she could see the dim outline of her NPS truck. No lights, no movement there. She traced the shoreline around which she had walked. A hundred yards away from the parking lot, a dim shape moved through the shadows. Tensing, she squinted. The shape was too big for a raccoon. Not solid enough for a bear. Big enough to be human. Or maybe two humans, side by side. She rotated the binocular dial but couldn’t sharpen the focus. A slender head and neck emerged from the tree line. The creature stepped hesitantly to the water’s edge, dipped its muzzle into the liquid. The blacktail buck raised his head, his large ears swiveled in her direction.
She continued scanning. In the growing darkness, detail was fast disappearing. The moon was rising over the mountains, but its light would be filtered through the tall forest for an hour yet.
Three ducks bobbed in the shallows not far away, quacking softly now and then. Mallards. The two drakes paddled close to the hen like teenage boys flocking to a cheerleader. Sam was reminded of the kids at the soccer game yesterday. Even though it was no longer mating season, the ducks definitely had sex on their minds. Maybe the kids did, too. Maybe Joe was right to worry about Lili.
She sipped from her water bottle and savored the gentle quiet. Small shapes flitted back and forth over the lake, skimming the air just a few feet above the water. Maybe swallows; but more likely, the little brown bats that nested in rock crevices and under the loose bark of trees. One tree frog tested its throat, then another. The song swelled to a chorus of amphibian voices.
Sliding to the ground, she pressed her back against the rock, closing her eyes to soak in the night music. The symphony rose in volume, then suddenly stopped. A throaty “hunh” from the far shore punctuated the abrupt silence. Sam jerked her binoculars to her eyes.
A dark shape padded down to the water, waded into the shallows. An elongated head stretched toward the liquid, sniffed, then sank toward the surface. Raider! The bear curled his paw, swirling the water around him. He slapped at a tiny wave he’d created, snapped at the droplets that flew through the air from the splash, his teeth flashing white in the darkness.
A wild animal playing always made her smile. Raider looked fat. With a grunt, he sat in the water, raised the other forepaw. Spreading two-inch claws into a fan around his muzzle, he licked the leathery pad of his paw, nibbling delicately, as if trimming a ragged hangnail. A wounded foot?
A duck squawked. Raider rose on his hind legs and peered intently toward the sound. It was an eerily human posture, paws clasped to his barrel chest like some burly logger. He remained upright for only a moment, then sank back to proper bear form on all fours and climbed up the bank. Sam watched his bulky silhouette disappear into the shadows, content to see that he was limping only slightly.
She lowered the binoculars and leaned against the rock again. How had Raider been injured? It couldn’t have been their collision—had that really happened only yesterday? He might have had a squabble with another bear, or maybe it was just routine bruin clumsiness, a run-in with a thorn or a sharp branch. Or he might have been grazed by a bullet like the one that had barely missed her. The thought of the puddle of blood in the turnaround rekindled her anger.
She slapped a mosquito on her cheek. Her face felt gritty under her fingertips. The rest of her body was grimy, too. Sometime during the day the scab on her leg had broken; the skin of her knee was once again glued to the fabric of her pants. She didn’t miss her bunk, but she sure missed the hot showers at the bunkhouse.
Nine thirty. No sign of intruders. The lake water was pewter silk in the waning light. She couldn’t resist any longer. She pulled off her clothes and waded into the shallows.
The water temperature was lower than she’d expected, but after the initial shock, its cool kiss was welcome. Placing her hands palms down on the smooth rock bottom, she extended her legs and stretched her weary muscles. Lowering her face into the water, she drank in huge gulps, savoring its earthy freshness. The heck with warnings about giardia. Right now, she was a wild creature of the night, like the deer, like the frogs, like the ducks, like the bear. She pulled the elastic band from her French braid and freed her hair, then sank beneath the surface and swam out into the brightness of the silvery moonlight. Liquid gurgled past her ears. Curious fish brushed against her in slippery whispers, trying to identify this huge new creature in their domain.
The deep water was cold. She blew the air out of her lungs and inhaled quietly, treading water. There was no sign of movement along the banks, no lights, no sounds but the symphony of tree frogs and lapping water. Turning onto her back, she floated, her thoughts wandering happily through the infinite beauty of stars and moon and water and plants and animals.
Then the hum of tree frogs stopped. A screech owl shrieked. With a flutter of wings, the ducks took off noisily, flapped only inches above her, then settled near the far side of the lake. Exhaling, Sam sank beneath the water, leaving only the top of her head above the surface as she turned to peer at the bank. Owls didn’t hunt ducks, at least not in her experience. Something had spooked the birds. She held her breath and treaded water. The frogs started singing again. It was probably just Raider, or maybe another deer. She searched the shoreline.
There. A blackness too solid to be the shadows of tree limbs. A solid hulk, unmoving. Right next to the rock where she’d left her clothes.
She treaded water as quietly as she could. The black shadow didn’t move. Definitely not an animal, then. It had to be a man. Should she swim to the far side of the lake? He’d still have a good chance of shooting her there. Fleeing naked through the woods was too humiliating to consider. On foot, it would take hours to reach help.
Oh, hell. He could have shot her by now if he’d wanted to. She was cold. Moving her hands in a modified breaststroke underwater, she pulled herself toward the shallows and felt for a loose rock, a broken branch, any kind of weapon. Her fingertips identified only a smooth ledge of stone beneath the water. Damn! She could feel him watching her. She could barely breathe. He was less than fifty feet away. How long before he’d make his move?
“I’m a ranger,” she said softly, surprised she could hear her own words over the thundering heartbeats in her head. A naked ranger. A naked unarmed ranger. And not even a real ranger. Some threat.
“I know,” a low voice hissed, the words clipped.
Well, shit. This situation hadn’t been covered in the NPS employee handbook.
“Stand up. Walk toward me.”
The voice sounded vaguely familiar. “I will not!” she retorted indignantly. “Is that you, Arnie? You goddamned pervert…”
His laughter caught her off-guard. The black form stood up and walked forward into the moonlight, revealing familiar features.
“You’re a pervert, too, Starchaser Perez,” she growled, this time in a softer tone. She knew he was grinning, because his teeth gleamed softly in the moonlight. Now she recognized the clipped quality of his words as suppressed laughter. She gathered her feet beneath her. “Turn around.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “No way.” He looked like he was willing to stand there all night.
She pushed herself out of the water and stalked up the bank. “You’re a louse, Chase,” she said as she passed him.
He gave her a soft wolf whistle.
With her back to him, she struggled to find the legs of her jeans. “I should have known yo
u Indians could creep through the woods without a sound.”
His warm hands touched down on the cold skin of her naked hips, making her gasp. “We Mexicans can, too,” he said softly. “Comes from long practice sneaking across the Rio Grande. I’m a credit to both sides of my heritage.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her back against the solid warmth of his lean body. “’Course, it helps a lot if the person you’re sneaking up on is swimming underwater.”
“I’ll bet.”
He gently kissed the top of her head while his hands glided slowly over her wet skin to cup the underside of her breasts.
“Now is not the time, Chase.”
His voice was a low murmur in her left ear. “If not now, then when?”
Good question. But she was soaking wet, and it couldn’t be more than sixty degrees out. Her left foot was in the soft mud of the lake bank, while her right was stuck in the leg of her jeans. “I’m freezing, Chase.”
“All right, then.” He let go and stepped back.
Simultaneously relieved and regretful, she bent to pull on her jeans over her wet skin. She had them halfway up her legs when she was suddenly lifted off her feet. “Hey!”
Jerking the jeans off, he laid her down on a bed of warm flannel and cushioned nylon. He lowered himself beside her, now naked from the waist up.
The hard pectoral muscles of his chest pressed against her chilled breasts as he wrapped himself around her. His lips were warm and gentle at first, then increasingly hot and demanding as he kissed her thoroughly, moving from lips to jaw to ear, neck, shoulder, breast. His left hand was knotted into her hair; his right caressed her hip and then stealthily slid lower on the taut skin of her abdomen. His lips and hands left trails of fire as they glided over her body.
They broke for air. “Whoa, Starchaser,” she gasped. “You do know how to take a woman’s breath away.”
“Still freezing?”
She shook her head. His breath was fast and warm against her cheek. His eyes were black in the night. “Moon goddess,” he whispered, tracing a fingertip across her right nipple.
She groaned. Why had he surprised her like this? “Chase, I’m not…uh…prepared.”
“I am.” He blew softly across her breast with a warm breath. “In triplicate.”
Of course. He would be. He probably had women falling down in front of him wherever he went.
He pressed his warm tongue to her left nipple, making her gasp, then raised his head and repeated, “If not now, when?”
“My thoughts exactly.” She reached for his belt buckle.
“WOW,” Summer panted into Chase’s ear a half hour later. “You weren’t kidding about being a special agent.”
She’d hardly been a passive partner herself. It had nearly given him a stroke to hold back for so long, to wait until he felt her rising toward the crest along with him, and not until then did he thrust them both over the edge. The sex had been every bit as good as he’d imagined. He’d suspected that when Summer Westin committed herself to something, she would give her all, and he was right. He shifted most of his weight to one elbow and a knee, gently lifted a strand of silver-blond hair from her forehead and smoothed it back along her temple. He stared into her eyes. “It was my pleasure, ma’am.”
“Mine, too.”
He lay half-curled around her, one leg thrown over hers. The skin that shared contact with her was still hot, but his outer edges were cooling fast. The moon and stars overhead were brilliant, and the tree frogs chirped in surround sound. It might have been incredibly romantic if his backside weren’t so damned cold.
She ran one hand over his shoulder, and the other idly stroked the fabric beneath them. A more focused look replaced the dreaminess in her glass green eyes. “This is a sleeping bag,” she said.
He laughed. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”
She grabbed and half twisted his ear, then brought her face up and kissed him on the mouth. She tasted like lake water.
When she released him, he said, “I was hoping you’d provide a tent.”
It was her turn to laugh. “My, aren’t we presumptuous?”
“We,” he echoed, “are getting frostbite.”
“It’s not that cold.” Her warm fingers pressed down on his buttocks, which naturally pressed other parts together, too. Her eyes widened. “I sense that hypothermia has not set in yet.”
He was suddenly hot for her again, and all too ready. But he wanted to make love to her even more slowly this time. Groaning, he pushed himself off her and helped her to her feet. Now his front was as chilled as his back, and the effect was as dampening as a cold shower. “The tent?”
Laughing, she grabbed her clothes and took off running barefoot and bare-assed through the woods. He barely had time to snatch up his clothes and sleeping bag to follow her before she was lost in the shadows of the trees. He dropped a boot along the way, and stopped to pick it up. When he straightened, she was nowhere in sight.
Then a light flicked on among a group of tall ferns, and he made out a green ripstop nylon tent half hidden under a big cedar. When he dived inside, she had her sleeping bag thrown open, waiting for him.
16
AT daylight, Chase was startled to find himself alone in the tent. How the hell had she snuck out? Why hadn’t she awakened him? Summer Westin was one slippery woman. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself from his sleeping bag and dressed, cursing the lack of space in the tiny tent.
He unzipped the screen door and crawled out, then straightened to his full six feet and stretched. Summer stood, back to him, about a hundred yards away. He walked to her position. As he neared, he saw she stood at the lip of the mine shaft crater, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand. “That looks good,” he said.
She handed him the half-filled cup.
“Thanks.” He took a sip. He usually took his coffee black, but it was a darn good thing hers contained creamer, because she’d cooked up some kind of wilderness espresso that would eat the enamel off his teeth without something to mellow it. “How’d you get dressed in that baggie without waking me up?”
She laughed. “I didn’t; I took my clothes outside.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“It wasn’t even six. You looked so…asleep.”
It was disconcerting to think she’d watched him as he slept, crawled over him without waking him. He was used to being the one who left at dawn. The one who left when he was ready.
“You should have woken me. What are you doing out here, anyway?”
“I’m thinking this is where that missing C-4 went,” she said, staring at the bottom of the crater. “I’ll bet that was the explosion I heard on the night of the fire.”
“It’s possible.” He looked at the hole. “But this would account only for a very small part of it.”
Discussing explosives wasn’t how he’d imagined his early morning hours with her. He yawned and stretched elaborately. Maybe she’d take the hint and come back to the tent with him. “We could be in a nice warm sleeping bag right now.”
She ignored him and said, “Lisa could have been hit by a flying rock.”
He sipped the coffee, pulling his thoughts out of the torrid sleeping bag scene playing in his mind. He considered the possibility of flying debris due to an explosion. Yes, possible; he nodded. “But how do you account for the fire? And Lisa’s story of abduction?”
She sighed and folded her arms across her chest. “I haven’t gotten there yet.”
He scratched his jaw and was reminded that he hadn’t brought a razor with him. He wasn’t accustomed to driving for hours and hiking a couple of miles to make love on the cold ground and spend the night cocooned in a tent, either. He hoped this wasn’t going to become a habit with Summer.
His mind flashed on the murdered game warden he’d learned about when he talked to the Seattle bureau about suspicious events on the Olympic Peninsula. The reason he’d come out here. Well, one of them, anyway. “Summer, I ha
ve some disturbing things to tell you.”
She took the coffee cup from him, looked inside it, and then raised her gaze to his. She had such beautiful eyes, so clear and gray-green and bottomless. “I can tell from that tone that we’re both going to need more coffee,” she said.
He followed her back toward the tent. A few feet away, she had set up a small camp stove and prepared a tiny coffeepot. Overhead a blue nylon stuff sack was suspended from a cord stretched between two trees. A bear bag. Bears. A potential hazard that hadn’t even crossed his mind last night when he shucked his pants by the lake. God, wouldn’t Nicole laugh if he came back unable to sit through meetings because of claw marks on his backside?
Summer knelt, took a lighter from her pants pocket, and fired up the stove. As she bent over, her T-shirt pulled out of the back of her pants, giving him an enticing view of bare flesh. “Breakfast?” she asked. “Bagel and peanut butter, or oatmeal with walnuts and dried apricots?”
As soon as she’d set the pot on top of the flame, he pulled her into his arms, sliding his hand onto that patch of exposed skin at the top of her buttocks. “I’d rather have you for breakfast.”
Bending down, he pressed his lips to hers. When he let her go, she acted self-conscious. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m not used to a surprise visit in the wilderness from a horny FBI agent. I’m not sure what’s supposed to come next.”
This was hardly the reaction he’d hoped for. Was that all he was to her—a horny FBI agent? “You mean a surprise visit from your lover.”
“Lover.” She seemed to be testing the word to decide if she liked the taste of it. His stomach clenched for a few seconds before she said, “I like that.”
Placing a hand on either side of his head, she pulled him down for another kiss. His thoughts moved back inside the tent, back into the sleeping bags. “And as for what comes next,” he said, his face still close to hers, “I’m hoping for a lot more of what we did last night.”
She smiled.
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