by Leigh Bale
That couldn’t be helped. Better to be lonely than to lose someone else he loved. First his parents, then his grandparents, then his fiancée. He’d been alone most of his life. He liked his solitude and doing what he wanted.
Sometimes.
Tanner shook his head, trying to clear the painful memories surging through his mind. Cheryl telling him she loved him. Hugging him tight. Smiling so sweetly. And then, when she’d broken off their engagement, her sneer of contempt. She’d claimed she’d never loved him or his line of work. Not really. She’d only tolerated all their trips into the mountains. All the fishing excursions and hikes. Waiting until someone better came along.
That someone had been Tanner’s best childhood friend.
Ex-best friend now. The hurt of Cheryl’s betrayal sank deep into Tanner’s heart, like a barbed fishhook. And every time he thought about them, it ripped his heart anew.
Tanner flipped on the turning signal and heaved a giant sigh. It was better to remain a bachelor and throw himself into his work instead. Much more rewarding and something he had control over. Being alone suited him just fine. Then he’d have no one to insist he do things her way. No one to destroy his relationship with his best friend.
No one to love.
Bah! He didn’t need love to feel complete or to lead a full, happy life. He’d finally begun to make peace with his past. He’d focused on building his career, which had paid off. He’d recently been promoted as the Fisheries and Wildlife staff officer over the Steelhead National Forest. It kept him plenty busy. In fact, his career was his life.
No, Tanner didn’t have the time or the desire to complicate his solitary existence with another superficial romance. Especially with someone like Zoë. The widow came packing baggage. A cute, precocious little troublemaker named Jonah.
As Tanner pulled into his driveway and killed the motor, he realized he had everything he needed. A good education, a comfortable place to live, a challenging career and a few coworkers to hang out with once in a while.
Stepping out of the truck, he glanced back at the wad of paper lying on top of the floor mat. Against his better judgment, he reached inside, picked it up...and tucked it inside his pants pocket.
Chapter Two
No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
Tanner Bohlman stared across the conference room in the Steelhead National Forest supervisor’s office, unable to believe his eyes. Striding through the door wearing a violet-colored skirt and matching jacket was the woman from the parking lot.
The very same.
It’d been a week since her son had creamed his new truck with a shopping cart. Even with her now wearing makeup and a business suit, he couldn’t mistake the apologetic mother who’d offered to pay for repairs to his truck. Zoë was her name. As much as he’d tried, he couldn’t seem to forget it.
Instead of flat and tired-looking, as it’d been that day in the parking lot, her short blond hair had been given a sassy style, spiked slightly in the back with gel. Her pretty mouth shimmered with pink lipstick, her blue eyes accented with a subtle hint of mascara, liner and shadow. Her pale skin showed a healthy glow, her high cheekbones dusted with a hint of blush.
Gary Drummond, the watershed specialist sitting next to Tanner, whistled low beneath his breath. “That’s the new marine biologist? I think I’m gonna like her.”
“Yeah, me, too,” agreed Ron Parker, one of Tanner’s fishery biologists.
Both men were married, but you didn’t have to be single to appreciate an attractive woman. Tanner admitted silently to himself they were both right. What a looker!
As she shook the forest supervisor’s hand and smiled, Tanner remembered the color of her eyes. A vivid shade of blue.
Tanner tried to imagine this feminine woman dressed in hip waders, toddling out into the middle of a stream to take water samples. How could she be the new marine biologist? Where did she think the fish lived? In a high-rise office building?
Not likely.
Right now, Tanner was afraid to breathe too deeply for fear of soiling her pristine business suit. All the other marine biologists he’d ever met before wore blue jeans, tennis shoes or boots, a plain shirt they didn’t care about getting dirty and not a hint of makeup, much less a carefully styled hairdo. Of course, he’d never worked with a female marine biologist before.
Until today.
A series of business meetings that morning might account for her professional attire. But why would the National Marine Fisheries Service send this little scrap of lace to the wilds of Idaho to work? Tanner wondered if she even knew how to swim, much less how to help solve their fishery problems. He wasn’t about to play nursemaid to a marine biologist who might be afraid of rumpling her silk blouse.
“Hey, everyone. This is Zoë Lawton.” Chuck Daniels, the forest supervisor and Tanner’s boss, smiled expectantly as he made the introductions.
“Hi, there,” Gary called with a wave of his hand.
“Glad to meet you.” Ron grinned like a fool.
Tanner just nodded, biting his tongue to keep from speaking. He didn’t trust his voice right now. Instead, he mechanically stood and held out his hand, highly conscious of her soft, manicured fingers as they tightened around his...and the moment she met his gaze and recognized him, too.
“Oh!” she said.
Just Oh! Nothing more.
“Do you two know each other?” Chuck asked, glancing between them.
Tanner spoke up fast. “No, we don’t.”
Zoë. Even her name sounded exotic. And too fragile to be traipsing around the untamed Idaho river systems. Her name suited her. Sweet and feminine. But those weren’t the traits she’d need once he took her up on the mountain to view the various creeks and streams connecting to Bingham River. Tanner wasn’t certain, but he figured if a bear attacked her, she could use one of her spiked heels as a weapon. That was just about the only useful, practical aspect he could spot in her outfit.
“But we’ve met before.” Zoë withdrew her hand and gave him an uncertain smile. “I’m sorry again for what happened. I haven’t heard from you, so I guess you haven’t changed your mind about letting me pay for the damage.”
“That’s right.” He turned and moved around the room, taking a seat on the opposite side of the wide oak table.
She smelled even better than she looked. Like bottled springtime.
As the Fisheries and Wildlife staff officer, Tanner had been assigned the task of giving this woman a tour of Bingham River and its tributaries. Which would take all summer long. He had to cooperate with her in any way he could.
What rotten luck.
“Why don’t we get started?” Tanner glanced at Ron, trying not to sound irritable. The fact that Ron gave him a worried look told Tanner that he’d failed in that endeavor.
“Right.” Ron grabbed the overhead clicker. With a punch of his finger, he brought up the first slide to the PowerPoint presentation he’d been asked to prepare. A brief overview of the Steelhead National Forest and the fishery problems they were dealing with.
“Will you get the lights, Chuck?” Tanner called over his shoulder.
A click sounded and the room went dim. Tanner focused on the screen at the front of the table, glad to have an excuse to take his eyes off Zoë.
The first slide showed a brilliant picture of Bingham River, the rushing waters bordered by willows, sedges and Kentucky bluegrass.
With each slide, Ron narrated in an overly loud voice. “The elevations of Bingham River range from nine hundred to over five thousand feet. The river and its tributaries are home to numerous animal species, but our focus today will be on the steelhead, bull trout and Chinook salmon. All these fish are on the endangered-species list.”
“Don’t you have a serious problem with the sockeye, too?” Z
oë asked.
Ron’s expression wilted along with his confidence. “Um, yes, and sockeye, too. But the only population of sockeye is located at Redfish Lake in the upper Salmon River basin.”
“Yes, I’d heard that. But I’m hoping we can work on introducing them to the Bingham River arena.”
Tanner interceded, trying not to sound defensive. “We’re already working on that. In fact, Ron’s done some great work with the Sawtooth Hatchery to help establish the sockeye in Bingham River by using Clear Lake at its head.”
Ron showed a broad smile of gratitude for the praise.
“I see. And how many hatcheries do you have?” Zoë asked.
“There are twenty-one salmon and steelhead hatcheries owned or operated by the Service.”
The Service was short for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“Okay, good. Thank you.” Zoë turned her serene gaze back to the screen, not seeming ruffled in the least. In fact, she seemed genuinely interested in what they were saying.
And that’s when Tanner had an inkling that she wasn’t here as some sort of practical joke. She was just doing her job. He’d seen her résumé, which indicated an educated, qualified professional. Maybe he should reserve judgment until he saw what she was capable of.
A picture of Grand Coulee Dam flashed across the screen. A monolith of concrete and steel, the dam stood 550 feet tall. “Large hydroelectric dams and floodgates along the Columbia River have completely blocked the water, so fish can’t swim upstream to spawn.”
The biologist brought up another slide of the now-abandoned Moses Mine, located ninety miles outside of town. “Tailings from copper mines have poisoned the creeks. It’s taken thousands of dollars and decades of work to clean up the mess, and we still don’t have it cleaned up. Every time we have another flooding rain, it just brings the poisons back into the creekbeds.”
Ron pressed the button again. Another slide of dozens of salmon lying dead across a local farmer’s potato field appeared. “Water diversion for irrigation causes numerous problems. Without screens, fish get lost and bypass the canal, ending up in irrigation ditches with nowhere to go. Irrigation usage lowers the water level in creeks, so fish can’t swim upstream. With less water, the temperature increases to critical levels. Pollutants become more concentrated. All these things kill off fish fry and smolt by the thousands.”
Zoë shook her head, her lips pursed in disgust.
A slide showing a barren mountain once populated by tall ponderosa pine flickered overhead and Ron continued his dialogue. “Many logging operations have been allowed to overharvest trees in some areas, causing massive erosion into the streams.”
Ron’s last slide showed several red Angus cows standing in the middle of a stream while their owner sat on his horse on the edge of the bank and looked on. “Ranchers allow their cattle to roam freely along the creekbeds, denuding vegetation from the stream banks as well as stomping on the fragile redds.”
Ron clicked off the presentation. “That’s it.”
Tanner nodded at Chuck to turn the lights back on. “And, of course, wildfire also creates an environment for erosion, though we’ve been taking precautions to help alleviate the possibility of wildfires.”
Zoë’s chair creaked as she sat back. “But the environment seems to recover more quickly from wildfire erosion than it does from timber-harvest erosion.”
“That’s correct, Ms. Lawton,” Tanner agreed, surprised that she knew this. “Nothing’s changed from what you already know. We’ve got a lot of problems to deal with.”
“What would you say is the biggest problem the endangered fish are facing?”
Tanner didn’t hesitate to respond. “That’s easy. The hydroelectric dams. They’re impregnable for fish to pass through.”
Her eyes crinkled as she thought this over. “Unfortunately we can’t do anything about that.”
“You’re right, Ms. Lawton. Saving our endangered fish has proven to be a challenge we’re determined to meet.”
She smiled politely, speaking in a soft, confident tone. “I don’t see why the solutions are complicated. We just tell the farmers, ranchers and loggers what they can and can’t do. Then we enforce it, giving the streams and fish time to recover from the abuse. And please, call me Zoë.”
Not if he could help it. Instead, he cleared his throat. “The farmers and ranchers only care about their livelihoods, not a bunch of fish that have landed on the endangered-species list.”
“That’s true,” Chuck said. “Two years ago, we had four hundred angry farmers and loggers picketing our building like a pack of sharks. They were furious with the changes we were trying to make because it jeopardized their incomes. Now Tanner and his team have them at least listening to our ideas. But progress has been slow.”
Zoë crossed her long legs. Her lovely eyes narrowed, her soft mouth hardening with determination. “We can’t afford to make slow progress. Something must be done now. I have instructions to put a stop to the abuses and improve the situation along Bingham River. My boss in Portland expects nothing less. And that’s what I intend to do.”
“We’re interested in the same thing,” Tanner assured her, feeling protective of his efforts with the farmers and loggers. Over the past three years, he’d made a lot of progress in helping the endangered fish. They didn’t need this woman’s interference. The last thing he wanted was for an outsider to come in and mess up all his hard work.
“That’s right,” Chuck agreed. “And I think you’ll find that Tanner is the one man who has the acumen to deal with all our water users. He has a special touch for getting the ranchers and loggers to cooperate with us in helping improve the spawning runs.”
Chuck tossed Tanner a smile full of confidence, but in his eyes, Tanner detected a glint of warning. As the forest supervisor, Chuck didn’t want to upset the marine biologist from the National Marine Fisheries Service. Tanner reminded himself they were all working for the good of the endangered fish, but he was also smart enough to know that politics weighed heavily in this equation. Any failure on Tanner’s part would trickle downhill. It could make Chuck look bad, which would bounce down onto Tanner’s head.
So Tanner must not fail. Even if it meant working with an attractive marine biologist like Zoë Lawton.
“We obviously want the same things. So where do we start?” Zoë asked.
Tanner unrolled a large map and pointed out particularly troublesome areas along the river. The group discussed each issue at length.
“When can we go out to look at some of these sites?” Zoë asked.
Tanner couldn’t help being pleasantly surprised. At least she seemed eager and willing. “I’ve already set up some interviews with a few farmers on Saturday morning.”
She hesitated, her forehead creasing with a frown. “Does it have to be on Saturday?”
“That’s the best time for the farmers. When we accommodate their schedules, they’re more friendly and willing to hear us out.” Tanner hoped she wouldn’t demand the farmers meet her timetable.
“I can go, but my son will need to tag along. I don’t have child care on Saturdays. Is that okay?”
Oh, no. Not the kid. A sinking feeling of dread settled in Tanner’s stomach. The last thing he wanted was to spend his weekend with this lovely woman and her talkative little boy.
“That’ll be fine,” Chuck said.
With his boss sanctioning it, Tanner had little choice but to agree. “We’ll leave from here. Meet me in the parking lot at eight a.m. and plan to be gone most of the day.”
“Will do.” Zoë scooted back her chair and stood gracefully before turning to shake first Gary’s, then Ron’s hand. When she reached toward Tanner, she met his gaze without flinching. “Thank you for this enlightening discussion. I look forward to working with you.”
T
anner pasted a smile on his face, but inside he was screaming. Why did she have to be so friendly and stunning?
As he left the conference room and sauntered down the hall to his office, he couldn’t help feeling sabotaged by his boss. Over the next few months, there were a myriad of creeks and streams along the river that he and Zoë would have to traverse. But Tanner didn’t have to like it. He could be civil but remote and professional. Above all else, he must protect his work.
Chapter Three
“Jonah, we’re late!” Zoë kept her voice calm as she stood at the front door holding her son’s jacket.
Though morning sunlight streamed through their living room window, the boy yawned and stumbled down the hallway as if it were the middle of the night. Wearing a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt and tennis shoes, he rubbed his sleepy eyes. Zoë handed him his jacket, then bent down to tie his dangling shoelaces. The boy’s blond hair still stuck up in back, despite her best efforts with the spray bottle and comb to flatten it down.
“Why do we have to go so early?” He slipped his little arms into the sleeves of the jacket.
Zoë stood and zipped it up. “I told you already. I have to work, but I thought we could make it a fun outing.”
Not much fun getting up early on a Saturday morning.
“But I wanna watch cartoons.”
“We may see some fish and I made us a picnic lunch.” She lifted her brows, trying to coax a smile out of him.
He didn’t disappoint her. His startling blue eyes widened. “Great! Are we going fishing, too?”
She shook her head. “Not today, but soon.”
To make their day a bit more fun for Jonah, she’d tucked a canister of homemade chocolate-chip cookies into their lunchbox for dessert.
“Where we going?” His fingers tightened around hers as they walked out to the car.
“I’m not sure. You remember the man whose truck you hit with the shopping cart?”