Читать книгу Northern Exposure - Debra Brown Lee - Страница 7

A flash of camouflage through a stand of spruce, gunmetal reflecting afternoon sun. That’s what had caught his attention, and was the reason he now found himself out of breath, scrambling up a hundred-yard stretch of loose volcanic scree toward a ridge topping eleven thousand feet.

This was not how he’d planned to spend his Sunday.

He sized a muddy boot print and considered that tracking a man was a hell of a lot easier than tracking an animal, especially over rugged terrain. Dead easy when the target was as green as this one obviously was.

A bald eagle circled overhead, checking him out. There were nests in the area, but those didn’t concern him, not today. He paused and watched as the majestic bird dipped out of sight below the jagged tree line flanking the scree field.

The storm that had been building all morning had come to a head. Dark clouds slammed together in the sky above him. A whiff of ozone cut still air. Not unusual for late August. He resumed his climb, picking up the pace. When he topped the ridge and the sky opened, letting loose a torrent of rain, his effort was rewarded.

Twenty yards below him his prey crouched on a slab of basalt jutting into space over a thousand-foot drop-off. The man was as small as the muddy boot print had indicated. Dressed in khaki, a baseball cap pulled backward over his head, he looked wrong, somehow. Certainly not what he’d expected.

Then again, it was hard to tell much about him from this distance. Freeing the forty-five holstered at his hip, he picked his way carefully down the loose rubble.

Wind shrieked up from the canyon below, eddying wildly, forcing rain into horizontal sheets that changed direction without warning and threatened to knock him off balance. He was drenched in seconds.

His target fared no better. The man used his hands for balance as he edged farther out onto the precipice. As the distance between them was swallowed up, the man’s intention became clear, and his own suspicions were confirmed.

A black case, the kind used to house a high-powered rifle, held his attention as he negotiated the last few feet and stepped silently onto the wet volcanic slab where the man now crouched dangerously close to the edge.

It wasn’t a straight shot to the bottom of the canyon, he remembered. Jagged rocks protruded from the cliff face all the way down, providing a natural staircase for animals. But no man, to his knowledge, had ever attempted the climb.

The rock was slippery, and the rain an icy torrent that pummeled him from every direction as he edged out behind the intruder. They were both soaked to the skin. He paused, a stride away, to swipe a hank of wet hair from his eyes.

Something wasn’t right.

Khaki, he thought, tightening his gaze on the man’s narrow shoulders. Khaki from head to toe. The target he’d been tracking for the past two hours had worn camouflage. He was sure of it. Predator gray, flecked with green and brown, perfect for their surroundings.

Lightning flashed as a bone-white hand shot toward the black case.

“Hold it right there!” He leveled his weapon. The man whipped his head around, and he found himself staring into clear blue eyes gone wide with shock.

A woman’s eyes.

Thunder cracked behind them in a detonation so powerful it threw him off balance. He pitched forward, scrambling for purchase. The woman jumped back, realized her mistake, then grabbed his shirt to keep from slipping over the edge.

It was no good. She screamed as she went over. He hit the rock hard, prone. Just in time, he dropped the gun and caught her wrist.

This kind of thing wasn’t in his job description.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught another movement, one he’d expected. Below them, on another basaltic slab, a rare woodland caribou leaped clear of the impending danger their presence forewarned.

The woman’s cap blew off, jerking his attention back to their predicament. A tumble of blond hair whipped violently in the wind, framing her heart-shaped face. She gazed up at him in mute terror. He watched as her whole life flashed before her eyes.

A heartbeat later he pulled her up and rolled with her to safety. She was on top of him; they were both drenched. Lightning shattered the sky around them, rain beat down in sheets. She’d nearly killed them both, but all that registered was how warm she felt. Warm and soft.

“Wh-who are you?” Her voice was thin and shaky, her face inches from his. He stared at her, silent, as water dripped from her trembling lips onto his mouth.

After a quick fantasy about her with him in a dry place that was anywhere but here, he came to his senses. “Game warden,” he clipped. He rolled her over, pinning her under his weight. “You’re under arrest.”

The terror in her eyes vanished. Confusion replaced it, then rage. “Get off me!”

“No.”

She fought him, but knew it was useless. He outweighed her by a good eighty pounds. Straddling her, he gripped both her wrists in one hand, pinioning them over her head, then retrieved his gun.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Fear returned to her eyes. “Let me go!”

“Woodland caribou are protected. Poachers are prosecuted.”

Rain beat at them. Another clap of thunder rent the air. The storm was a good one. He liked storms. They made everything clean again, absolved nature of her sins. Too bad it wasn’t that easy with people.

She blinked through a hank of dripping hair that obscured part of her face as his words sank in. “Poachers? You mean you think I’m a hunter?”

“Don’t play me, lady, I’m not in the mood.”

“Where is he?” She tried to get up, but he wouldn’t let her. For a moment he thought she meant the man he’d seen earlier through the trees. Then she twisted around, her gaze sliding to the narrow protrusion of rock where the caribou had stood.

“That bull’s long gone.”

She swore. It surprised him. She didn’t look like the swearing type. “It’s your fault. If you hadn’t—hey, wait a minute!”

Ignoring her protests, he dragged her, one-handed, away from the edge, propped her against a boulder, then motioned with his gun toward the black case. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s not a rifle.”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “That’s what this is about?” She nodded at the case. “You think I’m a hunter and that’s a rifle.”

“A poacher,” he corrected.

She sucked an angry breath, and he was suddenly aware of her small breasts pushing against the wet fabric of her shirt. She caught him looking, and abruptly crossed her arms over her chest.

“Open it.” She nodded at the case.

“I intend to.” His weapon still trained on her, he knelt in front of the case and flipped the latches. What he saw inside didn’t register.

“That’s right,” she said. “It’s a tripod.”

A tripod?

He swiveled toward her and gave her a good once-over. Her clothes were new. Even wet, the khaki pants still had creases pressed into them. Her boots were new, too, but not the knapsack he noticed wedged under an overhang next to where she sat glaring up at him.

“I’m a photographer.”

“The hell you are.” He didn’t like being wrong. He was never wrong, not about something like this. Instinct told him she was lying. “Hand it over.” He motioned with the gun toward her knapsack.

Another crack of thunder made them both jump. She stared at his forty-five. “Please put that away. I’m not a criminal. And shouldn’t we get off this rock? We’re awfully exposed up here.”

She was right about that. Lightning flashed, closer this time. He fumbled, one-handed, with the knapsack, got it open and checked the contents. Film, leather canisters of varying lengths, and a heavy, professional-looking camera.

“It’s a Nikon F4 with a motor drive, in case you’re interested. The canisters have lenses in them. I told you, I’m a photographer, a wildlife photographer, on assignment for my magazine.”

Her fingernails were polished in soft pearlescent pink, her eyebrows neatly plucked. She didn’t even have a tan.

“What magazine?”

In a cool gesture that screamed arrogance, she tipped her chin at him. “Wilderness Unlimited.”

He knew it, and most of the photographers on staff. She definitely wasn’t one of them. “Let’s see some ID.”

He watched rainwater catch in the hollow at the base of her throat as she swallowed, flustered by his demand. “I…left it back in my rental car. On that little road off the highway.”

“Yeah, right.”

The west road was six miles away, over rough terrain. He couldn’t believe she’d made it as far as she had on her own. Maybe she was working in concert with the guy in the camo. He did a quick three-sixty, his gaze darting over the rocky landscape toward the tree line. Nothing.

“What are you doing here?”

“I would have thought that was obvious.” She blinked against the rain in the direction of the caribou’s escape.

“This is a wildlife reserve. Woodland caribou is a rare species in this part of the state.”

“That’s exactly why I’m here.”

She seemed way too sure of herself for a woman who, not five minutes ago, tumbled over the edge of a thousand-foot drop-off.

“Get up.” He slid his weapon into its holster, snapped the leather trigger guard, and hoisted her knapsack off the rock.

She got to her feet, and for a long moment they just stood there, sizing each other up. She looked even smaller standing. Five-two, five-three tops. Her blond hair was plastered to her head, her clothes soaked through. The temperature was dropping fast, and he realized she was shivering.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

He relatched the tripod case and picked it up, pointing it in the direction from which he’d come. “That way. South.”

“But my car’s back there.” She pointed west along the barren ridge that ran for a mile or so, then dropped off into a long valley flanking the road, peppered with thick stands of timber and open meadow.

She was out here in a rainstorm with no jacket, no survival gear and no food. And a story he didn’t believe. No way was he letting her out of his sight until he found out whether or not she was connected to the poacher he was sure he’d seen.

It was his job to protect the animals in the reserve against unusual disturbances. That included hunters, harebrained tourists, camo-clad mystery men and small, wet women with attitude.

“This rain could turn to snow. You’ll never make it back before dark.” He glanced at the roiling sky. “My station’s closer. Come on.”

She blocked his path, shot him a hard look that seemed comical, given her bedraggled state, and matter-of-factly relieved him of her tripod case and knapsack.

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. Besides, it’s summer. This is Alaska. It doesn’t really get dark until nine or ten.” She turned and started back up the ridge, doing a better job of negotiating the loose volcanic scree than he expected.

Stubborn, he thought. And damned attractive. He’d been out here a long time, a year. The only other women he saw on a regular basis were Department of Fish and Game co-workers, and he only saw them a few times a month.

He ought to just let her go. Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe she was who she said she was. Still, something about her was off. He watched her as she climbed steadily up the dark blanket of broken rock, and had the strangest feeling he’d seen her before.

He shook off the feeling, and scanned the tree line again for movement. Out there somewhere was another intruder, dressed head to toe in camouflage and toting more than a tripod case. Until he found out who he was, he wasn’t letting Ms. Wilderness Unlimited out of his sight.

He let her get to the top of the ridge before he moved up behind her and looped a finger under her leather belt. It, too, looked new. He tugged.

“This way,” he said, and motioned for her to follow.

“I told you, my car’s that way.”

He watched her as she slipped her arms through the straps of the knapsack, then redoubled her grip on the case. Rain ran in rivulets down her face. Her soaking clothes clung to her like a second skin. She was trim, athletic, fitter than he’d judged her to be from that first impression—the soft feel of her against him when she lay on top of him on the rock.

He moved his hand to the holster of his department-issue weapon. “Don’t make me take this out again.”

She shot him an incredulous look. “You can’t force me to go with you.”

“Wanna bet?” Two strides later he was chin to forehead with her, his hand closing firmly over her slim upper arm.

She looked him up and down, openmouthed, not the least bit afraid of him, appraising his wet uniform, her gaze flicking from his gold-tone Department of Fish and Game badge to his eyes. “What are you, some kind of wannabe cop?”

Now that pissed him off. “Lady, out here I am a cop. The only cop.”

She glared up at him. “It’s Wendy.”

“Yeah, and I’m Peter Pan.” He plucked the tripod case out of her hand and pushed her toward a little-used game trail. “Move it.”

What a jerk.

The longer they walked, the angrier she got. Wendy stopped for a moment to readjust her knapsack, which had been digging into her shoulders for the past two hours. Her feet were killing her—blisters from the new boots—and her wet clothes chafed against her skin. At least the rain had stopped.

“Keep going.” Warden Rambo poked her in the back. “It’s not much farther.”

“Good.” Not breaking her stride, she shot him a nasty look over her shoulder. When she turned her attention back to the trail, she was immediately thwacked by a faceful of wet spruce.

Behind her, she heard him stifle a laugh.

“It’s not funny.” She kept moving, and every step of the way could feel his eyes on her.

They were green, flecked with gold, projecting a confidence and strength that was burned forever into her mind the first time she’d looked into them—as she dangled in space over a glacier-cut canyon, her life in his hands.

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.