Northern Exposure (11 page)

She sighed, and picked up the pace, despite the poor visibility. “I could have, but I didn't want to wallow in it. I wanted to move forward, not backward. Start over, fresh.”

“So you called
Wilderness Unlimited.
”

“The senior editor, Crystal Chalmers, is a friend of mine. It's the chance of a lifetime for me. Wildlife photography was something I'd been interested in as a college student.”

“Why didn't you pursue it then?”

She turned and flashed him a raised eyebrow.

“Barrett.”

“He recruited me right out of school. The rest is history.”

And that's how she wanted to think of it, as history. She was a new woman, with a new chance at making something of herself, on her own. She wasn't going to let anyone stop her—not Blake, not the creep following them, not even Joe Peterson.

“So now you're determined,” he said, nodding.

“Damn right, I am.”

“Well I'm determined, too. To get us the hell out of here. Let's go.”

She turned and started up the trail again, conscious of the fact that he was less than a step behind her, his hand on his gun. The man wasn't kidding. At every turn she glanced back at him through the fog, taking in the hard set of his jaw, those sharp eyes methodically sweeping the forest for any signs they weren't alone.

Two hours later, mist still curling around them like a shroud, they reached a fork in the trail, one that she'd marked on the map days ago. Wendy pivoted, hands on hips, steeling herself for what she knew, and had known for days, would be a battle.

“What?” Joe said, pulling up short.

“This is it.”

“This is what?” He narrowed his gaze and looked past her.

“The fork.” She nodded toward the steep game trail cutting a zigzag of switchbacks across the bald ridge to their right, snaking in and out of the fog.

“Uh-uh. Absolutely not. We keep moving.”

“But this is why I'm here.” She unsnapped her camera from the chest harness and popped the lens cap. “Up there is where I need to go.” The rocky canyon on the other side of the ridge was the place
Joe had told her about—prime habitat for woodland caribou.

“That's the last place you're going.” He took her by the arm, not gently, and urged her forward.

She resisted, digging her boot heels into the mud. “You can't stop me.”

“The hell I can't!” He spun her around and caught her about the waist. She struggled, startled by his sudden show of strength, but he wouldn't let go. “There's a man out there. You're in danger. Get that through that thick, blond head of yours!”

He pulled her to him, and she dropped her camera. It lay in the mud, forgotten, as her hands pressed up against his chest. His heart beat wildly under her palm. His breath was hot on her face, his eyes as hard as she'd ever seen them.

“That guy wants you, Wendy. He wants you!” He shook her. Then, all at once, his expression softened.

Gently he pushed a wet strand of hair away from her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek, caressing it. Her stomach did a somersault.

This
guy wants me, she thought.

A heartbeat later he kissed her.

Leaning into him, she simply gave up, went with it, surrendered to the confusion of feelings spiraling inside her. His tongue was hot glass, his hands everywhere at once. A breathy little sigh escaped her lips as he pulled her closer, close enough to feel that he meant business.

She wanted him so badly. More than anything, more than—

A sharp echoing
clack
startled them both.

Joe broke the kiss before she had a chance to do
it herself. She snatched her camera from the mud and followed his gaze to the top of the ridge. The
clack
sounded again. Then another.

Her heart nearly stopped.

On an outcrop far above them, two caribou bulls squared off, velvety antlers tangled, one against the other, engaged in a battle as old as time. The mist swirled around them like a ghostly dervish.

“Look!” she said. “We found them!”

B
y the time Wendy cleaned the mud from her camera and checked her light meter, the caribou were gone. Up and over the ridge to the rocky habitat on the other side. She looked at Joe, and he responded with one of his don't-even-think-about-it looks.

“I have to do this,” she said. “I'm going to do this.”

She watched him as he thought about it, turning a slow circle, peering into the mist, listening hard for any signs of their pursuer.

It didn't matter to her if he wanted her to do it or not. She was doing it. She was going, with or without him. She didn't need his permission. It would be nice if he'd go with her. She wanted him with her, she realized, and that's probably why she wasn't already gone, still standing there in the mud, waiting for his reaction.

“Okay,” he said, at last. “You first. Let's go.”

The old Wendy would have said thank you. Thank you for letting me. She was grateful for Joe's compliance, but not the way she'd been grateful in the past with Blake, when he'd allow her a special assignment, making it clear she'd probably botch it on her own. No, that's not what she felt at all as they scaled the ridge. She was simply happy to have Joe with her, by her side, sharing the experience of a lifetime.

Just before they reached the top, he stopped her. “Let me go first and check it out.”

Warden Rambo was back. She could see it in his eyes and knew it was useless to argue. Not that she wanted to argue. Someone was stalking her, and until they found out who it was and what he wanted, they needed to be extra careful.

“Okay,” she said, and let him pass. “You won't scare them away, will you?”

“I'm a game warden, remember. My job is to keep track of animals. So, no, I won't scare them away. Come on, stick close.”

She intended to, and gave one long look back the way they'd come, just to make sure no one was behind them. Joe had already done that, ten times if he'd done it once, but she felt the need to do it, all the same.

Who are you?

As they topped the ridge and the rocky canyon spread out before them on the other side, mist swirling up its walls, her heart sank. “They're gone!”

“Shh!” Joe placed a hand on her shoulder. “No, they're here, over there.” He pointed to a craggy knob that shot up from the canyon bottom, obstructing their view. “On the other side of that. Listen.”

She closed her eyes and listened, and heard the unmistakable
clack
of antlers. “You're right!”

“Of course I'm right.”

They smiled at each other, and she felt warm all over. She remembered their kiss, and wanted another, but now was not the time. Peering through the mist, she narrowed her gaze on a rocky promontory directly across from where the caribou were hiding on the other side of the knob.

“Right there,” she whispered, pointing. “That's where I need to be.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Downwind, good visibility, and it's fairly protected. If you were careful, they wouldn't even know you were there. There's only one problem.”

“What?”

He pulled her a few feet to the right to get a better view of the location, and she saw what he must have already known about before they'd come up here—a two-hundred foot drop-off, directly below the promontory. It was a situation not unlike the one she'd gotten herself into that first day, the day she met him, the day he saved her life on the cliff.

As they cautiously made their way down the ridge line toward the promontory, she realized just how narrow it was. It was really more of a ledge, protected on one side by a sheer basaltic wall, dropping off into oblivion on the other.

“No,” he said. “This isn't going to work.”

They stopped and listened again to the
clack
of antlers, but had no line of sight to the caribou.

“Yes, it is,” she said, slipping off her knapsack and quickly changing lenses. She felt a surge of
adrenaline as she stepped closer, inspecting the narrow ledge.

“It's what, two feet wide, max?” Joe shook his head. “No way. We can't go out there together, and I'm not letting you go alone.”

She'd expected him to say that, and pretended he hadn't as she checked her light meter one last time. “Looks like we hauled that tripod for nothing. I won't be able to use it out there.” She stripped it from her knapsack before putting it back on, then moved to the edge.

“No.” Joe gripped her upper arm so tightly, she thought he'd snap the bone in two.

“Yes.” She looked at him hard, and for a moment he didn't say anything.

“Let me do it, then,” he blurted. “I'll take the pictures.”

Her mouth dropped open before she could stop it. “You're not serious?” She shook her head as he argued the point. “No. Absolutely not. This is
my
assignment, my job. This is what I do.”

“Squatting with a camera at the end of a runway while skinny chicks in thousand-dollar rags slink past you was your job, not this.” He shook his head, looking at the ledge.

“Well, this is my job now. If I were anyone else, any other photographer—a guy—you wouldn't think twice. Admit it.”

That stopped him. After a second he shrugged.

Now, more than ever, she was determined to do this herself, not only to secure her job at the magazine, but to prove to Joe Peterson that she could and that everything would be all right. It wasn't even that
dangerous. As a kid growing up in Michigan she'd done dozens of things more reckless.

She realized that it wasn't the situation itself but the fact that Joe couldn't control it that was responsible for the fear she read in his eyes as he looked at her. She felt it in the way he gently took her hand in his and squeezed. It was shaking.

She also knew he didn't blame his sister's adolescent misadventures on her own poor judgment but on his lack of supervision and control. It was the same with her death. Though Cat Peterson had been an adult, Joe blamed her self-inflicted drug overdose on himself for not being there to stop her.

“This is my life, Joe. My decision. I'm responsible for the consequences, good and bad. Not you.”

He didn't say anything, just looked at her. His hair hung in his eyes, damp from the mist, and she resisted the urge to reach up and brush it away from his face.

She knew he could physically stop her if he wanted to. She hoped it wouldn't come to that.

“You'll be careful,” he said, at last.

She couldn't stop her smile. “Of course I will.”

“I don't care how damned narrow that ledge is. If I so much as think you're in trouble, I'm coming out there.”

“Here, hold this,” she said, handing him the tripod, still smiling. “Back in a flash.”

 

Joe wanted to laugh at her photographer's pun but couldn't. He set the tripod down and slipped off his pack, then watched, his stomach knotting, as she dropped to all fours and crawled onto the ledge.

They were above the tree line here, and visibility
was better. Mist swirled up the canyon, dark treetops spiking through its cottonlike ceiling.

He kept one eye on Wendy, the other on their surroundings, his hand on his gun. Camo Man was still out there, but he wouldn't have predicted they'd leave the main trail, and he couldn't follow them onto the ridge without being seen. All the same, Joe knew he was close. He could feel him watching, waiting to see what they'd do next.

The farther out onto the ledge Wendy crawled, the narrower it became. He forced himself to breathe. He tried to imagine her on a shoot in New York, up on one of those catwalks high above a stage. He told himself this was no different, a walk in the park for her. Still, he had to force himself not to follow her out there.

She stopped.

“What is it?”

Looking back at him, she smiled, raised a finger to her lips, signaling him to be quiet. She slipped out of her knapsack and placed it on the ledge in front of her, then unclipped her camera from its harness. He watched her as she dropped to her stomach and, on elbows and knees, crawled to the end where the ledge fell away into space.

Son of a bitch.

He was sweating now, though the last time he'd checked, the temperature was only in the forties. He watched as she raised her camera, popped the lens cap and focused on what he couldn't see but could hear.

Antlers
clacked,
more violently now, echoing off the rock walls of the canyon. Somewhere below them, out of sight, Joe knew there'd be a small gath
ering of caribou cows. That's what the battle was about, after all.

As he watched Wendy go to work, he realized he was engaged in a battle, too. Not with her, or with the guy following them, but with himself. He fought to remain detached, aloof, in control of the situation and his emotions.

But he was losing. Boy, was he ever.

Forgetting Camo Man for the moment, he knelt next to the ledge, captivated by Wendy's practiced movements as she shot an entire roll of film in under a minute, tossing the spent canister into her knapsack, reloading, changing lenses, then starting again.

Her calm demeanor, the intensity of her concentration was fascinating to him. This was her calling. She paused for a moment, set the camera down and just watched them.

He watched
her.

Mist eased over the ledge, swirling around her prone form, then receded like a ghostly tide. In defiance of the weather, her cheeks warmed to a rose hue that was striking against the cool backdrop of rock and fog surrounding her.

A sharp
clack
of antlers echoed through the canyon, and she grinned, focused intently on her subjects, her eyes lit with a fire and an excitement he found riveting. She turned to him suddenly, their gazes connecting, and in that moment something happened to him, to them both.

Her smile changed. A second ago it had exuded the joy of accomplishment, of achieving what she'd set out to do. But now it was different, it was for him. And in that second when their minds connected, he knew. He just knew.

He loved her.

And there wasn't a goddamned thing he could do about it.

“Come on,” she whispered, and waved him out. “There's room.”

He didn't wait to be asked a second time. Moving carefully, he crawled onto the ledge behind her, inching closer until he was practically lying on top of her.

“Look!”

There they were. The caribou. Majestic, beautiful, their breath frosting the air as they squared off, one against the other. Together they watched them, and he was conscious of how warm she was lying beneath him, how natural it seemed for them to be touching.

Mist swirled upward from the canyon, shrouding the bulls in a ghostly ether. The effect was extraordinary. Even a nonphotographer type like himself could appreciate it.

Antlers
clacked.
Wendy tensed beneath him, picked up her camera and started shooting, spent another roll of film in under a minute. With a practiced hand she slapped a filter onto the lens and spent another.

When she was finished, she looked at him again. This time she wasn't smiling. He read it in her eyes a heartbeat before he knew it himself—they were going to be lovers. They were going to get off this damned rock, and with both feet on the ground he was going to kiss her.

The distant cry of a caribou cow sounded below them, sundering the moment. Without warning, the bulls vanished into the mist.

 

Wendy felt a giddy, almost surreal triumph she'd never before experienced in her work as a fashion photographer. Sure, she'd had successes in the past, but most had been diminished by Blake's micromanagement and his familiar mantra that she couldn't have done it without him.

She realized now that she could have. All that time, all those years, she could have been successful in her own right, on her own terms, without his or anyone's help. As she crawled backward off the ledge, dragging her camera bag, she knew she had a choice to make, here and now. She could dwell on the past, what might have been if only she'd been stronger, more confident—or she could look to the future, to what her life could be now, what
she
could make of it.

“Take my hand.”

Safely off the ledge, she looked up from hands and knees and saw Joe's outstretched hand, the warmth of his eyes, the smile she'd only just started seeing today, and hesitated.

“You were great out there, a natural.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His open hand was still outstretched, waiting.

She looked at it for a heartbeat before taking it, then let him pull her up. When she was on her feet he didn't let go.

“Wendy.”

She saw it coming this time, read the look in his eyes, felt the strength of his pulse where her fingertips rested on his wrist.

“We'd…better go.” Backing away, she pretended
to look for a lost lens cap on the ground. When he followed her, she stopped and made a lot of work out of popping the spent film from her Nikon and tossing it into her camera bag.

“Wendy,” he said again, approaching her.

“Gosh, look at the sky. It's clearing!” Flashing him a fake smile, she sidestepped him and started down the trail.

He stopped her. His hand on her shoulder was warm, his grip not demanding, but questioning. Turn around, she told herself. Turn around and kiss the man. Let him take you in his arms, let him touch you and make you come alive.

She wanted to. She wanted to so desperately. But if she did, what would happen? She was finally getting her life on track. This was all so unexpected, so new.
She
was new—too new—and didn't trust herself enough to make the right decisions where men where concerned. Especially where Joe Peterson was concerned.

“Look at me,” he said.

Coward,
a little voice whispered in her head.

“Wendy.”

Fighting a volatile union of sheer panic and desire bordering on need, she shook off his hand and moved down the trail. “Don't leave the pack behind.”