Northern Exposure (12 page)

She kept walking, heard him gather up the rest of their gear and catch up with her. He didn't say a word and neither did she for the half hour it took them to hike back down the game trail into the wooded valley below.

She struggled to keep her mind focused on her new career, how she'd return to New York a success, the caribou photos in hand. She tried to envision
what her life would be like working for the wildlife magazine. She had new projects to plan, lots to think about.

The only problem was the only thing she could think about for more than five straight seconds at a time was Joe. When they reached the bottom and merged onto the main trail, Wendy turned to face him.

He looked at her, his calm eyes and stoic expression no longer betraying any hints of what he was feeling—which was okay with her, since she didn't know what she was feeling, either.

“How far to the next cabin?” she asked.

“Not far. A couple of miles.”

She wanted to tell him why she felt suddenly nervous and flighty around him. She wanted him to understand why she was fearful of getting involved with him. Especially him. His history, how he'd dealt with the tragedies in his life, the control he seemed so desperate to maintain, the warmth she knew simmered below the surface—all of it taken together scared the hell out of her.

“Good,” she said. “I'm ready to pack it in.”

“You did something today no one else has ever done, photographed woodland caribou in Alaska. You should be proud.”

“Yeah, I guess I did. And I am.” She nodded, reminding herself that she should be thinking about getting out of here, now that she'd gotten what she'd come for.

“There's a reward at the next cabin for all your hard work.”

“A reward?”

He grinned. “Yeah. Of sorts. There's a bathtub.”

“You're kidding?” She didn't even want to think about how long it had been since her last shower—almost a week ago at Joe's station. The two of them had gotten by, the past six days, by sharing a thin travel washcloth and the biodegradable soap she'd packed. “A bath would be fantastic.”

“Don't get too excited until you see the tub. It's an old galvanized steel washtub I found up here in a storage locker last year.”

“It sounds great.”

“Yeah, it will be.” He edged closer, the look she'd come to recognize as desire heating his eyes.

“I, uh, guess we should get moving.” She stepped back needing to put distance between them.

“You okay?”

“Yes, I just…” She glanced at the thick foliage and dark stands of trees on both sides of the trail, disappearing into the wispy blanket of ground fog still clinging to the valley floor. “I need a minute, if you don't mind.” She handed him her camera bag.

“Oh.” He hesitated. “Sure.” He turned his back, but didn't move from where he stood not an arm's length from her.

After the incident on the bridge he'd insisted that she never leave his sight, not for a minute, not even to relieve herself. At night that worked fine, especially at the DF&G cabins, which had nearby out-houses he could stand guard over while she was inside. On the trail it was a problem.

Right now she just wanted some privacy. She needed to get a grip on herself and her emotions. She needed to get away from him for just a few minutes. They'd been together twenty-four hours a day for almost a week.

She watched his back as he took off the blue pack, set it down, then started to rearrange its contents. There was a break in the vegetation behind her where the ground was muddy. He was clanging around metal fuel canisters and didn't hear her as she moved off the trail into the fog, just a half dozen feet or so, just far enough so she could clear her head.

She stopped where the trees made a natural barrier, breathing in the heady scents of wet cedar, spruce and loamy earth. What a week. Trying to relax, she decided that as long as she was here…

It took her just a few seconds to unbuckle her belt and unzip her pants.

A heartbeat later an arm shot around her waist.

A gloved hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her scream.

S
he was going to die.

In the fog, in the middle of a wilderness area, the smell of greasy leather choking off her air. The only coherent thought that flashed in her mind was
Why?

“Where is it?” he hissed in her ear.

The man dragged her backward into the foliage. He was big, powerful. She struggled, her legs tangling with his. Wrenching her head down, she saw a black jackboot and camouflage pants like the kind a hunter or a soldier would wear.

“Wendy?” Joe's voice sounded through the fog. “Damn it, Wendy.” He realized she was gone. Thank God! “Where are you?”

“Answer him,” the man said. A second later she felt the cold press of steel against her throat.

Oh, God.

“Answer him. And be smart about it.” The hand over her mouth relaxed so she could speak.

“I—I'm here.”

“Where?”

“Tell him you're fine,” the faceless voice breathed in her ear.

She felt the sharp point of the knife pierce her throat. Tears stung her eyes. Joe! she wanted to scream, but didn't. “I'll be…just…a-another minute.” The hand clamped over her mouth.

“Hurry up. I don't like it when I can't see you.”

She tried to breathe but couldn't. Her skin felt clammy inside her clothes, her legs thick and useless, as if she were paralyzed.

“Where is it?” he hissed. His breath was hot, almost cloying against her cheek. With the knife he urged her head higher. His free hand began to explore. “Don't,” he said, when a silent scream rose in her throat.

He searched her pockets, first the pants, then her shirt, dropping their apparently useless contents on the ground. “Where is it? He said you have it.”

“H-have what?” she breathed. “Who?”

“Barrett.”

“Wendy?” Joe's voice. It sounded far off to her right. He must be looking for her, but in the wrong direction.

The knife blade edged higher. Panic closed her throat, nearly made her legs give out when her captor cupped her breast.

“Nice,” he breathed in her ear. “Now where is it? Here?” He squeezed.

She let out a strangled cry, and instantly felt the prick of the knife against her skin. Her arms flailed wildly in the air as he again dragged her backward and she tried to fend him off.

“Wendy!”

Any second Joe would find her.

She had to fight!

“Or maybe here?” As his sweaty hand moved into her open pants, she realized with horror he'd slipped his glove off. Callused fingers skimmed her bare skin.

Without warning he plunged into her panties.

“Joe!” Forgetting the knife, she launched herself sideways and they both went down. She fought him off, heedless of the flash of polished steel whooshing past her face as he tried to subdue her. Somewhere at the edge of her awareness she heard Joe's voice, hoarse with panic.

Her eyes connected with her captor's. They were brown, cold, determined, but in the millisecond she held his gaze, she realized he wasn't going to kill her, no matter what she did.

Her knee shot up hard to his groin. He blocked it, but the move caught him off guard long enough for her to wrestle free. The next thing she knew she was on her feet, running, tearing through the foliage, leaves slapping at her, branches clawing her face, catching her hair.

She was screaming.

And then she was in his arms.

 

“Joe!”

“Wendy, Jesus!” He scooped her up, his gun in his hand, and moved behind a tree. “What happened?”

It took only a second for all of it to register.

Her eyes, wide with fear, the dazed expression, her hair littered with pieces of broken twigs and leaves.
A thin rivulet of blood trickled from her throat. He noticed her clothes were disheveled, her pants unzipped and hanging from her hips, white cotton panties pushed far enough down to reveal blond pubic hair.

Joe came unglued.

He swore, spinning in circles, his weapon leveled at every tree, every breath of wind stirring the branches. Nothing stared back at him through the fog.

Wendy's hand on his arm quivered, bringing him back. He turned to her, fighting the tumult of rage and fear balling in his gut. “He hurt you. The son of a bitch hurt you.”

“No,” she said, swiping at the trickles of blood. He realized there were more than one. She'd obviously fought him off. “They're just scratches. He didn't mean to hurt me.”

“The hell he didn't.” He battled a primeval urge to crash through the wilderness, overturning rocks, uprooting trees if he had to, until he found the bastard. Never in his life had he wanted to kill a man, until now.

“H-he wanted to scare me, that was all. He wanted me a-alone to scare me.”

He looked at her and worked to catch his breath. He knew he couldn't leave her to go after this guy, no matter how much he wanted to get him. He wasn't going anywhere without her. Not a foot. And she wasn't going anywhere without him.

“H-he's looking for something.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “I don't know. I honestly
don't know. He said Blake told him I had it. But I have no idea what
it
is.”

“Come here,” he said, and folded her into his arms. He wanted to close his eyes and just feel her, warm and safe against him, but couldn't risk it. “You have no idea what you put me through.”

She raised her head from his chest and met his gaze. “I know. I'm sorry.”

He shook his head. “It's not your fault. It's mine—and his, whoever the son of a bitch is. You get a look at him?”

“Just for a second. Mostly just his eyes. I think he might have been the guy who stole my luggage at the airport. Other than that, I don't know him.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. “And it isn't your fault. I was the one who slipped away. I wasn't thinking. I take that back, I was thinking, but not about the creep following us.”

He squeezed her tight and buried his face in her hair. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Kiss me,” she said, stunning him, and raised her mouth to his. Her breath was warm, soft on his face.

He didn't give her a chance to change her mind. Trapping her lips, he tasted her, reveled in the feel of their tongues mating, felt the heat of her body against his. “When I heard you scream, I…”

He'd never felt that kind of sick panic before, not even with Cat when she was a kid or with any of the wilderness rescues he'd assisted on, and there'd been a lot of those in his career.

“I know,” she whispered, reading his mind. “Me, too.”

They kissed again, more deeply this time, her arms
winding around his neck, his gun hand pressed into her back, and he knew he was in this thing way over his head.

“Come on,” he said, getting a grip on himself. “Let's get out of here.”

 

Late that afternoon they reached the next cabin. After Joe checked it out, Wendy followed him inside and collapsed onto one of the bunks. “What could it be? What is it this guy wants from me?”

Joe bolted the door closed, then snapped the heavy wooden shutter into place over the cabin's single window. There'd be no Peeping Toms tonight. Lighting the lantern they'd retrieved from an outside storage locker, he said, “We'll figure it out. But first you need to eat something. I need to eat something.”

He unpacked the blue backpack, and they worked in concert to get their overnight accommodations into shape. It was almost automatic now, after a week together in the wild. He built a fire in the stove while she laid out her sleeping bag and his blankets on opposite bunks.

Briefly she wondered what he'd think if she laid them out together, side by side, on one bunk. She recalled his kisses, how good she'd felt in his arms, how safe, how right they seemed together…and promptly told herself she needed to calm down, be smart.

She wasn't thinking. She was just scared, terrified, when it came right down to it. And he was just being himself, an overprotective alpha male.

“Tuna casserole or beef stew?” He turned the aluminum packages over in his hands.

“Stew,” she said as she searched the blue pack for a reasonably clean T-shirt.

In the cabin's outside storage locker she'd spotted the galvanized washtub, which he'd dragged inside. She looked longingly at the bucket of water Joe had placed on the stove to heat. She was desperate to bathe, to cleanse her body and her mind of the feel of that man's hands on her.

“Wendy? You okay?”

She nodded, pushing the horrible memories from her mind. “Just tired.”

“He…he didn't hurt you?”

She knew what he meant, and read the pain in his face as he asked the question. He blamed himself for what had happened. Not her for leaving his side, not the camo-clad perpetrator, not even Blake, if, indeed, Blake was involved. He blamed himself, and she couldn't bear it.

“No,” she said. “He…touched me. But no, he didn't do anything like that.”

She watched the pulse point in his neck hitch, saw him grind his teeth behind creased lips. Lips she'd kissed and wanted to kiss again.

“He's looking for something he thinks I have.”

“We need to figure out what it is, and where it is. Obviously he thinks you have it with you.”

She knew it was time to share the rest of what she hadn't already told him. She felt guilty, and more than a little stupid, for not telling him sooner. Taking his hand, she sat down with him on one of the bunks.

“What's wrong?” he said, reading the hesitation she knew shone in her eyes.

She took a breath, then blurted it out. All of it. How her purse had been snatched while she was
walking home from the police station one night, a week after the incident in the loft. How it was found by a passerby around the corner from her building, its contents miraculously intact. She told him about the break-in at her apartment three days later, and how, just a week ago, she'd found the door of her rented SUV unlocked, though she was positive she'd locked it. He already knew about the luggage.

“Jesus Christ!”

She knew he'd react like this, and she didn't blame him. Not now. She should have told him before. More than that, she should have put it all together herself, weeks ago. But she hadn't.

At first she'd been in shock over Billy Ehrenberg's death. Later she'd had to deal with Blake's lies, the autopsy findings and resulting police investigation, then losing her job, the tabloids, her parents…

Ouch.
That had been hard.

Purse snatchings and break-ins happened all the time in Manhattan. She'd simply never connected them with Blake or with Billy. Now it seemed ridiculously clear they were related.

“What was taken from your apartment?”

“Nothing. It was just torn up. The police thought it was kids. There're some teenagers in my building, in trouble all the time.”

“Tell me again what this creep said to you.”

“‘Where is it?' he said. ‘He says you have it.' When I asked him who, he said, ‘Barrett.'”

“Did Barrett give you anything after that night?”

“No, nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. He sent me a letter in care of my parents in Michigan. It was just a guess on his part that
I was there. I didn't tell anyone where I was going when I left New York, not even the police.”

“Where is it? What was in it?”

“I…don't know. I didn't open it. I didn't want to hear any more of Blake's lies, so I didn't read it.”

Stupid,
she thought to herself. If only she'd read it, maybe they'd know what this was about.

“Where is it now?”

“The letter?” She fished the tattered envelope out of her knapsack and handed it to him. “I carried it around in my camera bag for a week, unopened, and wrote some important phone numbers on the envelope.”

He slid a finger into the razored flap and said, “There's nothing inside.”

“I know. I threw the letter away, right before I left for Alaska. I kept the envelope because of the phone numbers.”

He read the postmark, dated nearly three weeks ago in New York.

“Damn! Maybe this guy is after the letter.”

“I don't think so. My purse was snatched and my apartment was broken into before I left New York, before this letter was even written.”

He looked at her and let out a breath. “We need to eat.”

She wasn't hungry but knew she had to keep her strength up. They had another sixty miles to hike to reach Joe's station. “I'll cook,” she said, needing something to occupy her mind, even if it was just boiling water.

They ate in silence, and she knew he was allowing her time to think about what Blake could have given her that this guy wanted—why it was important
enough to follow her four thousand miles, terrorize her and nearly get them killed, just to get it.

“Okay, let's go back to the beginning.” Joe cleared their plates, then checked the bucket of bathwater on the stove. “You've told me everything about meeting Barrett in the loft. Everything you remember.”

“All of it.”

“Okay, let's start with the next day. What happened?”

She shrugged. “I left the E.R. after Billy died, about seven that morning, and went to the office. Blake showed up later. I didn't see him. He went to my cubicle while I was in the ladies' room and got his camera. One of the other assistants said he was really agitated, ranting like a crazy man when he—”

“Wait a minute. Why did he go to
your
cubicle to get
his
camera?”

“Because I had it. I'd found it in the loft that night after Blake had left, along with one of his tripods.” She shrugged. “I was his assistant. Part of my job was to clean up after him.”

“Yeah, that's an understatement.”