Debra Brown - Northern Exposure

“New boots?” He nodded at her bandaged feet.

“New everything. My luggage was stolen at the airport, so I had to buy all new stuff.”

“Fairbanks or Anchorage?” That kind of thing didn’t happen too often in Alaska.

“Anchorage, when I first arrived. A guy nabbed my suitcase off the conveyor and took off with it. Thank God I had my camera bag on me. I’d never be able to afford to replace my Nikon.”

He watched her as she finished her toast. A dab of butter clung to the edge of her lip, and he caught himself wondering what it would feel like, what she would taste like, if he flicked it away with his tongue.

His attraction to her disgusted him.

He adjusted his position on the hard kitchen chair and croaked, “Tough break,” not really meaning it. Someone like her deserved what she got.

“Yeah, well…” She waved her fork in the air in a dismissive gesture. “That’s the least of my worries at this point.”

“I’ll bet.”

She shot him a cool look and continued eating.

With his back to her, as he rinsed out the coffee carafe and ground beans for another pot, he asked her about some of the things he’d read about her in the tabloid article. She immediately changed the subject.

“The only other road into the reserve is this one.” She whipped the folded map—the one she’d tried to get him to look at last night—out of her pants pocket and spread it on the table. “If I leave my car here—” she pointed to a remote spot on a little-used Jeep trail “—and walk in from the east…”

“You’re likely to get yourself killed.”

She glared up at him.

“Besides, the caribou won’t be there. They’ll be here.” He leaned over the table and jabbed a finger at another spot, more than forty miles from where she was planning on leaving her car.

“Oh.” Her expression darkened as she considered exactly what a forty-mile hike in a remote Alaskan wilderness area meant.

He felt the beginnings of a smile edge his lips. It vanished as she cleared her throat, sat up tall in her chair—those ridiculously perky breasts of hers jutting forward—and in a bright voice said, “Fine.”

He snorted. “You’re a piece of work.”

And that was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Her blue eyes glittered with anger. She pressed her lips tightly together and waited, as if counting to ten, then she let him have it.

“What is it with you? You’ve been rude to me from the moment we met. You read a bunch of twisted half-truths in some supermarket tabloid and you think you know everything about me. Which you don’t,” she emphasized.

“Even if all of it were true—which it isn’t—what do you care? What business is it of yours? That badge—” she flashed her eyes at the Department of Fish and Game emblem on his shirt “—doesn’t give you license to be a jerk.”

He enjoyed watching her while she ranted at him. Her cheeks blazed with color, her eyes turned the warmest shade of blue he’d ever seen. Abruptly she stood and came around the table at him. He didn’t know whether he wanted to toss her out the door onto her very shapely ass or back her up against the refrigerator and lay one on her.

A snappy retort died on his lips as the sound of an approaching vehicle interrupted their conversation.

“What’s that?” she said, turning toward the window.

“Your ride outta here.”

“About time.”

She followed him into the front room as the sounds of a car door slamming and footfalls scrunching across gravel drew their attention to the front door.

It opened, and Barb Maguire, dressed in a neatly pressed department-issue uniform, breezed into the room. “Hi-ya, Joe!” She saw Wendy and did a double take. “Oh.” Her gaze washed over first Wendy, then him. When she recovered from her obvious shock, a smile bloomed on her face. “Hi, I’m Barb, Joe’s delivery girl, so to speak.”

She handed him a stack of mail and what looked like a month’s worth of department paperwork. “Thanks,” he said.

The two women shook hands. Wendy introduced herself and made some polite small talk as Barb assessed the situation: Cat’s clothes on the sofa bed next to the pile of neatly folded blankets and bed sheets, two empty tea cups on the coffee table and a heap of dead ashes in the hearth.

She flashed him a conspiratorial look, grinning like the cat who ate the canary, when Wendy turned to grab her knapsack off a chair. He put on his best it’s-not-what-you-think expression, but it didn’t deter her.

Barb Maguire, a DF&G technician who was married to the department’s local wildlife biologist, had been trying to play matchmaker for him for the past year. Her goal was to get him into town so she could fix him up with one of her girlfriends. Joe wasn’t interested, but Barb was relentless.

“So, you’re a wildlife photographer. That’s…well, perfect!” She winked at Joe.

“Uh, yeah. I’m here to photograph woodland caribou.”

“Whoa. Tough assignment.” Barb nodded in admiration.

Joe had had enough. “I told her she’d be a damned fool to go looking for them on her own.”

“Do you think everyone is a helpless idiot, or is it just me?”

He started to answer, but Barb cut him off. “No, he thinks that about pretty much everybody.” She grinned. “Don’t let it put you off.”

“I don’t intend to.” With a dismissive swing of her hair, Wendy did an about-face and retrieved her socks and boots from where they’d dried overnight by the hearth. She struggled to get them on comfortably over the moleskin.

Joe resisted an overpowering urge to help her.

“Why not hire a guide?” Barb said.

“Can’t afford it.” Wendy laced the stiff boots, grimacing. “I’m covering my expenses myself. Besides, I don’t want a guide.”

“Why don’t you take her?” Barb arched a thick, dark brow at him. “You know every inch of the reserve and exactly where those caribou are likely to hole up.”

“No!” he and Wendy said in unison.

“Whoa. Sorry. I thought you two were…uh, friends.”

“We’re not,” Joe said.

“My mistake.”

Wendy’s cheeks flushed scarlet. “I’ll, um, be right back.” She headed down the hall toward the bathroom, and when they heard the door close, Barb was all over him.

“Who is she? She’s great! Where did you meet her? What happened with the two of you last—”

“I want you to take her back to her rental car out on the west road, then follow her to the highway. I want her out of here. Got it?”

Barb’s brown eyes widened. “Got it.”

“And don’t ask,” he said, as she opened her mouth to fire more questions at him.

A moment later Wendy’s footsteps cut short their conversation. “Okay, I’m ready.” She turned to him and stiffly offered her hand. Feeling awkward, he shook it. “Thank you for your…hospitality.” Her tone pushed the sarcastic-meter off the scale.

At the door their gazes met and, for the briefest moment, in her eyes he read the same unguarded fusion of emotions he’d seen in them last night when she was standing in his bedroom: compassion, longing, regret.

He was familiar with the last one. God, was he ever.

Barb called to him over the roof of her department pickup before she climbed inside. “Almost forgot. Your truck’s out of the shop. Couple of guys from the garage are bringing it up later this morning.”

“Thanks,” he said, then stood in the open doorway and watched as Barb turned her pickup around and drove Wendy Walters out of his life.

Good riddance.

But fifteen minutes later, he couldn’t stop himself from making the call.

“Wilderness Unlimited,” the operator uttered in an East Coast accent.