Northern Exposure. Debra Lee Brown
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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