Читать книгу: «Wilderness Passion»

1

LIBBY FROWNED, UNCONSCIOUSLY pushing a golden strand of hair away from her cheek. She sat behind her large executive desk, glaring at four different piles of documents, all marked Impact Statement. Forcefully exhaling in frustration, she got up, circled her plush office and glanced out the window. It was nearly 4:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon and she could hardly wait for the business week to end. On Wednesday her boss, Doug Adams, had informed her that he had another project requiring her immediate attention. Her brown eyes had darkened with worry at the news. How could she possibly handle a fifth assignment?

“Look at it this way, Libby dear,” Doug had replied in his usual amiable tone, “Cascade Amalgamated is a very progressive corporation, and nowhere is it busier than in the forestry division. Besides, in the year you’ve been with us you’ve been indispensable, and we’re proud of your work. The vice-president of the forestry division thought that the state land lease we just acquired ought to fit nicely into your field. Plus, you need some vacation, and you’ll certainly get it with this project. Just look at the weeks you’ll be spending up in that magnificent Idaho wilderness as a holiday.” He had smiled brilliantly, given her a mock salute and left her standing dumbfounded.

Libby glanced guiltily at the stacks of documents that required her attention. One more project, she thought distractedly.

She chewed on her lower lip momentarily and then closed her eyes. Her lashes, the color of wheat in midsummer, lay like thick fans against her high cheekbones. She pirouetted on her long legs and walked back to the window, which overlooked San Francisco Bay. The evening fog was beginning to creep in from the ocean, making it look as if the sky were pulling a white wool blanket over the Pacific. It was August and the cloud cover would be welcome, taking the edge off the day’s heat. Libby desperately wanted to have a weekend that wasn’t spent doing office work. She touched the back of her chignon in a nervous gesture.

“Dr. Stapleton?”

Libby swung around, startled. “Yes, Betty?”

Her secretary gave a small apologetic smile, stepping inside the door momentarily. “Remember the man who was supposed to have kept the ten-o’clock appointment with you this morning? Mr. Dan Wagner?”

Libby rolled her eyes upward. “Don’t tell me he’s here now.”

Betty nodded. “I’m afraid he is. And, judging from his angry looks, he’s none too happy about it. Shall I send him in?”

Groaning inwardly, Libby smoothed the white lab coat she always wore over her business clothes. “Yes. Leave any phone messages for me on your desk. When I get out of here tonight, I’ll check through them.”

Her secretary, a woman close to her own age, added, “You’d think he would have the good manners to call back on Monday, not last thing Friday afternoon.”

Libby tried to straighten up the obvious clutter on her desk. Why did each of the four piles of documents resemble miniature leaning Towers of Pisa? “I have to see him, Betty. He’s the forestry manager for the latest lease we bought. Do me a favor and bring us both coffee, I’m afraid it’s going to be a long meeting.”

“Sure. Want me to order some sandwiches, too?”

Libby managed a wry smile, her full lips curving upward. “I’m not intending to stay that long. Coffee will do fine.”

He came through the door without making a sound. As lean as a mountain lion, he moved with boneless grace. Libby stood frozen behind her desk, fingertips resting on the smooth surface, staring up at him like a wide-eyed child. A pulse leaped at the base of her throat as she met his eyes. They were a deep, thundercloud-blue, and his hair was dark and slightly curly, with red highlights. Perhaps what struck her the most were the rugged features of his face. That face belonged to a man who regularly challenged nature and won. Dark eyebrows and thick lashes partially hid the anger she knew he was controlling. His nose was straight except for a bump that indicated it had been broken once. Libby gave an inner sigh of relief when she saw that his well-shaped mouth was turned up at the corners and not downward. He must laugh once in a while, she thought. And small laugh lines around the corners of his eyes confirmed her guess. It gave her the necessary courage to walk around the desk, her hand extended in greeting.

“Mr. Wagner, I’m Dr. Elizabeth Stapleton. Please, come in and have a seat.”

Her long fingers were cool in comparison to the warm, callused strength of his hand. Her voice, usually husky, sounded almost breathless now, and Libby reprimanded herself. But then, the man standing and studying her with catlike intensity would make anyone feel slightly nervous.

He released her fingers—almost reluctantly, she thought. “I didn’t realize you would be a woman,” he said, his tone hard and without compromise. “E. Stapleton. That’s how the damn letter was signed.” Dan controlled his sense of frustration. How was he supposed to harvest a forest with a woman who looked more like a lovely child than someone who knew the timber industry? Despite the coolness of his manner, something wrenched at his heart when he looked into her clear, almost unlined face. Reason dictated that she was older than she looked, and he smiled to himself. She was all business, but he sensed that she was nervous. One part of him felt badly about being hard on her. But another part of him, the forestry manager, was concerned only with efficiency. Up in those mountains, the only thing that mattered was action—quick, decisive action. And now he was saddled with a woman who had probably never stepped out of her office. Damn.

Libby girded herself against his attack. How many times had she heard that for openers? “Please, sit down,” she entreated, her brown eyes narrowing slightly in self-defense. “I’m sure you’re tired from the trip.”

Dan Wagner remained standing, one hand resting loosely on his hip. There was absolutely nothing conciliatory about him. He wore a set of tightly fitting blue jeans, which emphasized his long, muscular thighs, and a western plaid shirt with a corduroy blazer thrown over it, as if to appease society to a certain degree.

Libby was amazed at the breadth of his chest and the strength that was so evident in his proudly thrown-back shoulders. He looked like he could carry the weight of the world on them and never tire. He gave her a thin smile, his eyes glittering. “You’re right about the trip, but I’m tired of sitting. And if I have my way about this meeting, I won’t be here long enough to get the urge to sit down.”

Leaning back in her black leather chair, she pointed toward the forms and files just given to her by Doug Adams. “This is going to take at least two hours,” she warned, her voice hardening slightly to emphasize the point. “We have to discuss a myriad details on collecting data for the environmental-impact statement on State Land Lease Number 4293.” She forced herself to smile. “So why don’t you relax for a moment while I ask my secretary to get the maps we’ll need?”

Libby gladly escaped the tense atmosphere of her office. The man was seething with barely restrained anger, and it was all focused on her. What had she done? It was Friday afternoon and all she wanted to do was go home and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. Peeking around the corner, she called, “Betty, get me those maps of the Sleeping Deer Mountain area, will you?”

He was pacing restlessly around her office when she returned, and her heart hammered as he lifted his chin, fixing her again with his impenetrable stare. “Was your flight late?” she inquired, thinking of the unkept appointment earlier that morning.

“No,” came the cool reply, “I just had other, more important tasks that required my attention first.” He shook his head. “I think this whole thing is a fiasco, Dr. Stapleton. Cascade Amalgamated has been given the rights to lease the land and harvest the timber. I’m too damn busy to come here and chitchat and then to babysit you or one of your city-bred assistants on a three-week interior study up on Sleeping Deer Mountain.”

Libby wiped her sweaty palms on the sides of her white coat. Dan Wagner presented a combination of impatience and masculinity that sent her senses reeling with unexplained pleasure. He was quietly handsome in a rugged, outdoorsy fashion, something she had seen very rarely in the Bay area, where she’d lived all her life. She was used to men in Savile Row suits and silk ties who spoke with cultured brevity and diplomacy. It was obvious that none of that could be expected from the forestry manager. He was a man more comfortable with an ax in his hand than trading glib comments.

“Mr. Wagner, I’m afraid neither of us has any say on these impact studies. Officially we are teammates on the Deer Mountain project until its completion.”

He shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “Look, Doctor, under any other circumstance I wouldn’t mind meeting you.” That was true. Rarely had he seen someone of such incredible beauty. Dan wondered how she could have majored in biology when she should have been a model for all the international fashion magazines. She certainly didn’t belong in that office. And certainly not in his world.

Savagely Dan reminded himself that he was a simple country boy who had barely graduated from high school and then earned his forestry management through harsh experience. It was evident that Dr. Elizabeth Stapleton was not only beautiful but also intelligent. And that combination made him feel mildly threatened. “You can take that doctorate in biology, the EPA and those damn impact-study demands and shove them. I don’t need my logging operation held up for a whole damn year because you have to count bugs, animals and plants and try to tell me how to do a job I’ve done for the last fifteen years.”

Libby colored fiercely, her flawless Swedish complexion turning ruddy over his irate words. Clenching her fists at her sides, she tried to temper her retort. “Mr. Wagner, I don’t care what you think about the study, but I do care when you insult me. I won’t stand here and argue with you.” She lifted her chin, her brown eyes dark with fury. “I have an idea,” she whispered tautly. “It’s been a long week for both of us, I’m sure. Why don’t you come back here Monday morning after a good rest and we’ll discuss this problem reasonably.”

Dan Wagner tilted his head, as if viewing her in a new light. His turbulent blue eyes lost their initial darkness and one corner of his mouth pulled upward. “So, you’ve got some backbone after all.”

Libby compressed her lips. “Shall we get off the personal level, Mr. Wagner?” she demanded.

He smiled, but the warmth did not reach his eyes. “That’s hard to do, Doctor, you’re a good-looking woman. Biologist or not.”

Her heart thudded at his backhanded compliment. At twenty-nine she was used to men complimenting her on her natural Scandinavian beauty. But for some reason Dan Wagner’s sincerity shook her off center, and she lost some of her composure, blushing. Irritated, she turned, facing the window and crossing her arms against her chest. “I’ll see you at 8:00 a.m. sharp Monday morning, Mr. Wagner.”

A few seconds passed and there was no answer. Libby unfolded her arms, making a half turn toward him, confused by his sudden silence. Damn, he was irritating!

Wagner walked over to her desk, glancing at the other documents idly. He picked up one thick blue book, frowning. “Looks like they keep you pretty busy here,” he commented.

“Too busy,” she agreed evenly. “And to be honest, Mr. Wagner, I didn’t want your project. I have enough to do.”

He laid the book back down, his callused, work-worn hand resting against it. “Good. Then we both agree that this doesn’t have to be done. Which means I don’t have to stay and I don’t have to come back here Monday morning.”

Betty knocked timidly on the office door and entered when Libby called to her. Taking the maps, Libby cleared a space on her desk for the two rolls. “Mr. Wagner, you either talk to me now or later. This impact study has to be done.” And then she met his glare fearlessly. “Or do you want to go before the board of inquiry and tell them why we didn’t do the study as the state regulations require? I’m afraid we can no longer log these leases as we’ve done in the past. And what would you say to the president of our company when the state of Idaho leveled a couple of million dollars’ worth of fines at us for not following guideline procedures? Not to mention the fact that they would surely sue Cascade Amalgamated without a blink of their eye. I guarantee it. That is the very least you can count on, Mr. Wagner.”

Dan’s mouth thinned in displeasure as he continued to hold her gaze. “You know your stuff, don’t you, Doctor?” he ground out. “I could sidestep you and give my men the order to start logging, but then, when the state caught us, you’d sit at my trial, smiling like—”

Libby shook her head. “I would be there defending you! I’m a company biologist and you are under my jurisdiction. The state would hold the president of our company responsible. It’s as simple as that.”

Some of her initial fear of him was subsiding and she walked around the desk, leaning against it as she met his gaze. “You’re forgetting the worst of it. Our lease would be forfeited and so would the money we’ve put down on that agreement.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Cascade probably has somewhere close to thirty million tied up in that deal right now. We’d lose everything. Plus, we would never be able to bid on another state leasing program in Idaho, and that would put a real damper on the company’s expansion program for our forestry division.”

Dan walked over to her bookcase, glancing at the books in passing. He stopped at the window. “You know,” he said, his voice less harsh, “I’ve logged all over this world and I’ve never run into the red tape that we have here in the States.” He ran his strong, lean fingers through his hair. “Why can’t they just let us go in and take the mature timber and get out?”

“Because,” Libby said, sounding even to herself like a teacher, “those mountains will need reseeding to stop erosion. Once erosion starts, the whole ecological balance will be affected, from the bugs on down to the plants you mentioned earlier.”

Dan gave her a brief, irritated glare. “You sound real good on tape, Doctor, but I wonder how long you’ll last out there in those mountains.”

Libby felt her stomach knot. She had never been in a situation that required her to backpack into an area to initiate a study. Her experience was with shopping centers, construction on buildings and airports. It was an eight-to-five job that she could leave at the end of the day. And when she left she went home to her Palo Alto apartment and slept in her own comfortable bed. She grimaced inwardly. This assignment meant hiking into the interior and camping out for three weeks.

“Mr. Wagner, I don’t like this any more than you do.” She sighed, straightening up. “Which will it be? Tonight or Monday?”

“Right now. This is the last time I ever want to have to come to this damn place. Let’s get down to the brass tacks of it, Doctor.”

Glancing at her watch, Libby noted it was nearly nine o’clock. Darkness was finally stealing the last remnants of dusk away, leaving the scintillating lights of San Francisco sparkling like jewels along the bay. They had sat across from each other like adversaries. Each time she brought up another point of the impact study, he argued strongly against it until her cooler reasoning prevailed. He saw no point in testing vegetation stability, soil erodibility or soil chemistry. Pain throbbed across her forehead and she rubbed her brow slowly.

“Headache?” Dan inquired, most of the animosity out of his tone.

Libby relaxed against the back of her chair, managing a weary smile. “It’s been one of those weeks,” she admitted.

“And I’m sure I topped it off,” he said, getting to his feet.

Libby watched him stretch like an awakening feline and walk lithely toward the door. He hadn’t said it by way of apology, only as a flat statement of fact. More than one logger had had a few choice words to say about impact studies and biologists getting in the way of logging operations with their bureaucratic drivel. But none of them had regarded her the way he was doing as he turned and studied her in the gathering silence. Right now she felt like one of those bugs under a microscope.

“So when are you coming up to initiate the study, Doctor?” he asked, and then a cruel smile drifted across his features. “Or will it be one of your city-bred assistants?”

She managed a cutting smile. “No, I’ll be coming.”

He pursed his lips, leaning lazily against the door. “You look pretty athletic. Nice, strong legs. You’re taller than the average woman, so you ought to have a decent stride on you. What do you weigh, around one hundred and thirty pounds, Doctor?”

Libby felt her face growing warm again and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Dan Wagner had a way of making her feel naked before his scrutinizing eyes. “Close to that,” she murmured, confused by his cryptic question. “Why?”

Wagner threw her an acid smile of contempt. “You ever backpacked?”

“No.”

“I could be a real bastard and make you find your own equipment, but I won’t. I want to get in and get out of that study area just as fast as we can. I don’t have time to play nursemaid to a tenderfoot. You’re going to be excess baggage on this trip, and I might as well get you outfitted as best I can.” He seemed to be thinking out loud more than talking directly to her. “What’s your shoe size?”

“Eight and a half B.”

“Ever walk more than a mile anywhere?” he drawled.

A glint of fire flared briefly in her brown eyes. “On occasion,” she replied, stung.

“Then you’d better start walking at least a mile every night and build up to the point where you can walk four miles in about an hour.”

“This isn’t some sort of marathon!” she shot back, sitting up in the chair.

Dan scowled. “Oh, yes it is, Dr. Stapleton. It’s my race you’re calling and I aim to have you in shape to take the punishment of a hundred-mile trek and still be able to take your damn samples of soil, water, insects and God knows what else.”

Libby tried to ignore the sarcasm in his tone. She flipped open the pages of her calendar appointment book. “All right,” she muttered, “name the day, Mr. Wagner.”

Without batting an eye he replied, “Three weeks from now, Doctor. I’ll pick you up at the Challis, Idaho airport at noon. Be there.” He yanked open the door and then turned. “Oh, one more thing—get some antivenom serum from your physician and bring it along with you. If you get bitten by a snake, I’ll be damned if I’m going to haul your body out of the interior.”

Libby opened her mouth and then snapped it shut, her brown eyes glittering with anger. He was so damn tough and uncompromising! She wearily touched her brow, reminding herself that one never got cooperation from others by lobbing insults back and forth. “I will do my level best not to become an albatross around your neck, Mr. Wagner.”

Dan gave her a measuring look. “You hungry?”

The unexpected change in his tone and the question caught her off-guard. “Hungry?” she repeated stupidly. Why was she acting like an unsure teenager around this threatening male! It galled her. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or her increased workload, or both. She wasn’t sure.

His face lost some of its initial hardness as he studied her. “Yes, hungry.” He consulted his watch. “It’s after 9:00 p.m. and I haven’t eaten anything since noon.” He slowly appraised her from head to toe, liking what he saw more than he should have. At that moment Dr. Elizabeth Stapleton looked vulnerable, and it moved him from his implacable stance. “My hotel is right around the corner, and they have a coffee shop that’s open all night.” He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Besides, there’s a list of things you should draw up that you’ll need for this backpacking trip. I don’t want you coming poorly equipped.”

Libby detected the thaw in his voice and in his eyes. Her shoulders, drawn up from the tension, relaxed, and she forced a slight smile.

“All right, Mr. Wagner, I’ll join you for a late dinner and we’ll discuss the details of my trip to Challis.” Her voice sounded wooden, even to herself, and she saw his eyes narrow. With a wave of her slender hand she murmured, “I’m sorry, it’s just been one very long day. Let me get my purse and attaché case and then we can leave.”

Libby bridled beneath his watchful stare as she went through the process of picking up the necessary items. She had never been made to feel so uncomfortable and yet thrilled by any man. And whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was glad of the invitation to dinner. It would give her a chance to try to establish a more congenial working relationship with this cougar of a forestry manager. She chose to ignore the second reason why she looked forward to the dinner: Dan Wagner was a breed of man she had never encountered, and she was fascinated by him. He reminded her of a thunderstorm: constantly changing and master of everything that he touched. A slight smile pulled at her lips as she switched off the office lights.

“I hope you’re a little quicker about gathering articles in the field, Doctor.”

Libby’s heart sank, her head snapping up, meeting those glacier-blue eyes once again. Why was he continuing to snipe at her as if she were his enemy? She had an option: meet him head-on in a clash of words or call a truce. The truce was infinitely more appealing.

“All right, Mr. Wagner, since you insist upon being frank and to the point, I’m going to be also.” She walked to within a foot of where he stood out in the dimly lit hall. His face was shadowed. A sense of danger coupled with excitement washed over Libby. “I’m very tired tonight. And although your observations are well intended, I’m just not up to coping with your brutal assessments.”

Dan studied her in the half light, his eyes glittering with newfound interest. “Honesty,” he murmured. “That’s a rarity at the corporate-management level.” He tilted his head. “Tell me, Doctor, how do you manage the politics around here if you’re this honest all the time?”

Libby heard the genuine surprise in his voice, and she saw it reflected in his eyes for just a second. Either Wagner was paranoid or he had gotten shafted and shuffled around too many times by corporate people. He was a blunt man, but not as cruel as she had first thought. It was his way of getting to the heart of a problem. “I don’t play politics very well, Mr. Wagner.”

“That’s obvious.”

Libby met and matched his stare. She had to suppress a growing smile. “Thank you for the compliment. Now, do we have a deal? Will you keep your observations for another time when I’m better prepared to handle them in a positive way?”

Dan smiled. He slid his large, callused hand beneath her elbow, guiding her down the hall. “It’s a deal, Doctor.”

Dan had to remind himself to stop staring at her. Beneath the overhead fixtures of the stylish coffee shop, her golden hair blazed in a halo of light. The skin was drawn tightly across her cheekbones, showing her fatigue. Again he felt a prick of guilt over his abruptness with her. But dammit, Cascade Amalgamated had put him in an impossible position. His anger was aimed at her because she would be the millstone that he would have to wear during that journey into the interior. Still... Dan savagely quelled feelings that had been aroused simply by her quiet presence. He wrestled with those emotions, not having felt them in almost fifteen years. Grimly tightening his lips, he forced himself to tear his gaze from her and study the menu.

After ordering their meals, Dan rested his elbows on the table, meeting her gaze. “You ever been out in the forest?”

Libby shook her head. “If you call Golden Gate Park a forest, then I can qualify. Otherwise I’m afraid not.”

He liked her sense of humor. It became her. What the hell was he doing keeping a list of what he did and did not like about her? Frustrated with himself, Dan continued to assess just how much of a problem she was going to be to him out in the forest.

“You’re a biologist. I thought all of your kind hung out in the lonely, isolated edges of civilization.”

“I’m a city biologist. All of my environmental-impact studies have been on suburban and city sites.” Libby knew she should have kept that information to herself because his face tightened.

“The bug men I know prefer isolation to the city,” he growled.

She smiled at his reference to biologists as “bug men.” It was true: many biologists spent untold hours out in the wilderness, setting up highly detailed studies to seek out nature’s balance in a given area. “City-born and city-bred, I’m afraid, Mr. Wagner.”

He gave a doleful shake of his head. “Then it makes you even more of a liability on this trip than I first thought. How in the hell do you expect to know what to look for out in the forest if you have no previous experience in that field, Doctor?”

Libby put a tight rein on her temper. “That’s a fair question,” she said. She rested her chin on folded hands in front of her, holding his burning blue gaze. “I’m coming in to set up the management guidelines for the environmental-impact project. My job isn’t actually to go out and do the studies; we’ll get bids from firms who hire themselves out for that purpose. So, you see, my lack of experience isn’t really a consideration in this case.”

She was smart, Dan grudgingly decided. And she was unlike any woman he had ever met. “If you think on your feet this well, there may be some hope for you after all.”

Libby smiled tiredly. “What are some of the items you wanted to discuss with me?” The waitress brought their orders, and between bites Libby made a list of what she needed. Later, over coffee, she pondered her growing list

“So, what is the most important item here?”

“Boots,” Dan answered emphatically. “Matter of fact, when you finish your coffee, I’m going to measure your feet. I’ll get you the boots. I can’t risk a tenderfoot buying the wrong pair and ending up with blisters the first day of hiking.”

She raised one eyebrow in question. “Measure my feet?”

He barely nodded his head. “Yes. I have a tape measure up in my room. In Challis there’s a good boot store. I’ll take the information back and then send you a pair.”

Libby hid a smile. Despite his gruffness, he seemed to be concerned—even if it was in his own defense. “I never realized that a boot could be that important.”

“When you’re carrying thirty to fifty pounds of gear on your back, Doctor, those boots had better feel just right to you. Otherwise you’re either going to blister or bruise your feet.” He pulled out some money to pay for the meal and then rose. “And like I said before, I’m not going to carry you into or out of the interior.”

Libby rose, her heartbeat quickening. She wanted to say, “Just being around you is an adventure.” It struck her as amusing that he was inviting her up to his room just to get fitted for a pair of hiking boots. She felt his hand on her elbow, gently guiding her out of the restaurant and into the plush lobby toward the bank of elevators. His body brushed against hers and she experienced a thrill of pleasure.