Northern Exposure (10 page)

When he reached the other side, he nearly lost his
footing in the mud. She placed her hands on his chest to steady him. “We did it!”

The sleet had turned to snow, and her smile faded as he moved closer and, with his thumb, brushed a flake from her lower lip.

“Yeah,” he said, and kissed her.

 

She'd known he was going to do it, she'd seen it in his eyes before it happened. It was the single most exciting kiss of her life.

Joe's rough hands cupped her face. She melted into him, closed her eyes and kissed him back. The sound of rushing water, the solid feel of his chest beneath her hands, for a moment all of it seemed surreal. Then a slow, honeyed heat suffused her body as she felt the gentle dart of his tongue inside her mouth.

“Joe,” she breathed against his lips.

He deepened the kiss, and she responded, ignoring the tiny alarms going off in her head. When his hands moved to her waist, pulling her closer, pressing her into him, she couldn't ignore them anymore.

“I…I can't do this.” She broke the kiss, backed away, raising her hands in a defensive gesture meant to stop him.

It did.

“Wendy.”

She shook her head, not looking at him. “Let's just get inside.” Turning, she trudged up the short rise to the cabin and waited for him to get his keys out to unlock the door.

Once they were in, she buzzed about the cabin in a frenzied automatic pilot, lighting the lantern, building a fire in the stove, shucking wet outerwear, as
sembling items for dinner. Anything so she wouldn't have to look at him or think about what had just happened.

“Stop it,” he said, and grabbed her arm.

She froze in place, water dripping from her hair onto the floor in a steady beat that made her all too aware of how long she stood there, not looking at him, saying nothing.

“Wendy, I didn't mean to—”

“It was a mistake.” Tentatively she met his gaze. “We can't do this, Joe.
I
can't do it.”

“Why not?” His eyes softened rather than sharpened, which surprised her, along with the gentleness of his voice. For the first time Warden Peterson, control freak, wasn't demanding an answer. Joe Peterson, the man who'd just rocked her world, was simply asking.

She sat down on one of the bunks that were standard equipment in the string of DF&G cabins they were destined to share for the next week, and thought about how to answer.

In the end she found she couldn't.

“I have too many things on my mind now. There's a lot at stake for me. Can you understand that?” It was a cop-out, but she wasn't ready to bare her soul to him.

Looking at him sitting across from her, pushing wet hair from his face in a gesture she knew stemmed from frustration, Wendy had to fight to keep her mouth shut, to keep from crossing the four-foot space separating them and collapsing into his arms.

She wanted to do it, more than anything.

“You mean your assignment. The caribou photos.”

“Yes.” Suddenly chilled, she eased out of her boots and swung her tired legs onto the bunk, pulling her sleeping bag around her. “I don't actually work for the magazine. Not yet, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You know?” She looked at him. “How?”

He shrugged. “I talked to your friend, that editor.”

“Crystal? When?” She sat up. “Where?”

“At the station, about ten minutes after you left with Barb.”

“What did she say?”

“Not much. Just that you'd cut a deal with the owner or somebody—”

“The editorial director.”

“Yeah, that's the guy. That he'd give you a permanent job at the magazine if you delivered the photos.”

Wendy felt her lips thinning over her teeth. She was going to have a long, one-sided talk with Crystal when she got back to New York. “What else did she tell you?”

“Nothing. That was it.”

She wondered if he was lying. Oh, hell, what did it matter what he did or didn't know? What did it matter what he thought about her? She rolled over, away from his searching eyes, and covered herself with the down bag.

He didn't say any more, and neither did she. She listened to him move around the cabin, checking the fire, pulling gear out of the pack, and a few minutes later smelled something good.

“Freeze-dried chili mac,” he said. “Want some?”

“No, you go ahead.”

“Come on, eat something. You did ten miles today, hard ones. You need to eat.”

In her head, she counted off the miles they'd hiked over the past five days, and knew they were close to the place on the map Joe had said the woodland caribou would be. She prayed to God he was right.

“Okay,” she said, and threw off the down bag. If she was going to get her photos and hike out of here in one piece, she needed to eat something. “Maybe our friend gave up,” she said, as she joined him at a small table flanking the wood-burning stove.

“He's here.” Joe shoveled a forkful of chili mac into his mouth. “Somewhere close.”

She shivered, thinking about it.

“Cold?” He tossed her his fleece pullover, the one he'd just taken off. “Go ahead. I don't need it.”

She put it on and immediately felt better. It was still warm from his body. It smelled like him, and she thought again of his mind-blowing kiss. His gaze caught hers for a split second, and she knew he was thinking about it, too.

They ate in silence after that, and she tried to unwind, let her thoughts go, her fears, draw in the heat from the fire and strength from their supper, which turned out to be pretty darned good. She was hungry, after all.

They stayed up another two hours or so, looking at maps, reading some books on natural history and a couple of trail guides that had been left in the cabin. The whole time he never tried to touch her again or talk about what had happened between them, and she was grateful for it.

Only later, when they were both in bed on opposite sides of the tiny cabin, listening to the fire crackle
and spit, watching its golden reflection dance on the walls, did she allow herself to think again about Joe Peterson's kiss and what it meant.

She realized that she did care what he thought of her. She didn't want him to go on believing she was the kind of person the tabloids said she was. She wanted him to know that, despite her chosen profession, she'd never led the kind of wild lifestyle he thought was responsible for his sister's tragic death.

She wanted him to know, but still she was afraid that in the knowing another barrier between them would fall. And right now, given her vulnerable state, she needed all the barriers she could muster.

But in the end she told him.

“It wasn't me in the loft that night,” she said calmly. “It was Blake.”

“T
ell me everything.” Joe handed Wendy a mug of hot tea and sat across from her at the table. He'd stoked the fire, and its shimmering light caught in her hair, bathing her face in its soft radiance.

“It's…complicated,” she said.

“Start from the beginning.” He didn't want to press her, but he also couldn't just let things alone. Not anymore. He was invested in the outcome. Some guy was after her, and he needed to know who and why.

“I was asleep.”

“Where? In the loft?”

“No. Of course not! At home. The phone rang in the middle of the night. It was Blake.”

“So you weren't even there?” Damned tabloids. He should have known not to believe any of what had been written about her.

“I went there, to the loft. After he called.”

Joe's throat hitched. “Go on.”

Wendy took a deep breath. “Blake was in a panic on the phone. He said Billy—that was the model—had had a heart attack. Billy Ehrenberg was Mr. Popularity. Everybody liked him, though he led a pretty wild life. Too wild, if you know what I mean.”

He remembered some of Cat's so-called friends in New York. “Yeah, I get the picture.”

“Anyway, Blake wanted me over there, fast. He was crying on the phone. I'd never seen him fall apart like this. He was always so stoic, so in control.” She shrugged. “What could I do? I went.”

“Did he call 911?”

“No. I did after I got there. Blake was a wreck, shaking, wailing. He'd completely lost it.”

“So the guy was dead when you got there.”

“No. He was alive, but unconscious. He was…they'd been…” She met his gaze and held it. “I guess they were lovers. I had no idea.”

Joe felt the tension in his shoulders ease. She wasn't involved. She hadn't even been there. He told himself it shouldn't matter whether she was or wasn't, because there was never going to be anything between them, anyway.

“Why did the papers say you were the one with Billy if it was really Blake?”

She looked away, into the fire, and he knew her well enough after six days to know she was embarrassed. “Because that's what I told the paramedics when they got there.”

“What?” He couldn't believe it. “Why would you do that?”

Her cheeks blazed, and it wasn't from the heat of the fire. She looked at him. “Because I was stupid.
Because Blake begged me to say I was the one with Billy and not him.” She lifted her shoulders. “He's married, two kids.”

“And his wife didn't know about his…extra-marital activities.”

“No. She's a really nice woman. I've always liked her, and kind of feel sorry for her.” He started to ask another question, but she cut him off. “There's more to it than that, though.”

“Go on.”

“Blake is hugely successful, but recently he made a lot of investments. I think they went bad, and now he's struggling financially. He went on and on about it that night. How his wife couldn't know he was there, how he had to protect his marriage.”

But not because he cared about her or his two kids, Joe guessed. The more he heard about this guy, the more he hated him. “The wife. She has money, right?”

“Exactly. Old money, from an inheritance. Years ago she funded Blake's start in the business.”

“And if she found out about his shenanigans, she'd divorce him, cut him off.”

“Yes. But at the time, I didn't put two and two together. I really thought he cared about her. I thought he was trying to protect her and the kids.”

“Yeah. He sounds like a great guy.”

Wendy looked away. “I made a mistake, okay. Plus, Blake said I owed it to him. That he was the one who taught me the business, gave me a job, kept me working when other photographers were being laid off. I owed him.”

“You believe that?”

“I did at the time. Not anymore.”

The guy had really done a number on her head. “What about the drugs?”

“I didn't know about that. No one did. Not for days. Blake took off, and I waited with Billy until the ambulance arrived. I went with him to the hospital, to make sure he was going to be okay.”

“But he wasn't okay.”

“No.” She fiddled nervously with the fabric of his pullover, which she was still wearing. He liked seeing her in it. “Billy Ehrenberg died later that night.”

“And still you stuck to the story that it was you and not Blake.”

She nodded. “He begged me. He was desperate. And I was stupid. God, was I ever.” She stood and warmed her hands over the potbelly stove. Shaking her head, she said, “Never again. Never again will I allow someone to manipulate me like that. Never.”

He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. “Please don't touch me.”

She was wound tighter than a Swiss watch. He wanted to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay, but she didn't want that from him. He backed off and just let her talk.

“Over the next couple of days all kinds of rumors were flying around about what had gone on that night. Weird sex—I mean really weird. Drugs. The whole nine yards. Reporters started showing up at my door, at work. Blake left town without a word, and I didn't know how to reach him. The whole thing just spun out of control.”

“You lied to the police.”

“The paramedics told them I was the one with Billy. I just didn't refute it. The official E.R. report was a heart attack, after…sex.” She shrugged. “I
told you. I was stupid. I just let the lie stand that it was me and not Blake.”

“And then?”

“A week later the police were at my door. Billy's autopsy report came back positive for drugs. The official cause of death was listed as an overdose.”

Joe's stomach clenched. He still had a copy of Cat's autopsy report, her death certificate. If he closed his eyes, he'd still be able to see the ink on the page.

“I'm so sorry,” Wendy said, and unexpectedly placed a hand on his shoulder. “You don't want to hear this.”

“No.” He shook off her well-intended sympathy. “I do want to hear it. All of it. Go on.”

“Okay.” She sat down again, across from him, and looked him in the eyes. “The second I learned about the drugs, I told the police everything, that it was Blake all the time, that I wasn't even there when it happened.”

“And…?”

“At first they didn't believe me. And by the time they did, it didn't matter. The tabloids had gotten hold of the story and…well, you know the rest.”

“Yeah.” New York Fashion Photographer Willa Walters Overexposed in Deadly Sex/Drug Scandal. “I know the rest.”

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and rolled her head first to one side, then the other. “A few days later I finally reached Blake. He denied any knowledge of the drugs. He told me Billy must have taken them before he arrived at the loft.”

“And you believed him.”

“Blake can be very convincing.”

“I'll bet.”

“I did believe him. I guess I needed to. If he was lying, it would have meant that he'd used me in the worst of ways. What I started to realize was that he'd always used me, from the very beginning, to his own advantage. It was his career, not mine, that flourished in the seven years I spent as his assistant.”

“What happened next?”

“Blake fired me, on the spot, when he found out I told the police the truth. He said I'd betrayed him.”

“Bastard.” Joe hoped it was Blake Barrett who was tracking them. He couldn't wait to get his hands on him.

“A bigger one than you can imagine. A couple of days later I went to the office to clear out my stuff and ran into Blake's new assistant—a young protégé he'd had his eye on for months. We started talking about Billy Ehrenberg's drug overdose, about how tragic it all was.”

She stopped talking and looked into the fire. He perceived a struggle going on in her mind, a brittle sort of confusion twisting her delicate features. Then her expression suddenly cleared and, when she looked at him, anger flashed in her eyes.

“Blake's new girl made a point of telling me that Blake not only had access to drugs like the one that had killed Billy, but that he used them himself all the time. Oh, and wasn't I stupid not to have known that?”

“I hate this guy. I swear to God, if he's the one following us, if he so much as touches you—”

Wendy laughed, but their was no joy in it. “Our mystery escort has hiked nearly forty miles and has slept out in the rain every night. Blake's idea of the
great outdoors is the ten feet between a taxi and the lobby of his Upper East Side condo. No way is it Blake.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Positive.”

Joe let out a breath, his head spinning with new information. “What else?”

“That's it. My little chat with the new assistant was the last straw for me. I hated my life, myself and everything I'd become. A doormat for a manipulative jerk.”

He reached for her hand, and this time she let him take it. “It wasn't your fault. It was Barrett who—”

“It
was
my fault.” She snatched her hand away. “Don't you get it? I let him use me, control me, all those years.” She left him sitting at the table and climbed into her bunk, pulling her sleeping bag over her. “It was
my
life, Joe. I did it to myself.”

“You were young, impressionable.”

She snorted under the covers.

He got up, closed the door to the stove, and the cabin was instantly draped in darkness. He felt his way to the bunk opposite Wendy's and eased himself between the blankets.

“I'm twenty-nine, Joe. Not young and impressionable anymore. What happened in that loft, the events following it, was only a month ago.”

“It's over now. Try to get some sleep.”

But it wasn't over. Someone was after her. He needed to know more about what had happened that night—a lot more. And specifics about Blake Barrett that he knew she wasn't up to sharing. Not tonight, anyway.

The luminous dial of his watch read midnight. She
needed to sleep, and he needed to think. Tomorrow would be soon enough to find out the rest.

He slipped his forty-five out of its holster and shoved it under the pile of clothes he used as a pillow. He was ready for this guy, whoever he was.

 

She slept all of a few hours, but badly. Most of the night she'd tossed and turned, wondering what Joe thought of her now that he knew the truth about what had happened. She didn't know what was worse, having him believe she was into drugs and kinky sex, or having him know that she was a total loser.

She ran her fingers through her hair to comb it, and reminded herself that, regardless of what she'd done in the past, she wasn't a loser anymore.

“Almost ready?” Joe said, stuffing the last of their gear into the blue pack.

“Yeah.” She adjusted the chest harness housing her Nikon, then grabbed her knapsack from the table. “Let's go.”

“Wendy.” His hand slid over her forearm. “Why don't we take a minute?”

“For what?” She knew he wanted to talk more about the things she'd told him last night. She'd been avoiding it since they'd gotten up, but supposed she might as well not hold anything back now. What was the point?

“Who's the guy? What happened that night that would make someone follow you all the way to Alaska?”

“Honestly, I don't know.” She'd racked her brain a hundred times over, but couldn't come up with a connection between what had happened with Blake
and Billy in New York and the guy who was following them now.

“Well, think about it.”

“I'll think about it while we walk.” She started to pull away, but he held on to her. His gaze washed over her face, and her mouth went dry.

“I want to help you,” he said quietly.

“I know. And I appreciate it. It's just that…” She shrugged, trying to not think about how warm his hand felt on her arm, how wonderful their kiss had been. “You can't fix my life for me, Joe.”

He didn't say anything, and she used the opportunity to disengage her arm and move to the door.

She thought again about her stolen purse, the burglary at her apartment, her luggage, the unlocked SUV. It occurred to her that maybe someone wasn't after
her,
so much as something she
had.

But what?

“Stick close to me today, understand?” They stepped into the cold morning, and he locked the cabin door behind them.

“I will.” She couldn't get her mind off it. What could she have that someone wanted? And what, if anything, did it have to do with Billy's overdose or Blake's lies?

She shook off her fears and focused on the new day before them. The rain had stopped, though a thick ground fog curled its way through the valley, reminding her of the long cold fingers of a skeleton. It gave her the creeps.

“When did you leave New York, exactly?” Joe said as they walked alongside the tributary they'd crossed yesterday and moved onto the trail.

“About three weeks ago. I didn't tell anyone
where I was going, not even the police. I'd lost my job, and my reputation was shot. Blake had made sure of that. You wouldn't believe the lies he told about me.”

“I'd believe it.”

“Anyway, I'd had it. I had to get out of there, go somewhere where I could think.”

“So you came here.”

“No, I went home. To Michigan. My parents' house.”

“Makes sense.”

“I was there about two weeks, during which time I called every fashion magazine and every freelance photographer in New York looking for a job. No one would hire me.”

“Barrett again.”

“You got that right. God knows what he told people about me. And the tabloid articles didn't help.”

“You could have sued the bastard and those newspapers.”