Wilderness Passion

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.