Wilderness Passion (12 page)

“Was it your ex-wife who made you insecure about your background?” She wanted to know.

Dan nodded, sliding his pancake into the awaiting bowl. He put the skillet aside and joined Libby on the fallen log. “Sheila’s form of punishment was insidious. She knew how to hit a man’s ego.” He shook his head, as if shaking off bad memories. “Let’s get onto happier topics,” he suggested between bites of the pancake.

Libby took a deep breath, agreeing. There was an intensity about Dan Wagner that had been very evident during their lovemaking the night before. Someday, Libby realized, that intensity might bring her pain. But the privilege of knowing the real Dan Wagner was worth the risk. The price was high, but so were the rewards; Libby decided to throw caution to the wind.

As the sun rose above the horizon they packed everything and began to map the surrounding country with the use of a forestry chart. They worked easily together, and the hours sped by.

Over a well-earned lunch of trail mix, orange juice and dried figs, Dan questioned her about her past. “Are your parents alive?” he asked.

“Yes. Dad’s a doctor in San Francisco and my mom teaches biology at a community college nearby.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

Libby shook her head. “No, just me. The spoiled brat”

Dan smiled. “Were you a brat growing up?”

“Not really. I was a good little girl who did what her parents expected. That’s why I ended up in biology. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.”

“You sound like you’re not sure you made the right decision.”

Shrugging, Libby said, “Looking back on it, Dan, I would have wished for more latitude in making choices.’’

“Then you didn’t grow up wanting to be a bug doctor?” he teased.

She smiled sadly. “No, not really.”

“What, then?”

Libby saw the teasing warmth in his eyes and responded to it “Maybe a lady sailor crossing the seven seas—or a veterinarian, because I love animals so much.”

“Ah, the adventuress in you is coming out again.” His blue eyes danced with devilry. “You might have become a lady pirate or maybe a tamer of wild animals. You have a way with animals, you know,” he said, his voice dropping.

Libby blushed beautifully, avoiding his gaze, knowing full well that he was referring to their lovemaking. She raised her chin defiantly. “Or maybe I’d want to have become a forest ranger or something.”

Dan’s laughter rang across the ridge, clear, resonant and sensually disturbing to her. She felt like so much workable clay in his presence; it was as if she had no control over herself.

“Well, if the last couple of days are any indication of your feelings for the woods,” Dan said, becoming serious, “maybe you had better think of changing professions. You didn’t seem very happy cooped up in that plush San Francisco office you have to inhabit.”

“You met me after I had survived a horrendous week, Dan. I was at my wit’s end by the time you arrived.”

He grinned boyishly. “And I didn’t help matters, did I?”

She shot him a direct look. “You know you didn’t. But I can’t blame you, under the circumstances.”

He continued to grin. “I’m glad I asked you out to dinner, even though we were both tired.”

“You have got nerve, Dan Wagner!” she declared, rising and dusting off her jeans.

He stood. “Listen, even then I was intrigued with the lady who wore that white smock. I wanted to know the real woman in there.”

“And now you do.”

Dan took the mug from her fingers. “Not quite,” he hedged. “I’m beginning to know. Discovering someone like you is like walking into Shangri-la.”

She blushed again. “Come on!”

“Just take the compliment, Lib,” he ordered.

Making a mock curtsey, Libby laughed with Dan. “You should have been Sir Galahad,” she accused, walking with him back to the map.

“Only if you’ll be my lady,” he answered seriously, catching and holding her wide brown eyes. “All you need is a long dress and you’d fit the fair-damsel image.”

She giggled, kneeling down near the map and picking up her notebook. “You don’t need a thing to fit the image of a knight in shining armor, believe me,” she returned earnestly.

Dan grimaced, bending down next to her. “I’m a tarnished knight at best, with a bad record, Lib. Don’t be so quick to put me on any pedestals. I fall off mighty easy.”

7

L
IBBY WATCHED AS
Dan stowed the last of her luggage aboard the light Cessna airplane. Where had three of the most marvelous weeks of her life gone? Even she noted the difference in herself since she’d trekked through the wilderness with Dan. She had arrived looking pale and thin. She had come out of the Salmon River Mountains darkly tanned, her flesh firmed up, a new confidence radiating from her and a new light of enthusiasm in her golden eyes. And Dan Wagner had been responsible for it.

A sadness enveloped her as she met Dan’s blue-eyed gaze. How different the man was now from the way he had been the first time she met him at the Challis airport. There was a boyish quality about him now. No longer did he keep that tough facade around him. Her body still tingled from their lovemaking earlier that morning. They had arrived back the night before, sleeping in his double bed in the mobile home that served as his residence at the construction site.

Dan walked up to her, his face becoming unreadable. He led her around to the other side of the plane while the pilot climbed into the cockpit. “Give me a call to let me know you arrived home safely, Lib,” he ordered. His grip tightened on her arm and he gently swung her around to face him. He saw the pain of their parting in her guileless eyes, eyes that he could drown and lose himself in forever. They had agreed not to kiss goodbye in front of the other employees.

“I will,” Libby murmured, swallowing back tears.

Dan gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s been a fantastic three weeks. Three of the best weeks of my life.”

“Mine, too...”

Dan compressed his lips. “Go on,” he said softly, giving her a small shove forward, “before I lose my ironclad control and kiss you anyway.”

She nodded miserably, turning away and climbing up into the cockpit. When would she see Dan again? Her job did not normally include weekly or even monthly trips to a job site. Libby felt her heart wrenching in anguish as she lifted her hand in farewell, the plane rapidly taxiing away from the ramp, leaving Dan standing there all alone. Well, she had asked for it. She had thrown caution and her heart to the winds of fate. As a result, she had three of the most beautiful weeks of her life to keep as memories. But she wanted more. Much more. And she knew without a doubt that she had fallen hopelessly in love with Dan.

The flight back was long, increasing her loneliness because there was nothing else she could do but think...think of Dan, of their laughter, their love and their nonstop happiness. Had it all been part of the mighty forest’s spell? Had they both been enchanted by the druids and druidesses Dan liked to talk about? She loved to lie on her stomach near the campfire each night as he spun story after story about those mystical beings who had walked the earth at an earlier time in history. Or was Dan a druid himself?

Libby had watched in amazement as wild animals walked within a stone’s throw of Dan. He would seat her on the ground near him and they would patiently wait until small herds of whitetail deer passed by within fifty feet of them. Libby became an enthralled child as he showed her how to feed the shy chipmunks who crept near their camp to steal a tidbit or two. And she had gasped in utter delight when he pointed out two bald eagles frolicking thousands of feet in the blue sky above them. Dan had opened up a whole new world to her and she had rejoiced in it.

Returning to her apartment was like going back to a vacuum. Libby had been home no more than fifteen minutes when she called Dan. Relief soared through her as she heard his husky, quiet voice on the other end of the phone.

“Was it a boring trip back?” he asked.

“Terribly lonely,” she confessed. Libby tried to behave in an adult manner, but she felt like a love-struck teenager.

“Maybe that will make you come back here, then,” he suggested.

Her heart skipped several beats and she gripped the phone harder. “I miss the forest already,” she admitted.

Dan laughed gently. “What about me?” he teased.

Libby’s spirits rose momentarily. “I miss you more than everything else, Dan.”

There was silence for a moment and she closed her eyes, thinking she had said the wrong thing. “That’s good to hear, Lib,” he answered seriously. “Listen, you get in a tub of hot water and soak. And when you get back to work, I hope you won’t mind a few calls every week from a lonely forester.”

Her eyes shone with happiness. “No... I’d love it, Dan,” she whispered, close to tears. Oh, God, how she missed him! After hanging up, she loitered in a tub of fragrant water, seriously examining her career, goals and personal life. Libby came out of the tub much later with no clear answers except that the weeks spent in the forest had helped her discover a new part of herself that she wanted to explore. Sighing, she slipped into a comfortable lounging robe and went to the kitchen to make herself something to eat, even though she had no appetite.

Doug Adams sauntered casually into Libby’s office. She looked up between the piles of projects that were assembled at various places on her desk.

“Well, two weeks back and you look just as beleaguered as when you left,’’ he said, offering her a smile.

Two weeks, Libby thought, disgruntled. It feels more like two years. She put her pen down, giving her attention to Doug. “With two court cases pending, an angry biologist on my hands and twenty phone calls to return, I don’t know why you’d say that, Doug,” she returned.

He frowned. “Plenty of problems came up when you were gone,” he agreed unhappily. “You got most of your defense together for those court appearances?”

Libby leashed her growing sense of frustration. If it hadn’t been for Dan’s calls during the week, she wondered if she would have survived. How many times had she paced the confines of her sterile office, wishing for a backpack, a pair of hiking boots and the opportunity to tramp across some high-country meadow? “Yes, Betty’s typing up the final notes, Doug,” she responded, harried.

“Maybe you need another assistant,” Doug said seriously.

Libby glanced up at him, pushing a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear. As always, she wore her thick golden mane in a chignon at the nape of her neck “I think you’re right. The job is growing by leaps and bounds, Doug.”

He rubbed his jaw, nodding. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do for you.” He started toward the door. “Oh, by the way, who’s low bidder on that Sleeping Deer Mountain lease?”

She searched through another stack of papers, drawing one sheet out. “You mean the company that will be doing the ecological study?”

“Yes.”

“Pershing Associates. Why?”

“They sending out their head bug man, Trevor Bates?”

Libby shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Doug grimaced. “If they do, fur is going to fly between Bates and Dan Wagner. They’re enemies from way back.”

She groaned, rolling her eyes upward. “That’s just great!”

“Why don’t you put in a diplomatic phone call to Pershing and find out who’s being assigned to Sleeping Deer Mountain. Maybe we can keep Dan happy and out of our hair. I hate like hell to ruffle his feathers.”

Libby quelled a smile, recalling Dan’s heavy-handed methods when he chose to attack. “Yes, I know what you mean. Okay, I’ll call Pershing this afternoon.”

It was almost four-thirty that day when Betty came flying into her office. “Dr. Stapleton!”

Libby raised her eyes from the document she was working on. She frowned, hearing the distress in her secretary’s voice. “What is it, Betty?”

“Mr. Wagner is on the phone and he is furious! He’s asking to talk to Mr. Adams. What should I do? He sounds like he’s ready to kill anybody he can get his hands on.”

Libby drew in a deep breath, glancing at her phone. “I’ll take the call, Betty. Just switch it in here.” What now? Getting up, Libby quietly shut her office door and returned to her desk in time to pick up the ringing phone.

“Dan? This is Libby. What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Libby?’ his voice was hard. “I wanted to talk to Adams.”

“I asked Betty to switch your call to me.”

She heard Dan take a deep breath, his voice coming across the line in a cold chill. “I didn’t want this falling at your door, Libby. I want to bounce this one off Adams. It’s his damn fault, anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, exasperated.

“Trevor Bates, that’s who. Dammit, that idiotic bug man is assigned to my new lease. I won’t have it, Lib. The man’s a fanatic who makes up things and throws plans off schedule without batting an eye. That bastard screwed up perfectly usable timber land for me seven years ago and I damn near killed him then. I won’t have him on a project of mine again.”

“Wait,” she begged, making an effort to remain calm and patient. She had never heard Dan so agitated and it upset her. “Tell me about Bates.”

“He’s an entomologist with Pershing Associates. He’s a little guy with Coke bottles for glasses. I don’t see how he can count anything with his eyes. The last time we had to work together, Bates went into the interior on an extended study and said he found some damn rare insect that needed protecting. He pulled a hundred thousand acres of prime timber off the lease and my operation wound up in the red, Libby. It was the one and only time I lost money for the company. If he gets assigned to Sleeping Deer Mountain, he’ll do the same damn thing.”

Libby fumbled through the papers, finding the low-bid assignment. Reading closer, she saw that Bates had already been assigned to Dan’s lease. “Look,” she said, “I’ll see what I can do. Doug was already in here and he mentioned that he hoped Bates wasn’t assigned to the lease. Let me get back to you on this, Dan.”

His voice suddenly softened, wrenching at her heart. “I’m sorry, Lib. I didn’t want to bother you with this. I know it’s not your fault that it happened.”