Название: Wilderness Passion
Автор: Lindsay McKenna
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781474012683
isbn:
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 СКАЧАТЬ