Hidden Agenda. Kara Lennox

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ said indignantly. “My forest looks like a wasteland.”

      “Rest assured, Greg Tynes no longer works for Mayall Lumber,” Conner said, giving nothing away. “In fact, he’ll never work in the timber business again.”

      That was one promise Conner could keep.

      The young, female forest ranger, who’d been listening intently, finally spoke up. “There’s more at stake than just the aesthetics of this woods. Mr. Whatley’s land abuts public lands, forming a contiguous forest, the size of which is crucial to—”

      “The owls,” Conner said.

      “Yes. Barn owl populations have been declining over the years. The nest site in question has been monitored by Cornell University for ten years. A camera has been in place for five.”

      “I get a tax deduction for lettin’ ’em do that, you know,” Mr. Whatley put in.

      “The owls are crucial to our woodland ecosystem,” the ranger continued. “They eat—”

      Conner put his hand up to stop her impassioned speech. “You don’t have to convince me. We’ve done something wrong here. I want to fix it. I want to make things right. Obviously, Mr. Whatley here will have to be compensated for the excess timber taken from his land. As for the owls—will you show me the nest site?”

      Conner retrieved a backpack from the Jeep. Then he, the forest ranger and Jillian began hiking.

      “How many acres have been screwed up?” he asked the ranger.

      “Between seventeen and twenty.” She seemed calmer, now that it appeared Conner wanted to make things right.

      He breathed out a sigh. “At least it wasn’t the whole seventy-five.”

      Jillian didn’t want to be impressed with the way Conner handled things. She wanted to continue hating him—it was so much easier. But how many men would so easily admit responsibility for a mistake and pledge to make things right, all without anyone making demands or threats?

      She well remembered how the suits at Logan Oil, of which Daniel was chairman of the board, consulted teams of lawyers if there was any hint that they might have made a misstep, searching for all possible legal remedies and never admitting to anything until a full investigation had been conducted.

      But just like that, Conner had owned the problem.

      The hiking wasn’t as difficult as Jillian had feared; her two-hundred-dollar boots might have been overkill. But it was warm, given that most of the shade had been cut down, and she was glad she’d bathed in sunscreen and worn a hat and sunglasses.

      Not the “special” sunglasses Celeste had provided. Those were bulky and unattractive. But Jillian kept them in her purse, just in case.

      Conner had a hat, too, a battered, Indiana Jones–style thing. It made him look quite rakish.

      Finally they came upon a huge tree lying on its side. It wasn’t pine, like most of the other trees around here, which Conner had said were planted maybe thirty years ago for the express purpose of timber harvesting.

      This was something left from an older, slower-growing tree that had probably been here more than a hundred years.

      It was dead, that much was clear. Dead, hollow…and marked with blue paint.

      “Why the hell would Greg mark this tree?” Conner wondered aloud. “It’s no good as lumber.”

      Poking around a bit more, Conner discovered the owl nest in a hole. A few whitish feathers drifted out on the breeze.

      “The female was using that hole as her roost,” the ranger said.

      Conner took his backpack off and rummaged around in it, producing a pair of binoculars, which he uncapped and used to scan the few trees that remained close by. No one said a word, so Jillian took a few pictures. Her camera lens was naturally drawn to Conner, whose straight back and wide shoulders pivoted this way and that as he searched, presumably for the displaced owl. She’d taken several shots before she realized what she was doing and made herself stop.

      What was she going to do next, blow up prints and put them on her bedroom wall? This was Conner Blake, whom she would cheerfully have used for target practice if he ever showed up on the shooting range. Just because he was devastatingly handsome was no reason to stop hating him. After all, he’d been handsome when she’d started hating him.

      “There,” Conner finally said. “She’s in that tree right there, third branch from the top on the left.”

      The ranger had her own pair of binoculars. “I’ll be damned, she sure is. How did you spot her? She’s camouflaged perfectly with the tree trunk.”

      “She cracked one eye open just at the right time,” Conner replied. “She’s watching us.”

      Jillian squinted at the tree, but she couldn’t see anything. “May I borrow your binoculars?” she asked, surprising herself by how much she wanted to see the barn owl.

      “Sure.” Conner lifted the strap from around his neck and looped it around hers. His fingers brushed her neck, and she gave a delicate shiver.

      “You see the tree I mean?” he asked, standing close to her and leaning his head right next to hers. He pointed.

      “I think so.”

      “On the left side, count three branches from the top.” His voice was soft, intimate. “A ball of light tan fluff right next to the trunk. She’s probably hiding her face under her wing.”

      “I don’t… Omigosh, I see it!” The bird turned its head and opened its eyes, as if it detected Jillian watching it. The round, black eyes shined from a white, heart-shaped face. “She’s cute.”

      “You wouldn’t say that if you saw her swallow a whole mouse,” Conner said. “Or tear one apart to feed her babies.”

      “You really didn’t have to tell me that.” She handed him back the binoculars.

      “You can’t just put up a nest box and call it good,” the ranger said. “Owls are fussy. Although barn owls are more tolerant of humans than most owls, it’s very likely she’ll go someplace else next year.”

      Conner seemed not to be listening. He was inspecting the stump, the fallen tree and the surrounding area. At one point he leaned over, and a silver medal of some type, suspended around his neck on a chain, fell out from under his shirt.

      When he straightened the chain caught on a branch and the chain broke. The medal landed in the dirt.

      “Aw, hell.” Impatiently he scooped up the medal and chain and handed them to Jillian. “Can you put that in one of your hundred pockets, please?”

      He was making fun of her hiking pants. Well, he could think what he liked—the pants were practical.

      The medal was a Saint Christopher. She gave it a brief look before tucking it away. Conner hadn’t grown up Catholic. She wondered why he would have such an object.

      “We’ll put the tree СКАЧАТЬ