Northern Exposure

by Debra Lee Brown

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s the space under the staircase. Huge, isn’t it? I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s almost too big for a closet.”

  As Wendy stepped into the long, narrow room and switched on the overhead light, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “It’s perfect,” she said.

  “For what? It’s not like a real room, there’re no windows.”

  “That’s why it’s perfect. For a darkroom!” She pictured it in her mind’s eye. She’d never had her own darkroom, but had always wanted one, ever since she was a teenager.

  “I never thought of that.” He moved up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her close.

  She felt his body heat, his soft kiss just under her ear, and turned into him. “I didn’t mean that—”

  “I never had a reason to think of it, till now.” He kissed her, and she melted into him.

  His tongue was hot, his hands overbold as he backed her against the wall and deepened the kiss.

  “Joe,” she breathed against his lips, trying to extract herself from his embrace. He kissed her again, and she felt just how hot he was when he rolled his hips into hers. “Don’t you think…” She kissed him back, her own heat building. “The State Troopers…shouldn’t we…”

  His hands moved to her breasts and she moaned, a heartbeat away from giving in to her own spiraling desire. “No,” she said, and pressed firmly against his chest.

  He backed off.

  “I need to see the authorities. So do you. And then, tomorrow, I have to go back.”

  She meant back to New York. It never occurred to her to say back home, because the log house they were standing in, hand-built by the man who was looking at her with more than desire in his eyes, felt like home to her.

  “Come on,” she said, fighting her emotions. “Let’s go.”

  Two four-wheel-drive State Trooper vehicles, Stan’s truck and a nondescript sedan with government plates crowded the gravel parking lot of the cluster of buildings housing the Alaska State Trooper’s outpost, the post office and the Department of Fish and Game. Joe pulled his truck in beside them, and they got out.

  “Ready for this?” he said, and took her hand.

  “No, but I want it over with.”

  “The sergeant you’re going to talk to is a friend of mine, a real nice guy. There’s nothing to worry about. Just tell him the truth.”

  “Thanks, Joe, for being with me through this. I know it hasn’t been easy for you. I know I haven’t been easy.”

  From the moment they’d met, she’d been sending him mixed signals. She’d done it again a few minutes ago in the log house on Elkhorn Drive. She wanted him, needed him, in fact, but didn’t want to want or need him. The whole thing was crazy.

  “I’m just…a little confused right now. I need to get on my feet, sort everything out in my mind.”

  He squeezed her hand, then let go. “I know. And I’m right here if you need me. And if you don’t, I’ll try not to make you too mad by helping you, anyway.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He opened the door for her, and they went inside.

  Chapter 15

  Late in the day, after giving their statements and turning over the faxed letter and the film, Wendy and Joe emerged from the building that housed the small outpost of the Alaska State Troopers.

  They’d each been interviewed separately by Joe’s friend, the local sergeant. They’d also been questioned by an investigator from the Troopers’ Statewide Criminal Investigations Bureau—SCIB—and an FBI agent, teleconferencing with the New York City police detective who’d handled the investigation into Billy Ehrenberg’s and, as it turned out, Blake’s deaths.

  The interrogation had gone more smoothly than Wendy had expected. A helicopter shuttling the coroner and a crime scene unit out of Fairbanks was already on its way into the wildlife reserve to verify Joe’s and Wendy’s stories and to retrieve Dwight Carson’s body.

  The New York detective had told her the autopsy report on Blake had been finalized and that his death had been ruled a homicide. Carson was implicated. A hired hit man with a rap sheet a mile long and with ties to the mob, Dwight Carson had allegedly murdered Blake before following her to Michigan and, ultimately, Alaska.

  His fingerprints had been subsequently found in her apartment, on her handbag and all over the luggage that had just been returned to her and that Joe was now lifting into the back of his truck.

  “What now?” she said, slumping against the pickup.

  He enfolded her in his arms, and she instantly felt better. “It’s after six. How about something to eat. The café down the street makes a wicked moose burger.”

  “Sounds delicious,” she deadpanned.

  “Trust me, you’ll love it.”

  Now that the worst was over, she was starved.

  “Besides, the film’s being developed as we speak. Barb left an hour ago with another Federal agent.”

  “They went to her nephew’s darkroom?”

  “Yeah. They should be back soon. SCIB said we could leave, but I figured you might want to wait around and find out what’s in the pictures.”

  “I do. Thanks.”

  “Come on.” He put his arm around her and guided her down the street toward the café. “I could eat a horse.”

  “Or a moose.” They laughed, but weren’t laughing an hour later when Joe’s friend, the sergeant, slid alongside her into the booth at the café.

  “Well?” Joe said.

  “You guessed it. There were nearly a hundred photos, snapped automatically at thirty-second intervals over a period of about an hour.”

  “A hundred?”

  “Professional film,” Wendy explained. “Photographers can hand roll as many exposures as they want onto one roll.” The moose burger congealed in her stomach. “And?”

  “Ehrenberg was murdered. Carson showed up with one of his cronies and the kid went wild. The snapshots show him finding the video camera and trying to destroy the tape. Carson got a little carried away and hurt him. They probably thought the kid was gonna talk. Carson held a gun to his head and forced him to snort what had to be an ounce of Barrett’s nose candy.”

  “Enough to kill,” Joe said.

  “You got it.”

  Wendy felt sick. “Poor Billy.”

  “Those New York detectives are good,” the sergeant said. “Already collared the loan shark and his ‘client’.”

  The “private collector”, Wendy thought. “His poor parents.”

  “Billy’s?” Joe said.

  She nodded.

  “I can relate.”

  The sergeant rose and clamped a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “A little too close to home, isn’t it?”

  Wendy realized that the sergeant had probably known Cat.

  “Yes and no,” Joe said, surprising her. “Billy Ehrenberg didn’t know what he was getting into. Cat did.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Wendy slid her hand across the table. To her relief, Joe took it. “I didn’t want you dragged into all this.”

  “Wouldn’t have mattered,” the sergeant said on his way out. “When Peterson wants to get involved, he gets involved. Am I right?”

  She met Joe’s steady gaze. “Too right.”

  They were quiet on the long drive back to the station.

  Stan and Barb had dropped by the café before they’d left, and Wendy had asked if she could stay with them that night. She’d argued that it would be easier for her to retrieve her SUV from Retreat rather than the station, then get an early start into Anchorage to catch her flight back to New York.

  Joe had put his foot down, and after a tense minute during which Barb and Stan had remained judiciously silent, Wendy had agreed to return to the station with him for the night.

  He’d already made arrangements with the State Troopers to deliver her rental there the next day. To his surprise, it was already there waiting, the keys stuffed in an envelope in his mail
box, when they pulled into the driveway a little after ten.

  Clouds obscured the last remnants of a late-summer sunset, but it was still light enough to see.

  “You’ll sleep better here,” he said, grabbing the keys and her suitcase and ushering her to the front door. “It’s quieter.”

  She shot him a look. “Retreat’s not exactly a noisy metropolis.”

  He shrugged, aware of the fact that he didn’t have one good excuse to give her for staying the night with him, except that he wanted her to. But he hadn’t come right out and said that.

  It was cold inside, and after he got the lights on and checked his phone messages—mercifully, there were none—he built a fire.

  Wendy peeled off her jacket, shucked her boots and went into the kitchen. He heard her clearing up the mess they’d left earlier. Like their time together in the reserve, they moved almost unconsciously into an easy division of labor that felt good to him, natural. It was the kind of pattern couples develop after being together a long time.

  He’d never thought of himself as part of a couple, certainly not in the past year, during which time he’d lived like a monk. Even before his sister died, he hadn’t had any serious long-term relationships. It had never been a priority with him. Maybe he’d just never met the right woman.

  As Wendy breezed into the room, wiping her wet hands on an old sweatshirt of his she’d chosen to put on earlier that day, he recalled her excitement at seeing the log house in the woods above Retreat, and knew he had met her.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Nothing.” He chucked another log on the fire and walked over to where she was standing.

  “That’s not a ‘nothing’ kind of look.”

  “No, you’re right. It isn’t.” He took the dish towel out of her hand and tossed it on the desk. “My wanting you to stay tonight had nothing to do with anything except…I wanted you to stay.”

  “I know.” Her eyes slayed him, innocent and sultry, and impossibly blue.

  He placed his hands on her waist, and hers went naturally to his biceps. He backed her into the hall, slowly, turning off lights as he went. He gave her plenty of time to resist, but she didn’t.

  “That night in the reserve, you’d just been through hell. You needed somebody, and I happened to be there. I wanted you then, and I want you now.”

  “Joe, I—”

  “Let me finish.” He stopped just short of his bedroom, easing her up against the door frame. “You needed me, but tonight I want you to want me. And if you don’t, well…”

  “I do.” She slid her arms around his neck. “I do want you.” And then she kissed him.

  Chapter 16

  Wendy knew she’d crossed the line, but couldn’t stop herself. Making love to Joe tonight would make what she had to do tomorrow even harder. There was still time to be rational, to ease herself out of his embrace and revisit the reasons why she was all wrong for him, and he for her.

  But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. His heat, his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her body infused her with more than desire. She’d never felt this way about any man. She hadn’t even thought it possible.

  Without preamble, Joe scooped her into his arms and carried her to his bed. Moonlight splashed through the undraped windows, bathing the room in alternating bands of shadow and light. His eyes glittered as he eased her down onto the rumpled sheets and began to undress her.

  They didn’t speak, just looked at each other, touched, kissed tenderly as she worked the buttons of his shirt and he slid her jeans over her hips. When they were naked, he moved on top of her and kissed her with an urgency she shared. Instinctively, she spread her legs and wrapped them snugly around his hips, cradling him in her heat. His shaft throbbed like a velvet hammer against her.

  “Not yet,” he whispered against her lips, adjusting his position so she could no longer feel his need. With excruciating control, he embarked on a journey of gentle kisses trailed over her throat, across the sensitive skin of her shoulders to her breasts.

  “Oh, Joe.” She closed her eyes and arched into him as he playfully toyed with her nipples, alternately sucking and biting them, each in turn. They glistened with his saliva. He looked at her with a hunger she’d seen in him before—the day they’d met and again that night in the cabin.

  Before she could catch her breath, he moved lower, her hands in his hair, tasting his way across her stomach, dipping his tongue briefly into her belly button before nuzzling the triangle of hair protecting her sex.

  She nearly came off the bed.

  “Easy.” He held her down, kissed the insides of her thighs, forcing them apart as he used his tongue on her. He was gentle but unrelenting. The buildup was almost painful. Her climax was swift and powerful, taking her by surprise. She lost herself in it, in him, only peripherally aware that she cried his name, twining her fingers in his hair.

  A heartbeat later he was on top of her. “I…I don’t have any condoms.” In the moonlight he looked like a wild animal, his hair hanging in his eyes, his face a pearly fusion of desire and need.

  “I don’t care,” she heard herself whisper, her body boneless, her mind adrift in his eyes.

  And then he was inside her.

  Her breath caught. She came apart when he began thrusting, more violently this time, her nails digging into his biceps, her legs wrapped so tightly around him it was a miracle he could move.

  She went with it, forcing herself to hold his gaze, deliberately letting him see her, what he was doing to her, what she felt for him but could not describe.

  “I love you,” he whispered, stunning her, and went with her over the edge.

  Afterward he held her for a long time, silent, his body a warm harbor cradling hers. She drifted as he stroked her thigh, nuzzled her hair, peppered her ear-lobe with tiny kisses.

  “Stay with me,” he said. “Don’t go back.”

  “You know I have to.”

  “Then let me go with you.”

  She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “No, Joe. I have to do this on my own.”

  “Do what? Give a couple of depositions, sit in a police station for hours with a bunch of detectives while they rehash the details.”

  “I need to talk to Vivian, even if I don’t go to Blake’s funeral.” She hadn’t decided about that yet. “I have to develop the caribou photos and deliver them to the magazine. Then there are my parents.” She cringed, thinking about her father’s reaction to all this. “I need to call them, explain. Then I have to figure out what to do with my apartment.” She’d never be able to afford the Upper West Side flat on the salary the magazine had offered her.

  “There are a million things.” The most important of which was getting her head screwed on straight, and she couldn’t do that here with him.

  “I can help you. I want to help you. I love you, damn it! Didn’t you hear me?”

  She launched herself off the bed, and he instantly pulled her back down. She fought him, but he rolled on top of her, pinning her with his weight.

  “No! Let go of me! Don’t you get it?”

  He kissed her, hard. “I get that I want you in my life.”

  She stopped struggling, went limp in his arms. “But first I have to straighten out my life. I’ve made mistakes, and some really bad decisions that have landed me in trouble. Three people are dead.”

  “None of that’s your fault.”

  “Not directly, but I’m involved. This isn’t something you can just fix for me, Joe, no matter how badly you want to. I have to take care of this on my own.”

  He rolled off her, onto his side, pulling her with him. “Is that such a bad thing, me wanting to fix it?”

  “Yes, in this case. Yes, because of where I am in my life and where you are in yours.”

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m just here, and I want you here with me.”

  She closed her eyes and wondered what would happen if she simply gave in. She wanted to, more than anything, and t
hat scared her more than her feelings for him and his for her, which she feared were confused.

  “Loving someone isn’t the same thing as keeping them safe, Joe, hidden away in the middle of nowhere where you think you can protect them from the world.”

  She hadn’t wanted to spell it out, but he’d left her no choice. He looked at her, and she knew from the pain in his eyes that her words had hit home.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore.” She brushed a stray hank of hair out of his eyes and kissed him gently on the mouth.

  His arms slid around her, but he didn’t respond. She kissed him again, more urgently this time, and his tongue mated with hers. The feeling was bittersweet. His touch, when he ran his hand along the length of her body, was tentative, as if they were starting over.

  They were, in a way. The past few days they’d managed to strip each other’s emotions raw. He’d let her inside his head and his heart, and she was powerless, now, to keep him out of hers.

  They made love, slowly this time, his gaze pinned on hers, and again she did not look away. This time she knew what she felt for him.

  This time she knew it was love.

  Sometime before dawn Joe awoke to the sputter of an engine turning over in the driveway. Wendy’s SUV. The empty space next to him in bed where she’d slept was still warm.

  He willed himself to not go after her, forced himself to lie there, twisted in sheets that smelled of her and of their lovemaking, until he heard the Explorer slip into gear and the spray of gravel under the tires as she drove away.

  Three days later, standing beside his sister’s grave, watching the sun rise over an icy morning, Joe knew Wendy was right. He was living out at the station, alone, miles from anywhere and anyone, for a reason.

  He knew she thought he was hiding, too, protecting himself the same way he’d wanted to protect her. Maybe there was some truth to that, maybe he’d made himself believe he liked living the way he did. But it wasn’t the real reason he’d stepped down from his job at the department managing local habitat and restoration projects, and had sequestered himself away in the reserve.