Northern Exposure (18 page)

“That, too. But she's not used to going with it—her gut, I mean. She might need a little…coaxing.” Crystal pulled a fountain pen out of her desk drawer and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Here's her address,” she said, and handed it to him. “Better hurry. She's moving today.”

“Moving?” His stomach did a slow roll. “Where?”

Crystal shrugged. “I don't know. That's up to her—and you.”

 

The movers arrived early. Wendy slept late. She'd barely had time to throw on some clothes and grab a coffee before they started moving furniture out of her apartment.

The truck was down on the street. She stood at the window, sipping the brew, watching as three burly guys hefted her sofa onto the tailgate. It hadn't taken
them long, mostly because she didn't have that much stuff.

She'd spent the majority of the past seven years working, and hadn't had time to accumulate much in the way of belongings. Which was a good thing, she thought, as she walked over to the remaining boxes that were stacked beside her small galley kitchen, waiting to be loaded. It made moving easier.

Yesterday she'd found a share rental in SoHo, not far from the
Wilderness Unlimited
office. Also not far from three of the top fashion photography houses who'd offered her jobs in the past forty-eight hours.

She plucked a couple of formal offers that had arrived a few minutes ago by courier off the kitchen counter and looked at them. She'd be a fool not to take one of them. Even Crystal had said as much at their lunch yesterday. The money was outrageous.

It was as if she'd become a hot property overnight, and for no apparent reason. There was so much competition between top photographers, it was almost as if, once one of them had made her an offer, others felt compelled to do the same, upping the ante. Kind of like the “herd instinct” of the stock market. Once one person buys, everybody starts to buy.

Not that she wasn't talented and didn't deserve it. She was. That's what she'd come to realize the past month and a half, and what had been reinforced in Alaska the past few weeks. She was talented and capable and could make of her life whatever she wanted.

The question is…what do I want?

A half-packed box sat open on the counter, the edges of a couple of black-and-white eight-by-tens
sticking out of the top. Wendy's chest tightened as she pulled them from the box.

They were the pictures she'd taken of Joe. On Sunday, in
WU
's lab, she'd developed and printed them along with the caribou photos. Crystal hadn't seen these two particular shots. Wendy hadn't wanted anyone to see them. They were personal.

Her back against the fridge, she slid to the floor and sat cross-legged, looking at them. They were beautiful. He was beautiful. The play of darkness and light on the bronzed muscles of his back. The hard curve of his biceps, the definition in his hand—all against a backdrop of tangled foliage and dead summer wildflowers.

But it wasn't his body that moved her, so much as his face, his expression—a calm fusion of pain and control, hope and something she couldn't quite put her finger on. In one shot he was looking right at her.

Studying it made her remember.

And she didn't want to remember. Or did she?

In the wildlife reserve, in an unrelenting barrage of life-threatening situations, he'd afforded her the freedom to make her own choices, decisions that had affected them both.

He'd been a partner to her.

“A
partner,
” she said out loud.

He'd told her he loved her. He'd opened himself to her, had shared with her his pain and his dreams. She thought about the log house and what he must have been like when he'd built it—full of hope, excitement, goals for the future.

A future he wanted to share with her.

“Where to, lady? We gotta roll.” The moving man's booming voice made her jump.

“Uh, I don't know.” Her head spinning, she scrambled to her feet and, with shaking hands, stuffed the photos back in the box. “G-give me a minute.”

“You
don't know?
” His bushy brows shot skyward. “Geez, talk about last-minute decisions, huh?”

“Uh, yeah.” That's exactly what it was, she thought, as she rifled through the box. A last-minute decision. A
crazy
decision.

She hunted through the box until she found the slim-line telephone she'd just packed. It only took her a second to plug it back into the wall and punch in the numbers for directory assistance.

“So, ya decided yet?” The moving man crowded her with his clipboard, a pen poised between beefy fingers waiting to jot down an address.

“Uh, no. Yes, I mean.” She asked the operator to wait, then turned to him. “Storage. You have a storage facility, right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Just take everything there. I'll call you in a few days with an address.”

“Sheesh.” He jammed the pen behind his ear and looked at her as if she was nuts.

She
was
nuts, she realized.

“It's gonna cost ya. Storage ain't cheap.”

“That's okay. Just do it.”

He shrugged at her. “Okay, lady, you got it.” He grabbed another box and started downstairs.

“Wait!” she called after him. “Hail me a cab, will you? I'll be right down.” She turned her attention back to the operator, who had held so long he was
about to disconnect. “Wait, don't hang up! I'm here.”

A huffy sound preceded his annoyed, almost flippant demand. “What listing please?”

She took a breath, then took the plunge. “Alaska Airlines. Reservations.”

T
raffic was a nightmare. On the street ahead there was an accident. Joe swore as the cab he was in screeched to a halt, trapped between a fire truck and an ambulance.

“Can't you get around it?”

The cab driver shrugged. “Maybe. How bad do you want me to try?”

“Bad,” he said, and shoved another twenty at him through the hole in the Plexiglas partition.

“Hang on, then.” The driver jumped the curb on the opposite side of the street from the accident, and a minute later they were free.

They turned onto Central Park West, and the driver floored it. Joe stared blankly at the scrap of paper Crystal had given him with Wendy's address scrawled on it. What was he going to say to her? That he just happened to be in town?

He sat back against the duct-taped vinyl seat and
rubbed his eyes. It was cards-on-the-table time. She'd had five days, hell, it was six days now, to sort things out. Granted, that wasn't a lot of time, but it was all the time he could stand apart from her, not knowing.

“How much farther?” he asked the driver.

“Not far.”

They flew past the Museum of Natural History, and a few streets later the driver hung a left. Wendy's street. Thank God! It was jammed with cars and taxis, delivery trucks and pedestrians snaking in and out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

He looked for street numbers. One block, two. Couldn't they go any faster? He was tempted to get out of the cab and walk. Run. His hands were sweating. Just as he contemplated doing exactly that, he realized her building was just ahead. His gut tightened.

The street was choked with vehicles. A moving truck blocked traffic on the right-hand side. The ramp was still down, and he watched as a couple of guys pitched boxes onto the bed like they were softballs.

Better hurry. She's moving today.

Crystal's words hit him like a brick. The moving truck was Wendy's. She was still there! Joe flipped another ten at the driver and scrambled out of the cab. Sprinting up the street, he looked for her face amidst the menagerie of pedestrians in motion. Didn't see her.

Just as he reached the truck, a taxi pulled out from the curb and almost hit him as it swerved into traffic. “Son of a bitch!” He shot a murderous look at the driver, who casually shrugged.

“Apartment 2B?” he yelled to one of the movers.
“This building?” He pointed to the three-story brownstone sporting Wendy's street address.

“Yeah.” The mover pitched another box into the truck.

Joe raced up the steps of the brownstone to the second floor. Wendy's apartment door stood open. He pulled up short and worked to catch his breath.

“Okay. Get a grip, Peterson.” You're not going to make demands, you're simply going to ask her. Straight out.

He walked calmly down the hall, forcing himself to go slow, then stepped into the apartment.

It was empty.

From his vantage point in the kitchen, he could see the entire space—living area, bedroom and a couple of open closets. She wasn't there.

The bathroom door opened, the sound of the toilet flushing in the background, and Joe's stomach did a slow roll. He exhaled when he saw it was just one of the movers, a big beefy guy with a clipboard who was zipping up his fly.

“Where is she?” Joe said to him. “Wendy Walters, is she still here?”

“Nope.” The mover took a final look around the empty apartment and checked a box on the form clipped to his board. “Caught a cab somewhere, 'bout a minute ago.”

Joe swore. “What's her forwarding address?”

The moving man looked up from his clipboard. “Didn't give one. Her stuff's going to storage.”

“Son of a—” He spotted a couple of courier service envelopes on the kitchen counter. Two letters lay next to them. He picked one up.

It was a job offer, addressed to Wendy, from an
outfit he'd heard his sister mention once. He didn't know squat about fashion photography, but he knew enough from looking at the salary they'd offered her that it was a damned good opportunity. The second offer was even higher.

“Come on, buddy, I gotta lock this place up.” The moving man waited for him at the door. “Property management outfit's waitin' for the keys.”

Joe handed him the letters. “She must've forgotten these.”

“I'll stuff 'em in with her paperwork. Let's go.”

Down on the street Joe walked aimlessly for blocks, alternately thinking about how he could find her and what an idiot he was for coming here in the first place.

It occurred to him that she might not want to be found.

He thought about calling Crystal Chalmers at the magazine. She was Wendy's friend and would know how to reach her. He also thought about getting drunk. It was only ten in the morning. Still, the idea appealed to him.

In the end he settled for a beer at the airport while he waited to board his afternoon flight back to Anchorage.

 

Wendy parked her rental in the gravel driveway and used the set of keys she knew Joe kept under a rock to open the door to his station. His pickup wasn't in the driveway, so she knew he wasn't there.

The first thing she noticed when she switched on the lamp in the front room was that the place was a mess. Papers were scattered across his office desk. The red light on his message machine blinked im
patiently, indicating four messages. Two of them were hers.

She'd called him once from Kennedy that morning before boarding her flight, and again on the ground in Anchorage after she'd picked up her rental. Both times he either hadn't been home or hadn't wanted to take her call.

At first she'd feared the latter, but from the looks of the place, she suspected he hadn't been home.
Hasn't
been home in a few days, she thought, noticing the half-eaten cheese sandwich sitting on a napkin on the desk. The bread was hard as rock, the cheese desiccated.

“Joe?” she called, on the off chance she might be wrong. She wasn't.

Clothes were strewn across the hardwood floor from the front room to the bedroom. She picked them up as she moved down the hall, pausing in the bathroom to turn off the dripping shower and again in the bedroom where a couple of empty suitcases had been pulled down from the open closet.

The naked overhead bulb was still burning. As she switched it off, she pieced together what had gone on. He'd undressed, showered, then dressed again, and then had packed to go somewhere—all in a big hurry.

The question was…where had he gone and when would he be back?

She'd had hours on the flight from New York and the long drive from Anchorage to think about all the things she wanted to say to him when she got here. But now her mind was muddled. It was after midnight and she was bone tired, and all she wanted was
for him to come home so she could hold him, kiss him, fall asleep in his arms.

She changed out of her traveling clothes into some leggings and one of his old sweatshirts. After managing to get a nice fire going in the fireplace to warm the place up, she went around the house turning off the lights she'd turned on when she'd arrived.

On his desk she glanced at the scattering of paperwork, and was stunned to see an application for transfer from his current job in the reserve to the more responsible position he'd once held. Underneath it was an equally surprising piece of paper—an order from the local telephone company to begin service at the house on Elkhorn Drive.

Joe Peterson was taking his life back.

Wendy smiled.

Her joy turned to nervous excitement as she heard the unmistakable approach of a vehicle, tires spinning on gravel as a truck pulled into the driveway. Joe's truck.

She backed to the sofa, leaned against it for support and waited, her stomach fluttering as his footfalls sounded on the creaky boards of the deck outside, as his key turned in the lock.

The door opened, and the moment Joe saw her he stopped, shock registering on his face.

“Joe,” she said.

“Wendy.”

She wanted to run to him, to blurt out everything she felt, all that she hoped for, before he had a chance to react, but her body failed her. Her feet were like lead, glued to the floor. Her throat closed and her chest tightened. She found herself struggling just to breathe.

“Wendy,” he said again, and dropped what he was carrying—some kind of overnight bag—on the floor.

She watched, unable to move, as he closed the distance between them in three strides. Firelight caught in his eyes and danced there as he looked at her, his face bathed in gold, reminding her of the first night they'd made love. What she read in his expression finally broke the spell.

“Joe!” She threw her arms around him, and he lifted her off her feet. They kissed, wildly, frantically, his hands moving over her in a possessive frenzy that she, too, felt. “Oh, Joe!” She lost herself in his scent, the feel of his arms around her, his kisses, the beat of his heart against her chest.

“What are you doing here?” He scooped her into his arms, moved around the sofa and sat down with her in his lap. “I can't believe it.”

They looked at each other for a long tender minute, silent, touching—his thumb brushing her lips, her fingertip tracing the line of his jaw—as if they were blind lovers reading each other's faces for the first time.

“I needed to see you,” she said at last.

“I needed to see you, too.” His arms moved solidly around her and held her close to him. “That's where I was, where I went, I mean. To see you. I had no idea—”

“What?” Her breath caught when she glanced at the airline ticket stub sticking out of his shirt pocket. “You came to see me? In
New York?
”

“Yeah. Uh, two days ago. At least I think it was two days ago. What day is this?”

“I don't know. Wednesday. No, Tuesday.” She looked at him, thunderstruck.

“Are you angry that I came after you?”

“No.” She brushed his hair away from his face so she could see his eyes better. Tiny bonfires reflected back at her, heating her blood.

“It wasn't because I thought you couldn't handle things on your own. I knew you could, and wanted to give you a few days to get your feet on the ground.” His expression turned serious. “Did you?”

“Yes.” She filled him in on how the murder investigation had turned out, assuring him that it was behind her now, that she was free. She told him about Blake's funeral, how Vivian Barrett had adapted to her widow's status with an enthusiasm that was almost shocking.

Joe told her about his whirlwind trip to Manhattan. She was stunned to discover he'd gone to the magazine and had met Crystal. Not so stunned that her meddling friend had given him her home address.

“I—we must have missed each other.” By hours, maybe even minutes, she thought. They'd even flown back to Anchorage on the same airline, but had taken different flights. “Why didn't you call me?”

“I did call you. Dozens of times, but—”

“It doesn't matter now.” She quieted him with a kiss. “You're here.”

“
You're
here,” he said, his face alight with emotion. “Why?”

“Don't you know?” She snaked her arms around his neck.

“Tell me.”

She wanted to tell him everything, a million
things—but only one thing was important. “I love you.”

He looked at her, silent, his gaze pinned to hers. His arms tightened around her.

“I said I love you.”

“I know.” He grinned. “I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

She thumped him.

They laughed, and then he kissed her, long and tenderly. She melted into him, and knew it was right.
He
was right for her, and
she
was right, but only with him. She realized that now. She also realized that her life didn't have to exist on a scale between control and being controlled, that love meant partnership.

Joe Peterson taught her that.

Suddenly he pulled back, cupping her face in his hands so he could see her. “I'm making some changes, Wendy.”

“I know. The house in town, your job… I saw the papers on your desk.”

“It's time I got a life again.”

“Me, too.”

His eyes clouded. “I saw some papers at your place, too.”

“You mean my apartment? You were there?”

“For about a minute, while the movers were just finishing—long enough to see a couple of pretty good job offers.”

She remembered she'd left them on the counter. “They weren't so good.”

“No?” He looked at her, an unspoken question in his eyes.

“No.”

He beamed her the most beautiful smile she'd ever seen. “So, what do you think? About the log house, I mean.”

“The one in town? The one you built? I think it's a pretty big house for one guy.”

“I was thinking that, too.” He kissed her again, longer this time and more passionately, and she felt him grow hard beneath her.

“You might want a roommate.” She nibbled mischievously at his ear. “Someone, say, in a related field.”

“Like a wildlife photographer?”

“Exactly. But only a good one. Someone who works for a big magazine, who just landed a permanent assignment in Alaska.”

“You're kidding? That's great!” He looked at her, joy shining in his face, but she waited, unable to breathe until she heard his answer. His smile faded. “But, no. I don't want a roommate.”

Her stomach did a flip-flop. “You…don't?”

“There wouldn't be room.”

“There wouldn't?”

“Nope. You see, I was thinking about getting married, having kids. The whole nine yards.”

Wendy couldn't breathe. “You…were? Are?”

He nodded. “The only thing is, she hasn't said yes yet.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulders involuntarily. “Well, um, maybe that's because you haven't told her you loved her—not for a few days, anyway.”