Chapter 1

“Who the hell came up with this bright idea?” Jenna Merchant grated into the cell phone.

“Your brother, Marc. He’s decided to zip off to Madrid and do that story for Exo`tiq Magazine. He said to tell you that all the plans were in place. It would just be you doing the photography instead…”

“Dammit, Risa. I no longer work for my egomaniac brother. I’m an independent photographer.”

“Can you hear me wincing? “Risa laughed. “I know it, hon. but the guy has paid in advance for it…which Marc has put in your account.”

“Of all the…Jesus Christ. I moved to get away from him and he still thinks the world revolves around Marc Merchant and his Pulitzer Prize.”

“An ego he has. But look, it’s a big chunk of change, and you’ve never done anything remotely like this, so think of it as a challenge.”

Jenna walked to the window of her upscale apartment. “I’ve never done it because I have no desire to. And challenge to me is getting a spot at a four star restaurant so I can rub elbows with movie stars. Christ, it figures he would go to Madrid after doing this, he knew I wouldn’t agree.”

“There’s not much choice now, Jen. The guy has everything set and there’s only two days left.”

“Shit…shit...Shit…” Jenna scraped her blond curls off her forehead. “I have a really good spot near the red carpet. I want to take pictures of Johnny Depp, not some freaking hermit named Buck Rogers.”

“Buck Spence. And you’re not photographing him. It’s for Pine Lake Resorts, they’ve sectioned off this wildlife thing and…”

“Spence. Spence. Where have I heard that name?” Jenna paced back to the bar and went around to the mini fridge to fix a water and lime. “I’ve heard that name.”

“I’ve got a call Jen. You need to be on the flight to Washington.”

“D.C.?”

“No, the state. Look, it’s the middle of winter, so take your cell. If anything gets canceled, rent something and charge it to Marc. I’ve really got to rush.”

“Wait, Risa, is this dude meeting me there?”

“Oh, shit, I forgot. No, you have a connecting flight and will likely cross paths in Denver. He had planned on driving the last leg. Don’t ask. It’s a guy thing I guess. You could probably fly into Washington, but it’s peak season and too late to make changes in flights. You don’t want to be stuck in an airport somewhere. But I’ll call ahead and make sure they have the rental waiting at the airport. They’re forecasting a foot of snow or something.”

“Right.” Jenna clicked off, looking at the bright LA sun. She didn’t like the cold. She didn’t like the outdoors—unless it was a beach at sunset. And she didn’t want to go anywhere she couldn’t buy a latte within a block of her apartment.

“Damn you, Marc!” She padded over to her bright red sofa and flopped down, punching the number of a fellow photographer. She got the answering machine as she expected.

“Hey, Cal, this is Jen. It looks like you get my spot after all. My ass of a brother took it upon himself to send me to Siberia for two weeks. I’ll call…”

She made a few more quick calls and went to her bedroom, tugging off her short dress and thongs she’d worn that morning for a lunch date. Muttering she stepped in the shower, scrubbing her short blond hair and tanned body, more than just furious at Marc, because he really never got the message. The guy was smart, a genius, an ace reporter and a photographer, but he had everything else, too, looks, money, fame and a freaking ego that she couldn’t stand.

She was twenty-five years old. She wasn’t his adoring groupie or some worshipping fan. She’d had nineteen years of trying to hang around him and learn the business. And all she’d become was his little gofer and ass wipe.

Her parents, now deceased, were to blame, a politician and a TV talk show host, they’d passed onto Marc plenty of talent, but also a combination of their egos. Hell, she had taken one too many orders from him and split. He’d never given her the good assignments anyway. He’d just wanted her around to run his errands and watch him preen for the masses.

Five years she’d been in LA, her brother in New York. She’d sent cards, gifts on the right occasions, but she’d gone after her own success and got a pretty good reputation without him. Her shots were in some of the best publications, and she was known in the fashion and movie industry. She’d risen with the cream and snagged some of the most envied assignments this month a holiday month of charity galas and balls.

Now she had to cancel her prime spot on the red carpet because Marc the God of the universe obligated her.

If she had any kind of balls, she’d say screw him and let his shining rep get a bit of hell from screwing some guy over…

Jenna stepped out of the bath, wrapped in a towel and rubbed her hair. Buck Spence? Where had she heard that name?

The phone rang. She picked it up on the bedside table, sitting on the edge.

“Jenna Merchant.”

“Hey, it’s Marc.”

“You asshole! You egocentric jerk.”

He laughed. “I knew you’d be a bit hesitant, but J—”

“Hesitant. Oh, no, that’s much too civilized. Much too much a Marc word. I am damned pissed off at you. I’m not doing some crummy shoot in some God-forsaken mountains with some…”

“It’ll make you famous, Jen. It’s a once in a lifetime deal. I grabbed it up for you, babe.”

“Screw you. Enjoy Madrid.” She hung up.

It rang again.

“Marc, do you know what fuc—”

“Is this Jenna Merchant?”

Jenna grimaced. “Yes. I’m sorry. I err…I thought you were someone else.”

“No problem. I’m Mr. Spence’s agent, and I just wanted to touch base with you, since we were informed on rather short notice that you’d be taking your brother’s place.”

“I have credentials.”

“Yes. We’ve looked into it, Ms Merchant. Since we did the run down with your brother’s secretary, I wanted to make sure you had been fully informed also.”

“I’m supposed to meet Mr. Spence in Denver, right?”

There was an irritated sigh on the other end. “I see we already have a problem. Ms. Merchant. I seriously doubt LA has them, but you’ll need appropriate clothing for colder weather and I… Do you have a fax machine?”

“Yes.”

“Please give me the number. I’ll fax everything to you since we’re short on time. Please make your flight, Ms. Merchant. Mr. Spence has gone to a lot of trouble and expense to plan this trip.”

She gave the number. The woman hung up and Jenna snarled at the phone. “Talk about anal…. Ms. Merchant.” She snorted and got dressed, drying her hair over the sound of the fax in the next room.

Dressed in white slacks and a silk tank she slipped her feet into flats and went to pick up the fax.

Jenna looked at the two pages of instructions.

“Oh, yeah, right.” She read down the list. “This is going to be a frigging nightmare.”

~

Two days and a flight later, Jenna was a walking zombie. She hated flying. She hated standing in lines. She hated wearing two layers of clothing, because when the plane landed, there was already a foot of snow and another six inches predicted.

Denver airport was crowded, the list of canceled flights growing and bodies laid out everywhere, listening to weather reports, and cursing anyone who would listen.

She pulled her luggage off the belt and wheeled around to get in line. Just as her heavy eyes adjusted, the canceled sign lit up. “Shit!” She got out of line, jostled and bumped, rudely cursed by people as pissed as she was.

She had to pee and she wanted a cup of real gourmet coffee. She looked out the glass wall and wanted to go home.

“Excuse me?” she stopped at row of chairs, a nice, safe looking, family. “Could you watch this for me? I need to use the restroom?”

A woman of forty, reading a magazine looked up and smiled. “Sure, honey.”

She parked the luggage and found the nearest restroom. Crowded with women and children. Getting a stall, she did her thing and stepped out, elbowing her way to the sink.

Christ, she looked like shit. Her perfect make up was smudged around her dark aqua eyes. The sweatshirt, which was the closest thing to winter she could find, wasn’t a garment she’d call chic.

Jenna washed her hands, tried to repair her makeup and exited to collect her luggage.

“Have a nice flight,” the woman said.

“Thanks, it looks like I’ll be finding a hotel.” Jenna yanked the large suitcase and made her way through a mass of bodies and luggage. The noise level was deafening. She was looking for an information desk when her name came over the speakers.

“What now?” She went where she was directed and cocked her brow at a harried looking bald man.

“I’m Jenna Merchant.”

“Ms Merchant…” He punched a few keys on the computer. “A Mr. Buck Spence is outside with the rental vehicle.”

“Of course he is.” Jenna smiled thinly and wheeled back around. “Excuse me… excuse me...” She dodged and weaved her way toward the exit.

“It’s a blizzard out there!” someone called out, coming inside wearing a parka and carrying a radio. “All flights are grounded.”

She set the suitcase up and unzipped it, pulling the jacket she’d bought off the top and zipping it back. It was chic, suede, waist length—and the moment she stepped out, she knew she’d freeze her ass off in it.

Outside was as crazy as in; people were hailing cabs and trying to get to hotels since the flights were canceled. She grunted as a guy with a shoulder bag nearly knocked her down getting to the shuttle bus. A group of college girls slammed into her back talking on cell phones. Freezing, feeling the bite of wind to her bones and too thin air, she set her teeth and looked around, trying to spot the illusive Mr. Spence and having no idea whom to look for.

Snow blew in under the overhang and onto her non-waterproof boots. A gust of wind flipped her jacket open, making her nipples feel like they’d been frostbitten. That was it.

She was going to get on that bus, find a hotel, and head back to LA. Screw Marc, screw Buck Rogers or whatever the hell his name was.

“Miss Merchant?”

Jenna turned around, her hand gripping the luggage that was being shoved by passing people. She tried to look through a solid wall of a lined buckskin jacket, denim shirt and faded Levi’s…and eventually had to look upwards. “Did you say my name?”

“Are you Jenna Merchant?”

Jenna nodded, trying not to stare at the brawny Guy... He had chestnut hair that was damp with snow and hugging his head to the nape, a rugged face with bedroom brown eyes, and reminded her of the brawny guy from TV commercials.

TV…TV…It clicked in her brain. “You’re Buck Spence,” she said it dryly, vowing in the depths of her soul to murder her brother when she saw him again.

“Yes. Our rental is over here. There are problems with the highway. We might lose a day and have to find a hotel, if we can. I’d rather drive through, but if the passes are closed…”

Buck Spence, she hardly heard a word he spoke in that deep, smooth voice. Inside hysterical laughter was threatening to bubble up. Buck Spence the nature guy—the dances with wolves or something dude! O, jolly good Marc. Very funny. She’d once stood in Marc’s penthouse and said the guy needed to get laid and get a life. This guy—the big dude—in front of her.

Flashes went through her mind, Buck Spence was twenty-nine or thirty, had been in the Marine Corps and was wounded in battle, retreated to the mountains for several years and emerged as some sort of nature expert or survivalist.

Jenna had seen First Blood. Yep. She’d heard about those fanatics who lived in the mountains… So he was on TV, so what? So PBS let weird people do weird shows nobody watched…

“We’d better go before this gets worse.”

Focus, Jenna, focus. “Did my brother ship his equipment ahead to the resort?”

“Cabin. Yeah, it came in by chopper.” His big hand moved hers from the handle and he headed off. She followed behind. The jacket was too long to check out his ass…but who needed to? His legs were big and round and long…he had shoulders that blocked the view for several feet… He wore some kind of complicated boots with straps across them. His feet were big, his hands were big, and he was big… Holy shit. She wasn’t going anywhere with this guy.

Jenna was so caught up in her thoughts that she ran into his back when he stopped. A soft oft sounded and her nose got a good whiff of leather, male, something warm and spicy.

“You okay?”

He’d looked over his shoulder, those chocolate eyes between stubby but thick lashes.

“Sure. Fine. Hey...um…Spence?”

“Buck.”

“Yeah, Buck?” She watched him open the door to a big SUV. “I think maybe, considering the weather, we should probably cancel.”

“You’re here to shoot the winter scenes. It’s the best time of the year for me to work.”

He held the door for her. “The weather will break soon.”

Jenna grit her teeth and got in, her eyes watching him walk around the front, walking like a man who knew he was bigger than everyone else was, head high, broad shoulders squared…or maybe that was the ex-marine in him.

He opened his door and slid in. She peeked again at his hand; no gloves and kind of rough like the rest of him. “If the roads are closed…” she tried again.

The engine turned. He did the wipers, but snow was falling in big flakes with every swipe. Traffic pulling from the curb was slow. “They’ll salt and plow. We may be delayed a day, but in these parts, they’re used to it.”

“But maybe it’s worse in Washington.”

He turned the full force of his gaze on her. Jenna thought it was one of the strongest faces she’d ever seen. Really, the man was carved from oak, and it was a little too overkill, waaay too much testosterone or something.

“Did we get our wires crossed somewhere or what?” he said it bluntly and evenly. “I paid twenty thousand dollars for a…”

“Twenty thousand…” she choked rather than squeal, as she’d been more inclined to.

“…professional outdoor photographer. Now I’m not hard to get along with. I gave Marc the information six months ago. I wasn’t real happy about the replacement.”

His eyes raked down her. “But the money has been paid and you’re here.”

Jenna tried not to blink under that steady look, and it was dead on kind of serious. Outdoor photographer? Hell. Her last outdoor shoot had been on Maui with eight people fighting to carry her camera bag.

She wet her lips. “Sure. I was just thinking of our safety.”

Somewhere she’d read it was better to humor these survival types, like they had some kind of hair trigger temper and went all postal and shit. Shit ...shit... shit…

Buck’s gaze held hers for a few steady moments, then he turned and put the vehicle in gear and pulled out, muttering something that sounded like damned city women.

Had it been any other man, her current sort of boyfriend for instance, she would have asked him what the hell he’d said. But the guy handling the steering wheel was also the one taking up most of the room in the front. She’d let it slide.

“Can we have some heat?”

He glanced at her, pulling out onto the main road. “Is that all you brought?”

“It’s kind of difficult to find winter coats in LA.”

His jaw flexed, he flicked the heater on—and then cracked his window.

She didn’t doubt his coat was warm and waterproof, a guy like that probably never got cold. In fact, that show Marc had flicked past, he’d been in Alaska.

The slam-slam of the wipers was the only sound over the hum of the engine. She crossed her arms for warmth and looked out at a depressingly white highway with stranded cars already lining up. They got behind a slow salt truck. The snowstorm was so bad it looked like night instead of morning.

She flicked her gaze to Buck as he leaned over and turned the radio on, scanning over music and finding the weather report. She sighed and listened to the predictions, six to eight inches by morning, and oh, joy, truckers and people who’d come for the holidays booked up most of the hotels. Christmas was two weeks away.

“How long until we reach a town?” She couldn’t see much but the salt truck and saltine size flakes.

“Miles? About forty, there’s an exit… But it doesn’t look good.”

She watched him turn the sound low. “What kind of project could anyone possibly plan in the mountains this time year? And why didn’t you just hire the same chopper…”

“They can’t fly in this, either.” He eased over when the truck left the lane. “Didn’t you read the schedule?”

“No.”

He glanced at her.

She met his gaze.

“So what’s the deal? Marc has a good reputation. If not, I’d think he was trying to screw me over.”

“Not at all.” God, she hated lying for Marc. “It was short notice and I had other shoots lined up, and with the holiday coming, I had to find replacements and take care of my business. I meant to read it on the plane.”

“But you didn’t?”

“Jesus. Don’t get all uptight. I know the camera. I’m good at what I do. I will read the stupid schedule at the hotel… If we make it there alive.”

He glanced back at the road. “Pine resort also has a wildlife sanctuary. They’ve had some problems with predators…wolves.”

“Yeah and?”

“I’m going there to tag the game and set up a system for registering the native packs. Sometimes it’s humans and not animals. They need a more sophisticated system for numbering the herds and…” he stopped and glanced at her. “You’re doing the ID photos.”

Jenna wanted to burst out laughing. But she resisted and looked away. Yeah, okay, like she was really going to traipse through snow and get near anywhere anything wilder than a puppy. NOT.

“Can you do that in two weeks?”

“This time of year, it’s hard to find the dens, but I’ve got equipment and cameras. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to mark them.”

Oh, he was serious, all right. He was dead serious. “If we make it to Washington.”

He made a sound. “I guess I deserve this for agreeing on a fashion photographer.” He sighed shortly. “Twenty thousand wasted dollars.”

“Hey, man, for your information I didn’t sign up for this freaking nature whatever trip. My ass of a brother dumped it on me.”

His gaze whipped back to her. “What!”

Damn, he looked pissed. “I hadn’t even talked to Marc, hardly in years. He’s good at what he does, deserves the Pulitzer and all… But he’s an asshole of a brother, a high-handed jerk of one. He took off for Madrid and had his assistant call…and dump the job on me.”

Buck Spense’s military past showed then. The string of curses were explicit, to the point, and very imaginative. When he ran out of them, he muttered again, “Twenty thousand dollars… Dammit to hell.”

Jenna cleared her throat. “So, I could probably pay that back in a few months. Why don’t we just write this off and tu...”

“Yeah, well you know what? That twenty grand is nothing compared to the chopper rental and equipment I flew up there, and half of that is the advance that was paid by donations…”

She sighed. “Well, surely they don’t expect that back if we can’t even make it to the state line in this weather.”

“I don’t frigging know,” he said sarcastically. “But I’ll say this, you had a chance to find out what your job was before you left, and the chance to call my staff and back out then. You took the job, no matter how it came to you—and I’m stuck with you.”

“I’m not a child,” she snapped. “Don’t talk shit to me, Mr. Spence. I can understand you’re being pissed. But don’t get macho on me or I will find a way back and screw you and Marc both.”

“Jesus.” He laughed without humor, shaking his head in disgust.

Jenna sat and silently called him names. All sorts of animal related ones and lots of tags with ‘big’ in there. It was a long, slow forty miles, and she had a whole new vocabulary of insults when he pulled off the exit.