Chapter Four.

Gloria swung the postcard rack a third time staring at the beautiful vistas, sunrises, sunsets, scenic panoramas of the Red Cones, Rainbow Falls, Devils Postpile and more. As a wildlife biologist who had worked for the Forest Service and was now conducting research for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, she had worked in some beautiful places, but she rarely took photos. She'd been disappointed too many times by her images which failed to compare to those done by the professionals. They were somehow able to portray the awe she felt when she was out in the wilderness.

"Against the wall, we have cards done by local artists," the clerk offered from the counter across from the doorway. She had a cla.s.sic outdoorsy look and had probably taken the job here so that she could hike every second she wasn't working.

Gloria smiled her thanks and walked across the store. No doubt the Lodgepole Pine Pack Outfit's store charged more than the larger places up on Mammoth Mountain, but it was a lot closer. It looked like they had a little bit of everything as far as staples went as well as some tempting treats. She again looked at the young woman, probably still in college, absorbed in a supermarket thriller.

Far too young, she chastised herself, remembering what Meg had said to her just that morning. She thumbed through the rack of tees and sweatshirts. When she was new to the area and on yet another temporary a.s.signment, she forced herself to orient to the community instead of tucking herself away like a hermit, which came much more naturally to her. Having arrived in Mammoth the evening before, she had spent the morning at the Forest Service office. Scott, the Wilderness and Trail Supervisor, was welcoming enough but clearly distracted by dozens of pressing tasks, all of which would have been effortless for a fully-staffed department. They were a clear challenge for his small staff of three, all of whom she'd been able to meet since the camping season had not yet officially begun. Lean times everywhere, she mused.

She wondered what it was about any ranger station that drew together a standard cast of characters. The supervisor was always a fatherly type, stern and distracted but also concerned with the welfare of his employees. She'd met Mitch.e.l.l, their touchy-feely guy, laid-back and relaxed about everything including casual s.e.x. This type was always the first to hit on Gloria, and he was no exception, standing close and offering to walk her through their past season ranger reports personally.

Rick held the high-strung wilderness ranger role. She'd seen both female and male rangers fall into this category. People came second to him. He barely had any energy left over to communicate with people because so much of his attention keyed in on the current state of the entire ecosystem. He would be extremely knowledgeable and informative, but any information would feel like it was distributed. He kept professional distance from everyone.

Some stations had the backcountry hostess ranger-the soft-spoken gentle soul who took personal responsibility for every guest's camping experience. Gloria's job was to reduce the interaction between humans and bears. That more often meant managing people, not the bears, so she was used to causing conflict by demanding that people respect the rules of the backcountry. Thus, she usually b.u.t.ted heads with the hostess ranger type.

But not as much as she b.u.t.ted heads with the straight competent ranger. Juanita fell into this, her least favorite of the female ranger types. Her first priority was for people to know that just because she wore comfortable shoes and enjoyed the out-of-doors did not mean that she slept with women.

Occasionally, she ran into the gruff one-of-the-guys d.y.k.e rangers. Friendly enough, but never a romantic interest for Gloria.

Professionally, they'd all be helpful, but socially, she'd be on her own. Mitch.e.l.l would be sure to offer his a.s.sistance with her acclimation to the area. She frowned. Why wasn't it ever a charismatic and friendly woman making the offer?

Gloria moved to the display of mounted enlargements on the wall of the store. The individually crafted and packaged cards had a different feel from the postcards she had selected. The commercial version of the Devils Postpile picture, for example, was obviously taken directly at the site and captured the fascinating detail of the geographic formation. The local photographer had taken the picture from across the San Joaquin from atop a mule whose ears framed the tiny, but clear, national monument. She liked the sense of familiarity that the artist had captured. This photo wasn't for the hit-and-run tourist. It was for the nature enthusiast who cherished the wilderness like she did, who saw, she laughed at herself for thinking the cliche, the whole picture. She scanned more of the cards by the same artist.

A smile touched her lips as she selected another from the rack. Two border collies lay on a bedroll. One's muzzle was snugly tucked under its tail; the other had its head tipped lazily back. It stared familiarly at the photographer. She wondered if the dogs belonged to the photographer or if the photographer had been on one of the outfit's many overnight trips and had caught the image of the employee's pets. Her mother would love it.

She added the card to her stack, already seeing it in the photo alb.u.m back in Eureka. Whenever she began a new job, she made sure to find a store that had postcards of the local scenery. She'd buy several and send them home. Her father had recently told her the tradition meant more and more these days. It used to be that she'd send images to help her mother picture their next vacation destination, plan out the hot spots she'd like to visit. As her mother's leukemia had worsened, the postcards began to take the place of those trips. She surveyed the cards in her hands. Would her mother be up to the hike down to Rainbow Falls? Maybe. But Pond Lily was out. Having surveyed the map of the valley, she knew her mother would never see it firsthand. It'll still bolster her spirits, though, Gloria thought, and she'd send off this one of the pups as soon as possible. She turned the card over and read the stamp. The artist's logo was a sketch portrait of a mule and read Suzy-Q Cards. Gloria heard "cue-card" and wondered if the artist intended the wordplay. She added the card to her stack and went to the register.

"These always fly off the shelf," she said, ringing up the purchase. "She's one of our own."

"Suzy?" Gloria guessed.

"No, Teeny. Used to work out at the corral and always had her camera with her."

"She's good."

"That's what I've heard," the clerk said with a wink.

Gloria blinked in surprise at the double entendre. She wasn't surprised by the clerk's message-she'd definitely pinged Gloria's gaydar-it was more that they'd only exchanged a few sentences.

The clerk, not seeming to have noticed Gloria's surprise, continued. "And she's back this summer."

"Tell her I love her work."

"Oh, she'll be at the meeting. You're the bear expert, right?"

"Guess the uniform gives me away," Gloria answered. Thanks to her mother, her Fish and Wildlife uniform was crisply pressed. Since she antic.i.p.ated a tough sell to a room of seasoned cowboys, she'd worn the optional tie with her tan shirt. The forest green jacket, DFW logo on the shoulders, matched her slacks.

"I'm glad you're here," the young woman continued, "because last year, the bear here was just out of control. He was going through the Dumpster all the time. You should come by my cabin. I'm right behind the store here. I've got a picture of this little cub that was with the mama last year. He's got a pack of smokes in one hand and a candy bar wrapper in the other. It is just too funny." She beamed.

Gloria studied the woman. Every utterance made her reconsider the conclusion she'd drawn from the last. She couldn't tell if the invitation to her cabin was just part of the verbal explosion she was familiar with as the "bear expert." It was typical of people to react to her job by pouring out their bear encounter stories, but they didn't usually invite her to take a look at photos. The woman in front of her was certainly charismatic and cute. Perhaps she would seek her out. She glanced at her watch. "Guess it's close enough to dinner to head over."

"Close enough?" The clerk laughed. "You better hustle on in. n.o.body's late for dinner."

"It's just now going on six," she said, double checking her watch.

"Oh, they say dinner's at six, but I'd be surprised if there's a seat left. I'd be there already if I wasn't on duty."

"Thanks for the warning." Gloria smiled, tucking her stack of cards into her day pack. She took a step toward the door, but the clerk stopped her.

"Tourists have to go around, but you're official. Go on through the double doors. You can go through the kitchen to the dining room."

Gloria thanked her and pushed through the swinging door.

Chapter Five.

A few days after Kristine arrived, Gabe announced that Leo had called them back down to the Lodge for dinner. They entered the building together, but while Gabe headed straight for the cl.u.s.ter of cowboys by the diner-style counter, Kristine snuck into the kitchen angling to steal a candy bar from the lunch station before Jorge noticed. The wiry Ecuadorian had been with the Lodge years before Kristine had joined the crew, and she remembered how fiercely he protected the snack shelf. Her eyes on him instead of the direction she traveled, she did not notice a figure pushing through the double doors that led to the store. The quick "excuse me" meant to avoid the collision scared a yelp from her lips.

"Hands off the candy," Jorge said without turning from the grill.

Kristine's face radiated a wide grin, thinking of how accurately the cook's words could be attached to the woman standing in front of her. She couldn't help but let her eyes roam down the newcomer's body, appreciating how well she wore her uniform. "He knows me too well," Kristine said, meeting the attractive woman's eye. She nearly got lost in their deep blue, that color the sky turns just before nightfall. "Can't get over the sweet tooth," she said, motioning with her chin to the shelf behind the woman. "You look lost. Where are you headed? I'm Kristine Owens, by the way." She offered her hand.

"Gloria Fisher. I'm here to talk about bears. The store clerk said it was okay to go through the kitchen."

Kristine took a moment to enjoy the feel of Gloria's firm, warm handshake. The woman radiated a relaxed confidence. The pressed uniform said professional, but the way she'd swept the top portion of her blond hair back from her face leaving the rest down around her shoulders and carried the goofy Fish and Wildlife hat said "not uptight."

The slight advantage in height that Kristine had might have been from the thick-heeled White's she wore. She held Gloria's hand three beats longer than considered polite simply because it felt so right nestled with hers. She found herself thinking how easy it would be to pull the woman in for a kiss, her lips ever so much more enticing than the original sweet she was after. She frowned, admonishing herself for slipping into the persona she'd been the last time she was here. "Ah, you're the reason boss-man called us all the way down from Aspens for supper. All the staff is this way, in the dining room. Have you met Leo yet?"

"No," Gloria said, pushing through another set of swinging doors after Kristine.

Kristine spotted Leo at the old-timers' table. "He's the most scraggly cowboy over in that corner." Then she considered Sol, sitting next to Leo. "Or second scraggliest. Maybe tied for the most scraggly cowboy here. Shouldn't you be following my finger instead of staring at me?"

"Would it help?" Gloria asked, amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice.

Kristine tipped her chin to the side, truly considering her answer. "Fair enough. He's the one in plaid."

Gloria continued to stare.

"Fine. I'll introduce you myself. Right this way." She smiled impishly.

After the introductions, she wove through the tables where the cabin, store and cafe staff sat. They looked comfortable in the cafe, surrounded by all of the junk on the walls that made the place look "authentic." Whenever something was too broken for the corral staff to use, it got tossed up onto the wall. Rusted out bits, an old cowbell probably missing its ringer, cracked harnesses and horseshoes all gave the cafe a rustic feel. The first year, she'd studied all of the pictures, her favorites the staff pictures taken at the beginning of each season. She pa.s.sed all of them without a glance, settling onto a stool at the counter with the other packers next to her brother, Gabe.

He flicked the brim of her cowboy hat, adding, "Hiding a rooster?"

She narrowed her eyes at him as she removed her hat, tucking it beneath the counter. The brim caught on the bar she rested her feet on. She scritched her fingers through her short brown hair, unplastering the fine waves from her crown and pulling a few bangs over her forehead.

"d.a.m.n, Teeny," a bear of a cowboy quipped. "Did Gabe get you by accident when he was shaving all of his mules for the season?"

Kristine gritted her teeth, annoyed. They'd worked a few seasons before she'd left, and according to her brother, he'd become one of the Leo Armstrong's main packers. "No more Teeny."

Without acknowledging the comment, he looked to the front of the room. "Tell me she's the entertainment tonight," he drawled.

"She's a stripper?" Brian gasped, turning on his stool and straining his neck.

Leo's son, Nard, glared at the youngster. "Dad's just kissing political a.s.s letting some bear specialist come down and tell us what we already know. Bears are a problem. Bears are dangerous. Don't play with the bears. Should be very educational."

He'd slowed down on the last two sentences, directing them right at Kristine. She flicked her eyes to him, considering the challenge only she heard. "Give her a chance," Kristine said, keeping her voice even.

Nard snorted. "Seems like your type, you mean?" he sneered.

Kristine didn't respond to the barb though her pulse thrummed in her ears. His eyes stayed on her, that stare that she'd been happy to leave behind, but she held his gaze. She would not engage him. She would not let him win. Thankfully, the kitchen staff brought out heaping plates of pork chops, potatoes and corn. Everyone dug in.

Kristine would have said Nard had always been an a.s.s, but that would be disrespecting the burro, the donkeys which were an integral part of her father's breeding program. She tried to be fair. Who could blame a guy for having an att.i.tude problem when the world called him Nard because his father, Leo, had already taken the logical shortened version of Leonard? Why not go by Leonard? Leo Jr.? But here he was, thirty-six and still at his dad's pack station. She wondered if he'd improved in the job in the six years she'd been gone. He wasn't sitting with the old-timers, but Gloria was. By the way the visitor studied her food, it looked like she was also thankful for the diversion a meal provided.

"You know she could be, if she wanted," Gabe whispered, interrupting Kristine's thoughts. "A stripper," he clarified, wiggling his eyebrows and sharing the target of Kristine's gaze. "Maybe I should ask after the presentation."

"Save it, Gabe. You're not the one she'd be taking it off for."

"Oh, really," he said, turning to look at the woman in question again. He pushed his plate away from him. "You sound pretty sure, there. What exactly happened in the thirty seconds it took for you to walk her over to Leo's table?"

"She shook my hand back in the kitchen," Kristine said, tossing her napkin onto her plate. "And hers is definitely a hand that has graced the glorious body of a woman." She glanced back in Gloria's direction as she said the words, and though it wasn't possible for the woman to have heard what she said, her eyes locked with Kristine's sending a rush of heat through her body.

He brother glanced between the two women. "Guess Nard was right," he said, chuckling.

Kristine broke eye contact, meeting her brother's eyes with no hint of humor. "Don't."

Gabe's brow furrowed in confusion, but before he could respond, Leo stood, ringing one of their bell mare bells. "Please turn your attention to Ms. Fisher. She's a specialist on bear aversion training. She's got some reminders for us and, ahh..." he looked down at her, at a loss for what to say, and she rose.

"And to enlist some of you in helping us take care of what has become a real danger. As Leo said, I'm Gloria Fisher. I'm a wildlife biologist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. I work out of the Ontario office in southern California and have been studying interaction between bears and humans for a little more than a year. In reviewing reports from your local Forest Service rangers, a trend has emerged, revealing that encounters are on the rise. Yosemite has successfully reduced their bear encounters. I applied for a grant to try implementing some of their techniques in this region to see if balance can be restored before bears have to be relocated or destroyed." She pulled out a stack of notecards and started giving statistics from the incidents recorded from campgrounds and the strategies needed to prevent them.

Nard sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. Kristine turned completely around on her stool trying to concentrate on Gloria, but she couldn't ignore the comments of her fellow packers. Every item on Gloria's list elicited a smarta.s.s response.

"Bears are attracted to FOOD?" Gabe whispered.

"But they never disturb a family pic-a-nic," Dozer said, not as quietly in a pretty decent Yogi Bear impression.

"They're smart?" Gabe gasped.

"Smarter than the average bear," Dozer continued.

"You grow much more hair on that face, and people will start to believe you're a bear," Gabe said.

"Let's see the expert lady try to scare me off."

"Wouldn't work. You hear banging pans and come running for supper."

"If she were supper, you bet I'd come running," Dozer purred.

Kristine reached beyond her brother to smack the large cowboy, unable to take more of their banter. Less than a minute later, though, her brother gasped again. "Bears get into TRASH CANS? Even if the LID is on?"

Even Kristine had a hard time suppressing a giggle. Surely, this woman had to know that people who worked in the backcountry had the sense to do what they could to keep bears out of the outfit or their camps. No one wanted to be in the backcountry with hungry guests and have to explain that they'd lost all of their food to a domesticated bear.

She took advantage of the opportunity to evaluate Gloria unimpeded. Again, she appreciated her confidence. Clearly, Gloria was used to addressing large groups of people and commanding their respect. She was professional, ticking through her points, but Kristine had to agree with the cowboys at the table about the usefulness of her information.

Not that she minded, Kristine smiled. The ranger could be reciting the elevation of all of the peaks in the Minarets and giving rainfall data for the last hundred years, and Kristine would have listened. Gloria had no trouble projecting her low but powerful voice through the room. Kristine remembered what it was like in normal conversation and took a moment to wonder what it would be like brought down to an intimate whisper. She imagined that voice raising the hair just behind her ear, but before she could antic.i.p.ate what she'd be saying, the words Gloria had uttered snapped her out of her reverie.

"Did she say something about shooting the bears?" she whispered to Gabe.

"Yeah," he said, sitting up straighter. "With rubber bullets."

Kristine quickly shifted away from Gloria's physical attributes to what her intellect had to offer about dealing with the animals in the backcountry.

"It's important to establish that the area you inhabit is your den and that they are not welcome. Bears are extremely territorial, and if you claim the territory effectively, with noisemakers and some zings to their hide, they'll get the message that they need to forage elsewhere."

The entire cafe was silent.

"At the end of the week Leo will help me set up a practice area in the meadow where we'll have the opportunity to practice some of the techniques I went over tonight."

"The Forest Service is going to sign off on our carrying in the backcountry?" a skeptical Dozer shouted out.

Kristine admired the way the ranger deftly shepherded the conversation back to how she hoped Leo's employees could partic.i.p.ate in improving the balance between human and nature. After a half hour or so, the questions ceased, the crew cleared their plates and drifted to their evening ch.o.r.es.

Kristine sat tipped back in a chair on the porch that ran along the main building, her boots resting on the railing. Waiting for the rest of the corral staff to emerge from the store, she enjoyed an after-supper ice cream. Who was she kidding, she thought, letting the chair's feet thump back to the porch. She was sitting there hoping to get another glimpse of the presenter. She toyed with the idea of inviting her to join the group which had decided to get a campfire going after the evening feed.

Again, she remembered her promise to herself. By facing her past instead of continuing to run, she could use that strength to finally stand up to the force of her father. She could leave the ranch and find her own path as a professional photographer. A summer fling sounded enticing, especially after being in the small, socially dry town of Quincy for six months, but she knew that it would only distract her from getting on her own feet.

Having gone through the kitchen to the store, the corral crew emerged from the door on her left just as Gloria exited the diner's door on her right. Did Gloria look pleased to see her sitting there? Meeting her eyes, Kristine felt a pull between them, the instinct that had her fantasizing about kissing her when they'd first met instead of offering to point out her boss.

"Teeny!" Dozer shouted, making her whip her head in the opposition direction. "There's a hay hook with your name on it up at the corrals if you've still got something to prove."

Kristine ground her teeth. He hadn't changed at all, and she found that she still had a difficult time not letting him get under her skin. True, she had felt the need to keep up with the guys back then, but she'd had to when they always treated her like a helpless girl. Risking another glance in Gloria's direction, she met those blue eyes once again. She seemed to be observing the scene with interest. Best to walk away now, Kristine told herself. Their paths weren't likely to cross, and it would be easier to resist the very real temptation she presented if Kristine didn't spend any more time talking to her.

She sighed, bowing her head before she pushed to stand and join the crew stepping off the porch to the hard-packed dirt yard between the building and the corrals, not to prove anything to Dozer but to prove to herself that she had returned a different person, that she was in control.