Bear Claw Bodyguard Read Free

come in extra small. And, yeah, given that she had her bark-brown hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail and was wearing her glasses because airplanes did wonky things to her contacts, she wasn’t even close to being in Blondie’s league. And not just because she was lacking the designer suit, stilettos and a foot of height.
    Worse, she had actually bothered to catalog those differences.
    Hello, she thought loudly, hoping both her libido and her brain would listen up, you’re not here for a fieldwork fling. You’re here to do a job. Granted, she’d combined the two more than once in the past, but this particular job fell under the category of “potential disaster, probably shouldn’t let yourself get distracted, hunky escort or not.”
    Besides, he was a cop.
    Deliberately, she put her head back in the work zone where it belonged. The U.S. National Park Service was worried about the newly discovered breeding population of barred eagles, and the strange, threadlike fungus that was killing huge chunks of forest near the eagles’ nesting area. Given the ecological chaos caused by the recent oak-blight epidemic in California’s Point Reyes Park, the Park Service wasn’t taking any chances in Bear Claw Canyon. When the local scientists hadn’t been able to crack the fungus’s life cycle or the real cause of the problems the trees were experiencing, Tori had gotten the call.
    Her family might not understand her choosing to save trees rather than people, but she was very good at what she did.
    Giving the cop a cool look, she said, “I prefer the term ‘phytopathologist.’ Or ‘plant disease epidemiologist’ is okay, too.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “How about we go with Tori and Jack instead? Seems easier, and half the time when I hear ‘Detective Williams,’ I turn around to see if my dad or uncle are standing behind me.”
    Which meant he wasn’t just a cop, he was straight out of a cop family, with all the “save the world and pat the littlelady on the head” machismo that it entailed. Or maybe that was just her family, she thought, trying to smooth out the sudden tug of irritation he hadn’t earned.
    Which just left her realizing that she had just told her local liaison to use her professional titles. God, she was still such a dweeb sometimes, especially when faced with a guy who felt just that little bit out of her league, turning him into a challenge.
    Making herself grin rather than groan, she nodded. “Tori and Jack it is.”
    She didn’t bother asking herself what it was about this guy that had her caught somewhere between lust and dorksville. He was seriously hot; she was exhausted by having done a week’s worth of grant writing in two days to make this trip; and it had been a few months since she and her last equally on-the-go lover, Greene, had called it quits. So she was noticing the handsome detective in a chemically combustible way, and it was making her a little silly. Okay, more than a little.
    Focus. “We should get going. I understand that the site is pretty far off the beaten path.”
    “That’s an understatement. We’ll be using Ranger Station Fourteen as a base camp and driving out to the Forgotten from there on a daily basis.”
    “Wait. What?” She frowned up at him. Way up, which made her feel short, and in turn, irritated her. “We won’t need the ranger station. We’re camping out at the site for the duration.” That was SOP for the more remote locations, and she’d been assured there would be no problem.
    His expression tightened and those lake waters chilled. “Not with an armed militia out there, we’re not.”
    “An…” She blew out a breath, not liking the sound ofthat one bit. “I was under the impression that the area was secure.”
    “That might be the official line, but it’s not the reality as far as my contacts within the investigation are concerned. So here’s the deal: either we bunk at Ranger Station Fourteen and day-trip it out to the Forgotten, or