Untamed Desire
Lindsay McKenna
Beautiful, tempestuous and newly-divorced, Storm Reynolds is determined to succeed as a bush pilot in Alaska. The sportsmen she flies into the wild are a lusty lot, but she can handle any situation…and any man—except Jim Talbot, her lean, brooding boss. Jim wants her fired! But why?
On a night of tender sorrow, the desire they have refused to admit bursts into soaring passion. But in the frozen wilderness they face a final, brutal test that threatens their love…and their lives!
To all my readers. Thank you for your enthusiasm, your suggestions and hanging in there with me.
“I DON’T CARE
what Dan Bradford said. You’re not hired.”
Storm Reynolds sat openmouthed as she stared up at Jim Talbot, the manager of Bradford Outfitters. Her pulse began to beat erratically at the threat in his deep voice. He stood tall and straight, reminding her of the towering spruce that covered Alaska’s virgin forest, where she wanted to fly. In that vast wilderness she could find a new life, separate from the past.
Storm struggled to maintain an even, conciliatory tone. “I think we have a misunderstanding, Mr. Talbot, nothing more than that. Mr. Bradford personally took me on a three-hour flight test to make sure I could perform the functions required of a commercial pilot working for Bradford Outfitters. We flew to three of the seven base camps and I performed all functions flawlessly. He has my references from the Carter School of Aviation in Seattle, where I was a flight instructor, and he seemed quite happy to hire me as a bush pilot for your organization.”
Jim Talbot’s gray eyes darkened like angry thunderclouds. He leaned forward, placing long, calloused fingers on the desk in front of him. “Ms. Reynolds,” he said, “I don’t know how to put it more plainly. You are not hired.” His expression became more insolent. “We have a very capable secretary who pinch-hits as dispatcher when the occasion demands. I don’t need another woman here.”
Storm’s blue eyes widened, and she gripped the arms of the chair, trying desperately to control her temper. “I’m hardly applying for a secretary’s job! I happen to have my flight-instructor’s certificate, and I’ve logged nearly five thousand hours of commercial flying time. I know how to fly any single- or twin-engine plane you have in your service. I’m afraid being a dispatcher would be a poor use of my talents.”
Her bold words might get her into deeper trouble, she thought, but she didn’t care. This—this man reminded her too much of her ex-husband. Damn! Jack had been the same way: “Storm, why don’t you just tear up your license and be like other women?” he’d said many times. “Why can’t you be like all the rest of the women and have a nine-to-five job?” Now this man, Jim Talbot, was repeating everything her ex-husband had told her for four years. Four years too long, she decided grimly.
Storm’s gaze narrowed, and she stood up slowly, her body tall and trim. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and stared defiantly into Jim Talbot’s handsome face.
“I’m not in the habit of mincing words, Mr. Talbot. You strike me as the worst sort of male chauvinist, a man who thinks women can do nothing but have babies.”
He managed a sour smile, one corner of his generous mouth twisting upward. He ran his fingers through his black hair and appraised her with more than mild interest. “You’ve very neatly summed up my philosophy.” He frowned, then sat down at the desk and pulled out a new personnel file with her name on top. He scribbled out a check. “I’m sorry you were led to believe there was a job here for you. By way of apology, I’m including a month’s salary to help pay for the inconvenience of coming up from Seattle.”
Storm’s face paled as she watched him crease the check along its edge and, with maddening slowness, ripped it neatly along the perforated line. It separated perfectly, Storm noted ruefully. She was continually ripping out checks that ended up missing a corner or looking dog-eared. Briefly, she wondered if Jim Talbot’s life paralleled his handling of the check. If so, his neat, well-ordered existence was going to face some disarrangement.
“You might as well keep the check, Mr. Talbot,” she said firmly, “because I’m not going anywhere. I’ve already rented an apartment in Anchorage with a year’s lease, and unless you actually fire me, I’m staying right here.”
Jim Talbot’s features tightened perceptibly, and he gently laid down the check, rising to his full six feet. Impatiently, he pulled open her file. “You’re not even a paramedic,” he challenged her.
“But I’m a competent Emergency Medical Technician. I’ve done plenty of work in rescue.”
Jim sneered, a silver glint in his eyes. “Off the sides of cliffs where you have to rappel down to save a foolish hunter so intent on stalking his elk that he walked over the edge? Or landing a chopper on a glacier in blizzard conditions to rescue another hunter who just had to have that trophy bighorn rack? Come on, Ms. Reynolds! You play with your arm and leg casts on some nice, flat asphalt and practice soothing your patient on the way to a hospital in the back of an ambulance. Such conditions don’t exist in our line of work! At any moment, in any one of the seven camps we operate, a hunter or fisherman can get into trouble. We have to provide not only on-the-spot medical attention but also air ambulance service to the nearest hospital. There are only two paramedics, me and Oulette, and Dan Bradford knows we desperately need another. But not a damn flatland EMT!”
“Mr. Bradford’s already discussed these aspects of the job with me,” Storm countered icily. “And if you would care to take the time to look a little more closely at my résumé, you’ll see that I’m an advanced EMT and have done heavy rescue work in the Cascade Mountain Range. I worked closely with several air ambulance units. I’m aware of the dangers of working in mountainous regions. I can’t rappel, but I’ll learn…just as I’ve learned everything else I’ve needed to know.”
Jim Talbot began to pace the small office, his glare fairly burning through her. “You can’t weigh more than one hundred and ten—”
“One hundred and thirty,” she interrupted, “and don’t think I can’t pull my weight with a three-hundred-pound patient, because I can.”
“There’s not a woman alive who can handle the job we do!” Jim retorted. “I don’t care if you come in dressed as Wonder Woman.”
Storm drew in a sharp breath. Damn him, he wasn’t fighting fair. That was how Jack had operated. Her mouth thinned, and she returned Jim’s glare. “If I were a man with those qualifications,” she said, jabbing her finger down on her file, “you’d welcome me with open arms.” She exhaled sharply. “I knew when I decided to move to Alaska that it was a man’s world, but I didn’t realize just how bad it was!”
Jim Talbot managed a tight grin, and let his eyes rove slowly up and down her body. “There’s always room for a free woman in Alaska. If you weren’t applying for a job here, I might be interested in you myself….”
Storm colored deeply, her blue eyes flashing azure fire. “That kind of talk is sexual harassment.” But another part of her reveled in his open admiration. Being a flight instructor in Seattle and running a flight school for the past seven years had left no time to pamper the more feminine side of herself. To succeed in a decidedly male-dominated profession, Storm had long ago given up wearing skirts. She was more accepted on the job in a pair of slacks, her shoulder-length copper hair drawn back into a chignon at the base of her neck. But often she longed to feel the sinfully luxuriant swish of a silk dress against nylon-clad legs. Or to wear a pair of elegant, slender high heels instead of practical flats. Any man who looked beyond her no-nonsense attire inevitably bolstered her feminine ego. She was strangely flattered by Jim Talbot’s interest. It had been a long time since she had felt like a desirable woman.
Jim shrugged lazily. “We all behave like eighteen-year-olds occasionally. But I’m afraid the truth is that women are considered by most men to be good for only one thing in Alaska, and it sure isn’t flying planes.”
“Then you’re going to have to kick me out of this office because I’m not leaving,” Storm growled, her voice turning husky with barely controlled fury. “Mr. Bradford hired me, and I’m staying! I can’t help it if you were on a two-week vacation when I was hired. I would think that, as a manager, you would trust Dan’s judgment and abide by it.”
“Normally, I would. It’s just…” His voice faded, losing its steely edge. “He’s an old man with a soft spot for women pilots. He made a mistake in hiring you.”
Obstinately, Storm remained seated in the chair. The word
mistake
whirled in her mind. It had been a mistake to marry Jack. She should have remained single and continued to fly. It was her first and only love. Flight. How that word sent her pulse racing. Flying had always been good to her. It had never lied or cheated on her, like Jack had.
Her gaze remained on Jim Talbot, who stood staring down at her with undisguised anger. Did she see a slight hesitation in his hawklike eyes? Good! He’d better be careful because she knew the law, and she had waited too long for a choice job like this to come along. There was no way in the world she would let it go without a fight. Jim Talbot’s narrow-minded outlook only hardened her stubborn resolve. He was not going to take away her dream!
“If you’ll get Mr. Bradford in here, I’m sure he’ll set the issues straight,” she said. But what if Bradford did decide against hiring her? She dug her nails into the leather upholstery.
“Unfortunately, he’s in Fairbanks and won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Storm forced a smile as she stood up. “Good. Then I’ll return tomorrow. I’m sure this misunderstanding can be straightened out then.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Reynolds, but it’s my job to—”
“Jim,” a woman interrupted, sticking her head in the office door.
“What is it, Stella?” he asked irritably.
The secretary, a woman in her early fifties, smiled benignly, as if dealing with a temperamental child. Her ginger-colored hair was streaked with gray; large brown glasses made her look like a wise, old owl. “Sorry to break in, but we’ve got a cardiac victim up at Camp One.”
Jim Talbot swore softly and brushed past Storm into the main office. She followed at a distance, interested in the type of medical procedures he would follow. He looked at the pilot roster and then over at Stella.
“Where’s Oscelot?”
Stella dug through a pile of papers scattered over her untidy desk. “Camp Four. His ETA is in forty minutes. No way he can assist.”
Jim Talbot’s lips thinned. “That leaves me. Okay, who’s pulling standby duty today?”
“Mmmm.” She ran her finger down several squares to the calendar date. “Rafe.”
“Get him on the phone. Tell him to meet me at the apron.”
“Right.”
Jim seemed to have forgotten all about Storm and her problems. He pulled down a clipboard below the Camp One heading. “Who’s the cardiac case?”
“Fellow by the name of Johnson. Ray Johnson.”
“Is it stat?”
“He said he was experiencing shortness of breath and pains on the left side of his chest,” Stella answered, dialing.
Frowning, Jim scribbled down a few notes and leafed through the medical information sheets listed on each hunter. “It figures,” he muttered. “He has a history of heart attacks. He’s on digitalis. Did you get Rafe yet?”
Stella shook her head. “No answer.”
“Damn him! Where is he? Did he leave word?”
“No, boss.”
“Get Scotty, then.”
“He’s in Juneau, visiting relatives. It’s his day off.”
Jim rubbed his jaw as he looked over the duty roster. “No way to get any of the other pilots?”
“No way,” Stella agreed, looking up and smiling at Storm. “Boss, we have an excellent pilot right here. Mr. Bradford says she flies like a dream. How about using her in this emergency? No one else is available.”
Storm could have run across the room and hugged her, but she maintained a calm expression as Jim Talbot’s angry gaze swung over her. She held her breath.
“All right,” he snarled, walking swiftly toward her and grabbing her by the arm. “Get in the pilot’s room over there and change into a pair of green coveralls. You’d better be on that apron in five minutes or I’m taking off without you.”
Storm felt momentarily paralyzed by his firm grip. A new and unexpected warmth surged through her. For all his gruffness, his touch was firm without being painful. She tucked the thought away and slipped into the dressing room. “I’ll be there,” she called over her shoulder.
The coveralls were too big but she quickly rolled up the pant legs and the sleeves, then raced out to the asphalt directly behind the office building. The Anchorage airport, although large enough to handle jet traffic, was also small enough to get private air traffic in and out in a hurry. Storm saw the yellow-and-brown, single-engine DeHavilland Beaver moving smoothly toward her. Her shoulder-length copper-colored hair began to whip across her shoulders as the plane braked and drew to a stop. The prop slowed and Storm was thankful for the brief pause that allowed her to open the starboard hatch and make her way into the cockpit. But the thought that Jim had slowed down for her benefit quickly vanished when she nearly fell into the copilot’s seat as he revved the engines and edged the throttle forward.
“Strap in,” he commanded tersely.
Storm buckled up, biting back an angry comment at his unnecessary reminder. He must know all pilots were extremely safety conscious. She donned the headset and listened to the conversation between Jim and the control tower. Scanning the gauges, she suddenly felt at home for the first time since arriving in Alaska.
It was late afternoon when they roared off the airstrip into the dark blue fall skies above Anchorage. The throbbing engine acted like a tranquilizer on Storm’s raw nerves. Now, as she had a chance to sit back and observe Jim Talbot, she became aware of another kind of excitement.
He couldn’t be over thirty-five and was about six feet tall, with long, sensitive fingers. For a moment, she studied each delicate movement of his hands. Each adjustment he made on the control panel helped smooth out the aircraft. She wondered if he brought the same sensitivity to his lovemaking, then colored at the thought. Was she so starved for a man’s attention that his every movement must remind her of his sexual attractiveness?
Making the mandatory turn out over Cook Inlet, Jim headed the Beaver northeast. Once again, Storm was awed by the untamed beauty of America’s last frontier. Logging trails wove through the thick carpet of spruce and pine trees below them, and Storm even caught a glimpse of the Alaska pipeline.
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Jim turned to her and said, “Don’t get the idea that just because you’re on this flight, you’re staying.”