Chapter One
She was in love. Desperately in love. A woman in love
sometimes did reprehensible things, committed unforgivable
acts - all in the name of love. Tucking herself deeper in
the forest shadows, Tonya Griffin prayed the elusive
Damien didn't see her - thanked the powers that be she'd
finally spotted him again. The first time she'd seen him a
little over a week ago, she'd fallen for him like a
collapsing castle of cards. She'd been hoping for another
glimpse of him ever since.
In the name of love, she forgave herself for breaching his
privacy and exploiting his trust. She lifted her camera,
made adjustments for the September sunlight, and focused.
"Caught you, you coldhearted devil," she whispered and,
carefully sidestepping a white pine, aimed her lens for an
unobstructed view.
He wasn't aware that she was following him, or that she
was filming him - yet. She knew, however, that he'd sense
her presence soon enough, so she moved fast before she
lost the late-afternoon light or before the storm forecast
for later this afternoon blew in. She also needed to work
fast before he discovered what she was doing and
disappeared again. Oh, he wouldn't like it. Wouldn't like
it at all that she'd captured him in any way - even if it
was just on film.
"Forgive me, Damien," she apologized without ever losing
focus, and zoomed a little closer.
The definition the close-up shot provided sent a shiver
down her spine even though it was a warm Indian summer
day. He was truly magnificent. His keen eyes, as dark as
the luxurious pelt of obsidian-black hair matting his
chest, searched the forest of pine and ash as he stood
tall - well over six feet.
"Mr. Tall, Dark and Dangerous," she murmured with a loving
smile. "Master of your universe, aren't you, big guy?"
His head whipped around her way. With a low growl, he
spotted her.
"Uh-oh." She lowered the camera, held her breath - and
understood that she had suddenly become the hunted.
Her heart tripped over itself, then settled into a rabbit-
run beat that thundered through her chest and pounded in
her ears like the waves pummeling the rocky lakeshore a
hundred or so yards in the distance.
Dangerous.
The word echoed a warning shot through her mind even as
she raised the camera again, snapping off a rapid
succession of frames.
His angry snarl shook the forest floor of decaying leaves
and pine needles and shocked the air like an ozone burst
before a sunset storm. Utterly still - in truth, frozen to
the spot - Tonya stood in the fractured silence as he
stomped two charging strides toward her. A reminder of who
ruled here. A caution that she had gone too far.
It occurred to her then that she could die here. She
wouldn't be missed for weeks. And suddenly, she felt very
alone and very afraid. Buried beneath the panic, she felt
a twinge of regret for all the things she'd wanted to do
with her life. For all the things she'd missed. And then
she quit thinking at all as he took another menacing step
forward.
Air stalled in her lungs; her heart slammed against her
sternum. She braced for the blow that would surely come
when, unbelievably, he made an abrupt stop and spun away.
Her breath came back on a whoosh as he stormed off into a
copse of pine and birch so dense it swallowed him up
before he'd taken more than four powerful strides.
The telltale tingling in her fingertips alerted her to her
death grip on her camera.
The pressure on her bladder rudely informed her how scared
she'd been.
A tight laugh rippled out. Nerves. Relief.
"He loves me," she murmured on a quivering smile and,
turning, headed at a fast walk, back toward the cabin.
"Got to be love," she reasoned, cruising on a latent burst
of adrenaline and upped her speed to a jog when she
finally spotted a curl of smoke rising from the little log
cabin nestled in the clearing about a quarter mile
ahead. "Gotta be - or I'd be dead right now instead of
wondering if I can make it to the john before I pee my
pants."
In spite of the close call, in spite of her pressing need,
she laughed at the utter joy of catching Damien in the
wild - all six-hundred-plus pounds of him. He was, without
a doubt, the biggest, baddest most beautiful black bear in
Koochiching County, Minnesota, and for a moment there -
just for a moment - he'd been hers.
"Unbelievable," Web Tyler muttered under his breath as the
laughing woman bolted out of the forest and blew right by
him. Tonya Griffin didn't so much as bat one of those baby
blues his way.
At least he figured it was the reclusive Ms. Griffin. He'd
never met her. He'd seen pictures of the award-winning
wildlife photographer though - usually black and whites
and invariably distant grainy shots of her working in some
remote corner of the globe. He knew her work though.
Anyone who'd ever picked up a National Geographic or a
dozen other wildlife magazines did. Just as everyone knew
her talent was first-rate.
That's why he was here. Tonya Griffin was the best. Since
Web needed the best, he'd grudgingly left civilization and
a soft bed on a crack-of-dawn flight out of JFK to lure
her out of the woods and into an exclusive contract with
Tyler-Lanier Publishing. Things had been slipping down a
steady decline ever since.
© 2003-2026