Chapter Four


	Simon woke rested but something didn’t seem quite right.  He clearly
remembered the girl he’d rescued from the clutches of Jake Zimmerman the day before. 
He’d had a frustrating argument with her about where he planned to sleep.  If he hadn’t
insisted on sleeping in the bathtub it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d shared a bed
with a woman, but usually the sleeping followed other activities, and to be honest, this
girl wasn’t his type, and he half suspected he wasn’t her type either.  It would just have
created an awkward situation, unneccessarily.
	But as he lay there thinking how chivalrous he had been it suddenly occurred to
him what it was that was wrong.  He was comfortable.  He was sleeping, not in the
bathtub, but in a bed.  Not only that, but he distinctly felt the presence of a warm body
lieing next to him!
	Simon seldom allowed himself to be in situations where he was not in control. 
Even when sleeping in a snow shelter in the barren arctic, he was watchful for intruders. 
Whether human or animal, being able to assess the situation in a fraction of a second,
being ready for anything as soon as he opened his eyes, was a habit he’d learned as a
child and honed as an adult.  He wanted no surprises when he opened his eyes.  
To that end, he waited before he opened them this time, until his mind had cleared
completely, and his fingers had tested out their location.  Just as he’d feared, there was
no other explanation. He was lieing with a woman in his arms, and judging by the way
she had tensed slightly when his hand had moved, she wasn’t sleeping, although he
guessed by the silence that she was trying to pretend to be.   And from what he could
remember of the evening before, it could only be one woman — Logan McCoy. 
        Carefully he opened his eyes.  In the dim morning light he could see her, face turned
slightly away from him, laying with her hair fanned out on the pillow.  The first thing that
struck him when he saw her was that she was wearing white.  He supposed it was a little
silly of him to think that even her sleepwear would be shades of brown, but that was the
only colour he had ever seen her in.  The top she wore now also hugged closely to her
body, bringing attention to her curves more than the looser shirts she had worn back at
camp, not to mention the amount of smooth, tanned skin the thin straps of the garment
left visible.  
	For the first time since he’d laid eyes on her days before, he found himself feeling
extremely uncomfortable in her presence.  The fact that finding himself with her feminine
body pressed against him brought on a sudden and unexpected state of arousal, didn’t
make things any easier.  He was pressed so closely against her thigh that he was
certain there was no way she couldn’t have noticed.  If she truly were asleep, as he was
certain she wanted him to think she was, he could roll away from her and she might
never know the difference.  If she were awake, however, as he suspected she was,
ignoring the situation might be worse than addressing it.  Either way,  one thought was
first and foremost in his mind. 
	He had to get as far away from her as possible!  The reaction he was having to
her nearness was completely unacceptable.  He had no intention of getting physical with
this woman! She just wasn’t the type of girl he took to bed.  
	And what’s that supposed to mean, old man?  He scowled to himself as he
fielded the internal argument.  It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with her, he
reasoned. She just wasn’t that type.  What you really mean is she deserves better than
you, is that it? He challenged himself, and his frown deepened.   This wasn’t the time or
place to start self-analysing, he brooded.  He should just bite the bullet and get out of
danger.  There was nothing happening here that a good shower wouldn’t fix!
        His one saving grace was that he’d apparently fallen asleep fully dressed, he thought,
and with a swift, yet calculated movement, he rolled completely over to the other side of
the bed and sat up.  Seconds later he was in the bathroom, the door closed securely
between him and the woman in the bed, and the shower running.  When he stepped
back into the bedroom, everything would be just fine, he told himself.  And he might
have been able to convince himself of that if he hadn’t taken that one quick glance over
his shoulder just before closing the door, and caught a full view of her stretched out on
the bed, her long, slender, and bare legs looking just as smooth as her arms had
looked. 

	“Where are we anyway?” she asked, her voice calm, as she stood looking out
the window.  She’d been standing there when he’d finally stepped out of the bathroom,
and he was immediately relieved to find that she was fully dressed.  As usual, she wore
shades of brown, he noticed.   This time, however,  her shorts were slightly darker than
the day before, and she wore a loose fitting T-shirt on top.  She’d pulled her hair back
into it’s customary pony-tail, and once again donned her heavy rimmed glasses.  Things
were back to normal, Simon told himself with a heavy sigh, and he was just as happy
that they were.  If she didn’t mention the bed incident, there was no way he was going
to!
	“We’re somewhere south of Globe, Arizona, on highway seventy-seven,”  he
explained, turning his back to her to re-fill his pack, which he had picked up and set on
the bed.  The bed that she had made, he noticed, and cursed himself for glancing at the
spot where she had been sleeping when he’d wakened not long before.  “I figure we
probably have at least another hour to go before we get to Tucson.  If I hadn’t been so
tired last night we probably could have made it all in one run.”
	She was standing with her arms crossed in front of herself, and slowly turned to
face him.  There was obviously something on her mind, for her expression was
thoughtful.  “I see,” she said, although the tone of her voice seemed to tell him that she
didn’t see at all.  She paused, then at last she spoke again.  “Simon, why are we going
to Tucson?”
	He looked at her, as if he felt there was no need for the question.  “I told you last
night, didn’t I? That’s where Hector Shellington lives.”
	“No, Simon, I mean why are we going to Tucson?  Why did you bring me with
you?  Why didn’t you just drop me off somewhere?  The project is canceled, Jake and
the rest of the crew are who knows where by now.  My services are no longer needed,
so why am I here?”
	Simon stood looking at her for a few long minutes without saying a word.  The
fact was, he didn’t know what to say.  He’d been certain it wasn’t safe to leave her at the
camp with Jake Zimmerman, convinced the only thing he could do was turn back and
take her away from there. But once he’d hit the road he hadn’t given any thought to what
she would do next.  He’d just known that he was going to see Hector,   headed his SUV
towards the shortest road to Tucson, and driven. 
	“I'm sorry. McCoy,” he said finally.  “I guess I should have asked first.  I — “ 
Simon frowned.  He'd have to think fast in order to avoid looking like a fool, he thought.  
She wouldn't likely want to hear that the only reason was that he had preferred to ignore
her, and thus, had  focused only on his own need to get to Tucson.  That he’d chosen to
forget that she was with him at all, in fact, rather than think about where she might be
wanting to go.  His mind raced to find an excuse  that might not offend her.  “If things go
well with my meeting with Hector Shellington, I still might need an assistant  which would
gibve you a place to complete your Masters after all.”
	Logan looked at him with raised brow.  If she understood what he had just said,  
he was offering to let her work alongside him in a revised project.  The prospect almost
made her laugh, considering how he'd avoided her during the three days she'd been at
the camp with the group.  Of all the people he could probably find to help him upstart the
project again, why on earth would he choose her?  It was all quite amusing to her, and
she might actually have laughed, had it not been for one small thing he had said.
	“My Masters?” she questioned him.  “Simon, what makes you think I'm doing my
Masters?”
	“Well,”  Simon looked at her, his confusion evident on his face. “Aren't you?”
 	 “No!” she said, finally letting out a suppressed chuckle. 
	Simon shook his head. “But I thought — “  He sighed, then ran his hand through
his hair and looked around.  “Isn't that what the crew members were chosen for? The
project was running with the support of the three Universities and one of the stipulations
was that the crew  member were there to work on their Masters degrees in
environmental studies or some such thing.”
	As soon as Logan realized his misunderstanding she felt herself blush.  Maybe it
would have been better just to let him think she was a student.  It would seem much less
personal than the truth.  The truth  being, that she had always admired his work and for
years her dream had been to work alongside, and learn from, the man she considered
the best nature photographer in the world.  
	But she was a nobody in the industry, and the likelihood of her dream ever
coming true had always seemed distant.   She had studied photography at various
schools, and the work of Simon Crestwater had always been the measuring stick she'd
used to judge herself against.  A hobby she'd taken up in childhood had grown with
adulthood, and now she managed to make a meager living from it, but her part-time job
at a department store portrait studio wasn't  the kind of photography she longed to do. 
She would trade the temperamental children and their frazzled parents that were her
usual customers, for the birds and animals of the wilderness any day!
	The day she was given the chance to not only get away from the studio for a
while, but also to work alongside Simon, had been a dream come true.  Who would have
thought that the offer would have come through a co-worker at the store!   The three
Arizona Universities, working together on a project to photograph the natural wildlife of
the Colorado Plateau, had somehow managed to entice Simon Crestwater to work on
their project.  One of the professors at Arizona State University in Tempe had a student
doing his Masters degree with the project.  That student had been injured and had to
withdraw.  The group needed a replacement, and there wasn't another student available. 
The next best thing was to look for a volunteer.
	Logan's benefactor had been the professor's daughter, working at the store  for
the summer.  Having seen some of Logan's personal photographs, and knowing of her
dream of working with Simon, the girl had suggested Logan to her father as a possible
replacement.  The next day she had apologized profusely to Logan for volunteering her
without checking with her first, but Logan had been so excited she could hardly work. 
When she had actually received the call she had agreed without even needing time to
think about it. 
	But how could she tell Simon that she had been with the project because she
had idolized his work?   He'll think I'm no better than a groupie, she thought, in horror.  A
girl who'd do anything just to work beside him. No, she would have accepted the offer
just for the chance of working on the project itself.  Adding Simon Crestwater to the
equation had just been a bonus,
	And not a very fruitful one either, she reminded herself, thinking about how he'd
kept his distance from her as much as possible. The situation had hardly contributed to
her learning anything from him, but she'd been happy to be there nonetheless, taking
her own photographs whenever she could, and enjoying the wilderness.
	“I'm just a volunteer they recruited when they lost that student last week,” she
said, hoping the rest of the details wouldn't need to surface.
	“A volunteer?”  He looked at her in amazement.  “With no credentials?”
	“I'm a photographer,” she mumbled, chewing on her lip and avoiding looking at
him.  This time Simon raised one brow and looked a little more interested.
	“A photographer?  What kind of photography do you do?”
	She sighed.  “I take pictures of screaming children,” she said, her disappointment
showing in her voice as she dropped into a nearby chair. She lifted her eyes to look at
him, anticipating some sort of reaction, maybe even laughter, but he still stood there
looking at her in disbelief.  “I know, it's not a very glamourous job, but it's all I could get. 
It's not where my heart is.  I want to shoot prairie flowers that have just opened their
petals to the morning sun; dew drops about to fall from the tips of sycamore leaves; or
eagles soaring over the mountains.  Nature is where my heart is, but I have to make a
living, so I struggle to entertain crying babies and disgruntled toddlers long enough to
snap their portraits and make their parents happy.”
	“And do you always succeed in making them happy?” he asked.
	“Yes,” she nodded, tilting her chin an a sense of pride despite herself, although
she had no idea why that mattered.  
	Simon let go of his pack and sat on the edge of the bed.  “Do you have any
samples of your work with you?”
	Logan's eyes widened. “Pictures of the kids?” 
	One side of his mouth curled upwards in a wry grin.  “No. Pictures of nature. Do
you have any samples?”
	“Oh,” she said meekly. “No, I don't. Only what's on my camera now, what I took
the last few days while I was with the project.”
	Simon looked thoughtful, then stood up and picked up his pack and headed
towards the door.  “Let's go, we've still got miles of road between us and Tucson.  I’m
sure there will be a one hour photo shop somewhere.”  Then he walked out of the room,
leaving Logan to grab her things and scramble after him.

	Logan sat silently watching, chewing on her lip and gripping the edge of the
passenger seat in Simon’s rented SUV.  The drive to Tucson had been long and
awkward.  Simon had said next to nothing, and the few attempts Logan had made at
conversation had been met with single word responses that clearly indicated he didn’t
want to talk.  They had found a photo shop, and had lunch while they waited for the
pictures to be ready.  Once again, the time had been passed in awkward conversation
and pregnant silence.  Simon Crestwater was a man of very few words, Logan was
beginning to realize.  Perhaps it was because of all the time he spent alone in the
wilderness on photo shoots, she wondered.  At least, she hoped that was the case,
because if this wasn’t the way he treated everybody, then she was the cause for it,
which would just make her feel more awkward than she already did.
	His silence was even more nerve wracking now, as Logan watched him flipping
slowly through her photos.  He looked at them, one at a time, as if he were studying
every nuance of them.   Every shade, every shadow, every ray of light would register
with him, she was certain, and suddenly she felt as though she herself were under the
microscope.  And still he said nothing. 
        Another photo was flipped to the back, and a new one scruitinized.  His face held
no hint of expression, his large hands were steady — unlike her own — and Logan felt
like she were ready to burst.  Through all the years she had dreamed of working with,
and learning from him, nothing had prepared her for this moment.  Maybe it was
because she never actually thought the day would come when Simon Crestwater would
evaluate her work.  Maybe it was because of the way they had been thrown together
and his obvious indifference towards her since they had met.  Whatever it was that was
making her so nervous was made that much worse by the fact that he was sitting there
looking so calm.
	“Amazing.”
	The sound of his voice made her jump.  Quickly she looked at him, and he still
sat there staring at her pictures as if he hadn’t even spoken.  She began to wonder if he
had spoken, then he slowly slid the picture to the back and spoke again.  
	“You’ve caught the light in this one perfectly.  Just the right amount of shadow to
give this shot a mysterious feel.  And this one,”  he brought another photo to the front.
“You’ve used the sun very effectively here.”  He started flipping through the photos
quicker now, as he had returned to the beginning and was taking a second look.  Every
now and then he would pause, comment on a feature of one of the photos, then move
through them again.  By the time he was finished he must have looked at each one
several times, she thought. She had said nothing throughout his monologue, and now
she took a deep, trembling breath, and spoke.
	“So, are you saying they’re pretty good?”
	Simon turned a surprised look in her direction. “Pretty good?  McCoy, these are
damn good!”
	“They are?”  she asked, her voice a mixture of surprise and relief.
	He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe her uncertainty, and then his face
changed, and it was as if he were seeing her for the very first time.  “McCoy, hasn’t
anyone ever told you how good you are before?”  She shook her head, and he cursed
under his breath and looked back at the photographs in his hand.  “Where did you
study?”
	She shrugged.  “My parents didn’t consider photography a real profession, so I
was  forced to study something ‘useful’ in college.  They humoured me, and suggested
that there were many professions — real professions as they called them — where my
interests might be related, and so I enrolled in Advertising at Colorado State University in
Fort Collins.  While I was there I took a few correspondence and internet courses in
photography.  Then after two years of hating Advertising I found the Art Institute in
Denver and switched to the Photography program there.  My parents were upset, but I
was twenty years old, so there wasn’t much they could do about it.  I took two years,
getting as much out of it as I wanted, but I couldn’t afford to finish the program and it was
headed in a direction that didn't interest me anyway.  I didn’t want to do studio, or
journalistic photography. I wanted to do — well — what you do.  It’s ironic, that I left AI
because I didn’t want to end up in a studio environment, and that’s exactly where I’ve
ended up.  In the portrait studio in, of all places, a department store!”
	She looked at him shyly, and for a long time he said nothing.  When he finally
spoke, she wasn’t certain if he was actually speaking to her, or to himself.  “I did a
seminar at the Art Institute in Seattle about three years ago.”
	“I know,” she said, nodding, and instantly wished she hadn’t said a thing.
	“You know?”
	She sighed.  “I was supposed to attend.  I was looking forward to it more than
anything, but my sister was in an accident just before that.  I canceled my trip and went
home to be with my parents for the three weeks she was in critical condition.”
	“You were going to travel from Denver all the way to Seattle just to attend my
seminar?”  He seemed amazed, and she would have laughed had she not felt so
nervous.
	“I would have,” she agreed, nodding.  He looked down at her photographs once
again, shaking his head. 
	“You know, these are remarkable pictures.  They remind me of my own style.”
	For this, she did laugh, and he shot her a questioning glance. “They should,” she
said. “Your work has been my biggest influence, right from the beginning.”
	“My work?”  He raised an eyebrow at her. “From the beginning?”
	She blushed, and glanced at the photographs he held in his hand.  “As a kid I
always had a camera, was always taking pictures.  I had tons of pictures of my cat and
my mother's rose garden.  One day I saw a ladybug on a flower petal and I wanted to
take a picture of it.  When I got the picture back it was just a blurry blob, I'd been way to
close to it for my cheap little camera to focus.  I was disappointed, but I figured oh well, it
can't be done. Then one day I saw a picture of yours.  It was a spider on its web with
dew drops on the threads. It was so clear!  That's when I knew I wanted to take pictures,
and the more of your work I saw, the more I wanted to take pictures just like you took
them.”
	“You were looking at my photographs when you were a kid? My God, how young
are you, McCoy?” 
	She laughed at the shocked expression on his face.  “No, silly!  I saw that spider
web photo when I was fifteen.  That makes it ten years ago. You do the math. I've
admired your work ever since.” 
	To her surprise, he frowned.  “I'm not idol material, McCoy, especially for a
teenage girl. You'd have been better off choosing someone else to admire.”  His voice
seemed so distant and she was surprised by his comment.
	“Nonsense!” she insisted. “You're work is the best.”
	He sighed, and stared at the photographs.  For a moment she thought he was
going to say something more, but then he turned and stared out the window.  Finally he
handed her the photos.  “So what brought you down to Arizona from Denver?”  He said,
a false cheeriness in his voice.
	He was changing the subject, and Logan wondered what it was that he didn't
want to talk about.  He'd made reference once to having left someone in harms way. 
Was his strange comment now somehow connected to that?  She'd never know, she
supposed, because one of the few things she'd learned about Simon Crestwater in the
time since she'd arrived at camp, was that when he dropped a subject, it stayed
dropped.
	But he had asked a question of her that she wasn't sure she wanted to answer. 
It wasn't like she was ashamed of the last few years of her life, it was just a little
embarrassing that she had let herself fall for a fantasy.  Nonetheless, she found herself
talking about it as she stared out the side window.
	“Not long after I left the Art Institute, I got a part time job taking pictures for a
newspaper.  I worked in the sports department, and I met this guy.  He was a hockey
player, playing for the Colorado Avalanche at the time.  We started dating, and three
months later he was traded to Phoenix.  Shortly after that my job at the paper ended and
he suggested I move down to Phoenix. I had nothing keeping me in Denver, so I did.  To
make a long story short, by the end of the regular season he was traded again, this time
to Nashville, and this time I didn't follow him there, and he didn't ask me to.”
	“I'm sorry,”  he said, glancing towards her. 
	She shrugged.  “Don't be.  We had nothing in common.  It just wasn't meant to
be. I wasn’t in love with him.  I might have thought I was at first, but — “ 
She shook her head.  There was no use getting into details with Simon over this. 
He didn’t need to know that Craig had been high on celebrity, even though he was never
a front runner on any of the teams he had played on, and never would be.  He liked to
bask in the shadows of the stars he shared the locker room with, and he liked the fame
that just saying he played for the Avalanche, or the Coyotes, or the Predetors gave him. 
What he hadn’t picked up on though, was that those vetran players whose names he
liked to drop everywhere he went, had loving wives and families back home and were
faithful to them.  
	Logan had realized a little too late that he hadn’t shared those views.  Although
Craig had been the one to suggest that she move down to Phoenix after he’d been
playing there for a month, he’d never once asked her to go to a road game with him, and
at times he’d even discouraged it.  When she had taken it upon herself to drive to
Anaheim to surprise him for a Saturday night game, she’d found out why.  
	Her seat had been high in the stands, and since he hadn't known she was
coming, she’d waited until after the game to find him.  The place had been packed. 
Phoenix was only five and a half hours from Anaheim, a reasonable driving distance
where sports fans were concerned, and fans from both sides filled the arena.  It had
taken her a long time to get down to the lobby after the game, but she hadn’t worried
about missing him.  She knew it took a while for the players to shower and change,
she’d waited for him after home games before.  But this time was a surprise, and she’d
been excited about her plan while she’d waited there for him.  The first person she’d
seen that she knew was one of his team mates.  The player looked positively shocked to
see her, and had frantically tried to persuade her that she didn’t want to be there and
that she should leave.
She’d been confused, until the guy had pulled her around a corner and her
complaint had frozen in her throat as she had watched Craig walk past without seeing
them.  He wasn’t alone.   His arms were draped all over a young redhead he was
lip-locked with, and Logan was surprised they could even see where they were going. 
The other player had looked at her with a sympathetic look in his eyes and appologized
profusely that she had been there to witness it.  After that it hadn’t taken much to get the
guy to admit that this wasn’t unusual practice for Craig.  There was usually a different girl
each road trip.  Since the team was heading to Los Angeles the next day for a game
against the Kings, they’d be staying over in Anaheim that night, and no doubt the
redhead would spend the night in Craig’s room.
After swearing her confessor to secrecy, she had driven half way home, then
found herself a roadside motel and spent the night alone in the middle of nowhere.  The
next day she woke up convinced that there was no future for her with Craig, and had
been surprised at how little the realization actually hurt.  She was insulted by the way he
had treated her, and hurt by his dishonesty, but she wasn’t heartbroken at losing him. 
That was when she had realized that she didn’t love him.  It had taken her seven months
and a humiliating experience to figure it out, however, and Simon Crestwater was the
last person who needed to know that.
“But that was a couple of years ago, and I've put it behind me,” she said, trying to
smile brightly.  “I've been working my job at the department store, snapping pics of
fidgety kids ever since. “
	“Until now,” Simon said.