Hidden Agenda

“I get a tax deduction for lettin’ ’em do that, you know,” Mr. Whatley put in.

“The owls are crucial to our woodland ecosystem,” the ranger continued. “They eat—”

Conner put his hand up to stop her impassioned speech. “You don’t have to convince me. We’ve done something wrong here. I want to fix it. I want to make things right. Obviously, Mr. Whatley here will have to be compensated for the excess timber taken from his land. As for the owls—will you show me the nest site?”

Conner retrieved a backpack from the Jeep. Then he, the forest ranger and Jillian began hiking.

“How many acres have been screwed up?” he asked the ranger.

“Between seventeen and twenty.” She seemed calmer, now that it appeared Conner wanted to make things right.

He breathed out a sigh. “At least it wasn’t the whole seventy-five.”

Jillian didn’t want to be impressed with the way Conner handled things. She wanted to continue hating him—it was so much easier. But how many men would so easily admit responsibility for a mistake and pledge to make things right, all without anyone making demands or threats?

She well remembered how the suits at Logan Oil, of which Daniel was chairman of the board, consulted teams of lawyers if there was any hint that they might have made a misstep, searching for all possible legal remedies and never admitting to anything until a full investigation had been conducted.

But just like that, Conner had owned the problem.

The hiking wasn’t as difficult as Jillian had feared; her two-hundred-dollar boots might have been overkill. But it was warm, given that most of the shade had been cut down, and she was glad she’d bathed in sunscreen and worn a hat and sunglasses.

Not the “special” sunglasses Celeste had provided. Those were bulky and unattractive. But Jillian kept them in her purse, just in case.

Conner had a hat, too, a battered, Indiana Jones–style thing. It made him look quite rakish.

Finally they came upon a huge tree lying on its side. It wasn’t pine, like most of the other trees around here, which Conner had said were planted maybe thirty years ago for the express purpose of timber harvesting.

This was something left from an older, slower-growing tree that had probably been here more than a hundred years.

It was dead, that much was clear. Dead, hollow…and marked with blue paint.

“Why the hell would Greg mark this tree?” Conner wondered aloud. “It’s no good as lumber.”

Poking around a bit more, Conner discovered the owl nest in a hole. A few whitish feathers drifted out on the breeze.

“The female was using that hole as her roost,” the ranger said.

Conner took his backpack off and rummaged around in it, producing a pair of binoculars, which he uncapped and used to scan the few trees that remained close by. No one said a word, so Jillian took a few pictures. Her camera lens was naturally drawn to Conner, whose straight back and wide shoulders pivoted this way and that as he searched, presumably for the displaced owl. She’d taken several shots before she realized what she was doing and made herself stop.

What was she going to do next, blow up prints and put them on her bedroom wall? This was Conner Blake, whom she would cheerfully have used for target practice if he ever showed up on the shooting range. Just because he was devastatingly handsome was no reason to stop hating him. After all, he’d been handsome when she’d started hating him.

“There,” Conner finally said. “She’s in that tree right there, third branch from the top on the left.”

The ranger had her own pair of binoculars. “I’ll be damned, she sure is. How did you spot her? She’s camouflaged perfectly with the tree trunk.”

“She cracked one eye open just at the right time,” Conner replied. “She’s watching us.”

Jillian squinted at the tree, but she couldn’t see anything. “May I borrow your binoculars?” she asked, surprising herself by how much she wanted to see the barn owl.

“Sure.” Conner lifted the strap from around his neck and looped it around hers. His fingers brushed her neck, and she gave a delicate shiver.

“You see the tree I mean?” he asked, standing close to her and leaning his head right next to hers. He pointed.

“I think so.”

“On the left side, count three branches from the top.” His voice was soft, intimate. “A ball of light tan fluff right next to the trunk. She’s probably hiding her face under her wing.”

“I don’t… Omigosh, I see it!” The bird turned its head and opened its eyes, as if it detected Jillian watching it. The round, black eyes shined from a white, heart-shaped face. “She’s cute.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw her swallow a whole mouse,” Conner said. “Or tear one apart to feed her babies.”

“You really didn’t have to tell me that.” She handed him back the binoculars.

“You can’t just put up a nest box and call it good,” the ranger said. “Owls are fussy. Although barn owls are more tolerant of humans than most owls, it’s very likely she’ll go someplace else next year.”

Conner seemed not to be listening. He was inspecting the stump, the fallen tree and the surrounding area. At one point he leaned over, and a silver medal of some type, suspended around his neck on a chain, fell out from under his shirt.

When he straightened the chain caught on a branch and the chain broke. The medal landed in the dirt.

“Aw, hell.” Impatiently he scooped up the medal and chain and handed them to Jillian. “Can you put that in one of your hundred pockets, please?”

He was making fun of her hiking pants. Well, he could think what he liked—the pants were practical.

The medal was a Saint Christopher. She gave it a brief look before tucking it away. Conner hadn’t grown up Catholic. She wondered why he would have such an object.

“We’ll put the tree back up,” he announced suddenly.

“Beg your pardon?” the ranger said.

“Yeah, it can be done. Get a forklift out here, maybe a winch and a truck and some strong guys. We’ll drill holes and sink some dowels into the stump, maybe erect some braces—yeah, it’ll work.”

“That sounds like an expensive project,” Jillian said.

Conner shrugged. “Gotta give Mrs. Owl back her house. And we’ll reimburse the university for the equipment that was destroyed, of course.”

“Really?” The ranger took off her hat, scratched her head, as if she’d never encountered someone so agreeable.

They hiked back to the road, where Conner informed the landowner that no more timber would be harvested until Conner himself had re-marked the trees to be taken—doing it right, this time. “We’ll start in the area that’s farthest from the owl nest, and we’ll make sure not to disturb that area any more than necessary. And, like I said before, we’ll compensate you for the extra trees taken above and beyond what was contracted.” He took out his phone, punched a few keys, then showed the screen to Mr. Whatley. “Would that amount be acceptable to you?”

Mr. Whatley tipped his hat back. “I expect so.”

“You should have a check in your hands no later than next Friday.”

“What about me?” the lumberjack said. “Me and my crew gonna sit around on our thumbs till the trees are re-marked?”

“You’ll be back to work by Monday, and you’ll be paid for the downtime.”

Everyone nodded, and then they just stood there. They’d come fired up to do battle with Conner, yet that hadn’t proved necessary. It was like a pall of anticlimax had fallen on the group.

Conner rubbed his hands together. “If that’s everything, then, I’ve got work to do. I’ll use red paint to mark the trees.” He addressed the lumberjack. “Tell your team to ignore blue paint, cut red paint.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Blake.” He and his men piled into an SUV, so covered in dust it was hard to tell the color, and bounced away.

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