Ursa Major by Mary Winter

squirm in his seat. He had his mission, and as far as he was concerned he’d done it. Show Sarah the wild side of Alaska . She’d come face-to-face with a grizzly bear. Doesn’t get much wilder than that.
    “So you took her out, she ran into a bear, and now you’re ready to give up? That doesn’t sound like you, Liam. What’s going on out there?”
    Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nothing is going on.” A burst of feminine laughter sounded outside his den, followed by his brother’s deeper tones. He suppressed a sigh. He thought he’d told Cameron to stay away from her. The urge to slam down the phone and give his brother an ass kicking surged through him. He bolted to his feet and took two steps. Oh hell.
    “Doesn’t sound like nothing. We want her to be certain she writes the report in our favor. Showing her a night in a tent isn’t going to do it, Liam. Now I don’t know if you hate this woman or want to fuck her. Either way, get over it with. I’d like her to see some drilling. Have her witness first-hand exactly what the oil rigs are doing to our landscape. Then take her out again. I want her so much in love with this place that she doesn’t even want to return to Washington . I want her to fight for it like a mother bear protecting her cubs. Do you understand?”
    Suitably chastised, Liam nodded. “Yeah.” He brought up his maps on the computer to determine the closest drilling site to the lodge.
    “Good. Whatever is happening there, I want you to put it behind you. The Quintursa have given you a mission. Make this woman see that she cannot even hint that it would be okay to expand drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has to believe in it enough to fight like hell against those who want to drill up here. She has to believe it enough to risk losing her job.”
    “What?” Liam rested his hip against the desk. “But her firm sent her here.”
    “I don’t think their goals and ours are the same, Liam. We have reason to believe that her mission wasn’t supposed to be quite as unbiased as she’s been lead to believe. As soon as we have more information I’ll let you know, but do not, under any circumstances, tell her this. She’s going to have to find out what kind of shark-infested waters she’s swimming in on her own.”
    At the seriousness in the Quintursa agent’s voice, Liam sank into his chair. “Shouldn’t we tell her? She has to guess something isn’t right.”
    “Negative. She is not to know anything from us. Look, Liam, I know this is difficult. But the truth is, according to her you’re just a self-employed Ecotourist Guide. If you start telling her these things she’s going to wonder where you received the information from. She’s not stupid. She’ll figure out your secret if you start feeding her things you shouldn’t know.”
    “You have a point,” Liam admitted.
    “Of course I do. Now you know what to do. Show her the drilling and take her back out into the woods. I don’t care if she sees a hundred bears, so long as she doesn’t figure out our secret, the Quintursa doesn’t care. She has to write her report in our favor.”
    Liam finished up the call. The Quintursa didn’t care. In his mind, that was the problem, not the solution. A bunch of stodgy old men who thought they knew what was best for everyone. He snorted and put down the phone, only to pick it up again. If they wanted him to show Sarah drilling, then that’s exactly what he’d do.
     
    It took a little under twenty-four hours to make the arrangements and hire the plane to fly them out to the drilling site. In order to give her a good overview of the drilling, Liam decided to take her well away from the lodge. That way she could watch the landscape change as they moved closer to the drilling sites. And now, sitting beside her in the plane, he knew he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
    Sarah was an adventurer like him. She sat in the seat, face pressed against the window,