Made Marian, Volume One by Lucy Lennox
Teddy
Ahh, shit. Way to go, Teddy. You have a gorgeous and willing man bathing in the afterglow of mind-altering sex and you pick that moment to open up your fucking mouth?
I wondered what I should have done in that situation. I shouldn’t have egged him on, clearly. But I’d honestly thought I was trying to help him. He seemed to be feeling so sorry for himself, and I wanted him to get angry instead.
And now I’d gone and fucked it up. If he thought he was pissed now, wait until tomorrow when he learned I wasn’t planning on leaving. I came here to photograph him and I was damned well not leaving until I did.
After visiting the bathroom, I took my bag and my sorry ass up to the loft. The bed was comfortable but the night was long. Visions of an angry Jamie kept me tossing and turning. At some point I must have drifted into a deeper sleep because I awoke to the sound of gravel crunching under Jamie’s tires as he drove off.
I got up and stumbled down to the kitchen. There was coffee in a pot so I found a mug and fixed a cup. Sister wandered over to me and nosed my hip for attention. I stroked her silky ears and enjoyed the warmth of her body leaning against my leg.
When I pulled the Tahoe up to the ranger station, I mentally prepared myself for the standoff. I walked in and found the ranger in charge whose name was Charlie. I had spoken to him at length the day before.
He smiled warmly at me and reached out a hand to shake. “You ready to get started? I think Jamie’s out back, so you can head on out and find him.”
I thanked him before asking if he’d said anything to Jamie about our conversation from the day before. He replied with a chuckle, “No, I figured I’d let you be the lucky one to tell him.”
I headed back outside and around to the grass behind the building. I saw his boots sticking out from behind a big pile of stacked wood. His soft voice spoke to someone with tenderness and concern. While I didn’t want to intrude, I was curious to see who he would be having a heart-to-heart with behind a woodpile.
As I slowly approached on the quiet grass, his words became clearer. I heard him sigh and say, “Mmm, Martin, you’re so freaking adorable. Do I get one of your massages again today? Come here, baby. Mmm, that feels good. Okay, okay, I promise I won’t touch you. You can touch my thigh just there, and I’ll keep still.”
What. The. Fuck. So much for giving up on men.
Before I had another thought, I found myself crashing around the edge of the woodpile to interrupt his make-out session with some asshole. He screamed and I noticed a small brown creature shoot off into the woods behind him. Nobody was with him. Had he been making out with… an animal? That didn’t make any sense.
I snapped at him. “Just what does it mean to be an ‘animal whisperer’?”
“Teddy? What the hell are you doing here?” he shot blue daggers at me. “You scared off that poor little marten. Do you have any idea how long it will be before he trusts me again? Just as I suspected, you are a bumbling ass.”
He got up, brushed off his pants, and started walking back toward the ranger station. Even in his anger, he moved with careful, quiet steps.
I tried to placate him. “Look, I’m sorry. You’re right, I made a stupid assumption. I promise to be more careful next time.”
He hissed, “Next time? Think again, Teddy Bear. There is no next time. What are you even doing here? You promised me you were leaving.”
“No, sweetheart. I didn’t say I was leaving. You said I was leaving. I promised to be on my best behavior last night and refrain from discussing your unmentionables.”
He turned around with icy eyes glaring. “Don’t call me that. Stay here all you want, but leave me the hell alone. I have work to do.”
What I had to say to him next was going to really piss him off. “Jamie, I’ve already arranged everything with Charlie. I’m shadowing you today whether you like it or not.”
If looks could kill, I would be in a thousand bloody pieces right there on the grass. He huffed angrily before rushing through the door and slamming it in my face.
I took a deep breath and entered. He wasn’t in the front reception room so I decided to take a seat and give him some time to cool off. I found a magazine on a table and began to idly flip through it.
After a few minutes I heard raised voices coming from somewhere in the back. The volume of the exchange increased as the voices approached the reception area and I saw Jamie and Charlie arguing. Here we go.
Jamie came to a stop when he saw me sitting there. Then he snapped two words at me before skirting past me to the door. “Let’s go.”
I followed him out to his truck, making a quick detour to my rental to grab my backpack before joining him in the truck. He wouldn’t look at me as he turned over the ignition and backed out of the lot. Tension was coming off of him in waves, and I started to feel a little bit sorry for manipulating him.
After driving for forty-five minutes, he finally spoke. “How dare you go behind my back to the head ranger? How dare you arrange to shadow me and not even mention it while you took advantage of my hospitality last night? You are such an arrogant prick that I can’t even understand how your big fat head fits into this truck. I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”
I looked over at him. “You don’t seem to be having a hard time finding some words.”
“Fuck you, Teddy.” He stared out of the windshield and fumed some more.
We drove along in silence. After a while he pulled onto a smaller road and switchbacks took us up in altitude. I was grateful I didn’t usually get carsick.
When I sensed the homicidal urges had softened to a simmering rage, I tried to apologize. “I’m sorry for blindsiding you. Can we talk about why this upsets you so much?”
Jamie scoffed. “The problem is that what I do is dangerous. So whenever someone publishes a photograph of me interacting with animals, it gives people a false sense of security. They think the animals aren’t as dangerous as they thought because there’s Dr. Marian touching one.
“A photo came out a couple of years ago showing me cradling a grizzly bear cub. A tourist had lucked into the shot while on vacation in Yellowstone. The guy was able to sell it for big bucks to the media. When it was published, it was insanely popular because it was so rare.
“Only a month after the photo was published and widely distributed, a child tried approaching a bear cub at a campground in Yosemite. The mama bear attacked.”
“Oh god,” I said. “Did the kid…? Was the kid…?”
Jamie sighed. “The boy survived, but he will always have an enormous scar on his face and shoulder. It should have never happened.”
“But surely everyone knows that even when a wildlife vet is interacting with animals, it’s because they’ve had extensive training?” I asked.
“Not if they see photos of it in the mainstream media. Maybe it would be different if this had been published in a scientific magazine. But it was all over the media as a ‘cute’ moment. Not the medical rescue it actually was,” Jamie explained.
“Now I understand, Jamie. I’m sorry. That must have been awful for you.” I could see the pain on his face as he remembered it.
“Not as awful as it was for that young boy,” he said. “Now do you understand my fear of enabling you to take shots of me with the wildlife?”
“I can definitely understand your fear. But I think there could be a way to honor the job you do while also making sure the public is informed about the risk involved.”
We drove along in silence for a while longer listening to a country music station playing softly in the background of Jamie’s truck.
When I sensed he might have progressed from rage to acceptance, I asked, “Where are we going?”
“There’s a herd of Dall sheep up here. I’m observing a band of rams before and after the rut next month.” He slowed down as we reached a closed gate across the gravel road. “Be prepared for major boredom, Teddy. What I do is a waiting game. Lots of sitting around being quiet while the animals get comfortable with me. After today, you’re going to be begging for directions back to the airport.” He rattled off a four-digit code and told me to open the gate for him.
I almost, almost, told him that waiting quietly for animals in the wild was part of my job and I was somewhat good at what I did. I decided not to burst his cocky bubble.
After we drove another twenty minutes he pulled the truck to a stop and turned it off. When I stepped out of the cab I was hit with a profound sense of gratitude for the warmer gear I had grabbed at the airport. It was still cold, but I knew it would have been much worse if I didn’t at least have the coat.
I grabbed my camera bag out of my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. He grabbed his own backpack from behind the driver’s seat and clipped a can of bear spray on the back of his waistband.
“How effective is that bear spray?” I asked him. “Please tell me you’re packing heat or something too.”
“I do have a handgun in my backpack, but it’s more for putting an injured animal out of its misery. I’ve never even needed the bear spray, but you never know.” He started off toward a thin, barely noticeable trail.
When I followed, I realized we were so high up in the mountains that we were at the edge of the tree line. After we exited the last scraggly trees, I looked out in the distance. The views were amazing and clumps of snow lay on the ground in patches. The trail was hard-packed dirt with loose rock scree and boulders poking up here and there.
He walked along in front of me with his usual quiet grace, and I realized this stealthy way of moving must be part of why animals weren’t very afraid of him. Jamie Marian was a study in contrasts. He was snarky and feisty but he also moved with a soft fluidity that begged to be admired. He was probably four or five inches shorter than I was but had a rugged, outdoorsy quality to his looks—sun-golden skin, laugh lines beside his eyes, and hair windblown and messy. The man was fucking stellar to look at.
The air was thin so I was grateful he wasn’t hiking fast. He seemed content to wander and take in his surroundings rather than hurry to a destination.
After hiking along a ridgeline for a long time, I saw him slow to a stop and slowly lift an arm to point. There, about a hundred feet away, was a big majestic Dall ram perched on a rock at the edge of a drop-off. His thick horns rounded in exquisite curlicues and his cream-colored coat glowed in the sun. He watched us over his shoulder. I tried to stay as still and quiet as possible, following Jamie’s lead.
My fingers itched for my camera, but it was still packed away in my bag. I was trying to go easy with Jamie and not anger him more than I already had. It was unlike me to be outside like this without my finger on the shutter release.
After a moment, the ram went back to eating something off the rock, moss or lichen maybe. Finally, Jamie moved off in his steady quiet way. I followed.
Eventually we came to a grouping of boulders that offered a good place to sit and observe sweeping vistas of the flat rocky areas surrounding us. I noticed he took off his coat and turned it inside out before bundling it in a ball on a rock behind him. I quirked a brow at him and he whispered, “Bright colors scare animals.” As a wildlife photographer, I knew that already, which was why I had bought a brown one. I was curious about why he owned a bright red coat in the first place when he worked with animals in the wild.
He sat and removed his binoculars and a notebook as I began preparing my gear. He looked over at me with resignation at the sight of my camera, and I gave him a shrug of apology. Clouds slid across the sun, moving the levels of light around us.
Once I had my rigs set up with the lenses and filters I wanted, I put one around my neck while carrying the other. I climbed over the rocks until I found the spot I wanted. After taking some general test shots, I settled onto my stomach on a rock and focused toward Jamie.
When he turned around to see where I was, I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the inventor of the silent shutter. I could take snaps without him knowing or without scaring off animals. I took several shots of him sitting in the September sun on the top of that mountain.
He was a natural beauty and the light coming through the clouds loved him. There were moments in my job where I was overcome with grateful disbelief that I was the one getting to witness something amazing. Just watching that man sit on a rock and glare at me was one of those moments. Light blazed golden lines through his hair and created shadows along his cheekbones and jawline. The breeze blew strands of hair across his eyes and he reached up to push them off. I captured it all.
He turned back around to face away from me and sat back with his hands on the rock behind him. I focused on his hands; long, tapered fingers bent on the rough unforgiving rock.
We must have sat like that for over an hour. I wasn’t used to prolonged silence when in the company of a gorgeous man, but I found I didn’t mind it when I was with Jamie. Even though I knew he was annoyed with me, I felt comfortable in his presence.
My wandering mind snapped back to the present when I saw him straighten up a little. I followed his gaze to the left and saw the group of rams. There were six of them wandering toward us slowly. I froze and tried to remain as still as a corpse.
I noticed Jamie’s posture relax as he waited. My fingers went to work, switching dials and selecting settings while I snapped different shots. Group shots, focused shots on some of the males, zoom shots on horns and faces. Mature Dall sheep were intimidating. They strode forward slowly like they owned the place. Which they did.
Jamie’s bravery astounded me. He stayed relaxed on the rock as if his doddering old uncles were coming in for a hug and a handshake. Two of the rams moved to within ten feet of him, peering at his face to assess the risks. Did the guy have fucking sheep treats in his pockets? I couldn’t understand why these big animals would get so close.
I wanted to move to get a better angle, but I was afraid to scare them off. My toes pushed into the rock to see if I could just shift a bit for the better shot. I lifted my hips and scooted them several inches to the right. Once my hips were back down on the rock I carefully reached out one of the elbows I was leaning on to move several inches to the right too. My movements felt as slow as evolution, but I managed to frame a better shot that had both Jamie and the two sheep in it.
We waited some more while one of the sheep near Jamie leaned down to snack on something and three of the remaining slowpokes came forward. One came up to stand about three feet from Jamie’s boots and I felt my heart speed up. It sniffed at his knee. The enormous horns looked as big as hula hoops next to Jamie’s smaller form.
He slowly brought his hand up to offer the back of it for a sniff. The ram smelled it and looked back at a noise behind him. Jamie’s hand continued up to gently land two fingers on a horn. My camera earned its keep as I held my breath and snapped the shutter release as fast as I could.
The ram didn’t mind or didn’t notice his touch, and Jamie stretched out the rest of his fingers on the ringed surface. Jamie’s head tilted while he stared at the horns, stroking across the bumps of the rings. When the sheep’s face turned back toward him, Jamie’s hand slid gently off and fell back to his lap.
I heard a hum come from his direction and strained my ears to identify it. The hum changed to murmurs until I could hear soft words of reassurance come out of his mouth. He was talking to the ram.
“Are you the man in charge?” I heard him whisper to huge animal. “Congratulations on avoiding the hunt this year, big guy. You’re going to make some lucky ewe a proud mom soon. Don’t be too hard on your friends there, because there are plenty of pretty girls to go around. Those horns look dangerous, so be gentle when you decide to start butting heads with your band. No need to be an ass about it. Everyone knows you’re a stud.”
The sheep looked over his shoulder again, almost as if to say, “See, guys, I told you I’m the man.” Jamie put his hand up again, stroking the white fur over the ram’s shoulder blade this time. The animal’s coat twitched under Jamie’s hand. The other rams started wandering away, looking for more plants to scavenge from the spaces between rocks. The main ram turned back toward Jamie, brushing his nose against Jamie’s outstretched arm before turning around and following his buddies.
I let out a breath. That was amazing.
