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.