The scent trails were all old today, too old to track the strange leopard down, so eventually Joel gave up and went to work.
Being a ranger at Glacier was Joel’s dream job. Some mornings he woke up and couldn’t believe it was real. Spending his workday outside in the mountains, helping people stay safe and respect the environment, being prepared to handle emergencies and rescues...it was all he could have wanted for his life. And Glacier itself was the ideal environment for a snow leopard.
Which was probably why there were so many of them around.
He met Grey, his usual partner, at the rangers’ headquarters, and Grey jerked his head toward Cal’s office. “Boss wants to speak to you.”
Joel looked at Grey, looked at the office door, looked back. “Any idea what for?”
Grey shrugged. He was a man of few words, which Joel usually appreciated, but it meant that getting information out of him was tough.
So, fine. He’d find out when he went in. Joel squared his shoulders and went to meet the boss.
Cal was an intimidating man, not because he was threatening, cold, or a bully, but because he was so confident and self-assured. He never put a word wrong, never seemed to be concerned about screwing up, never got upset or angry when things didn’t go well. He always gave the impression that no matter what happened, he had a plan and he was prepared to handle it.
Joel, who’d handled things pretty spectacularly badly more than once in his life, found Cal’s endless calm a little unnerving.
He tapped on Cal’s office door, and at the gruff, “Come on in,” stepped inside.
“You wanted to see me?”
“That’s right. Take a seat.” Cal waved a casual hand at the chairs set up opposite his desk. He was reading through some papers, but when Joel sat, he set them aside and looked up. “So. You’ve been here six months now.”
Six months. Maybe this was just a standard job-related check-in. Joel relaxed a little. “That’s right.”
“You’ve got a handle on the territory and the tourists, you’re having no trouble keeping up with the work. You show up on time, you do your job, you’ve never caused any trouble.”
Cal was looking at him expectantly, so Joel said, “Thank you.” He had to suppress the sir that wanted to come out whenever he talked to Cal. Cal hated being called sir, and Joel usually hated calling people sir, so he didn’t know what the hell it was that made the word lurk on the tip of his tongue in meetings like this.
“In fact,” Cal said, “there’s only one thing I could write down in this little Needs Improvement box in the employee form, if filling out the little boxes was a priority for me.”
Joel took a second to try and decode that, and then gave up and just said, “What is it?”
“Sociability with other employees,” Cal said bluntly.
Joel tensed. “I’m kind of a loner, that’s all. I don’t have a problem with any of the staff.”
“No, you don’t, and that’s good, because that’s the kind of thing that would make me toss you out on your ear.” Cal’s voice was conversational, but there was no question he meant it. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping to yourself, either. That’s a fine thing for someone to want.”
“So why are we talking about it?” If it wasn’t a job performance problem, then what business was it of Cal’s?
“Because when you spend a few years in charge of rangers, you learn some things.” Cal leaned forward in his chair, meeting Joel’s eyes. Cal’s eyes were the usual snow leopard’s gray, but they were a solid, uncompromising iron color, rather than the lighter, clear silver that Joel was used to from himself and Zach.
“You learn that men take park ranger jobs because they like being alone in the great outdoors, but they don’t know what years of it will do to them. A man has a family at home, a mate and cubs, or he’s got some solid buddies he spends his days with, that’s one thing. But when someone lives alone in a cabin in the mountains, and works the farthest territories in the Park, I get a little concerned.”
Joel’s fists clenched involuntarily. Cal was his boss, not his father—not even his friend.
He was technically the alpha of the Glacier pack, but Joel had figured out pretty quickly that snow leopards were all pretty independent, and Cal didn’t feel the need to try and run their lives.
So why the hell was he starting with Joel?
Joel forced his anger down, but he knew there was a hint of it in his voice when he said, “I don’t know what to say to that, sir.”
This time, the sir wasn’t a mark of respect, but rather of defiance. Joel knew it, and he was sure Cal knew it, too.
But Cal, of course, didn’t give any sign he was angry, didn’t react at all. If he’d been feeling good-natured, he would’ve shot right back, Don’t call me sir, I work for a living.
“No need to say anything,” he said instead. “I’m not telling you what to do with your private life, Joel. I’m not ordering you to make friends, or saying you can’t move out to that cabin of old Walton’s that you’re fixing up. None of that’s my job or my right.”