by Terry Spear
“Alpha male pack leader, I suspect. Anyway, no big deal.”
“And the woman you’re interested in?”
“Yes, she’s alpha. At least around the women she was with at the creek, and then later when she met up with me at the cabin.”
“You were alone together?”
“No. Give me a break.”
“Then the guy was most likely her mate.”
“One of the women said a guy wanted to court her but she wasn’t interested.”
“How many are following that wolf then?”
“The one who attacked me was probably with her pack. She might be a sub-leader or just another alpha in the pack. He might be the pack leader or a sub-leader or just another alpha in their pack. We have several alphas in ours. She might have several in hers. And if he’s not with her pack, he could be a lone wolf.”
“All right. I’m just saying don’t get your hopes up. Wait, you’ve been trying to catch up with the wolves growing pot in the remoter areas of the park. Don’t tell me you think this pack has anything to do with it.”
“Do you want to come with me or not?” Eric couldn’t help being annoyed. He wasn’t declaring his interest in courting the she-wolf. Yeah, he found her attractive, and just the fact she was an alpha intrigued him. But she hadn’t trusted him enough to let him take her pack member to Dr. Weber. Then again, maybe that was his problem. The need to prove he was trustworthy and not in the least bit bossy. As to the other matter, he wasn’t going to say they might be the wolves who planted the weed if they could be innocent.
“Did Doc say you should rest up a bit?” Sarandon asked, abruptly changing the subject as if he knew Eric was about to leave him out of this.
“Yeah, he did. But you know him. He always thinks anyone who has been injured should be in bed for days afterward.”
“Of course he does, because he doesn’t want to have to redo his work if the wolf doesn’t listen to him and pulls out the stitches. And, hell yeah, I want to go with you. Did you want to ask CJ to come with us? As a deputy sheriff, he would lend a little extra weight.”
“No. I don’t want to escalate this into something more than a case of reaching out to show friendship.”
“All right. I’ll make sure the group I’m working with gets an early start counting butterflies so I can make it in time to give my lecture, and then we can see to this other matter at lunchtime.”
Chapter 3
Eric settled into bed, but he couldn’t quit thinking about the she-wolf in charge, the injured woman, and the wolf who had bitten him. He couldn’t understand why the pack had been so wary of him.
With the bite wounds still throbbing, he kept replaying the attack scenarios in his mind. If he hadn’t moved as quickly as he had, the guard wolf could have crushed his shoulder. And Eric believed he would have done so without hesitation.
He hoped he hadn’t scared the pack off so they wouldn’t feel safe to return to the park. In the worst way, he wanted to rectify the situation with the pack and let the wolf who had bitten him know there were no hard feelings. He understood the wolf felt compelled to protect the pack, hoping beyond hope they were law-abiding wolves.
He closed his eyes and envisioned the five ladies splashing in the creek, unaware of his presence. Then he imagined seeing the enticing she-wolf’s face up close, her eyes narrowed just a hint, her voice pack-leader firm, telling him she and her pack didn’t need his help.
He groaned and rolled over on his back. He’d never get to sleep at this rate.
The night faded into nothingness, his mind clearing of everything, and then it came to life again.
He saw the she-wolf goddess with the short, dark curls as four women encircled her. This time when he met her, he’d tell her who he was but also learn who she was, reassuring her he was one of the good guys. And she would trust him to do what was right—which was seek the best help for the injured she-wolf.
As soon as he walked into the water, the women turned to gaze at him, but he only had eyes for the goddess in the middle. Her handmaidens stepped aside, leaving a clear path for him that led straight to her.
He moved toward her then, and she took hold of his hand and pulled him close. Her hands slid up his chest and settled on his shoulders. She lifted her luscious lips, offering them to him as a way of thanking him for helping the woman in her pack. He pressed his mouth against her and was enjoying the warm, silky sensation, the heat between them, when a gray wolf came out of the woods, raced into the water, and attacked him.
As a human, Eric wasn’t equally matched. The wolf shoved him onto the rocky beach, and the women rushed off as if Eric were the real threat.
Before he could defend himself against the wolf, it bit into his shoulder and Eric cried out in pain.
Then a ringing noise in the distance stirred him from his dream. As hot as he was, Eric felt like he’d had the furnace on high although the house was normally cooler this time of morning. He heard the ringing again and realized it was the doorbell. The front door opened, and Eric roused enough to glance at the clock. Half past eight?
“Hey, Eric, it’s just me,” Sarandon called. “I wanted to drop by and see how you’re doing.”
Eric groaned. He didn’t need anyone checking up on him. Especially when he felt this bad. He’d rather suffer without alarming anyone because he knew he’d soon feel as good as new again.
“Eric?”
Ah, hell. Eric felt like he’d tied one on when normally he was out of bed in a flash, getting a million things done before he headed out to the park. He was usually up around five. Six at the latest. But he was burning up and felt like he needed to sleep for another eight hours straight. Now he wished he’d bitten the wolf back, just on principle.
“Yeah, be there in a sec. I’m just getting up. Had a rough night of it.” Between the soreness from the bites and trying to meet the goddess of his dreams, he didn’t believe he’d gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep.
Sarandon called out from the kitchen, “I brought us some breakfast.”
Eric smiled a little. Sarandon’s idea of breakfast was coffee and doughnuts.
“Did you get me a couple of blueberry muffins?”
“Yep. Are you okay to go in today? Doc said to take it easy for a couple of days, and he said you had nearly two dozen stitches. Since when does a couple even come close to a couple dozen?”
Eric put on his uniform—green shorts and beige shirt—then joined Sarandon in the kitchen.
“How come Doc told you my confidential medical information?”
As if anything was ever really confidential among the wolves. They had to look out for one another, so Doc would ensure family and the pack leaders knew of any injury. Eric wasn’t upset about it. He just liked to give Sarandon a hard time because his brother was giving him one right back.
Sarandon shook his head as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “We all know you, and we know you won’t take care of yourself.”
“Doc always exaggerates our conditions. He’s like a mother hen. You know that.”
Sarandon was frowning at him. “Your face is flushed. You’re running a fever.” He searched through the drawers.
“What are you looking for?” Eric grabbed a cup of coffee and his muffins, and took a seat at the kitchen table.
“The thermometer.”
“I’m fine. The antibiotics and our wolf healing should knock it out.”
Sarandon found the thermometer and held it up. “Here it is.” Then he handed it to Eric, folded his arms, and waited for his brother to check his temperature.
“Now you’re being a mother hen,” Eric said, annoyed.
“After your little lie about the stitches, I don’t trust you. Just take your temperature.”
Eric grunted at his brother, then stuck the digital thermometer in his mouth. But only b
ecause he was curious as to how high his temperature was, not because Sarandon wanted to know.
When it beeped, he took the thermometer out, but before he could read it, Sarandon snatched it away. “One hundred and three. You need to stay home for the day.”
“The thing is broken. And I’m not staying home for the day. If I feel worse as the day goes on, I’ll come home early. But I’m not disappointing the Scouts if I can help it.”
“They’ll suffer through it. The real reason you’re going is that you’re not giving up on looking for those women. Or one in particular.”
“I’m not going in search of them. They packed up and left. I was just going to find out if their park cabin reservations showed where they were from. If they’ve moved into the area recently, they’re going to have to learn to get along with me—if they want to use the park for camping. I won’t take any crap from that alpha male again. I was only trying to help out when he attacked me.”
Eric also wanted to smell around the campsite to see if the alpha male was part of the pack. The wolf hadn’t been around when the female told Eric she didn’t need his help. And if she was having trouble with an alpha male who wanted to court her and—ah hell. Maybe the wolf wasn’t the leader or part of her pack and had fought Eric to claim Pepper for his own. If so, Eric wasn’t having it.
Especially not if she didn’t want anything to do with the male wolf. He smiled a little.
“So they were camping in the area?”
“Yeah, at Cabin 5. I’ll check with the lodge about their reservations. I want to see how the injured woman is faring too. You know I’m supposed to file a report.”
“Yeah, if they weren’t wolves. I can just see you filling out that report. You’re not really going to try to confront the alpha male without backup, are you?”
“If he’s part of the pack, and only if he was protecting them because I was in wolf form. He wasn’t there earlier to learn the whole truth, so I’ll let him know there are no hard feelings.”
“But you’re thinking there’s some other scenario going on here.”
“Maybe.” That would certainly explain the unprovoked attack and then another wolf attacking that wolf. Which made him wonder which wolf had told the other to back off. Eric told Sarandon about that too.
His brother shook his head. “Somehow I knew there was more to the story than the wolf just being part of the pack.” He took a bite of his cream-filled doughnut. “What if the wolf that bit you is just as willing to attack you again? If he was with her pack, she could probably tell him to cease and desist. But if he’s not?” Sarandon shrugged. “Just don’t forget about the trouble he could be.”
“The way my shoulder hurts, no, I’m not forgetting about the wolf anytime soon.” He couldn’t remember when he’d felt this bad.
“If he’s not part of her pack, maybe he’s involved in growing marijuana in the park. But you would have recognized his scent then.”
“You’re right, and I didn’t recognize any of the wolves’ scents who had been around the plants.”
“At least that you smelled.”
“Right.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to bring CJ along as a deputy sheriff? If the wolf tries to pull anything else with you, CJ can arrest him. Or if we locate one of the wolves involved in this other business. Thankfully, our jail is equipped for our kind.”
“Not this time. I doubt the wolf will be anywhere near the woods. He’ll have to work somewhere, and he’s probably at the day job now.” Eric finished his coffee and second muffin. “Are you ready to go?”
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you after your butterfly meeting.”
“Call me if you feel worse and need me to help out.”
“I’ll be fine. And quit sounding like Doc.”
Sarandon snorted. “Yeah, well, someone needs to watch out for you since you won’t.”
Sarandon left, and as soon as Eric finished other business, he headed to the first Boy Scout camp. He wished he’d gotten up earlier. Now he’d have to wait until his lunch break to check out the campsite.
When he arrived at the parking area for the Scout campground, he called the lodge reservation desk and asked about the person or persons who had reserved Cabin 5.
“Oh, Pepper Grayling? She reserved three cabins, all of which are capable of accommodating six people. There were fourteen adults and five children. They said fitting in the extra child wouldn’t be a problem. Anyway, they were scheduled for three days but cleared out a day early. Said it was a family emergency. Why do you need her phone number and home address?”
“One of the women hurt herself in a small rock slide. After I carried her to Cabin 5, they wanted to get her to the hospital, and I had another call to take care of.” No way could Eric mention he’d been bitten by a wolf. “When I returned, they were all gone. I thought some of them would have remained in the area.”
“That’s not like you, Ranger Eric,” Lois said. She was a nice older woman, and he wished he could tell her the truth. “So did you want to file an incident report?”
“No. It wasn’t serious enough.”
Silence.
“I just want to check on the woman who was injured as a follow-up. She might have just had a pulled muscle, but I want to learn what happened.”
“Of course.” Lois’s tone indicated she believed he was more than interested in the woman who had been injured. Lois was always trying to get him to take her granddaughter out. She was of college age, and the picture Lois had showed him seemed to indicate she was a vivacious, fun-loving blonde—but she wasn’t a wolf. “Okay, have pen and paper? Here’s the information.”
“Thanks.”
“You owe me.”
He hoped she didn’t mean by having a date with her granddaughter. He wondered if her granddaughter even knew her grandmother was soliciting dates for her.
Lois gave him a post office box number for Pepper.
He groaned. It gave him a town, but it didn’t tell him where she really lived. “Talk to you later.”
Eric hiked from the parking lot to the first Boy Scout troop camp. A woman with her back to him was talking to the Scoutmaster and looked suspiciously like the goddess he’d met last night. It couldn’t be, yet the appearance of her hair—short and curly, dark chocolate-brown with sun-streaked caramel highlights—and her long, shapely legs and slim figure dressed in green shorts, boots, and a tan shirt made him think of her. She worked for the park in some capacity?
He was sure it was her. If so, she probably had nothing to do with the weed in the park. Though he reminded himself that working there would be a pretty good cover.
The gray-haired Scoutmaster turned to see Eric, smiled, and waved him over. “Pepper Grayling, this is Eric Silver, if the two of you haven’t met.”
Pepper turned, her pink lips parted in surprise, and Eric was captivated by her wide brown eyes. Not believing his good fortune, he stalked forward, offering his hand before realizing how much that would hurt, and winced with the pain in his shoulder and side.
“We’ve met,” she said, sounding surprised to see him there.
“Yes, on park ranger business,” he said, trying to put their meeting in perspective. He wanted her to know he wasn’t hotly pursuing her. Maybe a little bit, but not like his life depended on it. Unless that worked for her. He was thinking it sure would work for him.
She lifted her head slightly and took a deep breath of the air, smelling his scent and maybe the blood on the new bandages. Wolves could smell other things too—like the interest he had in her, and sickness—and she probably sensed his pain. It really was remarkable how much a wolf could catalog by scent, taste, and visual cues.
She immediately took his hand, shook it with a firm grip, and then quickly released it, as if she wanted to show
him she was not afraid of him but did not want to cause him more pain. Then she turned her attention to the Scoutmaster as he introduced her to the troop of twelve eleven-year-olds ready for her talk. She moved in front of the group seated cross-legged before her and began talking about what she did as a forester.
A forester. So she worked for the county.
Eric stood by, arms folded across his chest, totally lost in her words, her mannerisms, her voice. He couldn’t help himself. He found her wholly appealing on several different levels, and despite how poorly he felt, just seeing her gave him a boost of energy.
“I earned a bachelor’s degree in forest ecosystem management and conservation,” Pepper said to the Scouts. “After that, I worked on a forest inventory project and timber cruising, which means I examined a stand of timber to determine its potential value. What I do now is make presentations, like to all of you. One of the things I do is show people how to identify trees.” She paused and motioned to them. “Come with me.”
She led them to a pine tree and explained how to tell it was a red pine. Then she pointed off in the distance and said, “That slender tree—the quaking aspen—provides one of the most beautiful fall colors, turning gold in the autumn. It also protects other tree seedlings—such as spruce, fir, and pine trees—from the hot, dry sun so they have a chance to grow up big and tall.”
“She’s good,” the Scoutmaster said to Eric. “We’ve had her come out and speak to us for about five years now. Every time she comes, she lectures about something different and the kids love her.”
Five years? If only Eric had known she’d been coming here all that time. He had either been working at another national forest or had stayed in his pack’s own wolf territory. Besides, he could have run for years in the park’s million acres and not come across her. This was Eric’s first year to do this with Scouts, and he hoped the kids would enjoy his lecture just as much. He did work with the kids in their pack on the kinds of things she was discussing with the Scouts. Everyone who had some field of expertise in the Silver pack shared their knowledge with the homeschooled kids.