Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  to get that out. It's about this."

  He hitched up his hips as he dug in the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small silver earring in the shape of a Maltese cross. "It was in the cave," he said.

  Nate took it. "You found this in the cave, with Galloway?"

  "Scott did, actually. I forgot about it. I guess we all did. He saw this about a foot from . . . " He glanced at Meg. "From the body. Sorry."

  "It's okay."

  "He chipped it out. I don't know why, something to do. He put it in his pack. By the time we all got off the mountain, the shape we were in, the hospital and shit, he just forgot about it. He found it in his stuff and remembered and gave it to me because I was coming home. We thought it was probably your father's, Meg, so you should have it. Then I thought how it should probably go through the cops first, so I figured I should bring it to Chief Burke."

  "Did you show this to Sergeant Coben?" Nate asked. "No. Scott passed it to me right before I left to come home, and I wanted to get home. I thought it was all right to do it through you." "That's fine. Thanks for bringing it by."

  * * *

  "I don't know if it was his," Meg said when she was alone with Nate. "It could've been. He wore an earring. He had a few. I can't remember exactly. A couple of studs, a gold hoop. But it might've been his. It could've been something he bought in Anchorage while he was gone. It might have been . . ."

  "His killer's," Nate finished, studying the earring in his palm.

  "Are you going to give it to Coben?"

  "I'm going to think about it awhile."

  "Put it away, will you? Can we put it away for tonight? I don't want to be sad."

  Nate slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, buttoned it closed. "Okay?"

  "Okay." She laid her head on his shoulder, laid a hand over the pocket. "You can show it to Charlene tomorrow. Maybe she'd know. But for now—" She set her hands on his shoulders, boosted herself up again. "Where were we?"

  "I think we were over there."

  "And now we're here. And look! There's a nice comfy couch behind you. How quick can you get me naked on it?"

  "Let's find out."

  He dropped backward, pulling her around at the last minute, so she fell, laughing, under him. Her legs were still hooked around him as she tugged his shirt out of his pants, scraped her nails up his back.

  "I expect you to ring the big bell tonight, since I'm an engagement-sex virgin."

  "I'm going to work my way up to the big bell." He unbuttoned her shirt, taking his lips on a trail down the opening to the button of her jeans. "Ring all the little ones on the way up."

  "I admire a man with ambition."

  She felt his tongue slide over her, his teeth scrape over exposed flesh as he peeled the jeans down her legs.

  She was going to marry this man. Imagine that? Ignatious Burke, with his big, sad eyes and strong hands. A man just packed with patience and needs and courage. And honor.

  She brushed a hand through his hair. She'd done nothing in her life to deserve him. And somehow that made it all that much more wonderful.

  Then his teeth nibbled along her inner thigh, her system shuddered and she stopped thinking altogether.

  He worked his way up her and down her, over her, around her, washed through with the knowledge that she belonged to him now. To cherish and protect, to hold up and to lean on. Love for her was like a sun inside him, shining strong and white.

  He found her lips again, sank into them, into all that heat and power.

  In some part of his brain, he heard the dogs barking, a frenzied cacophony that cut through the sexual buzz. Even as he lifted his head to tune into the sound, Meg was shoving him away.

  "Something's at my dogs."

  She sprinted out of the room even as he rolled off the couch. "Meg! Wait a minute. Wait a damn minute."

  He heard something, something that wasn't a dog, sound outside the house, and he ran after her.

  Twenty-Nine

  She had A rifle and was yanking open the back door by the time he caught her. He made a leap, slapped the door closed.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Protecting my dogs. They're going to get mauled out there. Back off, Burke, I know what I'm doing."

  Too rushed for niceties, she rapped the butt of the rifle into his belly and was both furious and astonished when instead of buckling, he stood his ground and shoved her back.

  "Give me the gun."

  "You've got your own. They're my dogs." A pulsing, clacking roar cut through the frenzied barks.

  "It'll kill my dogs!"

  "No, it won't." He didn't know what it was, but from the sound of it, it was bigger than any dog. He slapped on the outside lights, then picked up the gun he'd laid on her counter, pulled it out of the holster. "Stay here."

  Later, he would wonder why he'd thought she'd listen to him, listen to reason. Be safe. But when he opened the door, his gun lifted, held in combat stance, she bolted out, ducking under his arm, whirling her body and the barrel of the rifle toward the sounds of vicious war.

  There was an instant of wonder struck into him, tangled with fear and a terrible respect. The bear was massive, a great hulk of black against the patchy snow. Its teeth gleamed sharp and deadly in the light as its jaws opened, and it bellowed viciously at the dogs.

  They went at it, short, testing lunges, snapping, snarling. He saw blood splattered over the ground, a pool of it soaking into the thawing ground. The raw smell of it, and the pungent odor of wild animal, stung the air.

  "Rock, Bull! Here! Come here, now!"

  Too far gone, was Nate's only thought as Meg called out. Too far gone to listen even to her. They'd already made their choice between fight or flight, and the blood lust was on them.

  The bear dropped onto all fours, its back hunched, and the sound it made was nothing like the growls Hollywood assigned to its breed. It was more. More savage, more chilling. More real.

  It swiped out, razor claws sweeping, and sent one of the dogs tumbling off into the snow on a high-pitched yelp. Then it rose up on its hind legs. Taller than a man, wide as the moon. Blood on its fangs and its eyes mad with battle.

  He fired as it charged, fired again as it got down on all fours to rush them. He heard the explosion of Meg's rifle, once, twice, booming through his own fire. It screamed, it seemed like a scream to him, as blood flew, as it matted its fur.

  It fell less than three feet from where they stood, and it shook the ground under Nate's feet.

  Meg shoved the rifle at Nate and jumped down to run to the dog who limped toward her. "You're all right, you're okay. Let me see. Just grazed you, didn't he? You stupid, stupid dog. Didn't I tell you to come?"

  Nate stayed where he was a moment, making certain the bear was down for good while Rock sniffed around the body, nosed into the blood.

  Then he walked down to where Meg knelt in nothing but a pair of panties and an open shirt.

  "Get inside, Meg."

  "It's not too bad." She was crooning to Bull. "I can fix it. Baited. Baited the house, do you see? Bloody meat." Her eyes were hard stones as she gestured to the chunks of half-eaten meat near the back of the house. "Hung meat, fresh meat at the house, probably at the edge of the woods. Lure the bear in. Bastard. That's what the bastard did."

  "Get inside, Meg. You're cold." He pulled her to her feet, felt her trembling. "Take these.

  I'll get the dog."

  She took the guns, whistled for Rock. Inside, she laid the guns on the counter and dashed for a blanket and first-aid supplies. "Lay him on that," she called out when Nate carried the dog in. "Get down with him, keep him quiet. He's not going to like this."

  He did as she asked, held the dog's head and said nothing while she cleaned the cuts.

  "Not deep, not too deep. Probably scar. War wounds, that's okay. Rock, sit!" she snapped out when he tried to wiggle under her arm to sniff at his companion.

  "I'm going to give him a couple of shots he
re." She took out a hypo, tapped it with a steady hand, squirted out a small stream. "Hold him still."

  "We can take him in to Ken."

  "It's not that bad. He wouldn't do any more than I can do here. Going to give him this, make him groggy so I can stitch up the deeper cuts. We'll give him an antibiotic after, wrap him up, let him sleep it off."

  She pinched a hunk of fur, then slid the needle in. Bull whimpered and rolled his eyes pitifully up at Nate. "Just relax, big guy, you're going to feel better in a minute."

  He stroked the dog while Meg started to suture. "You keep all that stuff around the house?"

  "Out here, you never know. Maybe you slice your leg or whatever cutting wood, power's out, roads are blocked, what are you going to do?"

  Her brows were knitted as she worked, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. "Can't depend on getting to a doctor for every damn thing. There now, baby doll, nearly done. We're going to keep you nice and warm. I've got this salve here. It'll help it heal and keep him from gnawing at it 'cause it tastes foul. Gonna bandage him up. Take him in tomorrow, have him looked at, but it's not too bad."

  When the dog was sleeping under a blanket with Rock curled beside him, she picked up the wine bottle and drank from it. Now her hands shook violently. "Jesus Christ."

  Nate took the bottle from her, set it carefully aside. Then he gripped her elbows and jerked her an inch off the floor. "Don't you ever, ever do anything like that again."

  "Look at me. Listen to me."

  She hardly had a choice as his voice was booming, and his face, rigid with fury, engulfed her vision.

  "Don't you ever take a risk like that again."

  "I had to—"

  "No, you didn't. I was here. You didn't have to go running out of the house, half naked, to take on a grizzly."

  "It wasn't a grizzly," she shouted back at him. "It was a black bear."

  He dropped her back on her feet. "Damn it, Meg."

  "I can take care of myself and what's mine."

  He spun back around, his face so full of rage, she backed up a step. This wasn't the patient lover; it wasn't the cold-eyed cop. This was a furious man with enough heat blasting out to boil her alive.

  "You're mine now, so get used to it."

  "I'm not going to stand around and act helpless because—"

  "Helpless, my ass. Who wants you to act helpless? There's a big fucking difference between acting helpless and running out of the house in your underwear when you don't know the situation. There's a big damn difference, Meg, when you try to shove me aside by ramming the butt of a rifle in my gut."

  "I didn't. . . did I?" Oddly enough it was his full-blown temper that cut hers down to manageable, that allowed her to think again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That was wrong."

  She pressed her hands to her face, took several deep breaths until the fear, the anger, the shaky aftermath of both eased.

  "Some of the other stuff was probably wrong, but I just reacted. I. . . " She held out a hand, palm out for peace, then picked up her wine again. She sipped slowly to soothe her raw throat.

  "My dogs are my partners. You understand you don't hesitate when your partner's in trouble. And I did know the situation. There wasn't time to explain it. And I haven't taken time to tell you it felt. . . all kinds of good and different things to know you were beside me out there. Even if I didn't act like it, I knew you were there, and it mattered."

  Her voice thickened so she pressed the fingers of her free hand to her eyes until she had it under control. "You want to be mad, I won't hold it against you. But maybe you could wait to finish yelling at me until I get some clothes on. I'm cold."

  "I guess I'm finished." He stepped toward her, pulled her into his arms and held on like fury.

  "Look at that. I'm shaking." She burrowed into him. "I wouldn't be if you weren't here to hang on to."

  "Let's get you dressed." He kept an arm around her until they were in the living room, then he walked over to put another log on the fire.

  "I've got a need to take care of you," he said quietly. "I'm not going to drown you in it."

  "I know. I've got a need to take care of myself, but I'll try not to shove you away with it."

  "Okay. Now, explain about the baiting."

  "Bears like to eat. That's why you bury or seal your scraps when you're camping, why you carry any food supplies in sealed containers and hang them up, away from camp. That's why you build a cache for supplies and have it on stilts, and the ladder you use to get up to them comes down every time you do."

  She pulled on her pants, scooped a hand through her hair. "Bears get a scent of something to eat, they mosey on over to snack, and they can climb a ladder. You'd be surprised what can climb a ladder.

  They'll even wander into town, a populated area, to get into garbage cans, bird feeders, and so on. You might have one try to get in the house, just to see if there's something more interesting to eat inside. Mostly you can scare them off. Sometimes you can't."

  She buttoned up her shirt, edged closer to the fire. "There's meat on the ground out there, and I bet we'll find some shreds of the plastic it was in. Somebody put it there, hoping to bring a bear in toward the house, and you can be pretty confident that kind of baiting will work this time of year. Bears are just waking up. They're hungry."

  "Someone laid the bait, hoping you'd step into the trap."

  "No, not me. You." And that had her stomach churning. "Think about it. Had to be baited sometime today, before I got back. If someone'd tried that while we were here, we'd have heard the dogs carrying on. Say you were out here alone tonight, like you were last night, what would you have done if you'd heard the dogs start up like we did?"

  "I'd've gone out to see why, but I'd have gone out armed."

  "With your handgun," she said with a nod. "Maybe you can take down a bear with a handgun, or scare it off with one—if you're lucky enough and get off enough shots before it takes it out of your hand and eats it. Mostly, you're just going to make it mad. And a bear who's busy chowing down or fighting a couple of angry huskies? He'd have gotten through my dogs, Nate. Odds are they'd have done some damage before it ripped them to pieces. And if you'd been out there alone with that 9mm, you might have been ripped to pieces, too. Odds are. Wounded bear, enraged bear, he'd come right through the door after you, too. That's what someone was counting on."

  "If so, I must be making someone very nervous."

  "That's what cops do, don't they?" She rubbed a hand over his knee when he sat beside her.

  "Whoever it was wanted you dead or in a world of hurt. And didn't mind sacrificing my dogs to do it."

  "Or you, if things had gone differently."

  "Or me. Well, he's got me pissed off now." She patted his knee before she rose to pace. "Killing my father, that hurt me. But he'd been gone a long time, and I could deal. Tracking him down, tossing him in a cell, that'd be enough. But nobody comes after my dogs."

  She turned and saw that half smile was back. "Or after the guy