by Linda Turner
The minute Elizabeth walked through the front door of her office, Tina and Peter were both there to greet her, their grave expressions telling her more clearly than words just how serious the situation was. “Thank God!” Tina exclaimed, hugging her. “We’ve been frantic. Napoleon—”
“I know. Nick told me.” She cut to the heart of the matter. “Has there been any change?”
Peter shook his head. “No, nothing. I picked up the radio signal over twenty minutes ago, and it’s remained steady ever since.”
“Maybe his collar malfunctioned,” Tina said hopefully. “It’s been known to happen.”
“But only in the rarest incidents,” her husband said with a warning frown, not wanting to give Elizabeth false hope. “These collars are state-of-the-art and designed to hold up in all kinds of conditions. They don’t emit the code unless the animal hasn’t moved for five hours. We all know that doesn’t happen with wolves unless they’re dead.”
“In laboratory tests of the collar, sudden fluctuation of temperatures also produced the code,” Elizabeth retorted. “And the weather the past few days has been crazy—up, then down, and all over the place. That’s a much-morelogical explanation than that he’s dead.”
Even to her own ears, she sounded more than a little desperate. Wincing, she struggled for control and clung to the thought that it was too early to jump to conclusions. “What about Queenie? Where is she?” she asked Peter as she threw off her coat and moved to the electronic radar screen to show the pregnant wolfs position. “They’ve been together constantly since their release. I can’t believe that she would run off and leave him unless something was seriously wrong, and maybe not even then. They’re devoted to each other.”
“No, she’s there, nearby,” Peter said, pointing out the blinking dot on the screen that was Queenie. “But it’s hard to say if she’s okay. She hasn’t moved around a lot since Napoleon’s collar started emanating the code. So we don’t know if she’s hurt or we miscalculated the due date of her pups and she’s in labor or she just refuses to leave him.”
Quietly listening to the conversation up until then, Nick said, “You could just all be missing the obvious, folks. Maybe the wolf just figured a way to wriggle out of the damn collar and it’s just lying in the snow up there at Eagle Ridge sending out that darn code.”
“You know how rugged the terrain is around here,” Zeke told Elizabeth. “And Napoleon and Queenie have been all over the place. He could have snagged it on a rock or broken tree limb or even a fence post. Or maybe he just found a way to slip the damn thing off over his head”
She wanted desperately to believe him, but she wasn’t a woman who deluded herself. Reluctantly she shook her head. “I wish I could say that was possible, but I just don’t see how. These aren’t your average two-bit dog collars that can be bought at some pet store. Each wolf was sedated, then personally measured for a custom fit. The collars don’t buckle—they’re secured in place with bolts and designed to hold up to the most trying conditions. There’s no way Napoleon could have slipped it over his head, even if he did get it caught on something. And no one could have removed it without taking a chance that he’d take their hand off. Unless they sedated him.”
Or he was dead.
No one said the words, but they hung there in the air nonetheless—a grim, very real possibility. The stark reality of that could have brought Elizabeth to her knees if she’d let it, but she couldn’t give in to her emotions, not when she didn’t know anything for sure yet. Only when she saw Napoleon’s body would she cry. Until then she had to operate on the premise that there was another explanation. With time, she would figure out what it was. In the meantime, she had work to do.
Turning back to the monitoring system, she asked Peter, “Where’s the signal come from?”
“One mile northwest of Eagle Ridge,” he said promptly. “It’s impossible to pinpoint the exact location from here, but it’s somewhere in that vicinity.”
Zeke’s gaze sharpened at that. “That’s just over the hill from the holding pen.”
Elizabeth watched him exchange a look with Nick and knew what both men were thinking. Whoever had planted the poisoned meat outside the holding pen last week could have very well come back and finished the job
“Tina and I saw him and Queenie running through the valley about one this afternoon,” she told them. “They were headed south and disappeared into the trees.”
“So if it takes five hours of stillness before the mortality code kicks in,” Nick said, “then something must have happened to Napoleon right after you saw him. The snow’s pretty bad up on the ridge after last night’s storm. Did you see any other vehicles?”
She shook her head. “No, but I was glassing the valley with my binoculars and not paying too much attention to who was going by on the road behind me. This was the first time I’d seen Napoleon and Queenie since their release, and I was too busy checking them out to notice much else.” Glancing from one man to the other, she said, “You think that bastard who called me that night the poisoned meat was left at the holding pen killed him, don’t you?”
She would have forgiven Zeke if he’d lied to her then and let her go on hoping that this was all some horrible mistake, but he didn’t. His square, rugged face grave, he nodded. “Yeah, I do. I know you don’t want to hear that, but you don’t have the luxury of burying your head in the sand right now. If he’s dead, then whoever killed him is feeling pretty damn cocky right now. And Queenie is somewhere nearby. There’s nothing to stop him from going after her next.”
“The hell he will!” All her protective instincts crying out in outrage at the thought, she snapped into action. “We can’t do anything tonight, but in the morning we’re going to search every inch of Eagle Ridge until we find both wolves. Tina, get on the phone and call Fish and Wildlife in Aspen and Gunnison and see if they can loan us some of their people. We’ll need everyone here at dawn.”
All business, she turned to Nick. “Can you lend us some of your deputies? That’s rugged country. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
He nodded. “I’ll have them here.”
“And I’ll get some of the men from the ranch,” Zeke added. “Would you like me to call Merry? You may need a vet.”
She didn’t want to think that would be necessary, but he was right. “Thanks,” she said huskily. “I appreciate that. I hope we don’t need her, but it’s better to play safe.”
“I’ll call her right now,” he said, and helped himself to the phone at the nearest desk.
Tina and the sheriff did the same thing, and Elizabeth was left with the unenviable job of calling her boss at home in Denver and relaying the latest turn of events. Just last week she’d called her about the wolves’ release, and they’d celebrated the first step of what they’d both expected to be a very successful project. At the time, Elizabeth had never dreamed she’d be calling her back so soon to report the possible death of one of the wolves. Especially Napoleon. He was the pride and joy of the entire project. She wasn’t looking forward to it.
Punching in her number, she waited for the other woman to come on the line, then said grimly, “Irene? This is Elizabeth. I’m sorry to call you at home, but I’ve got some bad news.”
Once arrangements were made for the morning search and everyone had been notified, there was nothing else that could be done until dawn. Nick got a call about a domestic dispute and left, promising to be back before sunup, while Tina made arrangements for her and Peter to spend the rest of the night at the office just in case there was a change in the radio signals. No one really thought that was going to happen, but they—like Elizabeth—couldn’t give up hope.
“I’ll call you if there’s the slightest change,” Tina assured her when Elizabeth lingered, hating to go home. “You should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
And a difficult one. Elizabeth didn’t kid herself into thinking that finding either Napoleon or Queenie
would be easy, even with the help of electronic tracking devices. The area they would be searching was primitive and rugged and covered in two feet of new snow. Unless they got lucky early, there was a possibility they would have to cover hundreds of acres, and every step could be treacherous. Only a fool would go into something like that with too little sleep
“All right,” she sighed. “But if there’s anything you think I need to know, you call me immediately”
“Even if it’s three in the morning,” Peter promised gruffly. “You’ve done everything you can tonight, boss. Try to get some sleep.”
She wouldn’t, not when worry was burning a hole in her stomach, but that was something she kept to herself. “You, too,” she said huskily. “I’ll be back around six unless you need me earlier”
She retrieved her coat and purse and turned to find Zeke still seated at the desk where he’d called and enlisted people for the morning search, now patiently waiting for her. For the first time in what seemed like hours, she remembered their date and a kiss that never should have happened.
Pushing to his feet, he lifted a brow at her. “Ready to go?”
Her heart started to knock against her ribs at the thought of riding all the way out to her place with him. “I hate to ask you to take me all the way home when you live in the opposite direction,” she blurted out. “I can take Tina’s car, since she and Peter aren’t going anywhere—”
“We had a date,” he cut in softly. “I picked you up—I take you home. Here, let me help you with that.”
Always the gentleman, he took her coat and helped her shrug into it, guiding the soft black wool all the way up her arms to her shoulders. It was, Elizabeth knew, an instinctive courtesy on his part, one that he would have performed for Myrtle or Tina or any other female between the ages of two and a hundred and five. But when his fingers brushed her neck as he straightened her collar for her, there was nothing innocent about her response to the gesture. Her pulse scattered, her breath feathered out of her lungs, and just that easily, her body remembered every time he’d touched her tonight.
Don’t go there, she told herself quickly. You’re too vulnerable now, too shaky. You start thinking about what the man can do to you with just a touch and you’re going to be in serious trouble.
Stiffening, she stepped away from him because if she didn’t now, she might not be able to later. But, Lord, it was hard when all she could think about was how she wanted to just sink into his arms!
“We should be going,” she said hoarsely, and hurried toward the door. “It’s getting late.”
With his long legs, he had no trouble keeping up with her, and a half second before she reached the office’s outer door, he stepped around her to push it open and hold it so she could precede him outside. Even to a dense man, it was obvious that she was all but running from him, and if there was one thing she knew about Zeke McBride, it was that he was in no way, shape or form, dense. But if he noticed that she was once again skittish where he was concerned, he made no comment. Instead, he followed her outside and fell into step with her as they crossed the parking lot to his truck.
The night was cold and still, alight with stardust and a low-slung crescent moon on the horizon. It was the kind of night that lovers loved, when they could snuggle before a crackling fire and share slow, hot kisses that blocked out the world. If she let herself, she could see it now, feel it, the stroke of sure, hard hands on her, the lingering kisses, the groans and sighs of passion and pleasure with a man that took her outside of herself. A man like Zeke, who knew how to make a woman feel—
Suddenly realizing where her thoughts had wandered, she gasped, mortified, thankful for the darkness that concealed her hot cheeks. Just as they reached his truck he glanced down at her in puzzlement. “You okay?”
No! she wanted to cry. She would never be okay again. And it was all because of him. Because he’d given her a taste of something she hadn’t allowed herself to want before, hadn’t allowed herself to even dream of, and she’d liked the woman that she was when she was with him. Because he’d kissed her and made her want things she couldn’t have, not with a man like him. Not with a man like her father.
“I’m just tired,” she choked, looking anywhere but at him. “It’s been a long day.”
Staring down at her in the darkness, his eyes searching her pale face, Zeke knew that something more than that was troubling her, but he let it slide. This wasn’t the time to push her into telling him what was going on inside her head, not when she had the ordeal of tomorrow hovering over her like a thunderhead.
And there was no question in his mind that it was going to be a hell of an ordeal. She appeared to have accepted the fact that there was a good chance that Napoleon was dead, but Zeke knew better. Her head might have accepted the logic of the argument that there was no other likely explanation for the sudden cessation of movement in an animal that was the most active in the pack, but her heart was telling her something else entirely. She loved that damn wolf, and she wouldn’t give up on him Even now she was fighting the truth with every breath of her being, holding out hope against all odds, praying for a miracle.
As the head of the project, she never should have allowed herself to get that emotionally involved with an animal she was going to have to eventually release back into the wild. It just wasn’t the professional thing to do. But if there was one thing Zeke was learning about the lady, it was that she couldn’t hold back when it came to her emotions. She just didn’t have it in her.
And dammit, he liked that about her. She cared. But he didn’t have a clue if she realized how vulnerable that made her. She’d left herself wide open to hurt, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to protect her from that. Except be there for her when the pain came crashing down on her.
And he would be there, he vowed silently. Tomorrow he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
When Elizabeth first moved to Liberty Hill and had looked around for a house to rent for the duration of her stay, she’d wanted something small and secluded, the farther she could get from neighbors, the better. It wasn’t that she was unsociable—she wasn’t. But when she’d worked on the Yellowstone project, she’d learned that after dealing with hostile locals all day, the last thing she wanted to do was to come home and contend with angry neighbors who lived close enough to throw rocks. Not that anyone tried to hurt her. But she’d felt like an unwanted intruder in people’s lives, and had promised herself when she was assigned to the Liberty Hill project that she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. So she’d found a small house fifteen miles from town and well off the road. She’d wanted isolation and she’d gotten it, and she’d never regretted it.
But now, as Zeke pulled into the long drive that led to her house, she noticed just how cut off she was from the rest of the world. There were no houses close by, no lights. And with trees surrounding the house on all sides, it was completely invisible from the main road. Up until now, that had been a plus Now she wasn’t so sure.
Zeke was obviously thinking the same thing. Frowning as they emerged from the tree-lined drive into the small clearing that surrounded the old wooden house, he frowned at the single porch light that did little to dispel the darkness that engulfed the place. “You might think about having a security light put in out here,” he said as he braked to a stop in front of the porch steps and cut the engine. “It’s damn dark out here.”
“The landlord promised to have one installed when I signed the lease. That was three months ago. Every time I call about it, he claims it’s being installed next week.”
“Figures,” Zeke snorted. “Ralph Murphy always was tight-fisted. His ex-wife Bertha used to say he wouldn’t give a plugged nickel to a beggar on the street if he thought he could find a way to use it. Call the hardware store yourself and tell them to install one and charge it to his account.”
“And get myself thrown out on the streets? I don’t think so.”
His grin flashed in the darkness. “You gott
a be kidding. You think he’d throw you out? Darlin’, this house was sitting empty for three years before you came along—rent—ers aren’t easy to come by in this neck of the woods. There’s no way Ralph is going to throw you out and lose the rent you’re paying him. He may be tight, but he’s not stupid.”
He had a point. “And all this time, I’ve been stumbling around in the dark!” she said, chuckling. “I’ll call first thing in the morning—”
Too late, she remembered that she would be combing Eagle Ridge for Napoleon long before the hardware store even opened, and her smile faded. “I’ll have to get to it when I can. But thanks for the advice.” Blindly she stared at her poorly lit porch. “I guess I should be going in.”
“The search starts early,” he agreed. “You’ll need all the sleep you can get.”
She wouldn’t sleep, probably wouldn’t be able to close her eyes, but that was hardly something she could say when she knew already that he was going to be one of the main causes of her sleeplessness. At this point, it was useless to deny it. She watched him push open his door, then come around to open hers for her, and her heart did a slow, dizzy roll in her chest. Too late, she realized that she should have thanked him for the evening and rushed inside while she still could. Now he was going to walk her to her door and probably kiss her good-night, and that just might be her downfall. Because she wanted that—wanted him, God help her—and she was horribly afraid she wasn’t going to be able to resist him
The walk to the front door seemed the longest of her life. With every step her heart thundered in response, but she needn’t have worried. Instead of kissing her, he took her keys from her, unlocked the door for her, then preceded her inside.
“Hey, what’re you doing?”
“Don’t worry,” he said, chuckling, searching for and finding the light switch just inside the door. “I’m not staying the night. I just want to look around and make sure everything’s okay.” And without waiting for her permission, he made his way through her house, turning on lights as he went, testing the locks on her windows and back door, looking in every closet and even under her bed for an intruder.