by Linda Turner
He didn’t find anyone, of course. Elizabeth hadn’t expected him to. Even when the hate mail and phone calls had been at their worst, no one had ever actually stepped foot on her property. But then again, no one had actually dared to harm one of the wolves, either. Until, possibly, today.
Sobering at the thought, she trailed him back into the living room, once it was obvious no one was there. “I’ll be fine, Zeke,” she assured him when he appeared anything but satisfied that she was safe. “The phone’s right by my bed and so is my shotgun. I won’t hesitate to use either one of them if someone tries to break in.”
Surprised, he grinned. “You know how to use a shotgun?”
“My father gave it to me when I got my first apartment,” she told him. “I’m not much of a marksman, but you don’t have to be with a shotgun. You just point it in the right direction and pull the trigger. You’re bound to hit something.”
She’d never had to aim it at another human being and couldn’t say for certain that she would actually pull the trigger, even if she was afraid for her life, but any man with brains in his head would surely know to be leery of a terrified woman with a gun in her hands. “So you see? You don’t have to worry about me. I’m perfectly safe here.”
He wasn’t convinced—she could still see the worry darkening his eyes—but short of insisting on staying the night, there wasn’t a heck of a lot more he could do. “If you’re scared or lonely or you just can’t sleep, I want you to call me at Joe’s. I can be here in twenty minutes.”
He spied a notepad on the table next to the couch and quickly scribbled down his brother’s number. “If it’s an emergency, call Nick first—he can get here quicker. Dammit, Elizabeth, are you sure you don’t want me to stay? I can sleep on the couch if that’s what you want—”
If he stayed, he wouldn’t sleep anywhere but in her bed and they both knew it. And she wasn’t anywhere near ready for that. “It’s the wolves that are in danger, not me,” she said. “So will you relax? I’ll be fine.”
“You call me if you’re scared?”
“If a tree limb so much as scrapes the eave,” she assured him with a crooked, teasing smile. “I never would have figured you for such a worrier”
“I don’t like the idea of you being way out here by yourself when there’s a nutcase out there killing your wolves,” he said simply. “But if you’re sure you’ll be okay, I guess I’d better be going. Try to get some sleep.”
He kissed her before she could even think about objecting, brushing a soft, lingering kiss to her cheek. Then, before she was ready to let him leave, he was striding out the door and she was alone. He didn’t look back, which was, she decided, a good thing. Because long after his truck rumbled down the drive to the highway, she still stood there, her hand pressed to her cheek, holding in the warmth of his kiss.
Chapter 7
Just as she’d suspected, Elizabeth didn’t sleep. When her dreams weren’t haunted with images of Napoleon’s lifeless body lying dead in a ravine somewhere, she found herself replaying, again and again, the moments she’d spent in Zeke’s arms at Myrtle’s shop. Restless, aching, she tossed and turned and crawled all over the bed. By the time her alarm went off at five-thirty, she was thoroughly exhausted
With her eyes squeezed shut, she slapped at the alarm until it abruptly ceased its irritating buzzing, every muscle in her body protesting at the thought of getting up. Just another couple of hours, she told herself with a groan. That was all she needed. Just two hours for her mind to shut down and off so she could sleep. Maybe then she could face the search for Napoleon without feeling as if she was about to come apart at the seams.
But she didn’t have a couple of hours, didn’t, actually have much time to spare at all. The search began in a little over an hour, and as much as she dreaded it, she had to be there. If she had to scour every hollow and crevice of Eagle Ridge, she would find him and deal with whatever had happened to him.
Her eyes gritty, she rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom and a hot shower. It didn’t help much, but by the time she was dressed and had downed a cup of the strongest coffee she could brew, she was at least starting to feel human again.
Then she gathered her things and stepped outside onto her front porch, only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight that met her eyes.
Fog. Damp and cold and thick, it had silently slipped in over the mountains like a thief in the night and settled in, reducing visibility to practically nothing and swallowing everything in sight. Twenty yards away, her car sat in the drive, but she could just barely make it out.
If she’d had any tears in her, she could have cried then. She knew about fog in the mountains, knew how it could cling to the peaks and valleys, cutting people off from the rest of the world for God only knew how long before it finally lifted. And somewhere out in that mess was Napoleon. How was she ever going to find him now?
She should, she realized, call the search off until conditions improved. Hiking the Eagle Ridge area was difficult enough on the best of days. Traipsing all over it when you couldn’t see two feet in front of your face was downright dangerous. Even someone who knew the area well could get turned around in a blinding fog and walk off the side of a cliff if they weren’t very, very careful.
And danger aside, what was the point? With the fog hiding whole mountains from view, she could walk within yards of Napoleon and never even know it.
But even as she acknowledged the logic of that, she knew that as long as there was a slim hope that Napoleon might still somehow be alive, the search would begin at dawn, as scheduled.
Thankful she could finally do something, she headed for the office. The drive, usually one she could make with her eyes almost closed, was a test of nerves. The fog moved like a living thing, swirling in front of her, blocking her view, then floating off again at the most unexpected moments, making it impossible for her to relax her guard for so much as an instant. Afraid to pick up too much speed in the clear spots, only to suddenly slam into another blinding wall of fog, she crawled all the way into town. And the drive that usually took her only fifteen minutes took well over a half hour.
Her eyes trained straight ahead, straining to see, she sighed in relief as she rounded the last curve of the windy road that led into Liberty Hill. The town should have been spread out before her. Not surprisingly, she could only make out the vague, shadowy outline of a building here and there in the fog. Inching her way down Main Street, she felt as if she’d stumbled into an old episode of Twilight Zone by mistake. The bank was gone, the sheriff’s office, the square, all lost in the mist.
Later, she never knew how she found her office. With all the landmarks wiped out by the fog, she couldn’t judge distances. Then suddenly the fog parted and there it was. With a sigh of relief, she turned into the parking lot and wouldn’t have been surprised to find it empty. Instead, it was nearly full.
Stunned, she blinked at the vehicles that were nearly concealed by the fog. She’d known Tina and Peter would be there, of course, and had expected Zeke and Nick and his three deputies, but that was it. With the weather so raw and nasty, she hadn’t dared let herself hope for more.
But as she made her way to the entrance of her office and stepped inside, she was stunned to discover that she had vastly underestimated the citizens of Liberty Hill. In a single glance, she picked out the entire McBride family except for Zeke’s mother, Sara, the Hoffsteaders and Jenkinses and Carsons, all local ranchers who had money and power and were the movers and shakers of Falls County. All of them had put in appearances at the town meeting, and without exception, they’d watched with stoic faces while other people berated the program and never said a word.
Elizabeth had always thought she was good at reading people’s faces, and she’d have sworn that the elite of Liberty Hill wanted nothing so much as for her to be gone, and her wolves with her. But here they were, out at dawn on a miserable morning that wasn’t fit for a duck, offering a show of support that floored
her.
At a loss for words, she said huskily, “I can’t believe you’re all here. I—I’m stunned.”
Martha Hoffsteader, a crusty rancher’s wife who had her husband and six sons wrapped around her little finger, sniffed and said, “We might not be crazy about wolves running around our neck of the woods, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stand by and let someone get away with killing one, either, just for the sheer pleasure of it. We don’t cotton to that around here.”
The others seconded her. “That’s right. You need help, so here we are.”
“We’ll go over every inch of Eagle Ridge with you if that’s what it takes to find that wolf of yours. We’re ready when you are.”
For the first time since Elizabeth had heard of Napoleon’s disappearance, the sting of tears burned her eyes and welled in her throat, and she thought she was going to lose it right there. Something of her distress must have shown in her face, because suddenly Zeke was stepping forward to draw the attention away from her. “Okay, everyone, the radio signal from the wolf’s collar is still coming from Eagle Ridge, so we’re going to head up there and concentrate on searching the east side of the highway. It’s too dangerous in this weather for all of us to drive up there, so we’re going to carpool. Everyone with Suburbans and vans raise your hands.”
Thankful for the chance to regain control, Elizabeth turned away and had just drawn a steadying breath when Zeke’s sisters joined her. Hastily, she wiped at the foolish tears that threatened to spill over her lashes. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “I didn’t mean to fall apart on everyone I just never expected this kind of support.”
“People might not always agree on government policies around here,” Janey told her, “but they don’t like meanness.”
“That’s right,” Merry said. “When the word got out that Napoleon could be in trouble, people got on the phone and started calling around, spreading the news and volunteering to join in the search. Once this fog lifts, you watch—half the town will turn up at Eagle Ridge.”
Elizabeth prayed she knew what she was talking about. Because it could take half the citizens of Liberty Hill, not to mention a heck of a lot of luck, to find Napoleon. The terrain east of the highway that cut through Eagle Ridge was some of the roughest in the state. Harsh and unforgiving, it was scarred with deep ravines and rocky gorges that offered a wounded animal literally hundreds of places to hide. And most of those places were inaccessible to man. They could search for days, weeks, in the wild country, and never find anything.
Between them, Zeke and Nick lined up six drivers to relay the searchers up to the top of the ndge, and within minutes, it was time to leave. Before everyone could begin the mass exodus toward the parking lot, however, Elizabeth stepped forward to thank them again for coming and to give some last-minute words of caution.
“Napoleon’s mate is still in the area,” she said. “So if you spot her or Napoleon, please contact me,.Tina or Peter. We don’t know if Napoleon is dead or injured, and so don’t approach him yourself. And please be careful in the fog. We don’t want anyone walking off the side of a cliff.”
That seemed to strike more than a few people funny, but it wasn’t until Zeke joined her that she realized why. “Just about anyone who grew up in this area has spent time traipsing around Eagle Ridge,” he told her. “It’s one of the best hunting areas around. Most of these people could walk it blindfolded and never take a misstep.”
It was the first time he’d spoken to her since last night, the first time he’d allowed himself to get within touching distance. She looked tired, which didn’t surprise him. She’d probably spent what was left of the night after he’d brought her home worrying herself sick about Napoleon. He, on the other hand, had spent the hours between midnight and five in the morning, when his alarm went off, staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing but her and the way she’d felt in his arms. And the taste of her on his tongue, he silently added, swallowing a groan. Lord, the woman was intoxicating! Just one kiss, and he’d wanted to sink right into her and never come up for air.
A man could lose his head with a woman like that—with a need like that. If he wasn’t careful, she’d get under his skin and then he really would be in a hell of a mess. But what the devil was he supposed to do? Walk away from her when he couldn’t sleep for thinking about her? Like hell!
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t handle her, he reasoned. If she made his heart slam against his ribs with just a smile, it was just chemistry. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t that, then what else could it be? The possible answer to that flitted through his mind and should have sent him running for cover, but a man had his pride. Motioning for her to precede him, he growled, “C’mon, you’re riding with me.”
Most of the locals might have known every wart and wrinkle of the terrain on the ridge, but Elizabeth didn’t, and it was for that reason that Zeke planned not to let her out of his sight. It should have been simple. All he had to do was stick close, which was becoming a habit with him, anyway.
But the visibility on the ridge wasn’t any better than it had been in town, and keeping an eye on her didn’t turn out to be as easy as he’d expected. As everyone spread out among the trees and carefully made their way toward the area where the radio signal from Napoleon’s collar was coming from, the fog ebbed and flowed around them. Rocky outcroppings and whole trees disappeared in the mist in a blink of an eye, only to reappear again within a matter of moments.
Still, Zeke would have sworn he knew right where Elizabeth was. Then he stepped around a mammoth pine that appeared from out of nowhere in the fog, and when he looked to his right, to the spot where she’d been only minutes before, she was nowhere in sight.
“Damn!” Swearing, he looked wildly around, but he was surrounded by the thick, blinding mist. Just that easily she’d disappeared. “Lizzie? Dammit, where are you?”
“Here.”
She sounded close enough to touch, but when he rushed to the spot where he’d last seen her and called out again, her voice was fainter, even farther away. There was, he told himself, no reason to be alarmed. The fog was just playing tricks on him. Sounds carried strangely in the mist, and in all likelihood, she was no more than twenty or thirty feet away. All she had to do was stand still and he’d find her.
“Don’t move!” he yelled. “Just stay where you are and keep talking. I’m coming.”
“What? I...can’t hear... Where...you?”
He would have sworn she was off to his left, but her disjointed words came back to him in fragments from the opposite direction—right where the rocky ledge of the ridge dropped off without warning to the valley hundreds of feet below.
“Stop!” he cried out hoarsely, his blood turning to ice as he started to run “You’re headed straight for the cliff!”
Surrounded by the mist, Elizabeth thought she heard Zeke yell out something, but he was so far away, she couldn’t tell what it was. And when she called back to him, he never answered her. A thick, eerie silence engulfed her, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn she was completely cut off from the rest of the world. Nothing moved, not even the wind in the top of the trees. Nothing but the fog that swirled around her, brushing against her, teasing her, touching her face and hair with icy fingers. Chilled to the bone, she shivered, hugging herself. She’d never felt so alone in all her life.
“Now don’t get spooky on me, Elizabeth,” she told herself firmly, taking comfort in the sound of her own voice. “There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of. There must be thirty people within a stone’s throw of you, even if you can’t see them. All you have to do is yell if you get in trouble and someone will come running.”
Just then, voices carried to her through the fog from off to her right, reassuring her, and with a shaky laugh she let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “Idiot,” she muttered. “Keep this up and someone’s going to hear you talking to yourself and think you’ve snapped.”
R
eminding herself why she was there, she returned her attention to the search. Her own discomfort forgotten, she moved slowly through the fog, looking for tracks in the snow, blood, signs of a scuffle, anything that would indicate that Napoleon might have been there. Only when she was sure that he hadn’t did she move on.
Concentrating on the ground directly in front of her, she couldn’t have said later when she first felt the touch of eyes on her. There was a slight itching at the back of her neck, an awareness that nagged gently at her as the fog parted like waves around her. Hardly aware of it, she glanced up absently, then returned her gaze to the snow-covered ground. She took a step, then another, but something still pulled at her, stronger now, and with a sigh of irritation, she stopped in her tracks and once again looked up.
The fog swirled around her, and for just a second, Elizabeth thought she caught sight of footsteps in the snow just off to the left ahead of her. It was nothing to be alarmed about—with people all over the ridge unable to see where others were searching, it wasn’t surprising that they crossed each other’s paths from time to time—but suddenly her heart was thundering, and for no explicable reason she was afraid.
“Quit being paranoid,” she whispered. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. If there’s someone out there, it’s just one of the volunteers who got separated from the others the same way you did. He’s probably as scared as you are right now, thinking he’s stumbled across one of the wolves. At least call out a hello so he’ll know he’s not in danger of being mauled or anything.”
Her throat as dry as dust, she called out hoarsely, “Hello? Who’s out there?”
Silence was her only answer. Cold, hostile, malevolent silence. She could almost feel the touch of angry eyes on her, the wickedness that came roiling toward her in waves out of the shrouds of mist.