by Teri Wilson
It would be adorable. The townspeople would love it.
Best of all, it would draw a huge amount of attention to both the ballet school and the wolf sanctuary. Posy had just mentioned that the school was struggling. She could use some new students. And the rescued wolves could use all the positive attention they could get.
It would be perfect.
Wouldn’t it?
Of course Piper thought it was a precious idea. But Posy might think she’d lost her mind. Ethan most certainly would.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with that man.
With one notable exception. Along with being a great public relations opportunity for the ballet school and the wolf sanctuary, helping out with Posy’s recital would give Piper something to think about other than Ethan Hale.
Her gaze met Posy’s and held. “I might have an idea.”
* * *
Ethan didn’t intend to get to the wolf sanctuary a full hour before Piper expected him. He didn’t aim to get there early at all, lest she mistakenly think her reprimand for his tardiness the day before carried any weight whatsoever. He’d planned on arriving right at eight-thirty. No earlier, no later.
But at six in the morning, the very minute the early edition of the Yukon Reporter hit newsstands, his cell phone had begun ringing. An hour and a half later, it still hadn’t stopped.
He’d resorted to putting it on vibrate so he could have a moment of peace as he drove to the wolf sanctuary. He needed a minute—or ten—to collect himself before he embarked on another day as Piper Quinn’s assistant.
Assistant. Right. Slave labor was a more accurate description. He’d tossed and turned more than once during the night, wondering what delightful task she had in store for him today. Worry. Anxiety. Dread. Those had to be the reasons for his sleeplessness. He refused to believe it had anything to do with the fact that every time he closed his eyes, he saw Piper’s exquisite face, sapphire eyes sparkling with life, her flaxen hair whipping in the wind. She had such an animated spirit that even the air around her refused to stand still. Snow flurries danced. The boughs of the evergreens waved as she walked past. It was as if nature were every bit as enamored with her as she was with it.
Not Ethan. He was irritated, not enamored. Not by any stretch. Definitely irritated. Possibly intrigued. But that’s where his feelings stopped, sleepless nights notwithstanding.
He scowled at his phone buzzing away in the cup holder of his SUV. Lou had already called three times, as had pretty much every columnist and reporter at the office. Ethan had never been on the receiving end of so much effusive praise.
He should be happy. His work was getting the sort of attention he’d wanted since he’d given up his park ranger days for a cubicle in a newsroom. Correction: this was the amount of attention he’d wished for. The nature of the accolades was another story.
His column wasn’t newsworthy. It was scandalous. The feud between the “reporter and the wolf lady” was suddenly all that the people of Aurora were talking about it. According to Lou, it was on the tip of every tongue in the Land of the Midnight Sun, from the frozen shores of the Chukchi Sea to Sitka, near the southernmost tip of the state. Ethan’s newspaper account of his first day on the job had only added fuel to the fire.
Readers were thrilled. Lou was thrilled. Ethan should have been thrilled.
He wasn’t. Not quite. Because it had suddenly occurred to him that he was no longer writing the news. He was the news. And that didn’t sit well.
Even worse, he should have seen this coming. He should have realized that instead of signing on to write a series of articles about a dangerous situation that posed a threat to the community, he’d actually agreed to pen what amounted to a gossip column. About himself, no less.
All the red flags had been there. They still were. When he’d sat down at the Northern Lights Inn coffee bar earlier this morning, every pair of eyes in the place had been on him. Every customer had asked him about Piper. And her wolves. And what she might have in store for him next, now that he’d cleaned out the wolf enclosures. Even the barista had peppered him with inquiries before handing over Ethan’s coffee. He’d stood on the other side of the counter holding the large paper cup of Gold Rush blend hostage until Ethan had finally answered one of his questions. Questions that had nothing to do with the ecological and social realities of the wolf sanctuary, but everything to do with his plans to get even with Piper. And vice versa.
What had he done? Maybe he should pull the plug on this whole thing and tell Lou he was finished.
Right. And then Lou would fire him on the spot.
Ethan swallowed the dregs of his coffee as he maneuvered his SUV off the highway and onto the snow-covered road that led to the wolf sanctuary. Maybe there was a way to salvage this situation, to draw attention to the actual matter at hand—the danger that the wolves posed—rather than the “war” between him and Piper. Ethan was a man of words. Granted, his words of late hadn’t been pretty. But war was an ugly word. The ugliest of all.
They weren’t at war, were they?
He hoped not. He liked Piper. More than he had any reason to. More than he should.
The sanctuary certainly didn’t look like a battlefield. Through the softly falling snow, beneath the thick canopy of the evergreens, it looked more like something from a Christmas card. Peaceful. Serene.
And just a little bit lonely.
There was no sign of the beat-up old VW van that was usually parked out front, and no sign of Piper. He wondered where on earth she could have gone at this early hour, then reminded himself it was none of his business. She wasn’t expecting him until eight-thirty.
He switched off the ignition and was struck by the sudden silence. Silence so thick that it was heavy, like a weight on his chest. Out here, it was easy to forget that downtown Aurora was little more than ten miles away. The forest was a different world, among trees and rugged stone cliffs. Among the wolves.
Ethan frowned. He didn’t like the idea of Piper living out here all alone. What if one of the wolves turned on her? No one would be around to help.
Wolf attacks on humans were rare. Piper was right about that. But there was a big difference between rare and impossible. Only three people in North America had been killed by wolves in the past fifty years, but the most recent attack had been right in Piper’s backyard. Less than five years ago.
A schoolteacher out for a late-afternoon jog near Chignik Lake, Alaska, was attacked and killed by a pack of wild wolves. She’d been less than two miles from a small but populated village, closer to civilization than Piper’s sanctuary. Like Piper, the victim had been a woman. Petite, blonde, beautiful.
Gone.
Ethan had still been a park ranger at the time, and like most Alaskans, he’d considered the incident a tragic, freak accident. Wolves didn’t typically attack people. Everyone knew that. Then, less than thirty days later, he’d watched a bear tear apart a child. Only then had he come to understand the grim difference between rare and never.
Piper lived alone. Among wolves. Was it possible she would meet the same tragic fate as the schoolteacher from Chignik Lake? Not likely.
But those odds weren’t good enough for Ethan. If only this place didn’t feel so isolated.
Then again, sometimes it didn’t matter, did it? Horrific things could happen, did happen, even when help was an arm’s length away.
Ethan’s phone rang again, and this time he was grateful for the distraction. “Hello.”
“Is this Mr. Hale? Ethan Hale?” The woman’s voice was unfamiliar, as was the phone number that had popped up on his screen. But he’d recognized the area code. Seattle, Washington.
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“This is Anna Plum from The Seattle Tribune.” Finally. Maybe she’d offer him a job. Right now, so he could walk away from all this wolf business. Unlikely, but it was a nice fantasy. “I received your résumé a while back, and it looks like you’re writing some very interesting things
up there in Alaska.”
“Thank you.” She’d actually read the clippings he’d sent. Maybe he really had a shot at this. “What pieces interested you most? I have some updates on the series I did about proposed oil drilling in the Bering Sea.”
“That won’t be necessary. I was actually referring to your more recent articles, the ones about the wolves.”
Just his luck. “The wolf articles. I must admit I’m surprised.”
How had she even seen them? The Yukon Reporter had an online edition, but its readership was pretty much limited to residents of Alaska.
“Well, you shouldn’t be. The AP—Associated Press—has picked them up. You’ve gone viral, Mr. Hale.”
Ethan paused. He simply had no idea what to say. Viral? “Is that so?”
“Yes, sir. Congratulations.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Like I said, we’re impressed with your writing, Mr. Hale. We’ll be following the rest of your series on the wolf sanctuary, and we’d like you to come out to Seattle to discuss your future. Soon. As soon as possible, in fact.”
“I’d like that very much,” he said. “But I probably can’t get there for another two weeks or so.”
“We were aiming for sooner. Is there any way you can make that work?”
Sooner than two weeks? While he was supposed to be cleaning wolf enclosures and writing his column? Doubtful, but his gut told him to get to Seattle as soon as possible. Viral hits didn’t exactly last forever, did they? “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good. Shoot me an email as soon as you’re available.” She rattled off her email address, and he jotted it down on a napkin from the Northern Lights Inn coffee bar.
They said goodbye, and Ethan sat staring at his phone. He had ten missed calls and half as many voice mails. What was happening?
You’ve gone viral.
He should be happy. He knew he should. Somehow this whole scenario didn’t feel right, though.
He looked out the windshield toward the first wolf enclosure, where Tundra stood watching him from behind her cluster of aspen trees. Ethan felt the coolness of her copper gaze reaching into the center of his chest like an imperious fist. Why did he get the feeling she was evaluating him somehow? Friend or foe?
I’m not your friend.
He wished the matter were that simple. He wished a lot of things.
He leaned his head against the headrest and squeezed his eyes closed against the memories. What was it about these woods, this snow-covered place of respite, that made him remember so much? It was too much. All of it.
He opened his eyes, and his gaze snagged on something beyond the swirling snow. Something red. His gut clenched.
Was he seeing things?
Maybe it was nothing. Just his mind playing tricks on him again. He climbed out the SUV, and to his horror realized he wasn’t imagining things.
Killers.
The word had been scrawled in red paint on the side of Piper’s little log cabin office. A big, blood-hued sentiment that could have been plucked straight from Ethan’s head, or his newspaper column, and scribed to life.
He felt sick to his stomach all of a sudden. And angry. Furious, even. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering Ethan had used similar terms, if not that exact word, to describe the wolves.
But this was different. Someone had come onto Piper’s land and done this. Not to educate, not to inform. But to frighten her.
Ethan’s hands began to shake as he stood there staring at it. He felt like hitting something. Something or someone. The trouble was he didn’t know who he was more angry at—the idiot who’d defaced Piper’s property or himself.
This was his fault. His column had done this. His column that had now gone viral. The so-called feud had gotten out of hand, and now some idiot thought it was okay to come here and terrorize Piper.
Maybe wolves weren’t the only dangers lurking in the shadows of her forest.
Ethan’s gaze darted to the cluster of hemlock trees to his right and then scanned the horizon. There was no sign of anything else amiss. Nothing. No one. Just the papery bark of the aspen trees, snow soft as feathers and the graceful lope of the watchful wolves.
Fingers numb from the cold, he pulled his cell phone out of the pocket of his parka and dialed Tate Hudson.
He answered on the first ring. “Hudson here.”
“Tate, it’s Ethan. I’m out at the wolf sanctuary, and we’ve got a problem.” He turned his back on the cabin, but somehow still saw red. He’d probably be seeing red for a long time, at least as long as it took to find whoever had done this.
“A problem?” Tate let out a laugh. “Does the audacious Ms. Quinn have you doing more dirty work today?”
Of course he’d read the article. Everyone from Alaska to the South Pole had read it, apparently. “This is serious. How fast can you get out here?”
Very fast, as it turned out.
Less than twenty minutes later, Tate’s police cruiser pulled to a stop alongside Ethan’s SUV. By then Ethan had walked the perimeter of Piper’s property, searching for signs of more vandalism. He’d come up empty. No more painted messages. And no Piper, either. Which would have given him an immediate ulcer if not for the fact that her car was also absent. She’d probably gone to run an errand or something. Still, he’d feel better when she returned, and he knew she was safely out of harm’s way.
Since when is this place safe?
“Any idea when this happened?” Tate snapped a few photos of the graffiti with his cell phone, which Ethan had already done.
“No idea. I got here less than half an hour ago, and I haven’t seen Piper. I’m guessing she went into town.”
“She couldn’t have come outside without noticing this, and we haven’t had any calls at the station this morning. Not a one.” Tate shook his head and pocketed his phone. “Do you think Piper would have contacted the police if the paint had been here first thing this morning?”
“I’d hope so.” But Ethan couldn’t say for certain. Piper gave him the impression that she believed she could singlehandedly take on the world, which he found equal parts maddening and captivating.
But she would have been upset if she’d seen this. Extremely upset. Devastated.
Ethan didn’t like the thought of a devastated Piper Quinn. Not one bit.
“Maybe she drove into town to report it in person,” Tate suggested.
“No.” Ethan shook his head. “She wouldn’t have left the wolves. Not after something like this.”
She would have stayed right here alongside them, all alone, in the middle of nowhere. Unarmed and unprotected. He knew enough about Piper to be certain of that.
“I can dust for prints and take a look around, but I doubt we’ll find anything. We usually don’t in these circumstances,” Tate said. “Unfortunately.”
“Should we be worried about this?” We. As if he and Piper were a team. A couple. “I mean, do you think she’s in danger up here?” Other than the obvious. The wolves.
Tate shook his head. “I doubt it. Aurora’s a safe place. You know that, Ethan. Chances are far more likely that this is the work of kids rather than a dangerous criminal. I’d place my bets on someone who’s just getting a little too stirred up by what’s being printed in the paper these days.” He raised his brows at Ethan.
Ethan’s jaw clenched. Why did he feel as if he had red on his hands? “All the same, do you think you could keep an eye on her out here? Just in case.”
“Sure. I’ll make certain we get a patrol car out here regularly, at least until things settle down.”
Until you stop attacking one another in the newspaper.
Things had gone too far. It didn’t matter if Ethan quit writing the column. It didn’t matter if Lou fired him. There was no turning back.
You’ve gone viral.
It was too late.
Tate crunched through the snow until he stood less than an arm’s length from the
defaced cabin wall. “With all the snowfall we’ve been getting this morning, I can’t see any obvious footprints. But the paint is definitely fresh. This couldn’t have been done more than an hour ago. ”
So Piper probably hadn’t seen it yet. Good.
But she would soon enough. Would it frighten her? Maybe. Would it hurt her? Most definitely. It would stain her heart as surely as it had stained her little log cabin.
One of the wolves howled, a lonely lament that sent a chill up Ethan’s spine, and an owl swooped overhead. He forced himself to look at the graffiti again.
Killers.
It left a bad taste in Ethan’s mouth. A taste oddly reminiscent of regret.
Chapter Five
Piper was nothing short of giddy as she drove back up the mountain to the wolf sanctuary. She had a plan, a real plan, for getting the rescue wolves back in the community’s good graces. At last. Things were beginning to turn around, thanks to Posy.
She’d loved Piper’s idea for the recital. The little ballerinas would dance a simplified version of Little Red Riding Hood, minus the scary ending, of course. The choreography would chiefly consist of the girls tiptoeing and doing simple ballet steps in red tutus and capes. Liam’s youth group could help construct the forest set. And at the end of the dance, after the girls had glided offstage and into the audience, Piper would walk across the stage with Koko on a leash. Just the two of them. It would be the last thing anyone expected. A real wolf.
It was different, just different enough to pack the chairs of Aurora’s community center. Hopefully. Posy’s dance school and the wolf sanctuary could both use a little boost. A ballet studio and a wildlife rescue center weren’t exactly the most obvious allies, but working together made sense.
Even the thought of what Ethan might have to say about the arrangement wasn’t enough to put a damper on Piper’s excitement. She tried not to think about that as she turned onto the highway that led up the mountain, and waved at the state trooper’s car that passed her coming from the opposite direction.