Alaskan Sanctuary

by Teri Wilson

  And now that the enchanting pink sky grew dim and faded before her eyes, she could no longer pretend it wasn’t coming. The breaking dawn.

  Still, it didn’t seem real. She squeezed her eyes closed and rested her palms on Koko’s side.

  Open his eyes, Lord.

  “Piper!”

  She jerked upright and saw Ethan coming toward her through the snow in a blizzard of euphoria. He screamed her name again, too loud for the quiet hour. He seemed almost triumphant, which made no sense at all.

  “Piper!”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, fingertips buried in Koko’s fur. She couldn’t let go. Not now. Not yet. She knew it was almost time, but she just couldn’t.

  He flew through the double gates, carrying something in his hands. Flowers. Dazzling purple blossoms. At first Piper simply thought it odd that he would choose such an unlikely moment to give her a bouquet. Where had he gotten them, anyway?

  Then she recognized them as the ones Caleb had given her. “What are you doing with those?”

  He’d wrapped the stems in a plastic bag and held them away from his body, arm extended as far as humanly possible. “Where did you get these?”

  “Caleb gave them to me.”

  “Where?” he demanded. “Where did Caleb get them?”

  “He picked them for me. Right here on the grounds. I’m not sure where, exactly,” she said, but Ethan only seemed to be half listening. His gaze scanned the horizon, flitting frantically from one end of the enclosure to the other. “Ethan, why are you acting like this? You’re scaring me.”

  “The flowers are what made Koko sick, Piper. They’re poisonous.”

  She wanted to argue with him. They couldn’t possibly be poisonous. They couldn’t. Because if they were, then she was the one who’d made Koko sick. She’d penned him in an enclosure with poisonous plants.

  But she could tell by the dire look on Ethan’s face that he was certain. She swallowed. What have I done? “Poisonous? Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure. The plant is called Alpine aconite, but its nickname is wolfsbane, because it was once used to...”

  “Kill wolves.” Her fists balled in Koko’s fur.

  Oh my goodness.

  Piper had heard about wolfsbane. The ancient Greeks had used it to poison arrows when hunting wolves. In more recent centuries, farmers had poisoned meat with it and left the tainted food out at night for wolves that threatened their livestock. She’d read about wolfsbane in books, articles and online. And never once had she imagined that it was growing on her property. Right here. In Koko’s pen.

  She tried to take comfort in the fact that the flowers weren’t growing in any of the other pens, and that Caleb had been picking the blooms. Otherwise Koko could have eaten even more of them. But right here, right now, with Koko as sick as he was, it was difficult to look on the bright side.

  Piper grew very still.

  Caleb’s been picking the flowers.

  “Wait,” she said. “Isn’t it possible for the toxins in wolfsbane to be absorbed through the skin?”

  “Yes, which is precisely why I’m not touching the stems.”

  Piper felt the blood drain from her face. She thought she might faint. “Caleb. He’s been sick for a week. He picked those flowers with his bare hands and even put them in a vase for me.”

  “We need to call Stu Foster. And we need to call Tate,” Ethan said. “Right now.”

  He pressed her cell phone into her hand, and she shook so badly that she could barely dial. Within twenty minutes Tate arrived, with Stu sitting beside him in the front seat of his squad car. It had been such a long, quiet night, and now everything seemed to be happening at warp speed.

  Even the wolves seemed to sense the urgency of the situation. They paced back and forth in their enclosures, yipping and pawing at the fence. Even Tundra, the shyest of the bunch, had come out from behind the aspens and sat sentry at the fence line.

  “We’ve contacted Caleb’s parents, and he’s at the hospital right now getting treatment,” Tate explained.

  He’d called Piper and Ethan over to the picnic table behind the cabin to discuss matters, while Stu administered new medication to Koko through an IV. As much as Piper worried about whether there was still enough time to save her wolf, she was more concerned about Caleb. Losing Koko would be a blow, one that would take a long, long time to accept. But being responsible for losing Caleb was something she couldn’t even wrap her head around.

  “Is he going to be okay?” she asked. Please. Please, God. Let him be okay.

  Tate straightened a stack of manila folders he’d set on the table. The one on top was labeled “Aurora Wolf & Wildlife Sanctuary.” She had a police file. Unreal. “Don’t worry. He’s going to be just fine. Since he only touched the flowers instead of ingesting them, the levels of toxins in his system are expected to be relatively small.”

  “Good.” She nodded, dazed. Nothing felt real. None of it. She felt as if she was moving through a dream. A nightmare.

  Ethan reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Has Stu said anything about Koko’s prognosis, Tate?”

  His friend nodded and flipped open her file folder. “He seems to think the wolf stands a good chance, since he made it through the night and now we know what kind of poison we’re dealing with.”

  Piper could have wept with relief, and very nearly did...until her gaze fell on a stack of photographs in the folder.

  Tate kept talking while she stared at the images, utterly confused. At first she thought they must have ended up in her police file by accident. But then she realized the log cabin in the pictures was indeed hers, only it had been defaced in a way that made her blood run cold.

  Killers.

  Tate motioned to the contents of the folder. “The good news is that now we know the poisoning had nothing to do with the prior incident here at the sanctuary. It was just an accident.”

  “An accident,” Piper echoed absently, unable to look away from the pictures.

  There had to be some mistake. Those photos couldn’t be real, could they? She would know if something so ugly, so vile had happened on her property.

  “What are those?” she asked. Then louder, “Those photos. Where did they come from?”

  Tate glanced at Ethan.

  Ethan grew very still beside her.

  Tate fixed his gaze on her once more. “Piper, these are the photographs from the graffiti incident last week.”

  “No.” She shook her head. Maybe if she shook it hard enough, she could rattle those awful images right out of her mind.

  “Piper.” Ethan said her name with an exaggerated calmness that made her want to scream.

  She remembered how touched she’d been that he’d painted the cabin for her. He’d found the paint and cleaned up the graffiti before she’d even seen it. And now she knew why.

  She spun to face him. “You lied to me.”

  Tate rose from his seat. “Maybe I should give you two a minute. I’ll go check on Stu and Koko.”

  “You lied to me, Ethan.” She didn’t care that Tate was still probably within earshot. She needed answers. Now.

  Ethan sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  Those words that had meant so much only hours before now seemed wholly inadequate. How was that possible? “Someone painted the word Killers on my cabin, the place where I sleep every night, and you didn’t think I had a right to know about it? You’re sorry?”

  “I should have told you. I meant to tell you.” He swallowed. “Eventually.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. No wonder he’d been in such a panic when she called 911 about Palmer. And no wonder she’d found him sleeping in his car. He’d been keeping watch over her. “You should have told me. Immediately. This wasn’t your secret to keep, Ethan.”

  “Piper, you can trust me. I promise.” The urgency in his voice was palpable. And real. So real that she wanted to believe it.

  But she could already feel herself cl
osing up, like a dying bloom. “Is there anything else you’ve been keeping from me?”

  Tell me no. Please tell me no.

  He took too long to answer. So long that she almost got up and left him sitting there by himself.

  “Tell me, Ethan,” she said, hating the way that her voice broke when she said his name.

  He took a deep breath. “The inspector from the NNC came yesterday while you were with Koko. It looks like your grant may be getting denied.”

  She dropped her head to her hands. How much more bad news could she take in the course of twenty-four hours? Just when she thought things were getting better. Just when Koko had a glimmer of hope.

  Just when she’d thought she’d fallen in love.

  “Piper, you can appeal. I’ll help you.” Ethan placed a soothing hand on her back.

  She shrugged it off. “I think you’ve done enough.”

  His gray eyes narrowed and grew gunmetal sharp. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Look, I understand why you wrote the things you did in the paper. I still don’t like it, but I understand now. Secrets and lies are another story.” Her voice rose an octave. She could hear herself sounding slightly hysterical. Possibly even unreasonable, given the fact that Ethan had been the one who’d figured out how Koko had become poisoned.

  He’d also been the one to stay with her all night. He’d been the one to make sure she was safe. Time and time again.

  She swallowed. The one. Why did that phrase keep coming up? He couldn’t be the one.

  “I was trying to protect you. I didn’t want to see you hurt,” he murmured. “And did you really expect me to tell you about the NNC when you’d been sitting in the snow with a dying wolf in your lap all night long?”

  She hated that his explanation sort of made sense. Truth was black-and-white. She shouldn’t feel at all conflicted. Not after everything she’d been through.

  “I need to know I can trust you,” she whispered. “It’s hard for me. You don’t know how hard.”

  “You can trust me, lovely. I promise.”

  She wanted to. So badly. “Is there anything else? Anything else at all?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “There’s not.”

  He opened his arms, and just as she was about to give in, just as she felt her resistance slipping away, Zoey came jogging up the trail from the direction of the reindeer farm.

  “Here you are. I’ve been calling for the past half hour. You haven’t been answering your phone.” She bent over, out of breath. She must have run all the way from her place.

  “Sorry, it’s been a little crazy around here.” Piper patted the empty spot next to her on the bench. “Sit down, and we’ll fill you in.”

  “I can’t. I’m late.” She stood upright again and pointed at Ethan. “And so are you. That’s why I’ve been calling all morning. Let’s go, or we’re going to miss our runway time. Thanks to Palmer, I’m not exactly the air traffic controller’s favorite person. He wouldn’t be happy if I threw a wrench in his entire schedule by being late.”

  What in the world was she talking about?

  “Zoey, wait,” Ethan started.

  But he’d gone pale, and Piper knew she didn’t want to hear whatever came next. In fact, she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears so she could keep believing she could trust him.

  But she couldn’t. She couldn’t allow herself to be so foolish. Not again. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  Zoey frowned, clearly confused. “I’m scheduled to fly Ethan to Anchorage this morning to catch his commercial flight to Seattle.”

  Ethan dropped his head in his hands.

  “Seattle? You’re going to Seattle this morning?” Piper no longer felt hysterical. Or even angry.

  Just disappointed. Maybe the most disappointed she’d ever been.

  “I’ve got a job interview at The Seattle Tribune this afternoon, but I’d changed my mind.” He leveled his gaze at her, and she had trouble focusing on anything other than the earnest gray of his eyes. “That’s why I’m here. With you.”

  “Don’t.” She shook her head.

  She couldn’t take any more. No more secrets. No more explanations. No more feeling as if she loved this person who, as of yesterday, had been planning to leave.

  She didn’t know why she was surprised. Or even hurt. People always left. They always left and they always lied. She should have been used to it by now.

  Zoey shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Should I leave? I’m getting the feeling I should go.”

  “No,” Piper said tersely. “Stay.”

  She stood up and willed her knees not to buckle. She needed to get away from here. Back to Koko. Back to where things made sense. “I thought you were different, Ethan. I really did.”

  “I am. I’m in love with you, Piper. I’m not him.” Stephen’s name rang in her ears, unspoken, but very much there.

  I’m in love with you.

  No one had ever said those words to her before. She’d longed to hear someone say they loved her for as long as she’d been alive. But she’d never expected it would come at a moment like this. A moment when she was hurt and confused and tired. So very tired.

  I’m in love with you.

  He sat there staring at her, waiting for her to respond.

  I love you, too.

  She wanted to say it. Ten minutes prior, she would have. But now she simply couldn’t stomach it.

  “Piper,” Zoey whispered.

  She should say something. Anything. She couldn’t just keep standing there. Mute.

  “I’m not him,” Ethan repeated, his voice raspy around the edges. “I’m not that man.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. Maybe she could hold herself together for a few more minutes. She could fall apart when he was gone. When it was just her and the wolves again. “No, you’re not. You’re the man who tried to get my wolf sanctuary closed down. You’re the man who wanted to run me and my wolves out of town.” He flinched, but she kept going, unable to stop the flow of ugliness coming out of her mouth. “You, Ethan Hale, are the man who tried to destroy my dream and then lied to my face. So go. Go to Seattle. Go wherever you want, but just go.”

  Then she spun around and turned her back on him so she wouldn’t have to see the wounds her words had inflicted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?” Piper whispered.

  In the quiet shadows of the wings of the community center stage, Koko’s ears twitched in response to her voice. Calm and content by her side, he was the antithesis of the big, bad wolf. Piper wished Ethan could see him now, the perfect gentleman actor, healed and whole, waiting for his big moment onstage.

  Ethan wasn’t standing beside her, of course. Piper didn’t even know if he was anywhere in the building, seated among the audience or standing at the back of the crowded auditorium. She wholeheartedly doubted it.

  She’d neither seen nor spoken to him since the morning after Koko had ingested the poison a full week ago. Ethan had respected her wishes and kept his distance from the sanctuary, taking her at her word when she’d said she’d no longer wanted anything to do with him. The morning after that first lonely day without him there, she’d driven into town for a copy of the Yukon Reporter out of pure, morbid curiosity. What had he written about Koko’s illness? How had he spun things? Had he painted her as the crazy wolf woman who lived on a mountain and accidentally poisoned her pack? He could have printed a story like that. It would have been accurate. Sort of. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. After the things she’d said to him, she deserved it. She deserved worse.

  But that’s not the kind of story he’d written. Instead he’d written nothing at all.

  Not a word. Nothing about the wolfsbane. Nothing about Koko. Nothing about the vigil they’d kept under the pink Alaskan sky. In fact, she couldn’t find a single article with his byline anywhere among the newspaper’s many pages. She’d check
ed. Twice.

  She couldn’t believe it. It was over. At last. People were no longer debating the pros and cons of her wolf sanctuary over lattes at the coffee bar. She could flip through the local radio stations on her drive into town and not hear a single word about how she’d forced Ethan to clean out wolf pens. His front-page column had been replaced with coverage of the local mayoral debates. Business as usual. Piper and her wolves were no longer being mocked on a daily basis for the entire world to see. Or the state, at least. Tate had even located the kids who’d vandalized the cabin. They’d sent written apologies and were performing community service at the church.

  Piper should have been thrilled.

  “Is it crazy that I miss Ethan?” she said, not realizing she’d actually uttered the words aloud until Koko’s ears pricked forward in attention. “Because I sort of do.”

  Now who’s the liar?

  She didn’t just miss him a little bit. She missed him a lot. More than she’d ever missed anything or anyone in her entire life.

  “Are you ready, Piper?” Zoey, whom Posy had appointed stage manager, poked her head through the curtain. “It’s almost time.”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Piper pasted on a smile, and her gaze flitted to the small portion of the audience that was visible beyond the curtain. She couldn’t make out anything from back here. She couldn’t even tell how many rows of seats were occupied.

  “And how’s our superstar?” Zoey cooed at Koko.

  Piper gave him a pat on his side, and noted that his weight seemed back to normal. She could no longer feel his ribs protruding through his thick coat. “As good as new and ready for his close-up.”

  “Great. Just stand by. I’ll be directly opposite you in the wings, and I’ll give you the thumbs-up signal once the girls have all moved offstage. Then you’ll walk with Koko to center stage and take a bow. Easy peasy.”

  “Easy peasy,” Piper repeated.

  “Any questions?”

  “Nope, it all seems really straightforward.” She fiddled with Koko’s leash, winding it around her hand, then unwinding it. “Except maybe just one thing.”

  “Yes?” Zoey asked. “What is it? Shoot.”