“Even if I did…care…Laurel doesn’t or she wouldn’t be leaving.”
“Like she doesn’t have a life, right? She’s supposed to stay without a reason? Not even an invitation?” Skelly shook his head. “After all the years you’ve spent studying those wolves of yours, I can’t believe you haven’t learned anything about human behavior. You’re still as rigid as you were twenty-five years ago.”
“And you’re still as insulting.”
“You’re Dad reborn in a different package.”
Hands curling into fists, Donovan stopped in front of his brother, who’d perched on the edge of the desk.
“I told you before—I’m nothing like him.”
“Hah!” Skelly crossed his arms over his chest. “I saw him in you the first time he dragged you to Chicago for a visit”
“When I was five?”
“Old enough to do as you damn well pleased, no matter what anyone thought of you.”
“I knew what you thought of me.”
Skelly gave him a speculative look. “I wonder…”
“You tortured me.”
“You asked for it!” Skelly quickly returned, planting his feet on the floor and facing Donovan eye to eye. “You refused to be one of us.”
“You wouldn’t let me.”
“You always went your own way, no matter what. And Dad always defended you.”
Taken aback, Donovan asked, “He what?”
“Defended you. You’d start a fight—”
“Because you were playing games with my head.”
“—but I—being the older and bigger brother—was punished.”
“Not that I ever saw.”
“He didn’t hit me. No, Dad was more subtle. He waited until you were gone, then would think of some privilege to withhold. I can tell you, that smarted a lot more than a strapping. And all the while, he would hold you up to me as the perfect son.”
Skelly was the perfect son…Raymond McKenna’s anointed one.
Donovan had known that always.
So what was this nonsense?
Probing, he asked, “He used those exact words?”
“No.”
“Aha!”
“He used words like independent and self-sufficient. You were going to grow up to become a real man’s man—while, by implication, I wasn’t. He made it clear those were things I could stand to learn. God, the respect he had for you even while you drove him nuts!”
“And all the while, he was telling me how creative you were. How literate and intelligent. A natural-born storyteller. Said how a man couldn’t ask for a more well-spoken child.”
“Right. He wanted me to be a politician like him.”
“Wrong. He thought you would make a great writer. He compared you to the Irish poets.”
“Could have fooled me,” Skelly said. “Actually, he did. Then. I didn’t see another side of him until I got into some hot water—uh, remind me to tell you about how Roz and I got together when we have time to share war stories over a couple of beers. Anyway, when push came to shove, the old man was there for me.”
Just like their father had been there for him, Donovan thought…and had almost died in the trying.
“It was then I realized that Dad was a whole lot more complicated than I ever gave him credit for. That, despite our tense, volatile relationship, he really did love me.” Skelly gave him a long look. “He could never actually say what he felt. Like it would weaken him, make him less of a man. Don’t be like him anymore, Donovan. Choose to break the mold. Don’t you bury your feelings in pride and let someone you really love walk out of your life.”
Before he could ask his brother what he meant—who their father had let go—an electronic sound got Skelly’s attention.
He snapped around to the fax machine. “Something’s coming through.”
And Donovan heard Aileen’s voice echoing down the hallway. “They’re here.”
“Just in time.” Skelly was already collecting the faxed results. “Bless her heart. I knew that, being a politician, David Tobin couldn’t resist a photo op.”
“Good news!” Aileen announced cheerfully as she danced into the office, Laurel following. “Dad stayed with me for a couple of minutes this time and actually said my name. He recognized me!”
“I’m so relieved he’s on his way to recovery,” Laurel said.
Skelly grinned. “Go, Dad!” he cheered.
While Donovan closed his eyes and gave silent thanks.
“We have good news, too,” Skelly said, turning a close-up of a good-looking, dark-haired man toward the others.
“That’s him.”
Donovan appraised Laurel for her reaction, wondering if her heart belonged to the man who’d taken his name in vain.
Forehead puckering into a puzzled frown, she drew closer to the photograph. “Him, who?”
“David Tobin,” Skelly stated.
She sighed. “Never saw this guy before in my life.”
Chapter Twelve
“Not Karen and David Tobin,” Donovan muttered, pacing the cabin. “Then who? And why?”
Laurel should have known their theory had been too easily formulated. It had made sense. Motive was there. Only it hadn’t panned out.
A reason for her to stay longer?
No. She wouldn’t look for excuses. Only Donovan could be reason enough, and they’d been acting like polite strangers ever since leaving the hospital.
“Does Mad Magda have a son?” she asked.
“If she does, she’s hidden him well all these years. Gault has three daughters. Deterline lost one of his sons and the other has to be over forty.”
“Too old. So, now what?”
“You really don’t have to worry about it any more since you’ll be gone in the morning.”
Unless whoever had been stalking her in the woods was determined to do her in.
Because she could identify the imposter? Or did the congressman’s attacker seriously think she’d been a witness? Not that she would suggest as much. She didn’t want Donovan insisting she stay just so he could protect her.
“If only we knew why he wasn’t supposed to be at the workshop, maybe this would all make sense,” she said. “Know any wolfmen who are troublemakers?”
“Wolfmen?”
She’d said it without thinking, but…
“It would make sense—he was pretty convincing as you. Maybe Magda or Deterline or Gault figured why not fight fire with fire. So to speak.”
Donovan wasn’t saying anything, but he looked thoughtful.
Wondering if his mind was on his father’s imminent recovery, she said, “I’m glad the congressman is coming along so well.”
“He’ll be his old self in no time.”
“And now you’ll finally have the chance to get to know one another.”
“I think we know each other well enough.”
“Whatever happened between you two was a long time ago. You have another chance.”
Surely he could see that. She knew he hadn’t gone unaffected by the last few days.
But all he said was, “Right,” which made Laurel furious.
“You don’t ever give way, do you?” Not to his father. Not to her. He couldn’t even express regret that she’d be out of his life for good. Not one tender word…“My God, you’re so…so rigid!”
A peculiar expression crossed his features. “That’s what Skelly said.”
“Then pay attention. We both can’t be wrong.”
“I can’t change who I am.”
“No one’s asking you to change, Donovan. There’s nothing wrong with the person you are. You care about things other than yourself and you try to fix them. You don’t wait for some mandate, you take responsibility. Those aren’t only outer characteristics. They’re inside you, and they’re terrific. But you have other things inside that you hide from. Just learn to say what’s already in your heart!”
“The way you talk about me makes me think you already
know what’s there.”
Was he trying to tell her something without words? Damn it all, this time she wanted to hear them. Glaring at Donovan, she waited. And waited.
But in the end, he turned away, saying, “I need to check on the traps.”
So that was it, then.
Reigning in her emotions, she spoke coolly. “This late? The sun’s already setting.”
“That doesn’t mean I can shirk my responsibility to the wolves.”
“The wolves. They’re more important to you than anything.”
More important than his family…
More important than she was…
“They’ve always been my life.”
“Then why don’t you take a few clues from them? A pack is a family. Wolves take care of each other and they show each other respect and affection. You play well at being the lone wolf, but you’re the one who told me there’s really no such thing. That a wolf on his own is merely trying to find his own way, his own territory.”
And his own mate with whom he could start a new pack…
Even so challenged, Donovan couldn’t seem to break the silence that wrapped itself around his very soul.
Sighing, she said, “Don’t keep them waiting.”
He hesitated and she thought he might break. Then he turned away from her and started pulling on his Trapper Dan gear. Self-absorbed, he seemed not to notice that she hadn’t moved from the spot until he was almost ready.
Then, gruffly, he said, “Get dressed.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His gaze bored into her. “You can’t stay here alone.”
“I prefer being alone.”
For a moment, he looked as if he’d like to throttle her…and then he backed off.
Grabbing his knapsack, he said, “Keep the doors locked and the radio on. You hear something suspicious, alert the sheriffs office. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Don’t hurry on my account.”
He slammed the door behind him.
Laurel checked the lock and went to a window where she could watch until he disappeared.
If you talk to the animals they will talk to you and you will know them…if you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear…what one fears, one destroys.
Donovan lived by Chief Dan George’s philosophy.
Animals he knew.
He talked with them…howled with them…trusted them.
Too bad he’d never learned to do the same with people.
DONOVAN PRACTICALLY sprinted all the way to the first trap site. The physical activity helped him work off some steam.
He was angry. Again. Anger—the most familiar emotion in his life, one that both fueled and exhausted him.
Wasn’t it time that changed?
That he changed?
Laurel insisted no one was asking him to do so…that he should just say what was already in his heart.
First, he’d have to acknowledge to himself whatever feelings he did have. He’d been holding himself in check for so long, fearing disappointment, even that was difficult.
Is this how his father had been? So choked with emotions he hadn’t been able to address that it had been easier for him to say nothing?
If so, he was like his father. Skelly had been right.
Their earlier argument haunted him.
All the time he’d begrudged his older brother being the favored son, Skelly must have felt the same way about him. Without meaning to, Raymond McKenna had pitted his sons against each other, setting them up for a lifetime of resentment and jealousy.
He could see it so clearly now. He had been jealous. And why wouldn’t he have been? He’d been the outsider. The illegitimate son. The pawn in his father’s political career.
Or had he been?
He’d always viewed those trips to Chicago with mixed feelings. Until that time when Skelly had told him the only reason their father paid him any mind at all was because it would look bad if he didn’t. Walking away from a child—even a bastard—would be bad publicity. Maybe enough to lose him an election.
And directly after that shared confidence, photographers and reporters had filled the house. Taking pictures of him, asking him questions about how much and what kind of time he spent with his father, they’d driven him to hide in the attic.
And the next time his father had come to Wisconsin to collect him, he’d run away.
All because of what Skelly had told him…
He’d taken as gospel the words of a ten-year-old…one who—he now knew—had been horribly jealous of him. On that, he had based the next twenty-five years of his life.
All on a lie.
There was no excusing his father for abandoning his mother, but that was between the two of them. Either she hadn’t held it against him, or she’d found a way to forgive him.
The important thing was, he now realized, that his father had never abandoned him. Raymond McKenna simply had been incapable of saying what was in his heart.
And now the son was guilty of repeating the father’s mistakes.
Unless he managed to find the words, Donovan knew, Laurel would walk out of his life forever…
WITH THE DESCENDING darkness came a case of nerves so intense that Laurel couldn’t relax.
Not that Donovan had been gone long. No reason to worry. Yet. No reason to feel so exposed just because the windows had no coverings.
She concentrated on the hum and crackle of the radio, tried using the background noise to clear her mind. To meditate. But she’d hardly begun to relax when Donovan’s mother called in.
Laurel flew to the mike. “Veronica, it’s Laurel. Donovan’s out checking traps.”
“You’re alone?”
“I’m fine. Is something wrong?”
“You had a call.”
Her first thought was of her animals. “My neighbor, Jack?”
“No. That woman. Rebecca Kinder.”
“Finally, she called back!”
“The imposter’s real name is Will Bancroft. Not so different from Billy Barker, is it?”
“No. Not at all.”
Will Bancroft.
Where had she heard that name? Or seen it? Her gaze strayed to the pile of professional journals next to the radio. She grabbed the periodical with Donovan’s article and flipped it open to the contents.
Her heart thudded.
He’d told her he had an article in this journal. She, of course, had assumed he’d written the one by Donovan Wilde since that’s who he’d claimed to be.
Only half a lie.
He really was another wolfman.
Not wanting to freak out Veronica, she kept that fact to herself for the time being, and instead asked, “Did Rebecca say anything more about this man?”
“That he was a sad case. A troubled man whose reputation had been tarnished.”
Veronica had told them that “Billy” had said he’d lost “what was due him” and that he’d been having difficulty getting work. He’d claimed he wanted a new life and Donovan had wondered if Billy had wanted his.
“Veronica…exactly how did Billy come to work for you?”
“He was driving through town and had to stop for gas. He claimed he liked the looks of Iron Lake and wanted to give starting over here a try. Josh told him I might still be looking for help.”
“Josh…”
The moment the older woman signed out, Laurel looked over William Bancroft’s article, “Predator Versus Prey”—detailing moose-wolf encounters in Isle Royale National Park—and found the contents familiar. Donovan had told her about a similar study between wolves and deer that he’d done while in graduate school.
Uneasiness filled her.
Another wolfman…troubled…reputation tarnished.
Why and by whom?
Had Will Bancroft been hired to get the wolves out of the area…or was a personal vendetta dictating his actions?
Fearing she knew the answer
, Laurel ran for her jacket. She had to get to Donovan. Had to warn him. He’d be furious with her for coming after him, of course. He’d ordered her not to leave the cabin.
Not that she wanted to venture out into the dark…
But instinct told her she dare not wait for his return lest it be too late. Donovan was out there alone. In danger. An unsuspecting target. No clue that he might be up against someone with predatory skills equal to his own.
This rescue attempt had to succeed!
Another person she loved simply couldn’t die.
AAWOOO…
The hair on Donovan’s head ruffed. Having just checked the last trap, he straightened and waited.
Arrrooowww…
The chorus was off…something was wrong. The howls lacked the easy, melodic tones he was used to. There was an urgency to the communication as other wolves joined in, one alerting the next.
Danger…
The wolves were on the alert and so was he.
His internal alarm was jangling…his gut tightening…his spine prickling.
And so he knew…
The alien was again invading his forest, and the night had become ripe with menace. He raised his face to catch the scent on the wind.
Then lifted his voice to complete the chorus.
LAUREL’S CHEST tightened as members of the pack called to one another. Instinctively, she understood they were sending out warnings.
Bancroft was here…somewhere on the property…she’d known it!
Fear burgeoned so that she could hardly swallow by the time she got to the first trap. It was intact and Donovan was long gone. Bending at the waist, hands flattened on her thighs, she tried to catch her breath. To calm herself. To minimize fear so it couldn’t control her.
How would she ever catch up to him?
And if she didn’t manage it, how would she warn him?
“Okay, Laurel, there’s got to be a way. You’re a clever girl. All you have to do is use your head.”
The wolves resumed their nocturnal chorus, their calls lengthening and growing in intensity. And this time, they were joined by a familiar if distant voice. One she recognized.
“Donovan!”
So far away…
Without first considering her action, she literally used her head—raising her face and cupping her hands around her mouth.
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