Randi closed her eyes and melted back into her house. She dropped her rucksack onto the floor and began peeling away her clothes. Stepping into the shower, she endured the cold spray of solitude and, later, the scalding rush of heartbreak.
24
Britt picked his way around construction debris at the building site of the training center. Pieces of metal and wood and chunks of masonry littered the outside yard, giving it a post-hurricane appearance.
Pushing open the front door, he was glad to see the disorganized chaos outside did not extend inside. From the looks of it, the contractors had wrapped up their work on the interior today, as promised.
“Reid!”
After he’d left Randi’s place, he’d driven around for over an hour. His mind had seethed with other possibilities of how the wolves had been discovered. He’d even called Jonah and Deke to see if they’d discussed the wolves with anyone. Thank goodness he’d asked them over the phone rather than in person. Neither were too happy with him at the moment.
He didn’t believe in coincidences, yet he’d seen the truth in Randi’s eyes when she said she hadn’t divulged the den’s location. But people accidentally revealed secrets all the time. It was near impossible to be aware of every word said, especially in times of high stress or when rushed. Mouths spewed shit every day. Marriage counselors would be out of work, otherwise.
On his third pass of the construction site, he’d spotted Reid’s F-150 and another possibility had occurred to him. The more he’d considered the idea, the more likely it seemed. In many ways, Reid would be the guy you’d want at your side. Once he committed, he was like a damned leech. He either had to be cut off or burned off.
But other times, Reid had the mentality of a twelve-year-old. No common sense—or, if he did, he ignored it.
“Reid!” Britt stomped his way into the cavernous gym. No sign of the pain in the ass. “Reid, I need to talk to you!”
Britt gritted his teeth and searched for his brother, room by room. He found him on the back patio, sitting in a bag chair with a longneck dangling from his fingers. The image was so not Reid that all he could do was stare.
“I knew I should have pulled my truck around back,” Reid said without turning around.
“Did you hear me calling your name?”
“Brynne probably heard you downtown. From inside her damned shop.” He took a drink. “What’d I do now?”
In the back of Britt’s turmoil-drugged mind, he noticed something was off with Reid. But Britt’s own issues elbowed their way to the fore. “Have you been war-gaming on the north side of the conservation area?”
“I haven’t been war-gaming on any side of the conservation area.”
“Have you been hunting?”
“Not since the last time the four of us went out.”
“Did you give your friends permission to hunt the conservation area?”
Reid set down his beer and gave Britt his full, unwavering attention. “Are you out of your flippin’ mind? What’s this all about?”
“Answer the question first.”
“Fuck off.”
It was the exact wrong thing to say to Britt in his current mental state. From one breath to the next, the two of them squared off face-to-face. Britt stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Reid, though his little brother knew how to kill a man in a hundred different ways.
“Answer the question,” Britt demanded.
“Tell me what’s going on first. If I’m going to be accused of something, I want to know why.”
He knew to his core that Evie hadn’t divulged the pack’s existence and his quick phone calls to Jonah and Deke told him they weren’t the culprits. Now that someone had found the wolves, he didn’t know what to do about it. Did he relocate them? Did he let things play out? Did he hire security to keep an eye on the den?
Letting more people in on his secret that was becoming less of a secret made every cell in his body rebel. He stared down his brother, wanting to believe Reid had nothing to do with Mellow’s death, even indirectly.
Something flickered in his brother’s eyes. “Does this have anything to do with what you and Evie’ve been whispering about for months?” Reid caught his surprise. “It is. So you have a secret you’ll share with a twenty-something college student but not me? A Green Beret? ” Reid shook his head and sat back down. “Freaking priceless.”
When put that way, his reluctance to tell Reid about the wolves seemed ridiculous. Yet outside his military experience, Reid had proven time and again that stupidity really did run in the Steele gene pool. Out of all his siblings, Reid was the one he’d never managed to connect with. They were oil and water—responsible vs irresponsible, introvert vs extrovert, beer vs whisky.
“What did I ever do to you to make you not trust me?” Reid asked.
“I trust you.”
“You sure got a funny way of showing it, bro.”
Maybe he’d put too much weight on their differences. Maybe he should have been looking for common ground rather than all the ways they differed. His brother might be an ass, but he was an honorable ass.
“Look,” Britt speared his fingers through his hair, “you’re not the only one I’ve kept in the dark about my project. Evie’s the only one in the family I’ve told. Partly because she’s the only one who has ever had an interest in what I do and partly because my former partner and I decided to keep the in-the-know circle small.”
“Former partner?”
“Barbara Shepherd, a passionate wildlife conservationist and my mentor while she was alive.”
“Randi’s mom?”
“Yes. Randi learned about the project after her mother’s death. That’s how quiet we kept it.”
“So the secret project is in the woods, on conservation area property.”
“And on Randi’s.” Britt eased down on the top step of the patio, careful of his injured rib, and rested his back against the cedar column bracing the pergola above. “A little over year ago, I came across a den of red wolves.”
“Wolves in North Carolina?”
“They were reintroduced to the state back in the late eighties, along the coast. Later, the federal government tried to establish a cell in the Smokies.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“When the program out here collapsed, about thirty wolves were never located. The feds believed that they either died from starvation or bred themselves out with the local coyotes.”
“Until you found your merry rogue band.”
“They’re purebloods.” Britt shook his head, still amazed at their resiliency. “Somehow they’ve managed to resist coyote temptation all these years. It’s an amazing discovery.”
He peered up at his brother, expecting to find boredom etched over every plane of his face. Instead, he found genuine interest. So much so, Reid had leaned forward in his chair while Britt spoke. The sledgehammer lifted from his chest.
“You and Barbara Shepherd have been monitoring the den ever since?”
“Yes.” Britt smiled. “The pack had pups this spring.”
Reid’s lips quirked upward. “Congratulations, Papa.”
“Funny.”
His brother’s expression sobered. “How do I factor into all of this?”
“Randi and I found one of the juveniles dead this afternoon. Shot.”
“You think I killed one of the wolves?
“Not on purpose. But I wondered if you and your friends were out horsing around. Maybe one of them thought they were targeting a coyote.”
“No way. Not me. Not my friends. They know better than to go near the conservation area.”
“I didn’t think so, but I had to ask.” He released a frustrated sigh. “For over a year, the wolves have lived in peace and now one is dead due to human interference.”
“You said that you and Randi found the dead wolf. Who else knows about the den?”
“Me, Randi, Evie, Jonah, Deke, and now you. Barbara Shepherd, of course, but she’s gone.”
“Jonah?”
“Only yesterday. He’s buying the Shepherd property.”
“Damn, you’ve been busy.”
“You have no idea.”
“I don’t know Randi well. Could she have blown the den’s location?”
Britt bit his tongue, unable to ’fess up to the fact that he’d all but accused her of giving in to Gaviston’s charms and selling out the wolves.
“Went down that tricky road, did you?” Reid tried to suppress a grin and failed. “Didn’t work out well, I take it.”
“No. It did not.” Britt rubbed the heel of his palm against his forehead. “I reacted to a fleeting suspicion before thinking the damn thing through.”
Reid clutched his chest. “Where’s my calendar?” He pulled out his phone, tapping away. “I need to make a note of this. Britt Steele reacted without brooding something to death.” He clicked his screen off. “There, a historical moment recorded for me to pull up and mock at a later date.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re an ass?”
“Every day of my life, bro. Sometimes twice on Tuesday.”
Britt nodded toward the cooler sitting at Reid’s side. “Got an extra in there?”
Snapping the lid open, Reid grabbed a beer and tossed it to Britt. “Not your normal weapon of choice.”
“Not a normal day.”
“From your boo-fuck-hoo face, I take it Randi’s important to you.”
“We’ve…grown close.” Britt scraped a nail over the label on the beer bottle. “I need to make this up to her.”
“Buy her an ice cream cone.”
“What?”
“Ice cream. Chicks love that kind of thing. Sweet and romantic.”
“Does Brynne agree with you?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t tried it with her yet.” He stared down at the blue-and-gold label on his bottle. “But I’m gonna keep it in my back pocket.”
“Trouble already?”
A muscle flicked in his jaw.
“Reid?”
“I almost lost her, and it scared me shitless.”
“A little overprotective, are you?”
“So she says.”
“Welcome to the world of Britt.”
Understanding darkened Reid’s face. “We’ve never thanked you for taking care of us after Dad left.”
The air valve in Britt’s throat closed. He looked away. “Don’t start now, or I’ll have a damn heart attack on your construction site.”
“Can’t have that. Mags will insist on a full-scale investigation, which will put us even further behind.”
“Prick.”
“Back atcha.”
An easy silence fell between them, one the two of them hadn’t experienced in years. Decades, maybe.
“Do me a favor, would you?” Britt asked.
“You want me to help you track down who’s hunting the conservation area?”
“How’d you know?”
He flashed one of his grins. “There’s more to me than amazing good looks, bro.”
Britt shook his head. The old Reid was back. “I would appreciate the help, thanks.”
“Sweet.” Reid popped out of his chair. “Ready?”
Britt eased to his feet, downing the last of his beer. He set the empty bottle inside the cooler, then clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Let me know how the ice cream thing goes.”
An uncharacteristic flush entered Reid’s cheeks.
Britt laughed, ruffling his brother’s hair like he used to when they were much younger. “Come on, dickweed. Let’s find out who killed my wolf.”
* * *
Snap!
“Sonofabitch!” Reid’s whole body arched as he jumped away from the iron jaws of the illegal trap. “That makes four.” He rubbed a hand over his chest. “I’ll never get used to the sound of a sprung trap. Can’t even imagine what that must feel like on a paw.”
On the way to the conservation area, Reid made a stop at the urgent care clinic so Britt could have his ribs checked out. All the pain turned out to be nothing more than a helluva contusion, which suited Britt just fine. He wondered if Randi had gone to see her doc yet.
At the conservation area site they scouted for any evidence of who had killed Mellow and whom, or what, Randi had seen on the bluff right before her encounter with the bear. So far, they hadn’t found anything of a personal nature that might help them identify the trespasser. However, they had found a number of set traps that might carry the owner’s fingerprints.
The find confirmed Britt’s opinion that Mellow’s death hadn’t been an accident. He’d been hunted. Somehow, the wolf had eluded his hunter and sought the safety of the den. So the question remained—had the trespasser killed the wolf for fun, sport, or profit?
Britt grabbed the trap. “Randi and I got lucky when we were out here earlier. One misstep and we would have gotten nailed by one of these.” He shoved the iron torture device into his backpack, noticing for the first time how low on the horizon the sun sat. “We’re losing our light. I’ll come back tomorrow to finish the search.”
“It just so happens that I’m a free man tomorrow.”
Britt grinned and clasped Reid’s shoulder. “Thanks, mutt.”
“You’re welcome, Tarzan.”
“You up for a little Name That Tune?”
A slow smile stretched across his brother’s face. “Do I get to kick some ass?”
“Quite possible.”
“I’m in.”
After leaving the conservation area, they piled into Britt’s truck and drove for an hour before pulling into Carolina Club’s parking lot. Britt backed into a parking stall and cut the engine.
“So what’s the plan?” Reid withdrew his Sig Sauer from beneath his lightweight jacket. He gave it a once-over, checking the chamber before re-holstering the weapon. Noticing Britt’s tension, he said, “Don’t worry. It’ll stay concealed unless they go stupid on us.”
Britt nodded, resting his wrist atop the steering wheel. “We wait.”
“Then what?”
“When Norwood and his cronies come out, assuming they’re still inside, we confront them about the traps and shooting.”
“That’s your plan?” At Britt’s nod, Reid asked, “Where does the ass-kickin’ factor in?”
“The second they tell one lie too many.”
“You don’t really expect them to ’fess up to trespassing on our property, do you?”
“No. But I’m hoping I can tweak Norwood’s ego enough to make him careless.” Britt spotted three figures emerging from the lodge. The gentleman who walked ahead of the others bore Norwood’s tall, fit physique and receding brown hairline. “Let’s see if we can make one of them sing.”
Calm settled over his brother as they followed the three club members. The transformation from Reid’s normal can’t-sit-still-self to the laser-focused-soldier was something to witness. He’d seen this shift in him once before, when Brynne’d had a run-in with a drug trafficker.
The sight elicited a strange combination of emotions in Britt. Seeing that his brother’s character was made up of more than the one-dimensional pain in the ass made him proud, yet this side of Reid terrified him a little. What sort of experience had he gathered under his belt to bring such calm before facing an adversary?
They intercepted the trio as they reached the cluster of luxury vehicles awaiting them. Guessing Norwood would claim the largest one present, Britt planted himself between the leader and a Cadillac Escalade. “Norwood.”
Reid positioned himself at an angle where he could catch visual cues from Britt while also keeping tabs on each of the hunters.
Norwood studied Britt. “Steele, right?” At Britt’s nod, his gaze leveled on Reid. “Although you resemble the billionaire, you don’t have his height”—he took in Reid’s gray T-shirt, black cargo pants, and military boots—“or his boardroom polish.”
“Answer my brother’s questions and you won’t have to
witness my superpower.”
“Now that your ruffian brother has set the tone, to what do I owe this unusual meeting?”
“We’ve found evidence of illegal hunting on Steele property.” Britt paused, letting his statement sink in and watching for any flicker of awareness from the trio.
“Illegal hunting takes place every day, all across the state. I don’t follow why this news should be of any interest to us.”
“Because no one in Steele Ridge would dare trespass on our property, let alone set traps so deep within our territory.”
“Traps?” one of the men behind Norwood drawled before spitting on the ground. His large cowboy hat, white button-down shirt, jeans, and big country attitude screamed Texan. “Those are not the tools of a true hunter.”
“Sounds like you have a fur trader picking from your land,” the third gentleman said in a Midwestern accent.
Britt’s gaze flicked to his brother’s. He’d been so focused on the club and their reasons behind their too-generous offer for Randi’s land that he hadn’t stopped long enough to consider other, more logical possibilities. Could Mellow have been killed by a trapper? With lightning speed, his mind flew through the events of the past twenty-four hours.
If a trapper had wanted Mellow’s pelt, he would have found a way to lure him into one of his traps so he could suffocate him or strangle him with a snare. Bullet holes in pelts reduced their value. Although he couldn’t explain the traps, the individual who shot Mellow wasn’t a fur trapper.
Norwood plastered an unaffected, knowing smile on his face. “Now that we’ve helped you crack the mystery of your trespasser, perhaps you’ll step aside.” He waved a hand toward his SUV.
“I don’t think so.” Britt widened his stance and, out of the corner of his eye, caught Reid honing his trouble radar. “The animal was shot.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, Mr. Steele. Who better to understand such a concept than your family? The saviors of Canyon Ridge.”
Until that moment, Norwood’s unflustered facade seemed unbreakable. But a note of cynicism had entered his voice, revealing one of the cards he held. Now Britt had to figure out the rest of his hand.
Loving Deep: Steele Ridge Series Page 20