Wild At Heart: A Novel

by Tucker, K. A.

  I struggle to adopt a relaxed pose. “Hmm … I can’t think of anything— Ah!”

  Seizing my hips, he flips me onto my stomach with little effort.

  I bite my lip to smother my smile—not that he can see it, anyway—and wait with nervous anticipation. What does he have planned this time around? “Oscar came by.”

  “To thank you?”

  I shudder as a single, light fingertip trails down my spine, from the base of my neck all the way down … down … down. “I don’t know, but Zeke fainted.”

  His finger stalls a moment. “Fainted?”

  “Yes. We have a fainting goat. It was funny, actually, once I knew Oscar wasn’t going to kill him.”

  Jonah sighs. “See … I would have loved seeing a video of Zeke fainting. You know, when I checked my girlfriend’s Instagram account during my break today.” His fingertip continues past my tailbone. I grit my teeth against the urge to react, which is what he wants. “But instead of seeing a video of that—” The mattress shifts as Jonah moves in to hover over me, his thighs straddling my hips, his hands settling on either side of my pillow, his mouth grazing my shoulder. The slightest nip of teeth catches my skin. “I found out she posted another naked picture of me.”

  “You weren’t naked!” Well, technically he was. “You can’t see anything!”

  “And tagged our company’s profile in it.”

  I can’t keep my laughter at bay anymore as I turn my head to meet his eyes. “It’s great marketing.”

  “Is it really? Because I’ve got an in-box full of private messages from both women and men who are not interested in booking a flight with me.”

  “But they’re definitely looking for a ride.” I’ve seen some of those messages. They’re equal parts appalling and hilarious.

  Jonah’s lip twitches. He’s struggling to hide his smile. “You know, for someone who was three seconds away from dumping chili on a woman last month for touching my thigh, I’m surprised you find this so funny.”

  “I trust you.” I also block every one of those accounts.

  “Good to know.” The roguish look that flashes across his face makes my stomach flip. He shifts, and I feel hot breath kissing my spine, followed by the lightest stroke of his tongue.

  I swallow my nerves. “What are you about to do?”

  His deep chuckle carries through our bedroom as his looming body begins to shift downward, his hands seizing my hips.

  “Jonah!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Whose dog is that?” I holler into our empty bedroom. The incessant barking woke me ten minutes ago—at first an irritating sound that didn’t quite register in the fog of sleep. But it hasn’t relented, interspersed with howls that have me kicking my covers off my legs in frustration.

  “Jonah?” I call out, a moment before I remember his lips grazing mine an hour ago, and then whispering that Sam had called him in to work.

  With that memory comes a hollow feeling. I reach for the pillow next to mine, my fingers crawling over the soft, white cotton. It’s dented from where Jonah’s head rested but it’s cool to the touch. When was the last time I woke to find him asleep in our bed? I can’t recall. These days, he’s either already in the air by the time I get out of bed or getting ready to fly off.

  I find myself yearning for the long winter days again, when we lay tangled in the sheets for hours, planning our future, with no rush to be anywhere.

  A woeful howl sounds from outside.

  With a huff of annoyance, I throw on clothes and head downstairs.

  Oscar is standing at our side door. His tail wags as if we’re old friends.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  He lets out a bark—more high-pitched than anything I’ve heard from him before. He then takes several limping steps, stopping to turn back and bark at me again, as if beckoning me toward the back of the house where our animal pen and the garden are situated.

  An odd sense of foreboding fills me, that something happened to Zeke. Did Jonah forget to secure the clasp? Did Zeke get out?

  Am I about to find a bloody goat carcass in my backyard?

  I peer down the driveway, hoping in vain that perhaps Jonah hasn’t left yet, but Veronica is long gone.

  Oscar barks.

  “Okay, okay. Hold on!” I say, though the dog can’t possibly understand me.

  The window in our laundry room overlooks the animal pen. I go to check it and sag against the wall with relief when I spot Zeke pacing the orchard hay Jonah left him this morning, too agitated by Oscar to eat. Bandit’s curious triangular face pokes out from the chicken coop window.

  It’s not our animals that has Oscar riled up, so what is it? Could it be the other dog in trouble? Are there more bear traps on our property, waiting to snag an unsuspecting leg? If so, why wouldn’t Oscar go home to get Roy?

  Unless he figures Roy will shoot him on the spot.

  I shake my head at myself. This is a dog. He doesn’t figure anything.

  What if this is about Roy?

  Did he have another heart attack? Is he lying somewhere dead, or close to it?

  “Shit.” Miserable SOB or not, I can’t ignore Oscar and go about my day with that thought in my head. My gut is telling me Oscar is behaving like this for good reason.

  And he has come to me.

  I try calling Jonah to see what he thinks, but there’s no answer on either his cell phone or the satellite phone. Toby doesn’t answer his phone, either. I even try Muriel, desperate for advice. But her phone is rarely on her person, and she doesn’t answer now.

  Oscar’s frantic barks are not relenting.

  I waffle on indecision for another long moment, and then, swallowing my unease, I pull on my rubber boots and a jacket, grab my bug spray, and head out the door to the ATV, where Oscar awaits.

  He takes off ahead, running awkwardly on three legs.

  I crank the engine and follow, past Zeke, who doesn’t trot to the gate as per usual, his creepy horizontal pupils locked on Oscar. Oscar pays no attention, though, slinking past the garden and off to the left, through a narrow clearing in the bramble.

  I slow for a moment.

  Just long enough to second-guess the intelligence of this. I could use the roads to get to Roy’s house, rather than cut through the trees. It’s probably safer, given I’m alone.

  But what if Roy is not at his house? What if he was out for a walk and he dropped?

  Oscar stops and turns to eye me, barking again.

  It’s not like I’m totally alone here. He is a large dog … wolf … whatever.

  With a quick text to Toby as a welfare measure—since he’s the closest and likely the quickest to respond, I follow Oscar into the woods.

  My pulse races with adrenaline.

  * * *

  I know how Oscar has been traveling between our houses.

  The distance between us and Roy is shorter when you cut through the thicket, rather than use the long driveways and the road. It took some careful navigating around old stumps and fallen trees with the ATV, but Oscar stopped every so often to make sure I was following as he led me all the way here.

  I slow to a stop in front of the woodpile and hold my breath, waiting—hoping—for the cantankerous old man to emerge from either the house or the barn. Roy’s truck is here, covered in dirt and parked by the pile of firewood. The black dog paces in front of the barn door, not charging me in a barking frenzy as he has the other two times I’ve rolled in.

  A sinking feeling settles into me as the moments pass with no sign of Roy. When Oscar limps toward the barn, it only solidifies my worry.

  I cut the engine and hop off, pulling my phone out of my pocket. Thankfully, Toby has responded.

  Toby: Where are you?

  Calla: Just got to Roy’s and I think something bad has happened.

  Toby: On my way.

  Taking a deep breath, I follow Oscar through the gaping door and into the quiet barn, my heart pounding in my chest
.

  A pile of lumber of all shapes and sizes lays scattered over the dirt floor. Beneath it, splayed out on his back, eyes closed, a bloody gash on his forehead, is Roy.

  “Oh my God.” It’s not a heart attack but it could prove just as fatal.

  With shaky hands, I dial 9-1-1. Meanwhile, Oscar limps over and prods Roy’s face with his wet nose, emitting a high-pitched whimper. It’s the most doglike I’ve seen him behave yet.

  “Don’t need no damn hospital,” Roy croaks.

  I startle but then sigh with relief that he’s alive. I give dispatch directions to send an ambulance as I visually assess the situation. Above us, where I’m guessing Roy stored all this wood, the brackets have snapped, their jagged ends jutting out. It all must have tumbled down on top of him.

  Roy is lucky to be alive.

  He scowls at Oscar, who is now licking his face. “Go on, get. Don’t need that, either.”

  When I end the call, I’m able to focus on trying to dig him out. “Let me see if I can get these off you.” I begin lifting and shifting boards, some of them taking all my strength to maneuver. But there’s an enormous beam across Roy’s chest, the one that seems to be keeping him pinned. It’s propped up on either side by other fallen pieces of wood, saving Roy from its full weight.

  “Don’t bother,” he warns, wincing.

  “I’ve gotta at least try.” My shoulder and arm muscles strain as I attempt to lift it. It doesn’t so much as budge. “Maybe if you can help lift it from underneath—”

  “My arm’s broken. Probably a bunch of ribs, too. God knows what else.”

  “Right. But you don’t need a hospital,” I say under my breath. Obstinate fool. “Toby should be here any minute.” I wish Jonah were here, or at least reachable. We might need him, too. I don’t know if Toby can lift this on his own. “Does it hurt?”

  “Only when I breathe.”

  “Okay, just … stay still. We’ll get you out of here soon.” I settle down onto the floor, leaning in to inspect his forehead, noting, from the corner of my eye, the gun that’s propped against the wall.

  His aged blue eyes watch me keenly.

  “The bleeding seems to have stopped, at least.”

  He grunts, looking to the broken brackets above. “Must have been that quake yesterday, loosenin’ something. Went to pull a board down and it all came tumblin’.”

  I have no idea if the same quake that made the community center hall’s clock crooked would have the power to do that, but clearly, something went terribly wrong. “You’re lucky it didn’t kill you.”

  “Who knows. Still might.”

  Uncomfortable silence hangs as we wait, the minutes dragging too slowly. I survey the vast space, because there’s nothing more I can do for Roy, and I’m curious. The barn is huge but crammed—the front half of it a maze of countless tools and saws, of spindles and discarded wood fragments, of boards clamped together on sawhorses. Piles of sawdust have been swept into piles, over into the corners. The smell of damp wood mixes with the stench of the goat pens in the back. I see no finished furniture, though. There’s a ladder off to the right that stretches upward to a loft above, where hay four bales high forms a half wall at the edge.

  “Why’d you come?” Roy asks, breaking the silence, his gruff voice strained from pain.

  “Oscar led me here. He wouldn’t stop barking outside my door. I figured something happened. You know, another heart attack, maybe.”

  “Let me guess, that busybody told you all about that.”

  I can only assume he means Muriel. I don’t bother correcting my source of information. There’s no need for Toby to earn Roy’s wrath today.

  Both dogs haven taken sentry positions at the barn’s entrance, Oscar easing onto his injured haunches gracelessly, his sharp gaze outward, his ears perked.

  “You’re lucky Oscar survived that trap.” If he hadn’t come to get me, how long would it have taken for someone to find Roy out here, buried under a pile of wood? Does he have anyone in his life?

  Would anyone miss Roy Donovan?

  “What? You want a medal for comin’ to my rescue?”

  I sigh heavily, loud enough for him to interpret it for what it is—annoyance.

  “Joy from the diner woulda’ come lookin’ for me, eventually,” he says after a long moment. “She buys my eggs. I’ve never missed a week. When I didn’t show up on Friday, she would’ve come lookin’.” It almost sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself of that.

  Maybe he’s right, but that means he would’ve been trapped under this wood for days.

  My focus shifts to the shotgun. “Do you always have that thing by your side?”

  “I’ve got twelve goats and a flock of chickens in bear country. What do you think?” He winces in pain, reminding me that I probably shouldn’t be asking him all these questions. I can’t help myself, though—this is the most normal Roy has acted since I’ve met him.

  Plus, I now have a pressing concern. “How often do you get bears here?”

  “I lost count years ago.”

  I think about the distance between here and home, through the woods.

  It’s too close.

  My stomach tightens with anxiety. It’s one thing to get used to a roaming fox and a moose. But bears in my backyard?

  “Don’t look so worried, city slicker. You can’t raise livestock around these parts without a predator pacing your fence line, trying to find a way in. It’s the way things work out here.” He pauses. “Muriel didn’t tell you, did she?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “That there’s been one hangin’ around the past month that could become a problem. A brown bear.”

  Icy dread slides down my spine. “No. She didn’t mention that.”

  “He gets zapped by the fence every time, but he keeps comin’ back. Been comin’ during the day, too. The hounds chased him away last week after lunch. Another time, I fired a warning shot to scare him off. But he keeps comin’ back.”

  I look to the wide-open barn door. When will this bear decide to make another attempt? The dogs would sense a bear nearby, wouldn’t they? “Are you going to shoot him?”

  “Why? You gonna try to stop me?”

  “Uh … No, actually.”

  He smirks. “He hasn’t done anythin’ that warrants a bullet yet. He’s a big boy but young. Probably lost his mama and hasn’t figured out how to forage for food. I figure once the salmon are in full swing, he’ll move on to the river where he’ll be more productive.”

  This is what Roy was talking about that night at the Ale House when he asked if there’d been anything sniffing around Zeke. He wasn’t wondering about Oscar. He was wondering if this bear was coming around our place, too.

  Has it been?

  I feel Roy’s gaze dissecting me. “You know … you don’t belong here, girl.”

  His words are blunt and yet delivered with a razor-sharp edge, and they stir the twinge of worry deep inside me—that he’s right, that there are too many things for me to “get used to” to ever truly feel like Alaska is my home.

  But I won’t allow Roy to get to me today. I set my jaw stubbornly. “I belong wherever Jonah is.”

  “Oh. You’re one of those girls.” There’s no missing the disparaging tone. The judgment. The disdain.

  Even injured—gravely, possibly—Roy is caustic, at best.

  “You know, I’m so happy Oscar dragged me here today. You’re always such delightful company.”

  He grunts in response, though I note how the corners of his mouth curl, ever so slightly. As if my sarcastic retort amuses him.

  The dogs suddenly rush out the door, barking. The sound of squeaking brakes announces a vehicle.

  “That should be Toby.” Thank God. I climb to my feet and head for the barn door, relieved that help is here and I no longer have to bear Roy’s acerbic personality alone.

  “Go on, get back!” Muriel’s commanding voice carries.

  I stifle my groan. I’m n
ot sure if having her here will make things better or worse for the man lying on the ground, his body broken.

  Toby ignores a barking Gus and slinking Oscar as he strolls toward me, working a dirty rag over his motor-oil-coated hands. “How bad is it?” he asks grimly.

  “Not sure yet. An ambulance is on its way.”

  “Good luck makin’ it all the way in.” Muriel marches into the barn as if she owns the place. “Well, you gone and buried yourself. How’d you manage that?”

  “Dear Lord, end me now,” Roy mutters, closing his eyes.

  Muriel ignores him, pointing to the boards I already shifted off. “Let’s get those pieces farther back to give us some room.”

  We set to work, dragging the wood away.

  Muriel scowls at the beam. “Toby, you help me with this.” They grab hold of it together. “Bend with your knees!” she hollers, earning Toby’s eye roll. Between the two of them and some grunting, they pivot the beam around and off Roy. His arm, which he must have lifted to brace against the wood as it fell, is bent awkwardly and not moving.

  Muriel stands over him with her hands on her hips, assessing the situation with a stern expression. “You put too much wood up there.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Can you wiggle your toes?”

  “If I can’t, will you shoot me like you tried to shoot my dog?”

  “Your right arm’s broken.”

  “No shit.”

  “What about your left one?”

  Roy answers by raising his middle finger on his left arm and waggling it at her.

  I press my lips together to keep from laughing. Apparently being rescued from a dire situation and in pain hasn’t softened him at all. A quick glance over at Toby confirms he’s struggling not to laugh, too.

  Roy shifts as if attempting to sit up, but manages nothing more than a groan. “Think I’ll just stay here for a while, then.”

  Muriel notes the empty pens. “Toby, go on and check on the goats. Calla, find some blankets inside so we can cover him up.”

  “I don’t need a blanket and she’s not goin’ into my house!” Roy throws back, whatever civility I caught glimpses of earlier gone with Muriel’s presence.