by Unknown
The lascivious wriggle of his eyebrows kind of gave that one away.
Eli stepped into the living room and turned immediately through a doorway at the rear of the cabin. His free left hand flicked a switch on the wall, and the mellow light of a slender iron lamp illuminated the bedroom. For furniture, it boasted a five-drawer dresser, a single nightstand, and a bed the size of a small Central American nation, covered with a satiny chocolate-colored spread. Josie could see two doors in the right-hand wall separated by a narrow wooden desk. She assumed at least one of the door opened into a closet.
“I hope one of these leads to that indoor plumbing you promised?”
He grinned and gestured toward the far door. Josie strolled through, froze, and let out a gasp of astonishment.
She’d been expecting a bathroom to match the rest of the cabin—neat, spare, and just a little old-fashioned. She’d been prepared to be charmed by a claw-foot tub, maybe an antique wood-framed mirror, a porcelain pedestal sink. Instead she got a lesson in modern decadence cloaked in the mask of tradition. The pedestal sink was there, as was the wood-framed mirror, but the tub was built into the wall abutting the kitchen, huge, round, and gleaming white. Jetted. Deep. Big enough for two. If it weren’t for the inevitable pruny skin, Josie would have wanted to live in it.
“Sandbagger!” She turned on him with narrowed eyes, saw him laughing.
“Does that mean you like it?”
“The tub and I will be sending out engagement announcements shortly.”
“You should eat something first. I hear all that pre-wedding planning can take a lot out of a girl.”
She followed him back into the kitchen and collapsed into one of the seats at the table. “Was that here when you moved in, or did you do that yourself?”
“I’d like to take the credit, but it was here. The couple I bought the place from used it as a vacation getaway. They had planned to renovate the kitchen, too, but then their work transferred them to the East Coast, and they decided this would just be too far for quick weekends away anymore.”
Josie shook her head. “For a bathroom like that, I’d rack up the frequent flier miles.”
“Yes, but you’re special.”
Something intense lurked under that teasing comment, something that made Josie’s heart pound and her belly do somersaults and her adrenaline gland launch into panic mode. Unable to find a reasonable answer, she just smiled and felt like an idiot.
Thankfully, Eli took pity on her.
“Are you ready for dinner yet, or would you like to go for a walk first?”
“Walk. It’s still early. Now watch this.” She grinned, turning to lean over into the living room. “Hey Bruce! Wanna go for a walk?”
The normally lethargic mutt threw his head back on a throaty howl of joy and leapt immediately for the cabin’s front door.
Eli and Josie were still laughing minutes later as left the cabin hand in hand and walked a short distance down the quiet, single-lane road to the top of a path that angled off into the woods. It looked broad and fairly well used, and they stepped onto it readily and followed it away from the cabin. Bruce roamed in front of them, zigzagging back and forth across the trail, nose to the ground and tail waving high in the air.
“It’s moments like these when I think I should have a dog,” Eli said, mocking himself as he watched the mutt’s antics. “A Labrador gamboling on ahead of me, chasing a stick, then bringing it back so I could throw it for him to chase again.”
“And again. And again.” Josie grinned. “It’s a nice image, though. Why don’t you get one? I’m sure a dog would love it out here.”
“Dogs don’t love me. I think it might be the fangs. Or maybe I just smell like their mortal enemy.”
“Really? I’m surprised, because Bruce has no problem with you.” Josie frowned. Eli seemed so incredibly normal most of the time that it was easy for her to forget he was a shifter. “Then again, you did bring him meat loaf, and he is cheap. Haven’t you ever had a pet?”
“I also smell like you a lot of the time.” He smiled, looking almost as wolfish as a Lupine. Then he sobered and shook his head. “No, I never had a pet. But on the other hand, my family was never bothered by unwanted strays showing up on the doorstep, either.”
“Don’t joke. That’s sad.” She tugged his hand to scold him. “I can’t imagine growing up without pets. My sister and I both got kittens as soon as we were old enough to take care of them, and my dad always kept at least one dog. Usually a hunting dog, like a retriever or a hound. And of course, we always played with whatever animals came into the clinic, as long as they were well enough. And now I have Bruce.”
“I think you develop a different perspective on animal ownership when you spend some time as an animal.”
She scowled up at him. “You’re not going to go all PETA on me and say that humans shouldn’t be allowed to domesticate or own any animals from cows down to ferrets, are you? Trust me, left to his own devices, Bruce would be miserable. He’s lost without meat loaf takeout and a nice, cushy sofa to sleep on.”
He laughed. “No. I’m convinced that cows are too damn dumb to be allowed out of a pasture on their own. They need us to save them from themselves. I’ve got nothing against humans taking care of an animal, but there is something about confining one inside all the time that give me a few skin crawls.”
“I could give you my vet speech about how dogs and cats kept as indoor pets live longer, healthier lives than not only outdoor pets, but also those who are allowed to move back and forth between outdoors and in.”
“You could.”
“But then I’d be a big old hypocrite, because clearly I don’t keep Bruce inside twenty-four seven.”
The dog gave a ferocious flurry of barks and made a mad dash after a squirrel, who evaded neatly and then proceeded to perch on a high branch and taunt the frustrated canine.
“And also I’d picture how I’d feel if someone locked me in a house twenty-four hours a day and asked me to use a litter box, and all your impassioned pleas would go unheard.” He grinned down at her. “Or do you think I might be anthropomorphizing?”
“Well, if anyone has an excuse to do it, it’s you.”
“Maybe. But I also grew up in an area with lots of wildlife and fewer pets, so that might be a factor, too.”
“Where are you from? The gossip tells it that you moved here all the way from big, bad Seattle.”
“For once the gossips have it right, but I grew up in Colorado. I moved to Seattle later on. It’s a great city, though. For a city.”
“Just a country boy at heart?”
Eli shrugged. “I like going to a city from time to time, having access to good restaurants and shows and all that, but I think I’m done living in them. After I while, it just starts to get hard to move around in one. And I definitely wouldn’t want to try to have a family or raise kids in one.”
Josie felt her stomach give that nervous little flip. “You’d like to have kids one day?”
“Sure. And before I get too old to chase after them.” He grinned.
“More than one?”
“Definitely. Being an only child sucks.”
She laughed it off. “Sometimes, so does having a sibling.”
They continued to walk along the path through the trees, crunching leaves and twigs underfoot as they went. Or rather, Josie and Bruce crunched. Eli seemed to move in a kind of unconscious silence, as if he weren’t even trying but didn’t know of any other way to move. It was a little disconcerting, actually. At least partially because it made her feel about as graceful as a herd of elephants in comparison.
They crested a small rise in the trail, and the view as they continued down the other side made Josie’s breath catch in her throat. The trees opened up onto a gentle slope down to a fast-moving stream. The water frothed and gurgled over submerged rocks, and aspen and birch trees clung to the banks, their bright leaves rustling in the wind high above the dark, shiny surface. Bruc
e headed right for it, gave a cautious sniff, then leaned down to lap delicately, careful not to splash any water on himself as he drank.
“This is gorgeous,” Josie breathed. “Is this your land?”
Eli nodded. “Up to the bank and for about another five or six yards that way.” He pointed away from the cabin. “This is the far edge of mine, and the stream continues across my property, but this is the prettiest place to come look at it.”
She continued to drink in the loveliness of the sight. “Wow. Take my advice: Don’t show this to Dr. Shad. He’d take one look at it, plant his butt on that downed log, cast his line in there, and that would be that. You’d never get rid of him.”
“Hm, I wonder if he’d still come out after he heard that there’s a big old cranky lion around here who likes to sun himself over by that log?”
His eyes twinkled down at her, and Josie found herself laughing at the image of the two men coming face-to-face in that . . . er . . . situation. Or maybe that would be face-to-whisker. “I think that depends entirely on how good the fishing is.”
“Let’s take a closer look and you can tell me what you think.”
She let him tug her down toward the rocky bank. Josie peered into the clear, dark water for ten seconds and saw a flash of something silver. She shook her head.
“It’s perfect. You’re doomed.”
When Eli didn’t answer, she looked up and found him staring intently at the ground about six feet upstream in the direction of his cabin.
“Eli? What is it?”
He squeezed her hand, then released it. “I just want to check that out.”
She followed behind him, puzzled when he moved to the place he’d been staring at, hunkered down, and studied the rocky forest floor as if expecting it to sit up and do tricks. She tried briefly to figure out what had him so fascinated, but was forced to give up. All she saw was rocks, dirt, tree roots, and pine needles.
“Okay, I just need to know. What in the world are you staring at?”
He pointed to the ground. “Tracks. Fairly fresh ones.”
Josie squinted down, but the view didn’t change. She saw nothing unusual. “Tracks from what?”
“People. Two, it looks like. And I’m guessing they came through here within the last few hours.”
“Really?” She stared at him, disbelieving. “How on earth can you tell that? I don’t see a thing.”
He pointed to what looked to her like a smudge in the dirt, an area of around three inches by four inches where some pine needles had been swept away and formed tiny walls on either side of a valley of crumbly soil.
“That’s a partial footprint. The guy who made it balances on his toes instead of his whole foot. And he was moving pretty fast. And his friend”—he pointed to another spot about a foot and a half away—“toes in. The print is deeper on one side than the other.”
Josie was astounded. “You can tell that from those little . . . bald spots? That’s amazing!”
He shot her a dry look. “It’s pretty average for a good tracker, halfway decent for a predatory Other. There are Lupines and Felines with advanced military training who can follow a trail more than a week old on desert footing. Just miles of sand and bare rock and they can practically have conversations with each individual grain of sand. I can’t even tell you if these guys were traveling light or heavy. I suspect light, but that’s just because I’m not seeing enough to make me think different.”
“I’m still amazed. I didn’t even realize those were footprints until you showed me, and I still think I’d lose them if I looked away for a minute. I only see them because you pointed them out.”
Eli grunted and rose, taking a few long strides forward. She followed quickly.
“They’re headed farther onto my property.” His voice sounded grim.
“That worries you?”
“It makes me curious, which is worse. There are no strange cars in the area, and my neighbor and I have an understanding about trespassing. The only reason anyone would need to get onto my property would be for hunting or fishing. Fishing season just ended, and I’m posted for no hunting. Plus, hunters and fishermen both use cars to get to their spots. Where’s the car these guys drove in with?”
“Could it be farther down the road we came off?”
Eli shook his head. “Only a few yards past where we turned off, the road curves into my neighbor’s drive. There’s no place to park down there. At least, not on the side of the drive.”
“So maybe they parked in the woods.”
“Only reason to do that would be if they didn’t want anyone to know they were here.”
Josie thought about that and frowned. “Poachers?” She looked around warily for Bruce, who had thrown himself down in a patch of sun for an impromptu snooze.
“Maybe.”
“What else could it be?”
“Last summer when we had that trouble with the protestors and all, some of those skinheads—the young, stupid ones, mostly—decided they shouldn’t have to pay a fee to camp. It’s a free country, right? So I had to . . . discourage a few of them from helping themselves to a couple of clearings on my land.” He grimaced. “A few of them seemed to take a dislike to me.”
As diplomatically as Eli put it, Josie could envision the scene in her head. With reasonable people—like most of the citizens of Stone Creek—the sheriff maintained an easygoing, mellow, and friendly demeanor, but she’d seen what happened when he got mad. She’d also encountered a few skinheads in her time, since the breed seemed to like the Northwest quite a bit and not to feel any need to hide their beliefs from a mainly white population. She didn’t imagine the two immovable forces would deal well together.
In fact, she was pretty sure that when the two groups mixed, the combination could prove explosive.
“But why would they come back now? Things have been pretty calm on the whole Others-versus-humans front lately, right? I haven’t heard about any upcoming protests.”
“Neither have I.” He scanned the tree line and the opposite bank of the stream like a soldier looking for an ambush. “Things have been quiet for quite a while now. That might be part of what’s making me nervous. Plus, something about this smells funny to me. There’s no reason for strangers to be sneaking around on my land.”
“Like I said, maybe it’s poachers.”
“If it is, they’re not from around here. Locals and local hunters know to stay away from here, because they can’t be sure they won’t be shooting someone’s relative. We have Deerskin in the community, so folks who know Stone Creek don’t like the idea of accidentally shooting the high school English teacher because they mistook her for an actual western mule deer. And even those who aren’t from Stone Creek have usually heard of us by reputation. They stay away out of fear of running into a Lupine who’s pissed off they took down one of his prey items.”
She nodded. “Okay . . .”
“So the only people who would be out here sneaking around would be folks who haven’t got honest intentions. Or ones who don’t really care what they shoot.”
Josie winced. “Oh. What are you going to do then?”
He sighed. “If I were alone, I’d follow the trail, find the people who left it—or their camp—and have a little come-to-Jesus talk with them. But since that can’t happen at the moment, I’m going to take you back to the cabin, call the station, and let my staff know they need to be on alert for strangers wandering around in or outside town.”
“Why do you have to take me back to the cabin? I’ll go with you to look for these guys. I don’t mind a hike.”
Eli shook his head and reached for her elbow, guiding her inexorably back the way they’d come. “No, we’ll go back now.”
“Eli—”
“There are some things that I don’t believe in leaving to chance, Dr. Barrett,” he said firmly, “and the possibility of putting you in danger is one of those things. It’s not up for negotiation.”
“Um, excuse me?” Jo
sie dig her heels into the ground and refused to move any farther. “I believe that if the descriptor my or mine precedes a noun, that means that I am the only one who gets to make decisions about that noun. As in safety. The operative term there is that it’s my safety. You don’t get to decide what to do with it. It’s my safety, so if I want to toss it to the wind, light it on fire, or run it through a blender, that’s my decision, and you don’t get a say in it.”
“That’s not how this is going to work, Doctor.”
“Not how what is going to work, Sheriff?”
“This relationship.”
Oh please, dear God, Josie prayed, don’t tell me he’s really this stupid. Please.
She opened her eyes very wide and blinked at him. “I’m sorry, are you referring to my relationship with you? Which is all of about five days old at this point?”
He stepped forward until they were poised toe-to-toe and he could glare down at her from his vastly superior height. Why did big men always try to use it against a woman? she wondered idly. And why did she keep falling for them anyway?
“No, I was discussing our relationship. With each other. And who the hell cares how old it is? The operative word there is the is. It exists; you’ll have to adjust. End of story.”
“Right, clearly I missed the point in this conversation when we stepped into the time warp and were transported back to the Neolithic era. Because that kind of sentiment is not only out of place and outdated, it exists in the realm of time before written speech. It frickin’ carries a club and is afraid of fire!”
“Well, you can adjust to that, too.”
He started forward again, practically dragging Josie along behind him. Infuriated, she jerked her elbow from his grasp and bellowed for Bruce. The dog leapt to his feet in obvious surprise, but took one look at his owner’s face and immediately trotted after her.
Josie stomped ahead of Eli, all but jogging back up the path. The faster she got to his cabin and called someone to come drive her back to town, the happier she’d be. In fact, she might not even wait for a ride. At this point, walking back into town would be preferable.