Alaskan Wolf

by Linda O. Johnston

  One Patrick feared that inquisitive Mariah might see right through.

  But, hell, he couldn’t change it. It was the background Toby knew. So did other ranch employees. If necessary, he would feed it to Mariah, too, then shut up about it. Let her wonder without being sure.

  Better yet, he wouldn’t have to see her again, ever, if she didn’t come for her sled ride. Although…some part of him didn’t like that idea, either. He was attracted to her. Had been even before that spontaneous kiss. And after? Hell, he wanted her. All of her. In bed, where they would create their own uninhibited heat in a fiery bout of mind-blowing sex, and—

  Dream on, Worley. That was one bad idea. First and foremost, Mariah was a nosy writer. One who was into wildlife. If she ever learned just how close he was to nature, his secret would be out. Worse, so would Alpha Force’s secrets.

  That could not happen.

  Patrick glanced at the waterproof watch on his wrist. Ten-fifteen. Good. Maybe she actually had decided to stay far away. He’d wait another couple of minutes, then go back to the building where the ranch hands had tiny apartments, check on Shaun and his online research, and—

  An SUV pulled in at the bottom of the driveway. The one he had seen here yesterday. Mariah’s.

  Damn. Time for the show to begin.

  But first he’d have to erase the big, inappropriate grin from his face.

  So far, the outing hadn’t been too awkward, Mariah thought with relief as Patrick showed her how to sit on the sled to which he had already harnessed the team of dogs—nine, all unique-looking Alaskan huskies, which he had explained were a combination of diverse breeds, chosen more for their intelligence and performance than their bloodlines.

  After a restless night, with that kiss replaying over and over in her mind, she had considered postponing her ride to another day—like the fifteenth of never.

  But she was here to research her article. She could ignore her discomfort in Patrick’s company to accomplish what she needed to. She hoped.

  Besides, she had a strong suspicion that the kiss was an attempt by Patrick to get her to stop asking questions. Which meant he had something to hide. If so, she was even more intrigued to learn all she could about him.

  Now, they were in a small, ice-covered area between the main road and the glacier park. They had driven here in a sturdy van with carpeting in the rear for the dogs, the ride crammed full of instructions from Patrick on what to expect on the sled and how to stay safe.

  No time to ask him more about himself.

  In a short while, they were ready to mush off. “Let’s go!” he called to the huskies. They all rose, including the lead dog, Mac—short for McKinley, Patrick told her—and soon ran out over the crushed ice surface of the glacier, towing the sled.

  It was exhilarating! The frigid air pelted Mariah’s cheeks, and she was glad she had bundled up with a knit hat and scarf as well as her warm jacket, slacks and boots.

  She couldn’t easily turn to ask Patrick questions, but they’d also discussed her expectations on the ride here. When they spotted a bald eagle circling the first glacier on their expedition, he signaled to the dogs to slow down by calling “Whoa” and pulling back on the tug line attached to the gang line hooked to each dog’s harness. She grabbed her camera from the bag slung over her shoulder, hoping to shoot the photos she wanted without freezing her hands, since she had to remove her thick gloves.

  She wished she had come here before the changes to the glaciers, to be able to compare then and now herself. That would make her article more intriguing than simply focusing on the animals she saw on this trip. She hoped to at least get insight, from Jeremy Thaxton or other biologists studying the area, on the kinds and numbers of creatures who’d previously been plentiful here, and whether the numbers seemed to have changed.

  And how many wolves there were.

  The glacier’s surface was irregular—eroded, abounding with ice mounds and cracks. Eventually, near the far edge of the ice that created a cliff overlooking the bay, they stopped. Patrick helped Mariah off the sled and directed the dogs to lie down on the snowy crust.

  “Won’t they freeze there?” Mariah asked, concerned about the work animals.

  “They’re used to it. And they’ll huddle together if it becomes too difficult.”

  “Like a nine-dog day,” Mariah quipped. She knew that the old vocal group Three Dog Night had taken its name from the way people who spent a lot of time in climates like this described the degree of a night’s coldness by the number of dogs they needed to snuggle with to stay warm.

  “Exactly.” His look at her seemed—well, not just kind, but almost amused. Caring. Where did that come from?

  It warmed her from the inside. And made her wonder whether one of those kisses from last night might make her even warmer way out here.

  They were soon off again. In the distance, on an ice-covered mountainside, Mariah made out a pair of Dall sheep. She shot a lot of photos, though the majestic animals were too far away to see well.

  At one point, a small flock of black-legged kittiwakes flew by. The gull-like birds cried out shrilly as they passed. Again, Mariah took pictures. They also saw cormorants, but no puffins, although Mariah would have loved to have viewed some.

  Maybe she would come back here on her own someday. She loved cross-country skiing and had become even better at it since moving to Alaska. The glaciers would make a wonderful landscape for skiing.

  Patrick and she spent nearly three hours visiting quite a few glaciers in Great Glaciers National Park. They ran into no one on the ice, not even any of the scientists researching what was happening here. They also observed no calving that day, a good thing for their safety but not necessarily good for the research Mariah hoped to accomplish.

  Among the glaciers they visited was Kaley Glacier, the one Mariah had observed calving yesterday. When they stopped near its edge, she got out and looked in all directions, including the surface of the ice—hoping to see paw prints. But there were none.

  “See any signs of a wolf around here?” she asked Patrick.

  “No,” he responded curtly, staring into the distance as if he was looking for…what? The wolf? Somehow, Mariah didn’t think so.

  “I saw one up here,” she insisted. “There was probably a lot of wind last night, and maybe some snow fell, so I’m not surprised I didn’t see any tracks, but I’d really love to find a sign, anything I can photograph, to use in my article.”

  “I don’t see anything,” he insisted. Mariah wondered at his adamant tone, as if he wanted to deny everything she said.

  “But I—”

  “Look. There are some sea otters, down in the water.” He pointed to a spot in the bay way below them. The creatures were tiny, but Mariah’s camera had an excellent telephoto lens, and she got some good photos of them reclining on their backs in the water eating whatever seafood they had caught. They seemed more energetic than the ones she had seen yesterday.

  But despite Patrick’s obvious attempt to help her garner wildlife photos, she wondered about his earlier attitude about the wolf she’d seen.

  Eventually, they returned to the van. Patrick unlocked it and let Mariah into the cab, while he unhitched the dogs and ordered them inside. Soon, the sled had also been loaded.

  “That was fantastic!” Mariah exclaimed as Patrick joined her in the truck. “I loved it.”

  “I’m glad.” He actually sounded as if he meant it. “It was a good day for an outing like this—no precipitation.”

  “I hope it’s just as good next time.” She watched for his reaction. His relaxed features hardened but he said nothing. “I’d love to go again in a few days. I only scratched the surface of investigating local wildlife and any effect by the changing glaciers. I want to do some additional research online, talk to the scientists around here some more, then go out on the ice again.”

  “Fine.” His tone suggested it was anything but. He looked from left to right out the windshield, then tur
ned onto the main road. “I’ll let Toby know you’re interested in another expedition and have him line up someone to take you.”

  Mariah felt incongruously hurt that he didn’t offer to take her himself. “Thanks.” She remained silent for most of the ride back to the ranch, except to call to the dogs and thank them, too. And to insist that Patrick stop when she spotted a moose in the woods beside the road that she wanted to photograph.

  They soon arrived at their starting point. Wes Dawes was outside with some other dogs, his sledding that day apparently over. Mariah popped out of the van as soon as it stopped, though Patrick came toward her side to help her out.

  “Thank you,” she said again, looking into those hot light brown eyes with their unfathomable expression. “See you around.”

  Did a hint of sorrow at her brush-off momentarily cross his face? No, she was just projecting. She turned, arranged her tote bag on her shoulder, and crunched her way over the driveway to say hi to Wes.

  That evening, Patrick invited Wes and Shaun to join him in town for a drink. Toby, too. He had already returned from his meeting in Nome. He had flown there and back in a small, private plane—a major way of getting around in Alaska, where towns were spaced so far apart.

  They drove in separate vehicles. Shaun had told Patrick that his online research on backgrounds of glaciers, and investigations of them by some scientists who had previously visited Tagoga or who were now in town, seemed to be yielding interesting results. Very interesting, in fact, but he refused to elaborate until he had followed some threads to their ends. He wanted to return to his research as soon as possible, since he would have little time with it the next day, when he was scheduled to take some tourists on a sled.

  Plus, they had already decided that Patrick would spend the next evening on the glaciers in wolf form. His daytime visits as a musher hadn’t yielded much information so far. Shaun would need to be there as his backup.

  They wound up at Fiske’s Hangout, supposedly the best place in town for a drink and dinner despite the existence of similar nearby bars.

  But Patrick wasn’t really fooling himself. He hoped that Emil Charteris would be there for him to try to question again. But mostly, he hoped that Mariah would be there talking with Emil. Or even on her own.

  When he spotted her, his insides leaped. She wasn’t with Emil, though, but hanging out with another scientist Patrick had met before, one only too happy to share the fruit of his investigations—not that Patrick could rely on them. Flynn Shulster seemed more of a pseudo-scientist than a real one. His television show on the Science Channel featured all kinds of unusual nature events.

  Patrick wondered if Mariah’s articles were ever similar to Shulster’s Alaskan tales. He wanted to read one. More likely, they were not like Shulster’s at all. From her attitude, he had a sense that Mariah would go out of her way to ensure accuracy in her articles, but Shulster seemed all about sensationalism.

  Which was undoubtedly why he was here looking into the untimely retreat of the glaciers.

  Since that was why Patrick was here, too, he led his group toward the area of the ornate bar where Shulster held court, Mariah sitting next to him.

  “Hi, mushers,” Shulster called over the piano music when he spotted them. He had obviously been drinking. He was dressed in a snazzy blue-and-black sweater over snug black slacks. Patrick supposed he was decent-looking, in a show-biz kind of way, with his light brown hair short and styled, his face bright-eyed and smiling. Which was what he was: more appearance than substance. “You didn’t bring your dogs.”

  “I suspect Thea Fiske wouldn’t be too happy if I did,” Patrick responded.

  Shulster returned to the tale he had been spinning to his rapt audience of local drinkers and tourists, all about his experiences in the Himalayas looking for yetis. Nothing about his examination of the local glaciers, though. So nothing interesting to Patrick.

  He edged over to Mariah. “Hi,” he said in a low voice.

  “Hello, Patrick.” Her tone sounded welcoming—a surprise, considering the less than amiable way they had parted earlier. “What a surprise to see you here.” He heard the drollness in her voice and smiled.

  “I could say the same. Have you eaten yet?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. Was he going to invite her to join them, like he wanted to turn this chance—well, not so chance—meeting into a date?

  “Yes, I have,” she said. “I stuck around because I’m interested in hearing what Flynn has to say.”

  So was Patrick, eventually, after he’d eaten a barbecue sandwich and drunk a couple of beers with Shaun and the Daweses. Shaun headed off to talk to some other bar patrons as Shulster started describing what he had seen so far on the local glaciers.

  Which meant Patrick had to hang out longer as the conversation segued into discussions of what others had seen and experienced. He stayed when the Daweses left because Toby was exhausted after his day traveling to Nome and back—and when Shaun excused himself, to resume his online research.

  And when Flynn Shulster left, as well as some of the waitstaff and even the piano player. Patrick told himself he was staying to listen to other patrons’ tales of glacier experiences. Some stories weren’t as interesting as he had hoped. The bar customers, in various states of inebriation, seemed to want to outdo one another in their descriptions—not only of the calving, but of things they had seen regarding the effects on wildlife—and were urged to focus on the facts by Mariah.

  But when Mariah decided it was time to leave, though the place was still far from empty, Patrick figured he’d heard enough, too.

  Outside in the cold, Mariah turned to him. “Are you walking me back to my B and B tonight?” It sounded like a challenge, not a request, and the look she turned on him with her glowing blue eyes appeared anything but welcoming.

  “Sure,” he said. “Just want to make certain you arrive safely. With all those guys having a good time in there, you never know when one’ll try to follow you home.”

  “Like you.” She smiled briefly and started walking in the direction of her inn. “So, are you going to tell me more about your background tonight—stuff you wouldn’t talk about yesterday?”

  “No,” he said.

  “I’m going to keep asking.”

  “And I’m going to keep avoiding the question.”

  She laughed. “I figured.” Instead of pressing him, she asked more detailed questions about things they had seen on the glaciers that day, and the care and training of sled dogs.

  When they reached her B and B, Patrick hesitated. Lord, how he wanted to grab her and kiss her again. Turn it into a habit.

  But that made no sense, given this woman’s professional curiosity and his need for secrecy.

  “See you around,” he said.

  Which was when she grabbed his arm, reached up to pull his head down, and planted one hell of a quick but sexy kiss on his lips.

  And then she disappeared inside the inn.

  Patrick had driven to town in the sedan the military had supplied him with. He took the roads back to the dogsled ranch as fast as possible without killing himself or anyone else.

  Why had he decided, in some split second of chivalry and self-preservation, not to kiss Mariah?

  And why had she kissed him anyway?

  The touch of her lips had driven him nearly wild. Her scent intoxicated him more than all the beer he had drunk in Alaska. He felt as if he had engulfed a small swallow of the elixir that allowed him to turn wolfen on demand, had turned instantly into the wild animal within him.

  Had wanted to claim her, take her to a secluded place and make love to her all night.

  It was a good thing she had fled inside—wasn’t it?

  Somehow, fortunately, he made it to the ranch without swerving off the road. He pulled into the parking area behind the main house. The Daweses’ car was there, and so was Shaun’s crossover. Lights were on in both the house and the large building behind it where the hands’ small apartments were lo
cated—his destination.

  Inside, Patrick ran up the steps to his second-floor unit without seeing any of the other guys. Not surprising. It was late. And most of the time, if he saw them at all here, it was when they gathered downstairs in the small kitchen for coffee or a beer.

  He felt too wired to sleep. To even stay in one place.

  Good thing Duke would require a short walk before bed.

  Patrick used a key to open the door to his apartment. Duke was waiting right inside the door, having obviously heard his arrival.

  “Hi, boy,” Patrick said, stooping to give his large, gray friend a rough hug. “How ya doing?” He considered Duke much more than a friend. The dog was part of his cover, so that if anyone happened to see Patrick in wolf form he could laugh and say they must have spotted Duke. But Duke was also his companion, apartment mate and buddy. Not to mention a trained canine military partner.

  Now, Duke didn’t hold still long enough for Patrick to do more than touch his thick fur. He ran into the hall and barked.

  “Hush!” Patrick said. He didn’t want the dog to wake the other guys this late, or he’d never hear the end of it.

  Duke stopped outside Shaun’s unit, woofing softly and leaping against the door.

  “What’s wrong, boy?” Patrick knocked on Shaun’s door. Hearing nothing from inside, he turned the knob.

  The door opened. Odd. Though guys around here often failed to lock up during the day or night, that didn’t include Shaun.

  Not with his valuable, government-issue computer equipment.

  The sharp, ugly smells assaulted Patrick immediately. “Hey, Shaun,” he called warily into the dark ness, even as Duke sped by and started making strange, keening noises.

  With an eerie, sick sensation crawling up his back, Patrick turned on the light.

  Shaun was at the small table at the side of the compact room that passed as multipurpose kitchenette, office and living room. Slumped over. Head on the table.