by Penny Alley
“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice shaky with the tears she couldn’t quite keep back. She patted the mattress. “Do you want to sleep with me? I don’t mind company.”
He made a sound then, the first audible thing she’d heard from him since that awful howl in the kitchen. Groaning, he climbed up onto the bed beside her.
The warm tip of his nose touched her chin, her cheek, her hair. He lapped away a falling tear and then lay down beside her. Big as he was, he filled the mattress, but Karly didn’t care. She made room for him, allowing him the lion’s share before scooting in close. She curled against him, weaving her fingers into all that soft, thick fur and holding on tight for comfort.
“You won’t let anything get me, will you, Puppy?” She felt him breathe in, the massive chest beneath her fingers lifting before deflating again in a contented sigh.
She really was stupid. He was just a dog—an injured one, at that. And yet, already she felt safer.
* * * * *
He never should have gotten into bed with her.
Lying stiff and still, Colton stared at the stars shining in through the single bedroom window and tried not to let the kneading grip of the woman’s small hands get to him. He knew better than this. He never would have come upstairs at all, except that he’d heard her crying. Battered women, they were his weakness and always had been, all the way back to the woman who’d given birth to him.
He didn’t have time for this. He should have stayed downstairs, kept his distance, and snuck out hours ago. It didn’t matter what her trouble was. She wasn’t volka. He could smell the humanness of her with every sigh he tried to smother. Not only was she chelovak, but she wasn’t even from Hollow Hills. Hell, no resident non-volka would have come racing up these back roads like she had. And he’d crawled into bed with her, laid down as if they were friends, and let her put her arms around him and cuddle in close.
Her tears were in his fur. He could feel the hitch of every sob she took in the brush of her breasts against his back. The urge to transform right here, to roll over, wrap his arms around her and simply offer comfort was every bit as strong as his need to get up and leave. He couldn’t afford to lie here all night. He had a Hunt to prepare for, early arrivers to welcome in, and a presence of authority to establish if he wanted his position as Alpha to be taken seriously. Where in all of that was there time for this?
Behind him, those hitching gasps and shuddering breaths were dwindling. Her weeping eased first, followed by her trembling and those tiny clutching motions she kept making against the scruff of his neck. Colton remained as if frozen until he was certain the woman had cried herself into an exhausted sleep. Then and only then, did he try to disentangle himself from her clinging grip.
He moved slowly, slipping off the mattress by careful degrees, each subtle movement loosening her grip until her hands fell limp from his fur onto the sheets and finally he was free to crawl out of bed. She whimpered once and he looked back. But when she only burrowed deeper into her pillow, he padded silently back across the carpet and left the room.
He was stiff and he was sore, but as far as car accidents went he’d gotten off easy. At least nothing felt broken and he didn’t feel so bad as to suspect internal bleeding. Given a couple days, he’d recover, and a couple days was all he needed to make sure the Hunt went the way he needed it to. The way Hollow Hills needed it to.
If, that is, he survived these stairs…
Colton stood in the hallway, gazing down into the living room below. His pack brother was calling to him, scratching at the cracks around the doors, prowling the cabin’s perimeter in search of a quiet way in, and he dreaded—absolutely dreaded—having to take that first descending step. He growled, but the stairs were unrelenting and there was no avoiding it. Going down was going to hurt.
Pain was good, as his father used to say. It meant he was still alive.
God, he hadn’t thought about that sonofabitch in years.
One aching step at a time, Colton made his way to the living room floor. He could already hear his pack brother pacing restlessly on the front porch, quivering nose pulling his scent from the crack beneath the door. It was an old cabin with an old door. The sliding bolt was easy to push back, even in wolf form, and once he had it unlocked, his pack brother immediately spilled inside.
He greeted Colton with muted whines and submissive posturing, nosing at him from muzzle to flank as he was checked for injury. Colton waited patiently, letting him take stock of every wound, as well as the scent of the woman clinging to his fur just like her hands had done. He tried not to think about it. He didn’t look back either, not when he stepped off the front porch and certainly not when he led his pack brother, who fell into obedient step at his flank, back across the yard toward the trees.
He itched to turn around and see if she was watching him go from that little upstairs window, but he didn’t. There was no earthly reason for why he should feel pulled toward a chelovak, one he didn’t even know. Hell, one who had hit him with her car!
His muscles flexed and his flanks rippled, equal parts irritation and unease as he felt again the soft grip of her fingers plucking at his fur. Her fear and uncertainty were still in his nose; he could smell it on the cool evening air. He owed her nothing, but just as he neared the wooded edge of the yard, he hesitated.
His pack brother paused, ears perking when Colton abruptly turned back. He patrolled the cabin’s exterior, marking both the front and back doors and her car. This was one of Mama Margo’s cabins, habitually rented to outsiders. There weren’t many in Hollow Hills foolish enough to actively court the old woman’s wrath by hassling one of her visiting chelovak. Still, with the McQueens just down the road, it paid to be cautious, so he left his scent everywhere.
Trusting that to be enough for now, he rejoined his pack of one and let the allure of the night’s pleasures as well as its responsibilities draw him away.
CHAPTER THREE
Karly dreamt about wolves, but when she awoke in the morning, she couldn’t remember any of it apart from the eerie howls that had plagued her throughout the night. All of that was gone now though. The house was painfully quiet and the morning sun shone in through the split in the bedroom curtains, splashing light across her face, the best of all possible alarm clocks. Rolling over did little to help escape it. Every corner of her new bedroom was brightly lit, and in the end, all Karly could do was admit defeat. She reached sleepily across the bed, but when her hand encountered only empty mattress, she opened her eyes.
The dog was gone. She was alone.
“Puppy?” Karly sat up in bed, listening carefully, but no hint of answering movement sounded from anywhere in the cabin.
Had he died in the night? Oh God. Crawling across the mattress, she checked the floor on the far side, but Puppy wasn’t there either. She got up. Small as the cabin was, it took only a few minutes of searching and one glance at the open front door for her to realize what had happened. The dog really was gone. Apparently, he’d let himself out through the front door.
Bare feet padding from carpet to cool floorboards, Karly slipped out onto the porch. Dressed in only her nightshirt, she hugged herself against the early morning chill as she searched the yard.
“Puppy!” Feigning a cheerful whistle, Karly clapped her hands twice. “Come on, baby!”
Not a single bush rustled and no big, black, wolfish canine stuck his head out into the open to look at her.
Maybe he’d gone home. He wasn’t really her dog, after all. He probably had a family, people who’d searched or worried about him all night long because of her.
Karly made a face, trying not to feel so disappointed. She wasn’t really a dog person anyway.
Sweeping the wooded landscape with one last hopeful glance, she went back inside. She almost closed the door but then, just on the off chance, left it open and went upstairs.
Unpacking what few belongings she had from her suitcase into the two-drawer chest at the foot of he
r bed took all of about three minutes, and then only because she had to refold everything first. She found a safe place to stash her money can under the bed (the unoriginality of that plan was not lost on her) and then gathered her things for a shower. Wandering into the bathroom, she searched the wall for the light switch, but nothing happened when she flicked it on. Glancing up at the naked bulb, she flicked the switch up and down several times with the same lack of results.
Downstairs, the kitchen was the same. Her cellphone was still on its charger on the kitchen counter where she’d left it last night, but although fully charged now, the electrical outlet was every bit as dead as the lights. She looked out the window, but the weather was sunny as sunny could be.
Biting her bottom lip, Karly circled the small kitchen, wondering where the fuse box was, unsure if she knew how to fix a blown fuse or even if she’d recognize one if she saw it. Should she call Margo? Should she call the power company?
Her stomach tightened. If she called the power company and made a report, was that something Dan could use to track her by? Maybe she didn’t have power because he already knew where she was. What if he was waiting for her outside right now? What if she had no power because he’d cut the lines just to scare her?
As if on cue, she heard the grinding crunch of tires rolling up the unpaved road just outside, and Karly nearly stopped breathing. Her chest seized, every muscle she had lurching into clumsy motion as she ran to the front door and quickly slammed it shut. Through a narrow part in the living room window curtains, she watched the shiny white hood and silver bumper of a police truck drive right up to her front porch before easing to a gentle stop, just feet from the railing.
That Dan had never driven a white, marked police truck (as far as she was aware) never even figured into it. She still threw all her weight against the old door, her fingers fumbling with the sliding bolt, jerking, shoving, yanking, and finally slapping frantically until it locked into place. There she stayed, on the verge of hysterics, feet braced against the floor to press as much of herself as she could against the old wood.
As if that would stop Dan from breaking in.
He was going to kill her. He was absolutely going to kill her, and there was no one around to stop him and no one that she could call for help. Sinking with dread, all Karly could do was listen as the truck came to a gravel-crunching stop outside her window. Both truck doors opened and then lightly slammed shut. Twin footsteps approached the porch. Only one ascended though—slow, heavy-tromping boots making their way to stand where a welcome mat would have been, had she owned one. Just this old door, locked with a flimsy sliding bolt, stood between them.
Three steady knocks made her jump. “Hello, anybody home?”
It took her almost three fully-panicked heartbeats before she realize that was not Dan’s voice. That didn’t mean he wasn’t standing silently right outside or that the owner of that perfectly nice sounding voice wasn’t one of his cop buddies. She held herself frozen, one hand locked over her mouth to stifle any inadvertent sounds. She closed her eyes, praying they both would just go away.
Seconds crawled into a minute. Quite possibly, the longest of her life.
Another brisk knock rapped the opposite side of the door, a little louder this time. “Ms. Smith, are you in there?”
“Want me to check around back?” another man asked. He wasn’t Dan either.
“Yeah, but make some noise. Margo said not to spook her.”
Margo sent them? Trembling, Karly opened her eyes. She stared at the door, but didn’t move. Every inch of her remained pressed hard against the slats.
One set of footsteps retreated back off the porch to crunch through the gravel, brush and leaves as they circled around the side of the small cabin; the owner of the other set stayed behind. It was probably a figment of her fear, but in the terrible silence that followed, she thought she heard him draw a breath. In and of itself, that certainly wasn’t strange. Except that from the sound of it, she would have sworn he must have had his nose right up against the wood. He inhaled slowly, pulling in all the scented air filling up the cracks between the slats of the wooden door. There was no reason for why he would do that, though. Only in the overactive imagination of a terrified mind could such a thing make logical sense.
She tried to calm down, but then the man on her front porch began to move.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, as he began to drift towards the living room window. He spoke softly, as if he knew not only that she was right there, but that she could hear him. That she was afraid of him.
Karly followed the sounds of his footsteps across the porch. The curtains of that window were open just a crack, but that crack was wide enough to betray her. When his shadow passed over it, hands cupped against the glass to peek inside, Karly flattened her back against the slats and tried to slip deeper into the corner where the door and wall joined. Hung on hinges quite possibly as old as the cabin, the door rattled when her weight shifted. It was only the slightest of sounds, but it froze her instantly. It also gave her away.
The shadow of his head turned. A moment later, those slow footsteps and the soft, deep voice came back to the door. “It’s okay, Miss Smith. I’m no one you need fear.”
Karly held her breath, but the cause was already lost. He knew she was here.
“My name is Colton Lauren.” His tone low and soothing, the man on the porch spoke to her through the door. “I’m with Fish and Game. Would you mind opening the door?”
Fish and Game? Although close enough to almost make no difference, at least he wasn’t police. The knots in her stomach loosened a bit. She shifted uncertainly, still braced against the door in case he tried to force his way inside.
“I’m not poaching anything,” she said shakily, and made no move to unlock the sliding latch.
“No, ma’am.” She could hear his smile in his voice. “I never said you were. Margo sent us. Can you open the door?”
She didn’t move. “Why?”
“No official reason,” he assured. “But it would make passing this food basket a little easier.”
A moving shadow beyond the kitchen window caught the corner of her eye. Karly glanced back to find the other man, also a warden by the tan color of his uniform, with his face pressed to the glass of the rear door and hands cupped around his eyes to block the glare. He waved at her with the fingers of one.
“Morning,” he called. Pulling back from the door, the warden tipped his head and shouted around the house, “She’s home, Cole!”
She heard the stifled sigh and then the humor in Colton Lauren’s voice when he called back, “Yeah. Thanks, Gabe. I’m talking to her now.”
Karly shifted again, feeling awkward and scared, but a little silly now, too. With a shaky hand, she reached for the latch, hesitating twice before sliding it back. She braced her foot against the bottom of the door, preventing it from opening more than an inch or two, and peeked outside. There was no helping that she looked out at him black eye first. That was just the way the door opened, and she wanted to keep that barrier (even if the hinges were rusty and the wood old) between them.
“Morning.” Colton Lauren looked down at her with amber eyes that probably didn’t miss much and smiled. He was tall, broad in the shoulders, lean and muscular in a way that bespoke of active living rather than a gym membership. His hair was dark, his skin the golden color of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun, and his honeyed gaze stayed locked with hers. He took in the visible bruise without comment, though he did lower himself to prop one shoulder against the jamb. It dropped him down to eye level with her, but if he was trying to make himself seem less threatening, it didn’t work. Experience was a hard teacher. Hers had taught her that men were dangerous, no matter how they first appeared.
“What basket?” she finally asked. “I didn’t order anything.”
He shifted, bringing the picnic basket he held in one hand around where she could see it. “Compliments of Mama Margo. A couple fisher
men imbibed a bit too freely last night and ran their truck head-on into an electric pole. Half of Hollow Hills is without power. Montgomery Municipal sent someone out, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get power back any time soon. She thought you might like something to eat, seeing as how you’re new here and might not have anything.”
“Margo is your mom?”
His full mouth tipped into an easy smile. “As good as, though not by birth. I guess you could say she takes in all sorts of strays.” He held up the basket, tempting her to open the door a little wider. “It’s nothing special. A couple sandwiches, some fruit…a piece of her award-winning apple pie. Literally. County fair, three years running now. Buttery crust so delicate it’ll melt in your mouth. If you don’t want it, Gabe and I’ll have no problem polishing those sandwiches off, but we’ll have to wrestle for the pie, being as there’s only one slice.” Those honey-colored eyes twinkled down into hers. “I’m pretty sure I can take him.”
His smile was beguiling. The knots in her stomach begged her not to trust him, but after only a moment, Karly slid her foot aside and opened the door wide enough to take the basket. She moved slowly. He remained non-threatening.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“No problem.” Relieved of the basket, he tapped two knuckles against the threshold, then pushed backwards off it. “You have a good day, now. Welcome to Hollow Hills.”
The other Fish and Game officer, Gabe, came around the side of the house. He tossed Karly a smile, touching a two-fingered salute to the brim of his hat. She didn’t smile back; she simply closed the door. It was immediately locked again.
Hugging the basket to her nervous stomach, Karly crept close enough to the living room window to watch as the wardens sauntered back to their truck. They were talking, but their voices were too low for her to make out any words. The men crossed paths at the bumper. Colton glanced back once at the cabin, causing her to flinch back into the shadows, before he got in behind the steering wheel. It took a three-point turn for him to maneuver the truck out of her little cul-de-sac of a driveway and then they were back on the dirt road and driving away.