Tom Jeevers lived on the road Gavin walked now. The old man rarely left his house, summer or winter, and was listed in Gavin’s written log as the caretaker for Skylar’s father’s cabin.
The old guy, once a great craftsman in and around these parts, had built that cabin with his own two hands before turning his attention to a new spot farther north and closer to the main road. Gavin wanted to question Tom about Skylar’s dad. He also wanted to see if Tom might have seen anything strange in the area lately.
Of course, there didn’t have to be a connection between the abomination hiding out in the mountains and this particular area, but it seemed to Gavin to be more than coincidental that the creature kept returning here, of all the places it had to choose from in and around the Rockies.
Getting wind of it on the hillside above Skylar’s cabin made Gavin extremely wary. Hearing that Doctor Donovan had been found with his face half gone made him warier still. Whether this meant Skylar might also be in danger due to the isolation of the cabin was a further concern. If anything happened to Skylar, he wasn’t sure what he might do. Last night seemed to have sealed some kind of unspoken deal between them.
Jeevers’s house appeared around the next bend. Made of logs and mortar, with a green metal roof and a large front porch, it complemented the woods surrounding it by blending in.
A long walkway of wood chips led to the rustic house. The intricately carved wood door opened before Gavin set a boot on the steps.
“Ranger,” Tom said. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
Gavin smiled. “Wanted to have a chat, Tom. I need some information about the man who bought your other cabin some time back.”
“Donovan.”
“That’s the guy.”
“Sorry affair, Harris. He took a nasty fall, I heard. Come and sit. I’ve got the coffeepot on the stove, and you look like you could use a cup.”
Gavin followed Tom into the house, and looked around. Though the place could have used a lighter touch in terms of furniture, and carried a faint scent of dust and strong coffee, the parlor was roomy and pleasant.
Since he’d been here twice before, Gavin made himself at home on a leather sofa covered in an elaborate blanket of Hopi Indian design.
“Black, right?” Tom handed him a steaming mug filled with an aromatic brew.
“Perfect. Thanks, Tom.”
Tom settled himself into the chair opposite and crossed his aging legs at the knee. Gavin noted that Tom, a bachelor for as long as anyone could remember, wore clean overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. His gray hair was neatly combed. The image he presented this morning was pretty much the opposite of what most people thought about true mountain men.
“What kind of chat are we having, Harris? An official one or a neighborly exchange?”
Gavin wrapped his hands around the mug, waiting for the coffee to cool. “Both. You know that the doctor’s daughter is staying at your old cabin?”
Tom nodded. “Pretty girl. Young. Doesn’t look much like her father.”
“She’s going through her father’s things and seems at a loss over his death. I’m curious about this guy. Is there anything else about the doctor that you can tell me?”
Tom nodded. “He was a serious man, though friendly enough. When he first bought the place, he came around now and then for friendly chats.”
“Did he ever mention why he bought the cabin?”
“As a matter of fact, he did mention that once. Said he needed to get away from hectic hospital work from time to time, and that Florida was too humid to spend his downtime in.”
Gavin said, “They’re from Florida? I didn’t know that.”
“Miami, if memory serves me right. Can I ask why you’re asking about the doc?”
“His daughter has questions about how he died.”
Tom nodded again. “Only one of them is here.”
Gavin looked up from his coffee. “One of what?”
“The doctor’s daughters. There are four of them, he told me, all fairly close in age. No wife, though—at least that’s what I deduced from the fact that he never mentioned one.”
“His daughters haven’t been here before?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Donovan kept mostly to himself, then?”
“I rarely saw him in person after his first couple of years visiting here. He used to go out at night quite often, though. I’d sometimes see him walking down the lane at sundown.”
“Was he a fit man, Tom?”
“Fit as a fiddle as far as outward looks are concerned. He was tall, with premature gray hair and a sober face. It looked to me like he could climb the peaks and be right at home.”
Gavin sipped his coffee, savoring the heat and slightly bitter aftertaste. “Only he didn’t make it home one night.”
“No,” Tom agreed. “He didn’t.”
Taking the time to enjoy another sip, Gavin regrouped his thoughts. “I was wondering if you’ve seen, either recently or in the past, a wolf pack near here, Tom? Maybe you’ve heard them?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Tom said. “For the better part of the past three months I’ve heard howling in the hills. I’m sure you, as a ranger, know that gray wolves disappeared from Colorado when the last ones were hunted and killed in the forties.”
Gavin nodded. “I do know that.”
Tom went on. “I heard that they’ve been reintroduced to some states, but not ours. They can travel great distances, though, so they’ve been expected to get back here eventually.”
“And you’re hearing them.”
“Can’t miss them. Even ears as old as mine can pick up their yowling.”
Gavin shifted in his seat. “Have you reported this to the other rangers or the wildlife guys?”
“Not yet. But I did hear in town that several years ago a gray male was sighted ten miles from our border, so I assumed he’d made it and brought along his kin.” Tom leaned forward in his chair. “Are you checking on those wolves for the Parks and Wildlife guys?”
“Yes, and also for my own curiosity. Skylar Donovan, the doctor’s daughter, said something to me yesterday about her father chasing a wolf. She thought he might have been after a wolf when he fell.”
“Seems a reasonable explanation for a city man spending time away from civilization, especially given how close to the road those animals seem to be. Maybe he wanted to see one up close.”
“How many of them do you think there might be, Tom?”
The old man scratched his forehead. “Well, there’s more than one wolf, for sure. I’m guessing more than two. Each of them has a distinct sound. And I’ve seen a lot of torn-up animal carcasses around.”
Gavin was distressed over that news. He’d been roaming these hills, too, and he’d seen those carcasses for himself. But there were no reports of wolf sightings in the databases he regularly checked. And that was a good thing. If the wildlife guys came in to inspect the area, not only would his search for the monster that put the Were in werewolf have to be curtailed, he’d have to find someplace else to spend time with his own issues each time a full moon came around.
“So, you’re worried for the doctor’s daughter?” Tom’s question brought Gavin out of thought.
“She mentioned wanting to see that wolf killed, if in fact it played a part in her father’s death. I’d hate to see her try to find it. She’s alone out here.”
“And she’s a city girl,” Tom said.
Raising his mug to his mouth, Gavin spoke over the rim, “A feisty city girl.”
“Maybe I should report the sounds?” Tom suggested.
“Can you postpone that until I take a better look around?”
Tom smiled. “Do you fancy a fur rug?”
Gavin hid a grimace as his internal wolf gave an indecipherable whine. “No. Nothing like that, Tom. If there’s a pack, I’ll report it. I’d like to see a gray, that’s all. I’d also like to make sure the Donovan girl doesn’t do anything silly, like trying t
o hunt the ones you’ve heard.”
He got to his feet with a longing glance at the mug in his hand. “Can I keep this if I promise to return the mug later? I truly believe you make the best damn coffee in the state.”
“Sure.” Tom beamed. “Stop in anytime for more. I always have a pot on.”
“I’ll do that.”
The old man shook the hand Gavin offered, and smiled.
As Gavin hit the road, his worry doubled. If the old guy thought there was more than one wolf in the area, then more people than himself would be on the lookout for a pack and soon know what roamed here.
He hoped Tom would honor his request to keep the news to himself until Gavin found that big abomination again, this time more prepared to deal with it. Gavin knew he’d have to hustle on this matter before Skylar took it upon herself to return to a forest that hid one of hell’s furry minions.
And before he’d have to confess to being one of them.
Chapter 10
“Clutch, gear, gas.”
Skylar thanked the heavens that the motel sat on the edge of town, giving her plenty of room for a steep learning curve in stick shifts as she hit the road in Harris’s Jeep at a scant thirty miles an hour. Busy Miami streets near her home in Florida weren’t made for sticks or four-wheel drive. Florida was all about sleek and flashy convertibles and automatic transmissions. Torn seats and muddy tires weren’t allowed.
Things got better as she cruised along, though, and she tried hard to place her surroundings in a landscape that looked totally different in the daylight. Last night her attention had centered on Gavin, and on what followed them from the hillside, with no thought for the road.
Still, her sense of direction didn’t desert her. After taking a bend or two, a few miles out from town, she got her bearings.
The first stop on today’s agenda was a visit to the caretaker’s place. Though her father hadn’t mentioned the man, other than jotting down his name and phone number on a note she’d found by the cabin’s kitchen sink, along with the word “watcher,” she recalled seeing Tom Jeevers’s house on her drive in from the airport. She was sure she could find that house now if she took her time and followed her nose—a saying her father often used to keep his daughters on track with whatever they were doing.
And damn…besides missing her father, she’d missed a call to Trish, who must surely be frantic by now.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
What she did not need was her big sister coming to the rescue. She wasn’t going to share the contents of that trunk in the cabin’s attic with anyone, especially after being on the mountain and feeling its heaviness for herself.
She wasn’t going to share Gavin Harris and what they’d done last night, either. Some things were just too private and confusing to talk over with a family member who generally, at least on the surface, had her shit together. All the shit that counted, anyway.
Plus, she still felt confused about her father. Now, more than ever.
Gavin Harris’s rush to get her away from whatever walked around out there last night had worked. Having her mind led elsewhere by the way he’d mesmerized her body made temporarily forgetting the other things easy. But the eerie feeling of being followed, and of Gavin’s swift retreat from what he might have found on that mountain, came back to haunt her now.
“Lord, he is talented, though,” Skylar muttered as she stepped harder on the gas pedal, realizing how absolutely absurd it was to crave a man she’d really only recently met.
At the mere thought of Gavin, the ache between her thighs throbbed with renewed interest. She would see him one more time to give him back his car.
She looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes had gone by, so the road she needed should appear right about now.
Making a sharp turn around a stand of trees, Skylar saw a green mailbox with the Jeevers name painted on it. She pulled into the yard and looked at the house before turning off the engine.
The house looked nice. Well kept. Tidy.
No one came to meet her when she got out of the car. No one answered when she knocked on the door. Undaunted, Skylar walked to the side of the house to find a window to tap on, but the windows were too high in the walls, due to the dramatic drop off of the ground from the front of the house to the back.
The yard behind the house also sloped downward at a steep angle toward the forest beneath it. Skylar shielded her eyes from the sunlight and stared through a lattice of fragrant pine branches, hoping for a better look at the stunning view of the valley. She spotted a small building down there, barely visible beneath those trees.
“Mister Jeevers?” Calling out, Skylar carefully made her way toward that distant building on uneven footing. “It’s Skylar Donovan. I believe you knew my father.”
Receiving no answer, she hesitated, thinking seriously about going back, and about getting to her own cabin to search for more clues dealing with her father’s possible strange mental malady. But she was already here and trespassing on another person’s property, so she went on with a nagging suspicion that Tom Jeevers was probably somewhere around, tinkering with the kind of tools most men living apart from town were likely to possess.
She reached the building on the slope. It was small, maybe twenty feet by twenty feet, and made of concrete blocks expertly painted to look like the logs covering the house perched on the slope above it. The roof was some kind of green corrugated metal. There were no windows.
It was quiet under the trees, save for the wind in the branches.
“Mister Jeevers? Are you out here? I’m sorry to bust in like this, but I’d like to talk to you.”
Nothing.
Honestly, she didn’t belong in another man’s backyard.
It was as she turned to leave that she caught sight of the door to the building, open a crack. From the handle dangled a long, thick chain. On the ground beneath the chain lay the broken remnants of a fist-sized lock.
But that wasn’t what set her teeth on edge.
Through that small opening in the wall came a putrid smell that triggered her gag reflex. Skylar knew what this awful odor had to be, though she’d never smelled anything like it before.
It was the stench of death.
*
Gavin found Skylar’s cabin’s door unlocked and figured she must have left it that way the night before, planning to return.
He went inside.
He looked around, and as far as he could tell, the front room didn’t look disturbed. He took the time to look at several landscape paintings hanging in carved wooden frames on the walls and the handful of trinkets strewn on the mantel perched above a fireplace of worn gray river rock that took up one whole corner of the room. There were no photos or anything of a truly personal nature that reflected the cabin’s last occupant, or his daughter.
Skylar didn’t actually live here, though.
The bedroom was another matter. Gazing at the open bedroom door, Gavin suffered a sudden pang of acute physical longing for the woman who’d been sleeping there.
He tossed his head. How would he get any work done if he missed Skylar already? Missed being a completely inadequate word for what he was feeling. Though he didn’t really know her, he did know every sleek, sexy inch of her body, having explored as much as possible with his hands and his mouth before and after discovering its fiery internal depths.
He would never forget being able to get to a place of such incredible intimacy and abandon so quickly, and he silently thanked Skylar for getting him through it unscathed. Problem was, now that he’d experienced such freedom in the bedroom, and with her, he wanted more of the same.
An endless supply.
His body twitched with the memory of their sometimes rough coupling that had utilized every surface in the motel room. The wolf remained quiet today, allowing Gavin room for reminiscing because it also wanted to remember, though that kind of quietness was odd behavior for the wolf this close to a full moon.
Several steps brought Gavin c
loser to the cabin’s bedroom door. Questions appeared in his mind with each stride. What was Skylar’s life like in Florida? What did she do for a living? Was she a teacher, secretary, CEO, or a doctor in her own right? He should have found those things out by now and also should have asked her why her father might come all this way to play with the wildlife.
Why wolves, though? Why did Dr. Donovan come to this state, and this area in particular? The bad news was that he’d come to the right place for that kind of search.
“Well, all right.” The house seemed fine, so there wasn’t a sufficient excuse for him to stay. The desire to be in a place where Skylar lived, if only temporarily, couldn’t be condoned. Neither could setting one boot inside that bedroom just to get a whiff of any lingering scent.
He’d wait for her outside.
Turning back to the front room, Gavin hesitated as the glint of something shiny, caught in a beam of sunlight coming in the window, captured his attention. Doubling back to the table near the couch, he picked up the object and stared.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, studying a gold, diamond-encrusted ring nestled in a blue velvet box. There was no mistaking the purpose of a ring like that.
His heart took an unexpected dive that made him want to sit down. Skylar neglected to mention being engaged and hell, he hadn’t thought to ask.
Disappointment coursed through him. He honestly believed that theirs might be a connection with the potential for growth, despite his personal issues and everything he’d thought about those issues for the past two years. At least he’d hoped so, against all odds and as ridiculous as that hope might have been.
Placing the ring back where he found it, Gavin straightened. Then he noticed the note paper beneath the box. It wasn’t addressed, and he had no right to read what was on that note.
He turned his head to look at the gun resting on the seat of the chair. Skylar must have dropped it there before traipsing after him up the mountainside, thinking to play it safe and keep from accidentally shooting him in the dark.
Thank heavens for that small favor.
Sick over finding the ring, he picked up the gun, an old revolver, gauged its weight in his hand and turned it over. Skylar had said the gun was loaded.
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