by Terry Spear
“I hear the waterfall nearby.” Kate slipped a little on the muddier part of a trail. “He said it was near the waterfall, right?”
“According to this map, yes. Unless it’s a different waterfall.” Lexi sure hoped not.
They finally reached the falls, the rush of water flowing over the cliff and running into the stream below.
They both looked at the simply sketched map.
“Maybe we just have to move rocks over there,” Kate said. “Instead of digging for it. This looks like the drawing of rocks on the map.”
“Over there? By the big one?” Lexi pointed at the area that looked similar.
“Yeah.”
They headed for the larger rock, and at the base, they began moving the rounded river rocks away from the big one, but after several minutes, they reached soil.
“Do we dig now?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, let’s try that.” Lexi pulled out her trowel, and Kate did the same with hers.
Both of them began to dig, but after several minutes, they hadn’t found anything. They filled the hole back up, then moved the rocks back to where they’d been and started working at another spot. Two more times they moved rocks, dug in the dirt, then replaced the disturbed materials. Lexi paused to take a picture of the waterfall.
“I’m wondering if it’s located at a different waterfall.” Disappointed, Lexi had really believed she would find the message at the first place she looked. She shouldn’t have been so optimistic. “It’s hard to tell from this simple map. There aren’t any features that would indicate this place over any others.”
“Except his map indicated that the site was northwest of the cabins, and this is the first set of waterfalls located in that direction,” Kate said.
Lexi hadn’t told Kate what the secret message was about or who it was from. She’d let it slip that the person who had buried it was a he, so she’d left it at that. She’d hoped she’d smell her father’s scent when she looked for the message, but she didn’t smell any sign of him anywhere. She’d only received the text message from him this morning, and then she and Kate had needed to pack and travel here in a rush to begin to look for it.
They’d seen several waterfalls, and all the creeks had fish swimming in them, so that didn’t help in narrowing things down to a particular waterfall. Her family had been to several on their vacation here, and her father had said the same thing about all of them.
Lexi had informed Kate that she couldn’t tell her any more about the message or its sender or she’d have to kill her. Kate had laughed, but the truth was that Lexi worried about someone else killing Kate and her, if they knew Lexi’s father was still alive. Since Kate wouldn’t let Lexi search for the message on her own, Lexi had taken her into her confidence—at least as far as searching for the message.
“How long do we have to find it?” Kate asked.
“Three days. After that, the location of the message will be irrelevant.”
“So we keep searching. You know, I was thinking more about our marketing. We always do kind of a high-fashion setup for the promo videos. I was thinking we could do some out here. More for the outdoorsy girl—like us—with an outdoor-woodsy theme, a getting-back-to-nature concept. The idea would be that no matter whether you’re in the city or roughing it in the woods, your makeup will last and protect you from the elements and enhance your natural beauty.”
“Now see, that’s why I hired you! You’re perfect for this job. We could do some of that now while we’re staying at the cabin.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I figure we could slip in some promo, and we’d both have fun doing it in between trying to locate the message.” Kate glanced at the rocks they’d replaced. “We’ll find it.”
Lexi hoped. She pulled out the park map. “There’s another set of falls over here. Still northwest of the cabins, just a little farther north.” Her phone rang, and she struggled to free it from a zippered pocket on her backpack. She recognized the phone number on her caller ID and scoffed. “It’s hopeful suitor number three.” She answered the call and said in her most professional business voice, “Lexi Summerfield, how may I help you?” The breeze blowing the branches and birds singing in the background would be a sure giveaway that she wasn’t at home and on the job.
“It’s Randy Wolfman. I want to take you out for dinner on Monday night at six.”
“Randy, you’re a nice guy, but you and I don’t really have what it takes to be a couple. I’m sorry, but it was nice that we had a couple of dates anyway.” Three, but who was counting? Once she’d decided on her new rule, she’d become determined to stick to her plan: give the guy three chances to change her mind and then move on. She truly was a romantic at heart, and she worried that Mr. Right Wolf—who really was the one for her and not seeing her just because she was sitting on a load of money—would show up, and here she’d be dating Mr. Wrong Wolf. She was afraid she’d lose her only chance at having the wolf of her dreams.
“Aww, come on, Lexi. We’ll have a great time,” Randy said.
She thought he liked going out with her because they each paid for their own meals, since she didn’t want the wolf to feel he had paid his way into her life. “Sorry, it wouldn’t work out between us. I hope you find the right wolf for you.”
“But—”
She ended the call and blocked his phone number.
Kate was smiling at her. “He would never take no for an answer.”
“You’re right. And I have a hard time rejecting people. I just need to start telling them I’m not interested.”
“Are you afraid you might dismiss the wrong guy?”
“No. If one of them was the right wolf, I’d smell his interest and our pheromones would go through the roof when we got close. I danced with all five wolves who have asked me out on separate occasions, and not one of them did that for me. Sure, they wanted to have sex, that much was obvious from their full-blown erections, although that would mean mating for life. But our pheromones were a fizzle, no interest at all.”
“Which begs the question: Can we find more than one wolf who can do that for us?” Kate asked quite seriously.
“I think so. I don’t believe only one wolf in the whole wide world would be the one for each of us. We might never find that wolf. I’m sure it has something to do with genetic predisposition, what physical qualities a potential mate has that suit our physical needs in order to create the best offspring. That’s all on the pheromonal side of us. Then there’s the human equation, the needs and wants and desires. The social and emotional compatibility. It’s complicated. But I can tell you right now that these guys were more interested in money than me. They were trying way too hard to prove they really were into me, and it wasn’t working.”
“You’re easy to like.”
“Friendship is fine. Mating for life is a whole other story.” Lexi had never checked into their backgrounds, something she would definitely have done if one of the wolves had really moved her.
“I agree with you there.”
The rain-saturated breeze switched, and Lexi smelled the scent of a male wolf and a black bear that had passed through there recently.
“The wolf has to be a lupus garou like us,” Kate said, “since no one has reported any sightings of wolves in the area. Maybe the wolf was the one who left the message?”
“I don’t believe so.” Lexi didn’t think her father would ask another wolf to get involved in this. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. “And there’s a female black bear, by the smell of her, roaming the area. Keep your eyes peeled and continue to make noise. We need to head on back before the rain starts anyway. We can check the other location later. It will take us about an hour to reach the cabin.”
Kate laughed. “How often does the weatherman get it right?”
Lexi saw a fairy ring of mushrooms and took another picture
. “Yeah, I know. But you know me. I always try to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Light rain began to fall, and then the drops grew bigger. Lexi hurried to put away her camera, and both laughing, they pulled out their ponchos. They were already soaked by the time they got the ponchos on. Still, they’d be protected somewhat from the continuing rainfall.
A couple of young bear cubs cried out somewhere in the distance, and Lexi’s adrenaline surged. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah, they’re close by. It sounds like danger to me.”
“They’re crying for their mother. They have to be in trouble. I’ll see if the park rangers can rescue them.” Lexi hurried to get her phone out and called the ranger service. “Hi, my friend and I were hiking, and we heard the distress calls of a couple of bear cubs.”
“We’ve got our hands full with a family of hikers who have lost their way, including one who’s badly injured. And a search party is looking for another missing hiker. We can look into the cubs’ situation after we’ve taken care of the hikers in distress.”
“Thanks.” Lexi ended the call.
“You didn’t tell them where the bear cubs are.”
“The park rangers are too busy with human distress calls. You’re my bodyguard. You can protect me.” Lexi left the designated trail, which she wouldn’t normally do as a human because she didn’t want to trample the vegetation. The bear cubs’ cries guiding her, she raced through the forest as best she could, trying not to stumble over tree branches and fall into the ferns filling the understory.
Kate trailed close behind her. “This is a dangerous idea. Where there are cubs, there’s a mother bear nearby. The female bear we smelled, I betcha.”
“Unless something has happened to her. And then we need to rescue them.”
“What do you propose we do? Take them home with you?”
Lexi was sure Kate wasn’t being serious. Wolves raising bear cubs at her oceanside home? No way.
“Once we rescue them, I’ll call the park rangers to pick up the cubs and take care of them if the mother doesn’t come for them. The rangers can find a home for them. As young as the cubs’ cries sounded, they wouldn’t be able to make it on their own.”
Lexi and Kate continued to move quickly through the underbrush in the direction of the cliffs. Lexi’s skin prickled with unease, her stomach twisting in knots. From the sound of the cubs’ cries, they were way down below the cliffs, and the only way to reach them quickly would be climbing down there. That terrified her. Worse, her fearful scent would clue Kate in.
No way had Lexi wanted anyone to know what had happened to make her fear cliffs. She prided herself on keeping her secret. But even now, she suffered a flashback: gasping as a wolf as the soil and rocks at the edge of the cliff gave way, free-falling toward the rocky ground, praying some of the tree branches would help to break her fall. They did, scraping and bruising her, but she still landed badly on the rocks below and broke her left hind leg. Just from the memory, she felt a shock of phantom pain shoot up her left leg. That would be the last time she’d fight with a boyfriend and take off on her own without telling anyone where she’d be.
It had been a stupid thing to do, something she had seen others do in videos on I Shouldn’t Be Alive—in other words, going alone, not telling anyone where she’d be, not having a satellite phone in remote areas, and not having water with her—though as a wolf, that was understandable. She’d sworn she’d never do anything that dumb herself. Worse, she’d been in her wolf form and couldn’t climb to safety with a broken leg, so she’d had to shift into her human naked form before help arrived.
She and Kate finally reached a steep cliff and Lexi hesitated, not wanting to get near the edge that, according to forest ranger reports on the area, were known to crumble. Chills raced down her bare arms and legs. She had to force herself to move toward the cliff’s edge. Slowly, so she wouldn’t end up falling and breaking a leg like she’d done before.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, sure. The cliff face is unstable. I’m just being careful.” But it was a lot more than that.
“Okay, yeah, you’re smart to do that. I guess I can’t talk you out of taking this dangerous route and looking for a safer way to get down there instead.”
“I don’t want to risk delaying the rescue.” Lexi finally reached the edge. She observed the rocky cliff, looking for the best way to climb down, terrified she would fall. The mewling cries were coming from the base of the cliff near a couple of trees.
“This is not what I had in mind when I signed up to… Holy shit,” Kate said, peering over the edge of the cliff.
Lexi looked down at the swollen creek rushing along the banks of the cliff. “The creek’s risen because of all the rain. The cubs are crying in a den down below. They could drown. We have to save them.” Lexi started down the cliff, grabbing whatever she could—rocks, tree roots, vines—to keep from falling to her death or breaking a leg or more. She grabbed what looked like a stable rock, but as soon as she tried to hold it and move her right foot to another rock, the one in her left hand pulled free. She fell and cried out, grabbing for anything that could stop her fall. She grasped a tree root and hung on for dear life, her breath coming out in harried puffs.
“Oh God, hang on, Lexi. I really didn’t sign up for this.” Kate waited to descend so she didn’t cause an avalanche of rocks and dirt to collapse on Lexi.
“You don’t have to do it.”
“Are you kidding? Then you’d be able to take all the glory!”
Lexi smiled, then frowned. If the mother bear attacked them, there wouldn’t be much glory in that.
Chapter 2
Ryder Gallagher—who formerly went by his first name, Ted—had changed it due to issues he was having with a man of the same name that credit card companies were after. And, of course, all Ryder’s friends were having trouble with the transition. He was taking another hike, killing time before his friend Mike Stallings arrived at the cabin campgrounds. Ryder thought he heard women’s voices every once in a while and took a trail headed in their direction. He wasn’t the kind of guy who liked solitude. Though this was better than just sitting in the cabin waiting for Mike to turn up. Not that Ryder planned to hike with the ladies.
One of the women squealed and then both laughed. He smiled. He didn’t want to intrude too much. He wasn’t interested in befriending a couple of human women, but he was drawn to check them out.
Their good humor lightened his mood, which had been somewhat dampened by the sudden change in plans. Mike had needed to stop and see his parents on his way to the cabin. They were gray wolves, so family was important, but Mike’s parents’ anniversary had slipped his mind. Ryder and Mike didn’t want to lose their cabin rental reservation for the rest of the week, so Ryder had shown up alone until Mike could join him. Their jobs as bodyguards were stressful, and they needed all the vacation time they could get.
Ryder reached the place on the trail where he thought he’d run into the two women, but there was no sign of them, and he didn’t smell their scents in the area. He heard their voices again, farther away. What trail had they taken? He had been sure this one would intersect with theirs.
Then from a different direction, he heard bear cubs crying out in distress. The women forgotten, Ryder immediately went into rescue mode. He ran through the ferns in the direction he thought the cubs were, but knew he’d find them faster if he ran as a wolf. Already well off the trail, he pulled off his backpack and began to strip out of his shorts, socks, hiking boots, boxer briefs, and T-shirt. He shoved his clothes into his backpack, then hid it in the ferns.
Off and running, he headed for the cliff where he’d heard the bears crying, wishing Mike was here to help him. At least he was glad he had detoured to the other trail in an attempt to run into the ladies, which had made it possible for him to hear the bears’ cries much mor
e distinctly and reach them faster. Now he just had to get to them before it was too late.
* * *
Her heart hammering, Lexi was still trying to make her way down the cliff, her fingers clinging precariously to the loose rocks, dirt, and mud, the water rising steadily down below, the poncho hampering her efforts. If she hadn’t been so concerned about reaching the cubs as quickly as possible, she would have thought to shove her poncho in her backpack. “Remove your poncho before you climb down. Mine’s getting in the way while I try to find footholds.”
The earth crumbled more, and she knew she was going to be cut and scraped up, just like Kate would be. Hopefully, that would be the worst of it. If she could only extract the bear cubs without getting into a confrontation with the mother bear!
The rain was still coming down, making it worse. Her hands were wet and so were the rocks she was trying to hold on to, which meant everything was slippery. Suddenly, the rocks supporting her gave way. Her heart beating hard, Lexi cried out as she tumbled down the last ten feet. She landed in the rising water with a splash.
“Lexi! Ohmigod!”
“I’m okay. I’m at the base of the cliff. I’m okay.” Short of breath, her heart beating way too fast, Lexi scrambled to her feet.
“Are you sure?”
Lexi knew Kate would do anything to help rescue the cubs too.
“Yeah, just don’t fall like I did.” As if Lexi could have prevented it. “Just scraped and bruised, sore muscles, but no broken bones.”
“Okay. God, you scared me.” Kate removed her poncho and shoved it into her bag, then pulled her backpack back over her shoulders and began her climb down.
The water was swirling around Lexi’s shins and she was edgy, waiting to catch Kate if she fell. “You would have done this on your own if I hadn’t made the decision to aid them and gone down first.”
Rocks skittered down the cliff below. Lexi’s stomach clenched, her body tense, ready to spring into action if Kate lost her hold on the rocks. Lexi wasn’t sure if it was harder watching Kate trying to make her way down safely or doing it herself.