by Edie Claire
Heat spread through Wolf’s veins like liquid fire. It was a good thing The Beard hadn’t answered his door. “It’s okay, girl,” he told the dog, studying her position to see how he could lift her in his arms with the least amount of discomfort. “It’s going to be all right now. I’m taking you with me.”
“The hell you are,” a low voice growled.
Wolf shouldn’t have been glad to have company. Really, he shouldn’t. He had never been one to spoil for a fight. While the other boys on his hockey teams had jumped into the occasional melee with glee, he had always been the one frowning from the bench, waiting for them to get it over with so the game could restart.
But as he glanced covertly to the side to scope out his adversary, he was extraordinarily pleased to see that The Beard was both unarmed and suffering a probable hangover. The man was standing about ten feet away.
“I was told this dog isn’t yours,” Wolf said calmly, rising. He didn’t turn around. That would dignify the man’s presence. “So you won’t have any objection if I turn her over to the humane shelter. She’ll need medical treatment first, obviously.”
“You’re trespassing,” the man said coldly, stepping closer.
“Am I?” Wolf asked in a deadpan, still looking only at the dog. “I did knock on the door.”
The man stepped directly behind him. “Get off my property,” he growled. His breath stank of stale beer.
Wolf turned around. “I’ll be happy to,” he said, staring straight into the man’s bloodshot eyes. “Just as long as the dog goes with me.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and Wolf prepared. The Beard was not what you’d call a stealthy fighter. He transmitted his intentions like a neon sign, and when the clumsy blow finally arrived, Wolf was nowhere near its airspace. The Beard was taller and heavier than Wolf, and relatively sober, but because missing his mark had put him off balance, Wolf’s single, well-placed clip to the chin was able to topple him. He fell onto a half-rotted step next to the shed door and tumbled to the ground in a shower of splintered wood, swearing as he went.
Wolf wasted no time. He scooped up the mutt as gently as he could, raced her out to the pickup, laid her on the passenger seat, and jumped in the driver side. Looking in his rear view mirror as he took off down the street, he could just make out the Beard stumbling around the corner of the house, waving a fist in the air, nearly tripping over one of his own dogs. The pit bulls, whose presence Wolf had entirely forgotten, were barking wildly, circling their owner’s heels in confusion.
Smart dogs, Wolf thought with relief. He’d been lucky their loyalties were divided. They could have torn him to ribbons.
He looked at the bedraggled mutt, and despite her obvious misery and confusion, she managed to muster up a tail thump for him. His heart warmed. “Don’t you worry, Bella,” he said cheerfully. “Your life’s about to get a whole lot better from here, I promise.”
His heart felt wonderfully light, and he was considering whistling a tune when it occurred to him that steering was difficult. He looked down at his hand and flexed his fingers.
Oh, right.
It had been a very, very long time since Wolf’s fist had connected with another man’s face. He remembered one of the many excellent reasons why he avoided such nonsense.
His hand hurt like hell.
He flexed his fingers gingerly, looked down at the dog again, and began to whistle.
It had been worth it.
Chapter 12
“But nobody goes to Maui to live on the top of a mountain!” Mei Lin chided good-naturedly. “You’re supposed to be shooting for an oceanfront condo!”
Ri laughed and rolled back on her bed, wishing it had more than just the one pillow, but she was too cheap to indulge herself. Her sister’s face was distorted in the small screen of Ri’s laptop, but the familiar, sunny smile warmed her heart. “Oh, that’s so cliché,” she teased back. “The truly savvy — and by that I mean Russian-Filipino New Englanders — know that living in the middle of a cloudbank on the side of a volcano is totally in.”
Mei Lin chortled, and Ri cracked up along with her. It felt good to laugh with someone who understood. The evening after Ri had met Kai she’d gotten her whole family up on one screen and gushed with excitement for half an hour over her newly discovered heritage. Since then, the amount of her limited free time she’d spent online searching for images of other people who were Russian and Filipino, reading up on the cultural history and geography of the Philippines, investigating the history of the country’s embassy in Russia, and staring suspiciously at anyone walking around Maui who looked anything at all like herself could be considered excessive. But she couldn’t help it. She was excited. She felt wonderful. Her head was in the clouds in more ways than one.
Now that Kai and Maddie had helped her move into Ilma’s rent-free room in the sky, she’d even come clean with her family about the fire, although she had downplayed both the drama and danger of it significantly. She was determined not to make her parents worry about her. They’d already done enough of that to last a lifetime.
“Well, I’m jealous,” Mei Lin admitted, referring to Ri’s physical location. “And to think that Josh and I will be living in a boring little two-bedroom apartment in Dallas with a view of another apartment building in Dallas!”
Ri’s mood deflated a little. Her sister was clearly teasing; Mei Lin was ecstatic about the prospect of setting up house with her fiance and couldn’t care less where they lived. What depressed Ri was how truly horrible the idea sounded to herself. She didn’t understand how Mei Lin could be happy with Josh. But Mei Lin was happy… so what right did Ri have to interfere with that? “You won’t be the least bit bored,” Ri predicted.
“I will not,” Mei Lin agreed with a giggle. “So what about you? Meet any cute surfers yet?”
A flash of scruffy dark blond hair and swirling fog intruded into Ri’s brain. “Nope,” she replied. She hadn’t seen any surfers yet, actually. Since she’d moved in this afternoon, she also hadn’t seen the elusive researcher whose face she couldn’t get out of her mind. It was Saturday, but there was no sign of him anywhere at the field station. Maddie hadn’t known where he was, but she guessed that he was probably working. Ri wondered if he had slept well last night in a tent pitched on the cold ground in the fog…
“Oh, you are such a liar!” Mei Lin screeched. “Look at you! There is a guy! Who is he?”
Ri jumped. “What?”
Mei Lin cackled. “Who were you thinking about?”
“Nobody,” Ri replied with a smile. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she heard a man’s voice calling from elsewhere in the building, “Hey, Kenneth!”
“Yo!” came a response from the hallway outside her door. Kenneth was the field station’s resident manager, who lived alone in a small cabin directly behind the Hilton. Ri wasn’t certain, but she thought she recognized the other voice as Wolf, and his footsteps were approaching.
“Listen, I’ve got to go,” she told her sister at a reduced volume. “I’ll catch up with you again later, okay?” Mei Lin’s strident protests met deaf ears. Ri stifled the conversation with a rudeness only sisters can get away with, then shut down her computer. She didn’t intend to eavesdrop on the men. But Maddie had warned her that the Hilton’s walls were thin as cardboard, and she didn’t fancy completing her current conversation with these two standing mere feet away.
The footsteps stopped. “Need to ask you a favor.”
Yes, Ri thought to herself. It was definitely the same voice as the man on the road last night. She wished she could see him.
“What’s up?” Kenneth asked.
“Would you mind if I made use of that pen out by your place for a week or so?”
There was a pause. “The dog pen?” Kenneth asked stiffly.
“Yes,” Wolf answered. His voice held a hint of a smile, Ri thought. Would it show on his face?
“For a dog?” Kenneth asked with disbelief.
&nbs
p; Ri stifled a giggle. The resident manager, whom she had just met a few hours ago, was a nice man, but a bit of a character. He was a geologist in his early seventies, he had lived at the field station for at least thirty years, and he had his own way of doing things. Part of that way was to pretend to be a hardass when everyone knew he was a pushover.
“Yes, for a dog,” Wolf answered.
“You know you can’t have a dog running around up here!” Kenneth exclaimed harshly.
Ri wondered why the manager had a dog pen at his cabin in the first place, but now was hardly the time to open her door and ask.
“This dog won’t be running anywhere,” Wolf explained. “She’s injured. I found her and took her in to the vet this morning and they’re keeping her overnight. She’s got no home, so she’ll have to go to the shelter eventually, but I was hoping to foster her up here until she’s well enough to be adopted. I’ve been friendly with her for months now, and she’s a good dog, Kenneth. An outdoor dog, used to roaming. If I don’t take her she’ll be stuck in a stainless-steel cage for weeks. Maybe months. I had a feeling you’d understand just how miserable that would be for her.”
Kenneth growled and grumbled under his breath. Ri could hear his boots scraping on the tile floor of the hallway.
“You wouldn’t have to do a thing with her,” Wolf continued. “She’ll either be in that pen or on a lead with me at all times.”
Kenneth grumbled some more and swore under his breath. “Doghouse roof leaks,” he said finally.
“I’ll fix it.”
“Aw, hell. You young people think you can just do any damn thing around here! Dogs and elephants and trick ponies and who knows what the hell else…” His grumbling faded away along with his footsteps, and Ri heard the door at the end of the hall open and slam shut.
She wondered if Wolf took that as a “yes.” His footsteps followed Kenneth’s and the door opened and closed again. When she popped open her own door a few seconds later, both men were out of sight.
Ri was intrigued. She was way more intrigued than she had any business being, and although that thought excited her, it also brought mixed feelings. Mei Lin had her pegged, of course. There was definitely something about Wolf that had instantly snagged her attention and inspired her imagination. Unfortunately, that was a bad sign. One downside of her dreamy nature was that she was prone to baseless infatuation. She had a history of similar, giddy, near-instantaneous attractions stretching all the way back to middle school, and to date not a single one of them had ended well.
That really should tell her something.
Ri sighed and pulled a jacket out of her closet. Maddie and Kai had been wonderful to her today, taking her shopping for bedding and groceries and other necessities, then helping her get moved in. They had even walked her around and introduced her to everyone they could find at the Hilton and the Marriot — which did not include the mysterious Wolf — before leaving her alone to settle in. It hadn’t taken her long to unpack, though, and she was already itching to explore the grounds. They’d offered to give her a grand tour of the whole field station and take her out to dinner, too, but Ri was no idiot. Although their offer had been sincere, it was obvious that the couple would implode if not allowed sufficient time to jump on each other, and judging by the tension Ri felt arcing in the air by late afternoon, two-thirds of a Saturday’s worth of restraint was their limit. Knocking on Maddie’s door now to redeem the guided tour offer was not an option.
Ri tied the arms of her jacket around her waist, put on her one good pair of hiking shoes, and headed outside alone.
***
Wolf looked down at the roof of the ancient doghouse with a scowl. The patch job would keep the rain out, yes. But he wasn’t proud of it. In fact, if his dad ever got a look at it, Wolf would never live it down. Never mind that he’d thrown it together with whatever scraps Kenneth had lying around in his workshop, and never mind that he’d done it mostly left-handed. It was still an unforgivable crap job.
He flexed the fingers of his right hand again, gritting his teeth. He didn’t care for the way his knuckles were looking. The swelling was worse and some of his fingers were going numb. He should probably get more ice. Or something.
He had just returned Kenneth’s tools and was walking back around the cabin and up toward the Hilton when he saw her. She was further down on the slope, sitting atop one of his own favorite rocks with her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around her shins. Her chin rested on her knees as she rocked peacefully back and forth, enjoying the view.
Wolf was too far away to discern much about the woman except that she was small, she had bushy dark hair, and she had appropriated his personal rock. But he knew who she must be. Maddie had asked him not five minutes ago if he had seen the field station’s newest resident, who was apparently AWOL. Maddie hadn’t been overly worried, since the weather seemed clear, but she did wish she had warned her friend earlier not to wander too far away, since one never knew when the clouds might roll in and the visibility drop to nothing.
Wolf knew Maddie’s concern to be valid. He shifted direction and walked down the hill toward the stranger. As he drew closer, he could see that she looked like a local, and he remembered Maddie mentioning that she was related to Kai. He was wondering which island she might have come from when she moved from her sitting position to stand straight up on the rock. She stretched her arms high above her head, reaching out toward the sky. Clearly, she was relishing the moment.
He smiled. He liked a woman who could appreciate a spectacular view… not to mention a deep breath of mountain air. He also liked a woman who was built like she was. Petite, but muscular, and curvy in all the right places. Vibrant and dynamic looking, she practically bristled with athletic energy.
She heard him coming and turned.
Whoa.
The mop of tight curls had been hiding the face of an angel. Her large, dark eyes with their lovely thick lashes fixed on him and twinkled with delight. Her beautiful full lips drew into a smile, showing off perfect white teeth and making cute little dimples in her smooth bronze cheeks.
Then she seemed to get a hold of herself. She pursed her lips to staunch the smile, and she averted her eyes.
How interesting. “Are you Ri?” he called out casually as he continued toward her.
She looked up at him again. “Yes.” Her smile was back now, although this one seemed more guarded. “And you’re Wolf. I saw you out in the fog yesterday when Maddie first brought me up here. Nice to meet you officially.”
Wolf thought about that. He hadn’t realized anyone else was in Maddie’s truck last night, but it was no wonder, with the headlamps shining in his eyes. “Same here,” he greeted, smiling back at her.
She jumped off the rock in one swift movement, which his gaze eagerly followed. She was an agile creature, but not like a cat. Somehow she reminded him more of a fox. Fleet rather than stealthy. Earthier. Sexier.
What was he saying again?
“This rock has a great view, but it’s not the most comfortable thing,” she said with a laugh, pointing to the sharp ridge that ran along its downhill edge.
Wolf chuckled. He’d been tempted to dangle his legs off the edge of that rock himself, but it was too brutal on the thighs. No wonder she’d been perched with her legs drawn up. “You noticed that, too? I usually sit toward the back on that hump there and swing my legs over the side.”
The angel eyes glittered at him. “You sit on this rock?”
He grinned back. “This is my rock.”
She laughed. It was a low, melodious sound. Not at all girlish or silly. He liked it. “My apologies,” she said sarcastically. “Your rent check is in the mail.”
He chuckled. The little minx had a sense of humor, too. “Maddie’s been looking for you,” he explained. “She said she forgot to warn you how quickly the clouds can roll in up here. She didn’t want you to lose your way in the fog.”
“Oh, please,” Ri said dismissively, pulling he
r phone out of a zipped jacket pocket. “It’s sweet of her, but seriously. I’m from Maine.”
Wolf supposed she was used to fog. Now that he thought about it, her voice did have an odd ring to it. The disconnect between her New England accent and typically Hawaiian appearance was bizarre, yet refreshing somehow.
Ri checked her phone and quickly fired off a message. “She did text,” she said apologetically. “Shoot. I turned the sound off. I was enjoying listening to the birds. And not much else.”
Wolf wondered suddenly if he was the victim of a setup. Not only was this woman physically alluring, but the lines she was feeding him sounded custom-made to appeal. Was Maddie playing some kind of game with him?
Ri tilted her head and gave him a smirk. “Until the hammering and cursing started anyway.”
Wolf withdrew his suspicion. He was pretty sure he’d just been accused of doing something annoying, which fit much better with his past experience of regular, non-perfect women telling him what was on their minds. “I was fixing the roof of the doghouse,” he explained without apologizing. “But I don’t remember cursing.”
Her sly smile widened, but she let the issue drop. She began to walk up the hill. “I have a confession to make.”
Wolf fell into step beside her. A confession?
“I was in my room earlier when you and Kenneth were talking in the hall, so I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation,” she admitted. “And I saw you working on the doghouse when I walked down the hill earlier, but I don’t think you saw me. You were pretty engrossed in the project.”
Wolf fought back a sinking feeling as he digested her comments. There was nothing wrong with anything she said, but he knew this would only be the beginning. She was interested in him; he could divine her attraction the second their eyes met. But as flattered as he was to have attracted her attention so effortlessly, her keen awareness of his activities did not bode well. He knew what would happen next. Next would be the questions. Where did you find the dog? How did she get hurt? Why couldn’t someone else take care of her?