Another Chance

by Sandra Cuppett

  It was almost two hours before his brain registered the sudden silence of the insects in the woods between him and the highway. A feeling of unrest settled over him. An owl in a tree down near the highway was watching an intruder. He felt the bird’s curiosity at seeing a strange being in the woods at this hour. Curiosity, but not alarm. The intruder had not noticed the bird. Whatever the intruder was, it wasn’t adept at moving through the woods at night, or it would be more aware of its surroundings. Only his eyes shifted in that direction, watching for any subtle movement.

  Soon he saw just the slightest shifting of a dark figure. After a minute the outline moved again. Gradually, Wolf’s eyes made out the figure of a man. His senses alerted to the highest level.

  Suddenly he heard a noise that took him by surprise. The soft feminine giggle surprised him. Then a male voice whispered in the darkness as she moved out from behind him.

  “Shhh, Missy! Ms. Lanier has a dog that’s really bad. Don’t wake him up!” The masculine figure whispered coarsely.

  “I just can’t imagine us sneaking in here like this to spy on her. My mama would have a fit if she knew.” The girl’s voice was bordering on giggling again.

  The boy turned and chuckled softly. “My daddy said that man made it clear that Jordan Lanier was private property. I just want to see if he’s really staying in that Indian tepee down near the barn, or if he’s living with her.”

  Missy pulled on the young man’s hand. “So what if they are living together? What do we care what people that old are doing?”

  The two youngsters were almost beneath the tree that concealed Wolf. He smiled. They were just a pair of young lovers, bordering on being in trouble. He decided to put an end to their adventure. Turning his head away from them in order to sound further away, he voiced a deep threatening growl.

  The pair froze. “What was that?” Missy’s voice was barely audible.

  “Shhh,” the boy shushed her quickly.

  “What was it?” She insisted.

  “How do I know?” He turned in the direction from which they’d come and tugged on her hand. “Come on.”

  She followed hurriedly. “What was it, Tommy?”

  “I don’t know! I already told you that.” His voice was sharp with fear.

  “I thought you were a hunter!” Missy sounded accusatory as her whisper faded with distance.

  In the tree, Wolf almost chuckled, then released another growl, this one aimed in the direction of the retreating youngsters. He drew the growl out and projected it as loudly as he could, allowing it to end as he stood and roughly shook the branch he was standing on. His efforts were rewarded with a panicked squeal from Missy and then they were both crashing through the brush that separated them from the car on the side of the road.

  Wolf dropped out of the tree and he walked back to the house. No use watching from the woods anymore tonight. Everything out there had been disturbed enough for now.

  When he entered the back door, Bhrandii was standing there waiting on him. No doubt the dog had heard the commotion from the woods, but Wolf’s lack of concern had settled the dog and he hadn’t awakened Jordan. Wolf was glad of that. He wasn’t sure she would have approved of his scaring the kids like that, but he had just not been able to resist.

  Silently, he sent the dog back to bed and went into the spare room intending to get some sleep himself.

  But he discovered he was restless and didn’t understand why. Bhrandii sat silently beside Jordan’s bed. He’d stay there, but he was still filled with anxiety. Wolf lay in the bed in the spare room, trying to figure out why sleep refused him the rest he knew he needed. He could hear occasional barely audible whines from the dog in Jordan’s room. Without realizing it at first, he suddenly realized his restlessness was coming from Tempest, down in the barn. It was then he arose and in the darkened house, went to stand away from, but in front of the large living room window that faced the barn. He stood still for some minutes before he saw a shadow in front of the barn moving furtively back into the shadows. The movement was slight, but he was sure he saw it.

  He retreated into Jordan’s room and shook her shoulder gently. “Jordan,” he whispered her name.

  Instantly she was awake. She sat up. “What?”

  “Take Bhrandii, your pistol and the cell phone and lock yourself in the bathroom of the spare bedroom. Leave the light off. There’s somethin’ movin’ around in the barn and I want to make sure you’re awake and safe while I go check it out. If you hear anything unusual, or if I’m not back in half an hour, call the sheriff’s emergency number.” He was giving instructions as she rose from the bed and pulled open the night stand to get her pistol.

  As she grabbed the cell phone he backed away and started to leave the room.

  She grabbed his arm before she knew what she was doing. He turned to face her and was much closer than she had realized. “I want to go with you. Bhrandii can help.”

  He grasped both her shoulders with his hands and held her firmly. “No! I want you to do what I asked you to do! I want you safe.” He resisted the urge to hug her against him. She would never know what a temptation she was, standing there in her boxers and oversized tee shirt in the semi dark room. He pushed her back gently. “I need to be able to concentrate on all my senses, and if you don’t know it, that’s really hard for me to do with you around.”

  Looking up at him as close as he was, her breath caught in her throat at the desire she saw reflected in his indigo eyes.

  “I am depending on you to do what I asked.” His voice was a coarse whisper and he snatched up her robe lying across the foot of the bed and pushed it at her. “Put this on.”

  She nodded. “Be careful, Wolf.”

  He smiled at her. “I am.”

  She watched him disappear down the hall and knew he was exiting the house from the back door. Then she called Bhrandii softly and followed the instructions she had been given. She locked the guest bathroom door and settled down to wait, her pistol cradled in her grip.

  Bhrandii paced the small room restlessly. He was getting feelings from Wolf and wanted to be in two places at one time. Jordan wanted him with her and that was fine, but he sensed danger down in the barn and wanted to be there to help Wolf at the same time. He paused beside Jordan and looked at her, his tail wagging. He was where she wanted him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  From the culvert under the driveway that led to Jordan’s house, Frankie Lambert had watched the two kids come running out of the woods and drive away. He had already crawled a half a mile in the ditch along the shoulder of the highway, from the small dirt road where he had hidden his car. He had crawled over broken bottles and a few beer cans that had been tossed aside by uncaring passengers in cars traveling the busy road, but the sandspurs had been the worst things he had encountered. There weren’t many of them, and they weren’t something he was familiar with, but he had had to stop for several minutes to pull them out of his arms and legs. He could still feel some of the thorns rubbing against his clothing and knew he would have to dig them out of his skin tomorrow.

  He had heard the cry of a mountain lion just before the two kids tore out of the woods and jumped into their car. Frankie couldn’t help wondering about that. He had recognized the sound from hearing it on television and knew there were no mountains in Florida, but he did remember something he had seen on the same program about the Florida panther. He was nervous and wanted to be away from here, but not without Jordan! He was too close to turn back now, not even in the face of an encounter with a panther.

  He stayed low to the ground and slipped slowly through the skimpy cover of the grass growing in the driveway and up toward the barn.

  He knew about the dog, and had learned only today from the man at the feed store that Jordan appeared to have a boyfriend living with her now. He wasn’t really worried about either. He knew his pistol would take care of the both problems. He cherished the feeling of the gun resting against his ribs in the shoulder h
olster beneath his shirt.

  Having heard the cry of the big cat in the woods behind the house, he was glad he had decided to make his approach from the front, in spite of the fact that he had recognized two different cars from the Sheriff’s department cruise slowly by on the highway while he had been crawling down the ditch.

  He slipped along the driveway on his belly, lying still every few feet until he came to the part of the road that was closest to the back of the barn. It was darker there than the front of the barn so he slipped under the fence and crept along beside the barn until he was lying on the ground at the front.

  He lay there for a long time watching the house and the nearby tepee, gratified to see they were dark and quiet. Satisfied, he entered the barn and stood up, glad to be concealed by the shadows and for a chance to stretch his legs for a few minutes before he moved on up to the house. He could hear horses moving restlessly and hoped they didn’t start neighing. He didn’t know what kind of system Jordan might have set up but he had heard of people putting modified nursery monitors in their barn so they could hear that everything was alright with their horses. He couldn’t imagine people getting that emotionally involved with an animal.

  Of course, Lambert had never allowed himself to become emotionally involved with people, much less an animal, until Jordan. And now, this close to her, he could feel excitement racing through his veins.

  One of the horses stuck his head out over the opened top portion of his stall door and looked down the aisle at Lambert. His ears flicked back and forth a few times and he snorted softly. Tempest felt uncomfortable with this human in the barn. He normally had a very kind temperament and had never exhibited any aggression toward humans. That went against his nature and his training. He shook his head and drew back into his stall. He felt Wolf’s feelings reaching out to him and shared what he was feeling with the Indian man he had come to accept. He felt the urge to look at the stranger in the barn again and returned to look out into the barn. He didn’t like the way the man smelled. He had watched in growing discomfort as the man had slithered through the grass growing in the middle of the two rutted dirt driveway since his nose had first alerted him to the man’s presence.

  All the horses knew when Wolf silently approached the barn from the darkness. They didn’t see or hear him, but they felt his presence and the calmness his mind conveyed to them.

  Wolf entered the barn through the back window of Tempest’s stall, counting on the horse’s movements to cover any noise his entry might make. The big sorrel gelding remained with his head over his stall door, watching the stranger, as Wolf crept up beside him.

  Wolf could see that Lambert had entered Jordan’s office and with a flashlight was looking through the desk drawers. He wondered if the intruder had yet discovered the pistol she kept there and was glad he had removed the bullets.

  Wolf slipped the latch on Tempest’s door open and stepped out into the barn, remaining against the wall while he pushed the door shut again. He was glad he’d made a point of making sure the hinges on the stall doors were well oiled. Silently he stepped toward the office. At the door, he paused for a moment, retrieving his Glock from the back of the waistband of his jeans, thankful to have it resting comfortably in his hand. Then he reached his empty hand inside and flipped on the overhead bulb, flooding the small space with almost blinding light.

  Lambert dropped and fired his gun at almost the same instant the light came on, but Wolf had lunged into the room and was out of the line of fire. Before Lambert could recover, Wolf was on him, one hand locked around the wrist of the hand that held Lambert’s gun pushing it to the floor, the other hand, shoving his own gun into Lambert’s face.

  “Drop the gun, or die. Your choice.” Wolf’s voice was calm and almost matter of fact as he spoke.

  The sound of the gun firing had reverberated through the night and in the guest bathroom at the house, Jordan jerked to her feet. Her head shook negatively and she whispered Wolf’s name softly. Not again! Oh, please God! Not again! She unlocked the door and jerked it open even as she pressed the speed dial for the Sheriff’s Department, and then ordering Bhrandii to heel, she left the sanctuary of the bathroom and raced through the house and out the front door toward the barn to help the man who she now realized she was in love with.

  Wolf could see Lambert was surprised to have been caught so off guard. His eyes were large and with the gun pointing at his nose, it was easy to see the fear in his eyes. “How does it feel, scum bag, to be the one down?” He could no more resist taunting Lambert than he had been able to resist scaring those two kids.

  Lambert swore at him, but opened his hand and dropped his gun on the office floor. “Do you think you’re protecting her honor?” He asked, his mouth frothing in anger and fear. “She has no honor! She’ll use you and when you’re used up, she’ll come looking for me!”

  Wolf laughed softly, but there was no humor in his cold eyes. “Yeah, like she’s been lookin’ for you while you were in prison? Jordan hates what you are! She hates it bad enough, to let me, a cop, move in with her just so we could trap you.” Wolf pushed to his feet and hauled Lambert up roughly. “You’re going back to prison, Lambert. You are under arrest. Anythin’ you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…...” He turned Lambert around facing the desk, holding his hands together with a painful grip on the man’s fingers and shoved his pistol back between his shirt and his pants along the back of his spine as he finished the Miranda Rights. He forced his prisoner to lean over the desk while he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. He’d make sure the escapee was cuffed before he patted him down for any other weapons he might have on him.

  Lambert felt fury building inside him like nothing he’d ever known before. Back to prison! He’d rather die! He jerked his body to one side, attempting to roll out from under Wolf’s control. “I’ll kill you like I did the other one,” Lambert growled, continuing to struggle to escape from his captor’s grasp. “I won’t go back inside!”

  Wolf tightened his pressure on Lambert’s fingers, lifting up on the muscular arms with the painful leverage he had on both the criminal’s hands. “Go ahead and struggle.” He growled and stopped trying to slip the cuffs around the man’s wrists. He removed his gun from the waist band of his jeans again. He slid it up to the back of his prisoner’s head. “To keep you from getting’ to Jordan, I will gladly put a bullet in your brain.”

  Unexpectedly, Lambert shoved back in spite of the pain to his arms and fingers, in spite of the gun against the back of his head. He was determined not to go back to prison! He was determined not to lose this chance to avenge himself with Jordan. His shove pushed his head back against the barrel of the pistol, causing it to slide to one side and although it discharged, the bullet missed completely, slamming into the roof of the office. He shoved again, making Wolf step back and loosening his grip on Lamberts fingers.

  As he struggled to maintain control of the frenzied mad man, Wolf felt his restraint slipping and applied all the pressure he could to the fingers within his grasp. He felt bones in the felon’s fingers breaking but still Lambert struggled. Then Wolf lost his grip and Lambert was free! He whirled and slammed his body against Wolf, knocking him back into the wall.

  Wolf’s head hit the door frame, hard and as he resisted falling, he saw the escapee coming at him again. He pulled his gun from behind his torso and pulled the trigger twice even while he regained his balance and stepped to the side.

  He saw Lambert falter. First shock registered on the felon’s face, then fear. One of Lambert’s hands grasped at his own chest and came away dripping with blood. Lambert looked at Wolf and swore. He took another step toward him, then his attention was drawn to the office door and he took another staggering step, his bloody hand extended toward the open door, his eyes were looking out into the barn, where Jordan now stood, her pistol pointed at his chest.

  Wolf heard Jordan scream his name as Lambert slowly crumpled to the floor, his hand still r
eaching toward her. Wolf stepped around the wall, into the door. “It’s over, Jordan.” He spoke softly. He saw the pistol in her hand, still pointing at Lambert’s prone figure on the barn floor.

  She stood with her left hand over her mouth, her eyes locked on Lambert as he writhed in the floor of the office; her right hand still clutching the pistol was now beginning to tremble weakly.

  Wolf saw Bhrandii’s solid body between her and Lambert’s form, his muzzle lifted in a soundless snarl. Both of them were totally fixated on Lambert. He stepped across the figure on the floor and stopped directly in front of Jordan. Slowly he reached for her handgun and removed it from her trembling fingers. He slipped it into the waistband of his jeans, then both his hands grasping her shoulders he spoke again, almost whispering. “It’s alright, Sugar. He can’t hurt anyone else now.”

  Slowly her focus shifted to him and tears slipped from her eyes as she wilted against him. “I heard the first shot and I was so afraid he had killed you!” She spoke around sobs that shook her whole body and if his arms hadn’t been supporting her, she would not have been able to stand. “I was so scared. I was afraid I’d lost you, too!”

  He held her like that as she struggled to regain control of her emotions. As her tears subsided, he tucked one hand under her chin and raised her head so she was looking up at him. What she saw in his eyes as he gently wiped her tears away, caused her breathe to catch in her throat. After erasing her tears, he gently pressed her head back to his chest. She could feel his heart beating wildly beneath her ear. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, her eyes closed, loving the warmth that radiated from him. Her arms reached around behind him, slipping over the hard muscular feel of his shoulders beneath his thin shirt. She knew she was more than just a job to him! She had seen it in his pale eyes.