The Guardian (The Wolfe Series)

by Donna Oltrogge

  Enrique struggled to get to his feet, the pain in his head so blinding that he was afraid he would lose consciousness again. “I’ll get you for this, bitch,” he growled. “You aren’t as smart as you think you are. Even now my men are on their way here.” It was a lie but there was no way the woman could know that. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

  Laurie didn’t wait to hear any more. She bolted into the shadowy desert night.

  Enrique limped back to his BMW and fell into the driver’s seat. He counted on his hatred of the Kincaid woman to sustain him as he drew the car keys from his pocket and started the car.

  It had taken all of his considerable will power to make it back to the ranch while holding a bloody rag against the side of his face to staunch the bleeding. He had mostly compartmentalized the pain, his main focus on destroying Laurie Kincaid. His first stop when he reached the ranch wasn’t the doctor’s casita where most men would have gone. His first stop was to Laurie’s bedroom where he grabbed a pink camisole out of the laundry. Stalking back through the house, the housekeeper and guards took a frightened step back when they saw him pass.

  Enrique figured Luzaro was still in Nogales trying to track down the Kincaid woman and at the moment he didn’t care. He staggered toward the pen where he kept his pack knowing the guards and groundskeepers were afraid of his killer coyotes. They thought the coyotes were possessed and it wasn’t far from the truth. Enrique had developed an affinity with the more aggressive types of animals, especially the coyotes. He smiled grimly when he thought of the terror the Kincaid woman would feel when she heard his pack hunting her. He wondered if she would realize he was the one who had sent them.

  “I know, I know,” Enrique crooned as he starred into the lead coyote’s eyes. “You and your friends have been cooped up a little too long, haven’t you my friend?” He held out Laurie’s delicate pink camisole. “You will find and destroy this woman leaving no trace of her.” He looked deeper into the unblinking eyes of the pack’s leader. “No trace at all.”

  The leader of the pack sniffed the garment and yipped several times, encouraging his pack mates to do the same.

  Satisfied that his orders would be followed, Enrique opened the gate.

  ChapterFourteen

  Jake watched until the Razor carrying Rand and the girl disappeared from sight before effortlessly shifting into his wolf form, his bones popping and contracting, his jaw turning into a muzzle filled with razor sharp teeth. He wanted to run, to feel the earth between his paws and his coiled muscles, his great strength pushing him harder and faster as he raced toward home.

  Jake had left the task of taking the girl into Nogales and turning her over to the authorities to Rand. There hadn’t been room for three passengers in the ATV and Jake had been more than happy to let Rand have the onerous duty of retuning the girl and answering the myriad questions the authorities were sure to ask.

  Jake gave a bobcat he saw hunting near the edge of an arroyo a wide berth as he flew in his wolf form over the parched desert floor, stopping occasionally to sniff the air for that one illusive scent that had eluded him for so many months. He finally stopped near a deep canyon to rest before the last leg of his journey home, his heart racing and his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. When he was finally able to catch his breath he lifted his head and sniffed the desert breeze.

  His head swiveling on powerful shoulders, Jake looked toward the west and Altar Valley.

  Howls suddenly filled the night and Laurie stopped abruptly to listen, her heart slamming into her throat as fear constricted her vocal cords and rendered her frozen, unable to move another step. She recognized the sound of coyotes from a recent National Geographic special she’d watched and knew that they were found throughout North and Central America and that the absence of natural predators, more living space and a larger variety of prey had helped to establish them in large numbers. Laurie shuddered when the yips and howls seemed to be moving closer, circling her as though with deadly intent. She struggled to remember more details of the program she’d watched and tried to convince herself the animals meant her no harm. She knew coyotes were smaller than wolves and that they stood about two feet tall. They communicated among themselves with high-pitched yips and howls, the same as she was hearing now. She’d seen them sometimes on the outskirts of the city and knew that they were capable of stealing small dogs and cats from the backyards of their owners.

  Laurie shuddered and wrapped her arms around her mid-section becoming even more frightened knowing that coyotes traveled in packs and were keen hunters.

  They couldn’t possibly be hunting me, could they? She shuddered again at the thought. How could that be?

  Coyotes weren’t known to attack humans and they were supposed to be easy to drive away by making loud noises, shouting or waving your hands and throwing small stones in their direction. She recalled that the program had shown a female giving birth to ten pups which had been born blind and limp-eared. The pups had remained that way for the first two to three weeks at which time they opened their eyes for the first time and their ears became erect. The pups had left the den when they were three months old and at that time she had thought it sad that only about twenty percent survived. Laurie was good with most animals and had a certain amount of telepathy with them. She didn’t know why she was able to communicate with them, she just accepted the fact that she had been given a gift and let it go at that. As the yips and barks continued, though, she wasn’t so certain she was going to get a chance to communicate with the animals she felt surrounding her.

  Please leave me alone. Please. I mean you no harm.

  He was a forty-five pound alpha male at the peak of his power, his eyes aglow with the ruthlessness of the man who’d sent him and the others of his kind after the woman. The ones who followed him were easily led even though they didn’t like the idea of killing a human. Their instructions were to kill and main, leaving nothing of the woman behind for the authorities to find, not even her clothing or whatever personal affects she carried.

  The pack was too afraid of the alpha male not to do exactly as they were told. They could smell the woman’s fear as they drew closer, their sense of smell being even greater than that of a dog which was no easy feat as a dog’s sense of smell was six-thousand times that of a human’s.

  The alpha male crouched low, signaling the others to do the same. He could feel the woman’s mind trying to reach out to them and he could tell it was having an effect on some of the weaker members of his pack. The alpha male knew the pack’s lust for blood would eventually drown out her communication and overcome their resistance to killing the woman.

  He signaled that he would be the first to attack and once he had the woman by the throat the others would be allowed to join in. But the kill would belong to him, and only to him. His greatest wish was to please the man who’d sent him so he’d be allowed to take care of other problems such as this one. The alpha male enjoyed killing and he knew the taste of the woman’s blood on his tongue would be sweet. He crouched low and began inching his way toward the woman, his eyes unblinking and totally focused on his prey.

  If the moon hadn’t been so bright Laurie never would have seen it coming. It was large for a coyote, its feral eyes trained on her ashen face, its lips pulled back from its teeth as it crouched, ready to launch itself at her throat.

  Laurie picked up a mesquite branch, her entire body trembling in fear as she faced the leader of the coyote pack that surrounded her. She had barely retrieved the branch when the leader sprang, going for her throat. Swinging the branch with both hands, Laurie was able to deflect the animal’s initial attack but was unable to defend herself when the coyote quickly spun and went for her left leg, sinking its razor sharp canines deep into her flesh. Laurie cried out in pain and slashed at the coyote’s head with the branch until it was little more than splinters in her hands. Her brutal swings had the desired effect, causing the coyote to back off and reposition itself
for another attack.

  There’s no way I can stop it this time. Laurie raised her hands in a defensive posture, her feet planted wide apart, determined to kill at least the leader of this vicious pack of animals.

  The coyote never knew what hit it. Laurie’s eyes grew wide in shock when a black wolf of monstrous proportions hit the much smaller coyote in mid leap, knocking the animal to the ground and tearing out it’s throat. Standing over the dead coyote pack leader, the black wolf howled long and loud, effectively scattering the other members of the coyote pack to the four winds.

  Laurie’s eyes grew even wider and terror skittered down her spine when the wolf turned its head toward her, blood dripping from its muzzle and its eyes lit with fire trained on her frightened face. Her leg burned where the coyote had bitten her yet she felt suddenly cold. Blinding pain shot through her leg and her vision blurred from loss of blood and the excruciating pain. Please don’t hurt me. Please! Tears gathered in her emerald eyes. If the wolf didn’t kill her she would have to find a way to stop the bleeding or she would die anyway was her last thought as her eyes closed.

  Jake felt the woman’s plea deep in his soul. He hated to leave her, and was almost undone when he saw tears fill her eyes, but he had to get to one of his stashes to retrieve what he would need to help her. He knew the coyotes that had threatened her had disappeared and he didn’t sense any other danger nearby. His heart thundering at the thought of leaving her alone, Jake forced himself to turn and race toward one of the stashes that he kept beneath a pile of rocks two miles away. When he arrived minutes later he quickly shifted into his human form and pulled out a t-shirt and camouflage pants as well as a study pair of boots before grabbing his gun, radio, and a medical kit. He tossed everything into a satchel and hung the straps of the satchel around his neck before shifting back into his wolf form and racing back to where he’d left the injured woman.

  Effortlessly shifting into his human form, Jake quickly dressed and knelt down beside the woman. Taking a bottle of disinfectant out of the medical kit he liberally doused her wound.

  Laurie’s eyes flew open and she gasped at the intense pain, struggling to get away from the man who was trying to hold her down, certain that one of Luzaro’s men had found her.

  “Hold still, I’m trying to help you. I’m going to give you something for the pain.” She smelled like paradise to Jake and her delicate fragrance assaulted his senses like a freight train making it difficult for him to concentrate on the task at hand. Her erotic perfume triggered a firestorm of sensations within him even as he worked to ease her pain.

  Laurie gasped when the stranger shoved a needle none too gently into her thigh. “Who are you?” she whispered as she fell back against the hard packed earth, the man bending over her blurring in and out as she struggled to remain conscious.

  “I have a ranch not far from here. You’re in shock, you need to try and stay awake,” Jake said as he wound a bandage tightly around her injured leg. “What are you doing out here all alone?” Strange, coyotes don’t usually attack humans. He and his brothers were going to have to look into the situation when he got back to the ranch.

  Laurie sighed in relief when she felt the pain killer begin to take effect and tried to get a good look at the hunk who was helping her. She felt a sense of something wild about him, wild and untamed. She thanked her lucky stars that he wasn’t one of Luzaro’s henchmen and felt her tense muscles begin to relax.

  Her savior wore a green t-shirt and camouflage pants and her eyes widened at the sight of the 9mm Glock handgun nestled in a holster strapped to his right side. There was a hint of the devil in his expression as he looked down at her and there was a sensuality about him that made her insides grow warm. His face was handsome, his jaw square, which gave him a bit of a roguish look, and angular with high sculpted cheek bones and eyes as blue as the ocean. His body was golden, his muscles chiseled, his biceps and shoulder muscles straining against the well worn fabric of his t-shirt. Laurie found herself longing to run her hands through his hair which was black as midnight and reflected the moon’s silvery light. His face sported a shadow of dark stubble which Laurie found immediately intriguing. What on earth is the matter with me? I’ve never reacted to a man this way before. It must be the drugs.

  Jake didn’t really expect an answer. The woman was in trouble and he figured he would have to gain her confidence before she would confide in him. He slowly got to his feet and looked down at his mystery woman and shook his head. She was the woman of his dreams, the woman he’d been waiting for. A scowl carved deep grooves into his forehead. What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?

  Jake heard thunder in the distance that warned of an approaching storm and tried another tack. “What’s your name?” he asked as he lifted her into his arms and carried her toward an outcropping of rock that would shelter them from the approaching storm.

  “Laurie, I think,” Laurie sighed, the pain had receded and was being replaced by lethargy. She snuggled against her savior’s rock hard chest and sighed deeply.

  Jake hadn’t been with a woman in a very long time and carrying this particular woman was causing his body to tighten with sexual need. Gees, man, get a grip! Jake gently placed Laurie beneath the large outcropping of rock and went to retrieve the radio from his satchel so he could call the ranch. He guessed Taggert would probably have to wait until the oncoming storm passed but he figured they would be safe enough until Taggert could get there in the helicopter.

  An owl hooted in the distance and a mouse scurried for cover. A rattlesnake slithered across the path not twenty feet from where they were sitting.

  “The desert is alive with sights and sounds if you know how to listen and where to look.” Jake said conversationally as he sat back down beside Laurie and gathered her into his arms.

  “The desert air is cooling and I don’t want you to take a chill,” he reassured her when she tried to pull away from him. He was having none of it, though. Now that he’d found his mate there was no way he was going to let her out of his sight. “There are road runners, gambrel quail, red tailed hawks, even pumas in the rocky outcroppings.” He and his brothers gave pumas a wide berth as pumas were the only animals that could cause them bodily harm.

  Laurie relaxed against the hard male body behind her and drank in the mellow voice. “Thank you for helping me.” She tried to think back over the coyote’s attack and found her memory of the events hazy. She did remember a big scary black wolf, though, at least she thought she did.

  “It was no problem, Laurie,” Jake said, enjoying the way her name rolled off his tongue. He pulled her body closer, sharing his body heat with her as well as a painful erection. How long had it been sense he’d felt this way about a woman, any woman? Never? He longed to run his fingers through her long blonde hair.

  “What’s your name?” Laurie asked, feeling like she should at least know the name of the man who was holding her so possessively. “I don’t normally snuggle up against a stranger like this.” In fact, she had never snuggled up to anyone before, yet she didn’t seem to mind getting close to this man. Strange. She sensed a genuine feral side to her rescuer.

  Jake chuckled and lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “The name’s Jake, Jake Wolfe, and like I told you earlier, I have a ranch not far from here.” He felt her body stiffen and knew she was remembering the fearsome wolf she’d seen just before she’d blacked out.

  “Did you see the wolf?” Laurie asked. “I’ve never seen a wolf that big. I’ve always felt like I might have an affinity with wolves, kind of like I do with my horse and some of the other animals I come into contact with.” She had always been fascinated with wolves and she thought of the wolf pictures and statue that she had in her apartment in New York City. She blinked away the sudden tears that threatened to spill from her eyes when she remembered that she wouldn’t be able to go home anytime soon. Be safe Julie.

  “No, I didn’t see any wolf,” Jake responded carefully. “I
heard your scream and the ruckus the coyotes were making so I thought I’d better come and investigate. That’s when I found you lying on the ground with a dead coyote lying not far away.”

  “It’s a good thing you got here when you did or else I might have bled to death.” She didn’t quite understand what he was doing out in the desert in the middle of the night but found she didn’t have the energy to pursue that question.

  “Well, I’m here now so you don’t have anything to worry about. I promise I’ll keep you safe.” Or die trying!

  Jake didn’t know who or what Laurie was running from but he was determined to find out. First he would call Taggert and ask him to pick them up as soon as the weather cleared and it was safe for the helicopter to fly, then he would go about convincing Laurie to trust him.

  Jake felt Laurie slip off to sleep just as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. A fork of lightning hit the ground a mile away and thunder boomed a moment later unleashing a torrent of rain. Jake knew they would be safe on this high ground, not like when his mother had lost her life during a flash flood. He pushed the hurtful memory to the back of his mind and concentrated on watching the sheets of rain pounding the hard packed earth.

  With the advent of rain, the desert had turned much cooler and when Jake felt Laurie shiver, he knew he was going to have to find a way to start a fire or they both would end up with hypothermia. He couldn’t allow that to happen to Laurie, especially considering the wound on her left leg. It took the better part of fifteen minutes for Jake to get a fire started with what little wood he was able to gather from beneath their rocky shelter. He guessed it would rain most of the night as he lay back down beside Laurie and pulled her unresisting body into his arms. The need to possess her, to claim her for his own shocked him with its intensity and he groaned aloud. He longed for his tongue to dance with hers and to have her body arch against his searching for fulfillment.