Broken Wheel Wolves: Boxed Set (The Complete Collection, Books 1-6) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance)

by Melissa F. Hart

  Conall stood up gracefully, stretching unconsciously as he did. Jade almost expected him to give a canine shimmy as he unfolded his limbs.

  “Apparently Harlan left early this morning to go to a tack shop in Idaho Falls, and Carson, unfortunately, is at the veterinary hospital in Jackson.”

  “The vet’s? Why?”

  Coming down the steps, Conall pointed to a blue plastic tarp on the ground. Gingerly, Jade knelt down and lifted the corner up. Her heart fell.

  “Oh for god’s sake.” The still body of the Aussie was smeared with blood, and one of the dog’s feet was completely missing. “Wolf trap?”

  “Aye. A wolf trap.” There was a darkness in Conall’s voice, a simmering anger, that Jade didn’t recall from their previous conversation. “I found them early this morning…I picked them up and ran here after I tried to put a tourniquet on this one’s leg. She had already lost too much blood, though. The other one looked like he’d been beaten with something—he was probably trying to help the trapped one. Carson rushed him to the local vet, who sent him on to Jackson for surgery. He called me here, and told me to call ye.”

  So it hadn’t been Conall’s idea to call her. Jade shook it off; it really was not the time to be indulging in romantic fantasies. “People…who’ll do this to animals? More than likely, they’ll hurt people, too.” Jade pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to concentrate, as she dropped the edge of the tarp and stood up. “You better show me the trap.”

  As they walked through the fields, Conall was quiet, and Jade followed suit. Conall’s eyes seemed to dart about warily, as if he might see things that she didn’t…or couldn’t. More than that, there was something about his response to the situation that seemed…personal, she thought. It had a different quality than her own reaction as someone who loved animals and simply felt awful for the Winters and their dogs.

  Finally Jade broke the silence, “Was the trap on the Winters’ property or on BLM land?”

  “It’s definitely on the Winters’ side of the line. There are ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘No Hunting’ signs posted everywhere, so some arsehole knew exactly what they were doing.”

  Jade quickened her pace to walk ahead of Conall, wanting to put a little distance between the slow smolder of the Irishman, and her own disorganized thoughts. The graffiti and the trap had to be related, but how? Were the Winters just a random target? Or was someone using the wolf problem as a smokescreen in order to remedy a grudge? Jade spun the bits of information she had like a mental Rubik’s Cube, trying to find a pattern in the chaos.

  “It’s just up there.” Conall pointed to a pleasant-looking grove of trees near a small brook running down the hillside.

  The day was beginning to get quite warm as it approached noon, even in the shade of the trees. Conall leaped easily across the stream, then extended his hand to help Jade across. The clean smell of grass and dirt scented the air, and as Jade began to stretch out her hand to take Conall’s, every detail of her dream flooded back: how Conall pulled her to his chest and disrobed her, how she was ready to give herself completely to a stranger. She blinked hard as she fixated on his hand. Save for the fact it was midday, not dusk, every nuance of the scene seemed identical. Should she take his hand? But she never answered the question, as in that instant she slipped on a wet rock, ending up on her backside in the shallow stream.

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. The handcuffs attached to the back of her belt dug painfully into her tailbone. Fortunately, her gun was out of the water, and her submerged flashlight was waterproof. How was it that every time she came in contact with this man, she managed to make a total fool of herself?

  Conall regarded her position with a bemused smile as he reached down, easily pulling her up, then setting her on the bank with his hands about her waist. Jade was sure that his hands lingered longer than necessary, even as he repeated his question from their initial introduction.

  “Do ye do that often?”

  Refusing to dignify the question with a response, Jade tried to put herself in order, painfully aware that a wet circle now circumscribed her backside. Conall peered over her shoulder, taking in her soaked derriere with an approving twitch of his eyebrow. Unconsciously, he gave his lips a subtle lick, but he made no further mention of her predicament. Jade, in turn, did her best to act like a professional, swallowing her complete mortification.

  Conall led her to the trap. There was dry blood splattered on the tall grass, and pooled by the trap. Conall had jammed a thick tree branch into the steel-toothed jaws to keep it from hurting anything else. “Carson said I could destroy it, but it seemed best for ye to see it here first.”

  Jade nodded in agreement as she inspected the area around the trap. “Let me see the bottom of your shoe.”

  Obligingly, Conall turned up one foot. The sole of his light hiker had a pattern of raised ovals in the tread.

  “Look at this.” Jade pointed to was a partial footprint in the blood, but the pattern was more like a series of rectangles. She took out her camera and took some close-ups before taking wider shots of the trap and the general scene. Widening her circle of investigation, Jade couldn’t find any other clues.

  “I guess that’s it for now. I think I want to go see what kind of boots Biggy and Frank Lemmons are wearing these days.”

  When they crossed the creek again, Jade accepted Conall’s helping hand. Her hand felt small in his, secure. And she liked the way his palm felt wrapped around hers. Little calloused rough spots were separated by softer, more tender, skin. Once she was safely across, Conall quickly dropped her hand, though, and dipped his head in farewell.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to check on my campsite. Since we seem to have vandals, trespassers, and killers about, I should probably be a bit more careful.”

  “That’s probably wise. I’ll catch up to the Winters later.” Their parting made Jade feel a bit wistful, and a hundred yards out, she turned around for one last look at Conall. The biologist seemed to have vanished into the landscape, but Jade did glimpse—for just an instant—a wolf standing on a rock, watching her.

  ***

  Rolling her eyes in total exasperation, Jade bent over and grabbed the rail of Frank’s rusted old creeper, pulling him out from under a 1989 Ford station wagon. He shot out headfirst, nearly colliding with an equally rusty tool bin before Jade could stop the creeper with her foot.

  “I said…I need to see the bottom of your shoes.” Jade inched her foot closer to Frank’s sensitive man parts to underscore the fact that he was in no position to be belligerent.

  “You don’t have to be such a bitch, Jade,” Frank sputtered at her.

  “That’s Deputy Lundgren to you.” Jade walked around to where she could see the bottom of his well-worn, steel-toed, work shoes. The bit of tread that remained had a zigzag pattern. She straightened up. “Have you been messing around up on the Winters’ ranch?” Jade moved her foot back to its perch on the creeper rail, inches from Frank’s testicles.

  “Why would I be screwing with Carson? That cowboy has enough money and influence to hogtie a working Joe like me in a heartbeat.” Frank sat up, “What are you after? Is this about the damn wolves?”

  “I don’t know, is it?” Jade tapped her foot a little, and Frank scooted away from the deputy’s menacing extremity.

  “Now listen here, girlie. You can’t come bustin’ in to a man’s place of business without some kind of…probable cause.” Frank scratched at his head, hoping he had gotten the legal jargon right.

  “We’re just having a friendly chat, why, the Bronco is due for an oil change any day.”

  “You know Slim and Delia do all your oil changes, so just cut to the chase.”

  No secrets in a small town, Jade thought with a sigh. “What do you have against wolves anyway? Didn’t you learn in Sunday school to be nice to all of God’s creatures?”

  Frank reached into his pocket for a can of chewing tobacco. He pinched off a chaw and stuck
it in his mouth. “You don’t know your Bible, girlie. God gave men dominion over all the creatures, and that includes wolves. I ain’t breaking no laws.”

  “You are if you’re torturing them.”

  “Who says I’ve tortured anything?”

  “Biggy, for one.”

  Frank set his mouth in a hard line for a moment, and then spat tobacco juice contemptuously at Jade’s feet. “I ain’t tortured no wolves.”

  “And last time I checked, vandalism, trespassing, illegal hunting, and cruelty to domestic animals were all crimes, Frank. Not to mention torturing wild animals. You might want to remind your big-mouth cousin of all that.”

  “You got nothing on us.”

  “Yet.”

  “You made your point Deputy; now get out of my garage.”

  “I’ll be back later to talk to Biggy, if I don’t find him bragging about his wolf kills over blueberry pie at the Brown Buffalo. Have a nice day, Frank.”

  She couldn’t eliminate the Lemmons as suspects yet, but something about the vandalism and the placement of the trap seemed too sophisticated for Frank and Biggy. Frank was right, Carson could bury them with a wave of his hand; they had no reason to want to antagonize the Winters on a personal level despite the fact Biggy and Frank were nasty, cruel assholes. Something else was going on, but she felt like she couldn’t see the trees for the forest. She needed Nicolette. Her friend’s investigatory tendencies made her an excellent sounding board. Jade flipped open her cell phone.

  “What are you doing for lunch?” she blurted when Nicolette picked up, “Can you meet me at the Brown Buffalo in fifteen minutes?”

  ***

  “What do you girls want today? We’ve got a great chicken pot pie special.” Sally pulled a pad out of the red apron tied over her jeans and brown and red Brown Buffalo Café golf shirt.

  “Sure, that sounds great.” Jade hated making menu decisions, “Small side salad…”

  Before she could finish, Sally interrupted, as she jotted, “With oil and vinegar on the side…water, no ice. And Nicolette…turkey sandwich, cup of cream of broccoli soup, and an unsweetened ice tea?”

  Nicolette nodded reluctantly.

  “You got it.” Sally bustled off to put their ticket up in the window.

  “Do you ever,” Nicolette grouched, “Get tired of living in a small town?”

  “You mean where everybody, including yourself, is predictable?”

  “Yeah. If I write one more story for the Gazette about Mrs. Dalton’s pear jam winning at the state fair, or George Black’s sheep getting top dollar, I’m going to poke my own eyes out.”

  “That might be a little drastic.” Jade ripped the end off her straw and blew the paper wrapper at her friend.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “So is that why you’re crazy about Nate? He’s not so predictable?”

  Nicolette face melted into a dreamy reverie, “That…and the fact that he is spectacular in bed.”

  “You can’t drop a bomb like that without dishing!” Jade poked Nicolette with the handle of her fork, hoping to hear something that would make her feel better about Nate.

  “He’s…exciting. Not…vanilla.” Nicolette looked around to see who was sitting in the nearby booths, and dropped her voice, “He tied me up the other night.”

  “Tied you up?” Jade blurted it more loudly than she meant.

  “Shhhh. Can you imagine my father if he caught wind of something like that? His head would explode in flames.”

  “Nate didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  But before Nicolette could answer Jade, Sally interrupted with a clatter of dishes. By the time the waitress was finished serving them, Nicolette changed the subject. “So what about you…and cutie pie Harlan?”

  “He asked me to go to the rodeo in Jackson tomorrow night.”

  “So you’re going, right?” Nicolette took a bite of her sandwich.

  “I kind of had it in my head that we were supposed to do something. I mean, every since Nate showed up a month ago with his W.O.L.F. group, I never see you.”

  Nicolette shrugged, “You’re seeing me now, right?”

  “I—I really need to talk to you.” Jade put her fork down. “I need to pick your brain about this case, and about Harlan, and there’s this…new guy I met.”

  “Not so predictable?” Nicolette gave Jade a sympathetic look over a spoonful of soup.

  “Not predictable at all…not that anything has happened. I’m probably being stupid.” Jade picked her fork back up and stabbed industriously at the lettuce in her salad. “I should just call up Harlan and go to the rodeo tomorrow.”

  “Look, you know that honkytonk out on State Route 30? A bunch of the W.O.L.F. people are going to go out there tomorrow night. Why don’t you come? You can meet some hip, interesting people, dance, get a little buzz on, and we can talk some more.”

  “Aren’t you going to want to hang out with Nate?”

  “Well, yeah, but you know, leader of the pack, he has to make the rounds. We’ll have girl time, too.”

  “Okay, you’re right, I could stand to shake it up. Get out of my ruts.” Jade looked down at her uniform and added, “Get out of this uniform!” Nicolette started to snicker a little, and Jade corrected herself with a laugh, “I mean, wear something nice, feminine.”

  Nicolette reached for her purse, “Great! Lunch is on me. You buy the first round tomorrow night.”

  Jade spent the rest of the afternoon trying to track down Biggy Lemmons, to no avail. Once she got home, she threw in laundry, emptied the dishwasher, and went back over her notes and pictures, trying to see what she was missing about the case. Eventually, around nine, she heated up some leftover tuna casserole and popped a beer. Then it hit her: she had never called Harlan. Being hard to catch was one thing, but her parents had raised her to be unfailingly polite. Hesitantly, she picked up the telephone.

  After offering her condolences to Harlan about the dog that had been killed, and inquiring after the other Aussie who, happily, was going to pull through, Jade finally got around to the topic of their potential date.

  “Harlan, I, uh, I did promise Nicolette I’d go out with her tomorrow night.” She winced a little at the half-truth. “And she’s set on going to that honkytonk on Route 30. Could I please take a rodeo rain check?”

  Harlan mumbled some kind of affirmative response, but as Jade hung up the phone, she knew that her chances with Harlan were rapidly diminishing.

  That night, the temperatures started to fall, and Jade found herself snuggling deeper under the quilts on her bed. All of the day’s anxieties and problems seeped away, and as she drifted off to sleep, she was sure she felt the press of a warm body curled next to her, and what might have been the feathery brush of a tail.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO: Vanishing in Plain Sight - Volume 2

  ***

  Vanishing in Plain Sight

  ***

  “I had the strangest dream last night,” Jade said absently as she stirred powdered creamer into her coffee, trying to call back the comforting feeling she had experienced.

  “Yeah, what’s that?” Dougie, another one of the Broken Wheel sheriff’s deputies, dumped a third pack of sugar into his cup. “I’d like to forget the dreams I’ve been having. Those forensics guys from Cheyenne finally found my meth cooker…well, some of him.”

  Jade made a face to acknowledge the gross-out factor of Dougie’s case before continuing. “I mean…have you ever had a dream that seemed so real that, when you woke up, you were convinced that it had actually happened?”

  Dougie shook his head, “Usually I have real things happen that I’m wishing were just bad dreams.” He laughed a little, “So what did you dream?”

  Considering how silly what she was about to say sounded, Jade started to laugh, too. “I dreamed…that a huge grey wolf was sleeping next to me. His tail was sort of wrapped over my legs.”

  Her colleague gave Jade a big thumbs up and a comical look, �
��Way to go, Little Red Riding Hood! What, did you slip him a rufie?”

  Jade swatted playfully at Dougie, laughing, “I was not trying to do a wolf! Geez. Your imagination is worse than mine!

  “I think you’ve been thinking too much about the wolf problem. Perhaps you’d like to trade cases with me?” Dougie wiggled his eyebrows at Jade with mock hopefulness.

  “Not a chance…but do you have any idea where I might find Biggy Lemmons if he’s not at his house, the garage, or the Brown Buffalo?”

  “Yeah, I do. I heard that he was working weekends at that roadhouse on Route 30… what’s it called?”

  “The Crystal Spur Dancehall?” Jade wondered if she should stick to wearing her uniform when she headed out there to meet Nicolette that evening.

  “Yeah, that’s the place. I think he’s working as a bar back, something like that, anyway.” Dougie glanced at his watch and sighed. “I better get going. Have to go watch those Cheyenne fellows pick up my suspect…literally.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Dougie. See ya.”

  Jade looked around the empty office. Their dispatcher was at the dentist, and she had volunteered to hold the fort down for a couple of hours so that Wilson could give Tim a hand with his case more than an hour’s drive on the other side of the county. She savored the rare moment alone at her desk with her coffee, hoping that the morning would not produce any more dead dogs…or wolves. The telephone rang.

  Jade mumbled under her breath; she’d managed to jinx things, she thought.

  “Broken Wheel Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Lundgren speaking.”

  “Jade, it’s Harlan.”

  Something in his voice told her that he didn’t want to talk about wrestling steers or canceled dates, and the background noise told her he was driving fast on an unpaved road. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Dad; can you meet me at the emergency room in Jackson?”