by Terry Spear
“Have you seen any wolves around here since then?”
“I thought I’d…I’ve heard howling up north.” “When?”
“About a month ago. Well, the first time. I’ve heard it on and off since then.”
The bastard must have seen her at La Grande and tracked her here. Had he caught a whiff of her? Her special scent that ignited his own cravings?
Or had he taken objection to her photographing him? The fact he was rolling in her sheets meant he wanted her. He was taking her scent back to his wolf mates, declaring she was his and no one else’s.
“I thought maybe he’d been owned before.” She pulled the soft blue blanket up to Hunter’s chin.
“Owned before?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t act like a normal wolf. Well, I mean he does, with the snarling and chasing and all. But—he stares me down like he’s trying to remember a past life, like maybe he was once someone’s pet and I look like the owner, or something.” She gave Hunter a couple of pills.
Rourke shook his head. “No way was that wild animal someone’s pet, unless he already ate his owners.”
Hunter gave him an annoyed look. He wasn’t helping his cause. His shoulder feeling like it was on fire, Hunter offered Tessa a pained smile. “Why would I need a doctor when I’ve got Miss Nightingale?”
Her lips lifted a little, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
He closed his eyes and listened to Rourke and Tessa move to the kitchen where they discussed him and how they would get him to the clinic in town despite what he wanted. He let out an exasperated sigh.
Tessa was not normally a wimp, but she’d fought collapsing when she first saw Hunter’s muscle torn to the bone. He had to have medical attention and soon. But he was right about the driving conditions. She would never normally chance driving in this kind of weather. Anyone with an ounce of sense wouldn’t either. But infection could set in and he couldn’t heal properly without getting some stitches no matter what Hunter said about it. Yet she wondered if he practiced some kind of mind-over-body meditation that helped him heal faster because all the injuries he’d suffered from his swim in the Pacific had healed.
How he could have survived the cold for so long before they reached him, she couldn’t imagine. It was almost as if he’d holed up in a nice warm cabin for a while. Except there were none close by, and he had been too injured to have gone very far.
Rourke let out his breath. “I don’t know what to do, Tessa. He needs a doctor for sure. My phone still isn’t getting a signal or I’d call for an emergency crew to come get us.”
Tessa looked out at the accumulating snow—already drifts had piled up half a foot around the back of the house. “I’m afraid we wouldn’t make the six-mile trip into town. If we ran the truck off into the woods down one of those steep embankments—if we survived—we could all be injured so badly we might not be able to crawl back to the road. Then what? And if we just got stuck, we’d have to walk in these freezing conditions the rest of the way into town. I don’t think Hunter can take any more of the cold as badly injured as he is. But I’m also worried about infection and continued bleeding. And although he says the wolf wasn’t rabid, how does he know? What if it was? The way the animal came into the house and headed for me, he acted more like a rabid wolf than not.”
“Agreed.” Rourke glanced at his watch. “It’s already midnight. One of us will need to keep a vigil on him all night. If he begins to run a fever or gets violently ill, either we can attempt a run into town, or we can wait out the storm and try then. The alternative is I can go by myself and try to get help.”
Tessa shook her head. “I’d worry about your safety. What if you didn’t make it? And then, too, the stalker could still be out there. Oh, hell, I hadn’t thought about it since it happened, but remember, someone rang the doorbell and then disappeared? Do you think the wolf killed the person and dragged him away?”
Rourke collapsed on the dining chair. “Hell. We’ve got to report this as soon as we can. It’s our civic duty, despite what Hunter says.”
Rourke was right, but what kept running through her mind was the strange way Hunter had considered the photographs. The concern etched in his face and actions, the questions he’d asked—all led her to believe he thought the same as her, despite his words to the contrary and how insane the notion could be. The wolf was the same one she’d seen on the three separate occasions, and he was stalking her.
Chapter 7
FOR TWO HOURS, TESSA SAT WITH HUNTER, HIS HEAD RESTING in her lap as he slept fitfully on the couch. Her nerves raw, she wanted to take him to the hospital in the worst way, to have medical personnel—who knew what they were doing—care for him.
Rourke had finally fallen asleep on the other sofa, snoring softly. The fire crackled and cast a soft glow into the room, but the lamps remained on the floor where they had fallen. Not wanting to disturb Hunter’s rest, she’d clean up later. Battling to stay awake, she kept vigilant, watching for any sign Hunter’s condition was worsening.
“Meara,” Hunter mumbled and groaned. “Meara.”
Tessa’s soggy eyes widened, and she strained to hear him speak again. Was he remembering something more? Of course he was. But about a girlfriend or his sister? Her heart skittered with the thought.
She brushed the hair away from his forehead, the shadow of a beard giving him a rugged, sexy appearance, but his cheeks seemed flushed. She touched his cheek, her fingers recoiling at the feel of his skin. No, no. He was burning up.
She hurried to move out from under him, removed his blankets, and went to the kitchen. Pouring water into a glass, she glanced out the window to see how bad the storm was. Maybe they could chance taking him into town.
Half-hidden in the shadows of the shed, the security light revealed a wolf sitting, watching the house.
A shiver stole up her spine. Was it the one that had knocked Rourke out and come after her? No, this one didn’t have any blood on his nose. She squinted her eyes, trying to get a better look. Its darker gray fur blended with beige and its snout had the same pretty beige on top, white underneath. Was he the one that Hunter said attacked the other then?
Maybe Hunter was right. She wouldn’t want anyone to shoot a good animal.
She opened the window and tried to get a closer look. The animal’s ears twitched and his eyes focused on her. He didn’t seem vicious, but he was still feral.
She closed the window and returned to the living room with the medicine.
“Hunter,” she said, trying to wake him.
He looked up at her, his eyes glassy. He closed his eyes and moaned.
“No, Hunter, take this medicine. We need to bring down the fever. Hunter!”
Rourke touched her arm and she nearly dropped the glass.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice ragged with sleep.
“He’s burning up and I can’t get him to take anything for it.”
“Here, let me.” Rourke helped Hunter sit up and forced the pill down his throat, but Hunter growled and bit him. Rourke jerked his finger free. “Hell, Hunter, I’m only trying to help.”
“Let me get some antibiotics for that. Jeez. What next?” Tessa asked.
“I just hope to hell the wolf that bit him didn’t have rabies.” Rourke helped Hunter lie back down and joined Tessa in the kitchen. “He seems to be sleeping all right.”
“Restlessly.” She washed Rourke’s finger in the sink and glanced out the window. No sign of the wolf. “Hunter broke the skin.”
“I noticed. Here I get off pretty easily by surviving the wolf attack, resulting in only a lump as big as a melon on the back of my head and one hell of a headache, and the ex–Navy SEAL bites me instead.”
“You can write it in your memoirs some day.” She coated his finger in antibacterial ointment and then wrapped a bandage around it. “At this rate, I’m going to have to buy a whole lot more medical supplies. By the way, I saw one of those wolves out back.” She got Rourke a couple
of pills for his headache.
He leaned against the sink and peered out the window. “I don’t see anything but snow.”
“He’s gone now, but it’s not the one who attacked us. He had a bloody nose. This one didn’t have a mark on it.”
“If they were fighting, how did he get away without a scratch?”
“Maybe it was hurt somewhere I couldn’t see. I just know it wasn’t the one that came after us. Can you get back to sleep?”
Rourke took the pills, drowned them with a glass of water, and followed Tessa into the living room. “Why don’t you try sleeping for a while? I’ll watch Hunter and the house for a couple of hours.”
She ran her hand over Hunter’s temple, his face flushed and sweaty. “I hope the roads are clear enough in the morning. No matter what condition they’re in, we’re going to have to chance taking Hunter to the clinic.”
Everyone was fast asleep when the doorbell rang at six in the morning. Déjà vu. Immediately, Tessa bolted upright from the sofa opposite the one Hunter slept on. Rourke opened a sleepy eye as he lay back on the recliner. Hunter continued to sleep, his face still red.
She studied the door. “If there’s no one there, I’m not opening the door.”
“I’ll get it,” Rourke offered, pulling the blanket off his lap.
“No. Last time you did, it was a disaster. Are…are you okay? You look a little feverish.”
The doorbell rang again.
Tessa rushed to peek through the peephole. “Oh, hell,” she whispered. “It’s Ashton and he’s got a rifle.”
Rourke hurried to join her. “Since Ashton got here safe and sound, maybe we can take his truck and get Hunter to the hospital.”
“He’s got a gun!”
“He won’t know what hit him.” Rourke bolted across the living room, grabbed the fireplace poker, and then rejoined Tessa at the front door. “Okay, open it.”
“You’re not going to hit him with that, are you?”
“I’m just going to persuade him to let us use his truck so we can take Hunter in for heavy-duty antibiotics and sutures.”
Ashton rang the doorbell again.
“Hide the poker behind your back and don’t hit him. I’ll try to convince him to agree to help us.”
“Hey! Hunter! It’s me, Ashton! I got my dad’s permission to be here.”
Tessa glanced at Rourke. He shrugged. “Let him in.”
Her heart pounding hard, she unlocked the door and opened it. Ashton was more cheerful than she had seen him in months. His blue eyes sparkled with humor and his grin couldn’t have been any more friendly, but his jaw was slightly bruised.
“Where’s Hunter? I told him I’d help him locate the stalker. He made me get my dad’s approval first. Dad and I went around and around about it late into the night, but I finally wore him down. Hey, you look a little ill, Rourke.”
Tessa looked at him. “Oh, Rourke, your face is as red as Hunter’s.” She clapped a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up, too.”
Ashton peered around them at the mess in the living room, and his mouth gaped. “What the hell happened? Did the stalker break in? I knew I should have stayed.”
“A wolf attacked Hunter. We’ve got to get him to the clinic. Can you get us there?” She closed the door.
Ashton swore under his breath. “He’s got a fever.”
“The animal might have been rabid,” Tessa warned.
“I sure hope the hell he wasn’t. Hunter bit me!” Rourke raised his bandaged finger to show Ashton.
“I’m not sure I want to know how that happened.” Ashton set his rifle down. “Let’s get Hunter to the truck. We’ll go to the hospital emergency room. I have chains on my tires, so we should be able to make it.”
“Thanks, Ashton,” Tessa said, relieved that he would help without resorting to Rourke’s tactics. She wondered if Rourke had wanted to clobber Ashton though, for what he’d pulled with her out by the shed.
“It’s nothing. Rourke, can you help me? Or are you too sick?”
“I’ll help.”
Tessa got the front door and then the truck door while Ashton and Rourke carried Hunter to the extended cab. As strong as Hunter seemed, she couldn’t believe how sick he was. Which was ridiculous. As torn up as he was, infection had to have set in. He was only human after all.
She threw on her parka and grabbed blankets, a pillow, and her purse. Rourke yanked on his parka and gloves, and they climbed into the truck.
“So what the hell happened?” Ashton pulled out of the frozen driveway.
Tessa knew her vehicle would never have made it. Rourke’s either, since his had slipped into a ditch even before the storm had worsened.
“A wolf knocked Rourke unconscious and came after me. Hunter was searching for the stalker.”
“Oh.”
Ashton sounded so guilty, she immediately became suspicious. “What?”
“He found me looking for the stalker instead.”
Ashton rubbed his jaw. “I guess I distracted him from his mission for a time. Sorry, Tessa. I had to tell him I was there to protect you. I’d promised Michael.”
“You did? Thanks, Ashton.” Maybe the jerk was salvageable after all. She hadn’t thought he could ever be.
“I shot Hunter because I thought he was the stalker.”
She barely breathed. “Have you seen the guy then?”
“Yeah. He’s tall like Hunter. Dark-haired, too. It really was an honest mistake. I have to tell you, I couldn’t go to the trial, Tessa. I thought Michael was guilty of murdering Bethany. I thought he did it because she was seeing some other guy, and he found out.”
“You were the other guy,” Tessa said, her voice bitter.
“Yeah. But he’d asked me, begged me to watch out for you. I promised him I would. Believe me, I really didn’t think there was anything to worry about concerning your safety. That first night I was out there, I saw someone peeking in the windows. I think Michael already knew there was someone, but like with me seeing Bethany, he couldn’t catch the guy in the act. Anyway, I hollered at the Peeping Tom. Asked him what the hell he was doing. He took off running. Really fast dude. Just like Hunter when he charged up the hill toward me the other night.”
“He was getting firewood. He was wearing Michael’s clothes.”
“He wasn’t getting firewood when I saw him. He was naked.”
Tessa closed her gaping mouth and stared at Ashton in disbelief.
“He began yanking Michael’s clothes out of a plastic sack and jerked them on. I didn’t recognize the sweats. But I did see the familiar eagle on the back of the field jacket and knew it was Michael’s. So I thought maybe he’d gotten into the house and stolen some of Michael’s things.”
She cast a glance over the seat. Hunter was sound asleep, the blankets tucked under his chin. What in the world had Hunter been doing undressing and dressing in the bitter cold? Unless Ashton had been drunk, like she’d suspected, despite what Hunter had said.
“So I didn’t know what to think. After Rourke said Hunter was an ex–Navy SEAL, I realized what he was doing. Hardening himself for the worst conditions he would have to face. That way he could survive anything. If I’d done what he had, I would have double pneumonia.”
But Hunter wasn’t an ex–Navy SEAL. If he hadn’t been gathering firewood, she figured he would have been searching for the intruder. He wouldn’t have been naked.
“Okay, I give, Rourke. How’d Hunter bite you?” Ashton asked.
He didn’t respond. Tessa looked at him. He was sleeping, his head propped against the cold window. She wished she had brought some more pillows. At least they had plenty of blankets if they got stuck. Although she hadn’t considered taking them for that reason.
“Long night for all of us,” Tessa said. “I was trying to get Hunter to take some fever-reducing medicine, but couldn’t wake him enough. Rourke finally got the pill down him, but Hunter clamped his teeth on Rourke’s finger. Broke the skin even.
I’m really worried that wolf was rabid. What if Hunter and Rourke have rabies now?”
“Hunter’s bite was pretty bad, huh?”
“Tore the muscle all the way to the bone.” Tessa shuddered.
“They’ll get the shots and be fine. But if they don’t, rabies in humans is fatal. The doctor will have to decide. But if we can kill the animal and bring him in, the medical personnel can check out his brain and know for sure. No sense in Hunter and Rourke having to go through the painful ordeal if it’s not needed.”
“Hunter doesn’t want the wolf shot. He said it didn’t have rabies, and he’d take care of it himself.”
Ashton smirked. “I love his style. Get rid of the offender personally. Of course, when I was on the receiving end of his drive to right the wrong, I felt a little differently. But Hunter’s all right. I mean, if the roles were reversed and some dude shot me, I probably would have killed him. On the other hand, I doubt I would have had the balls to charge up the hill after a guy who had his rifle sights on me. That took a hell of a lot of guts. It was as if he knew he’d shake me up so much, I wouldn’t be able to get off another round. And he was right. I couldn’t twitch a muscle, shoot, run, nothing. Must be his training.”
Ashton shook his head. “I talked to my dad about going into the Navy SEALs. He’s all against it, said I couldn’t live with having my hair cut. But after we get rid of this stalker and Hunter reassures me he’s sticking around to keep you safe…oh, hell, I promised Michael. Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll help Hunter find whoever murdered Bethany, and then once Michael’s set free, I’m checking into the Navy.”
Rourke lifted his head from the window. “I’m helping also. Maybe between the three of us, we’ll discover something.”
“Four of us,” Tessa corrected him.
“I thought you believed Michael was guilty, Rourke,” Ashton said.
“I did. I changed my mind. Since we now know he wasn’t lying about someone seeing his girlfriend behind his back, what else was he being truthful about?”
“You think it was me?” Ashton asked, his voice growing hard.
“No. Someone else who knew all of you.”
