“You saw the doctor today.” He said. Maggie smiled and nodded. Aidan shut the door behind him and crossed the room, stopping just one step away. “You are beautiful.”
Maggie took his hand and led him to the turned down bed. Aidan took her lips in a passionate embrace. His hands cupped her face as his tongue swept over her lower row of teeth before delving deeper. Maggie’s hands shook when she raised them to unbutton his shirt and her fingers fumbled in her excitement. Aidan’s hands joined hers but he couldn’t get the buttons undone either. Their mouths broke apart on a shared laugh. He grabbed his shirt and tore, sending buttons flying everywhere. Maggie shrieked in surprise.
Her nerves gone completely, she bit the corner of her lip, grabbed the waistband of Aidan’s jeans and tugged hard, toppling them both down onto the bed where they laughed and loved in the moonlight.
• • •
“Wake up, whore. Wakey, wakey.” Maggie heard the whispering voice through the blanket of slumber. Her nose twitched as it recognized the unpleasant combination of human sweat and sour food. Subconsciously, she attempted to shake loose the dream before it became a nightmare. “Come on Maggie, wake the fuck up or I’ll shoot him where he sleeps.”
Instantly alert, she tried to sit up but the cold sphere of a gun barrel in the center of her forehead kept her prone. Noah Hurley stood over her in the pearly glow of pre-dawn.
Noah? What’s Noah doing here? Why does he have a gun? Something is very wrong.
Maggie’s heart pounded. At first glance, Noah looked the happy, young executive ready for a hike but in need of a shave. Except for the eyes — there was an unnatural light in them. The only words Maggie could think to describe that light were malicious glee. Her heart began to race. He grinned and Maggie noticed his ragged appearance and the smell of fall leaves mixed with body odor. She tried, to no avail, to look at Aidan beside her from the corner of her eye. Noah leaned in close, his breath fetid over her cheeks as he whispered and Maggie realized the scent she’d picked up before she’d woken was Noah’s breath. She tried not to gag.
“He’s fine, Maggie. As is the little brat, no worries there. So long as you come with me quietly, there will be no reason to change that. Fuck with me and they’re both dead. Get out of the bed. If he stirs, tell him the baby woke and you’re going to feed her.” Noah backed up, aiming the gun at Aidan’s sleeping form. Aidan usually slept much lighter, but they’d been up most of the night. She prayed he slept a little longer.
Maggie slid from the bed, painfully aware of her nakedness as she reached for the sweats she kept near her bedside table for night trips to the nursery. Noah shook his head she assumed enjoying both her discomfort and her nudity. With the toe of his dirty shoe, he kicked to her the dress she’d discarded the night before when she started to prepare for her seduction of Aidan. She tossed it on without underwear, just thankful to be covered. He gestured with his free hand to the canvas sneakers sitting by the sliding doors. In seconds, they were outside and she was carefully closing the doors behind her. The breath left her lungs in a whoosh of relief when the panes of glass separated Noah from her family. With a wave of his gun, he indicated she should walk in front of him, and she silently did as he bade. Noah behind her, gun in hand, wasn’t a reassuring position to be in, but at least they were walking away from her home.
“I swear to God, Mags, I thought the two of you were never going to quit fucking and get some sleep.” He whined. “I was up waiting all frigging night, watching you two hump like a couple of dogs in heat. Ha ha, catch the pun? Dogs. Get it?”
Christ, he’d watched us, she thought disgusted, but instead she swallowed her revulsion and carefully, pleasantly asked, “Noah, what are you doing here?”
He hit her in the back of her shoulders hard enough to make her stumble forward a foot on the dew-slicked grass. “If you’d died in that car accident like you were supposed to I wouldn’t have had to come all the way out here. But you just can’t ever do what you’re supposed to, can you? Stupid, stubborn bitch.” He pushed her again, closer to the tree line illuminated by the dwindling moon.
“You were behind that?” She asked.
“Yep. But you know what they say: If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” Noah giggled and pushed her again. “I had to make sure you got yours, Maggie. Way past time you got yours.”
They marched single file, the meadow backlit by waning moonlight in the cloudless sky. The horizon glowed with the promise of morning, but Maggie estimated they’d be far inside the forest before it broke. She wondered if she’d be alive to see it and shivered in the cool air. She heard Noah snicker behind her and realized whomever he’d become bore no resemblance to the man she’d known. The thought equally comforted and terrified.
“Noah.” Maggie said. “I haven’t done anything to you.”
“You tricked me,” he snarled. “Little Miss Journalistic Integrity laying all those bread crumbs for me to follow; making me believe Gael was a werewolf. Which was obviously never true. You knew I’d bite. I lost everything. Everything!” He nearly screamed. “My father took the paper away. I’m a laughingstock. Even the whores I paid good money for have turned on me. It’s all your fault, all of it. And now you’re going to pay.”
They stepped into the thick brush and the forest swallowed them.
“You did all that to yourself.” She stepped carefully over a fallen log and pushed back a thick branch that was in her way. As Noah stepped over the same log, she let go of the branch and ran. She heard it hit him, heard his pained, surprised exclamation and the sound of what she hoped was him falling to the ground as she pumped her legs through the still, dark woods. She could feel branches, twigs, and bushes licking at her legs and arms, tugging at her hair as she tried to put some distance between herself and the gun. She went deeper into the forest, thankful for all the nights she walked with Gealach and the knowledge it had given her of the terrain, drawing him further from her family, hopefully getting him turned around enough that she could double back for home or head for the road. She guessed his plan was to rape and murder her before morning was full on them, giving him the chance to get away before she was missed. If she was really lucky, he wasn’t so insane as to stick around after a search was begun. She doubted it though.
Worry crept in. Worry that he’d get frustrated and head back to the house. Worry that he’d hurt Aidan or Tala in anger. He’d always been petty; she didn’t think the madness engulfing him now had changed that basic facet of his personality. He had never been one to readily accept or acknowledge personal accountability when he was sane, and that flaw was clearly still abundant. Her pace slowed so she could listen for him. Noah wasn’t outdoorsy. He should be thrashing through the thicket. The quiet was eerily deafening. Maggie couldn’t even make out the normal sounds of nature that should have surrounded her. All that came to her ears was the sound of her own ragged breathing as air huffed out of her lungs in frosty clouds.
She pivoted and began running back toward home, panic fueling her flight through the trees. She didn’t see Noah step out from his hiding spot until it was too late. Noah was prepared for the collision; Maggie was not. She hit his chest at a full run. It took her breath away and she bit thru her lip. She had only a second to register the pain before her back hit the forest floor and new pain spread throughout her body. The milk that her body was holding released on impact, soaking her dress. Her ears were ringing and blood flowed freely into her mouth, choking her. As she tried to breathe, Noah stood over her, laughing and obviously erect. Worry for her family faded and was replaced with anger; she felt a fleeting satisfaction that his face was bruised and bloodied. He must have seen the look cross her features and his lip furled.
“You always thought you were such a clever bitch, didn’t you, Maggie? Thought you were smarter than me. Now who’s clever? Now who’s smart? Now who’s down in the dirt like trash?” Maggie tried to push herself up, but Noah grasped her face in his hand and pushed her back into the dirt. She scooted a few feet away before attempting again to stand, but he ran to her and with both hands on her shoulders shoved her to her knees. He bent low until their noses were inches apart and raised the gun to her temple.
“I’m going to explain this to you real simple like, Anastasia.” He sneered her birth name at her like a curse and she remembered, briefly, how he had liked to use the moniker to needle her when they’d been a couple. She wondered if he’d wanted to hurt her even then. “You are going to die today regardless. How nice you are to me beforehand determines whether or not your family joins you in the ground.”
Maggie spit blood in his face and Noah screamed before swinging the butt of the gun at her head. She ducked, the flat of the gun narrowly missing her face, and quickly scooted to her feet. Noah roared in anger, but Maggie stood her ground. At the very least she was going to make it harder for him. The longer he was in the woods with her, the better the odds he’d get caught before leaving the area. The sun would be out soon. Aidan would be looking for her. And he’d have help. “Come on, you coward, put the gun away and do this like you’ve always wanted. With your hands.”
Noah smiled, or at least a semblance of one, and tucked the gun in his waistband. He stepped toward her slowly. Maggie waited, calculated. When he got within reach, she pulled back her right arm. Noah prepared to block the punch, but Maggie kicked up into his groin instead. Noah went to his knees, screaming, both hands cupping his damaged manhood. She grabbed the back of his head and shoved down while her knee came up again, this time shattering his nose. Noah fell onto the ground, choking on his own blood, just as Maggie had minutes before. She leaned over and mocked, “Now who’s in the dirt, bitch?”
She saw the gun in his hand a second before she felt the bullet’s punch as it violated her body. She staggered and then fell, pain blooming over her shoulder. Darkness flittered at the edges of her mind. Maggie knew she was going to pass out, and she knew, or suspected, what Noah would do to her when she did. He stumbled into a stance above her. His face was a bloody mess and she took pride in that as he aimed the gun at her head.
A haunting roar tore through the dawn and they both turned toward the sound as Aidan shot through the trees and tackled Noah. She watched Aidan bury his fist into Noah’s already battered face and heard whatever was left of the bones in his nose crumble. Noah cried and swung his arms in wide, uneven arcs. Aidan hit him again and again as Maggie fought to remain conscious. Finally Noah’s body surrendered and he fell to the ground, a large puff of dirt punctuating his defeat.
Immediately by her side, Aidan carefully, cautiously, helped Maggie sit. She wasn’t aware she was crying until she was upright and felt tears slide down her cheeks.
“How did you know where to find me?” She asked.
“Gealach.” Aidan said. “I’ll explain later. I’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
Over his shoulder, Maggie saw Noah, his face destroyed, rushing up behind Aidan with a large rock in his hand. She didn’t know, not consciously, that the gun was beside her, that Noah had lost it in his struggle with Aidan. But suddenly the pistol was in her hand and she was squeezing the trigger. Noah’s body fell to the ground and she watched with the pistol aimed at his head until the final spark of life and madness in his eyes flickered and died. Maggie dropped the gun and turned to Aidan.
“I totally could have taken that bear,” she told him and then slipped into blessed darkness.
Maggie stood with her back to the house and her chin pointed up toward the night sky. She fought the urge to scratch at the stitches on her shoulder and reveled in the freedom the meadow represented. The hospital had felt like a trap she couldn’t escape; everybody poking and prodding and questioning her, over and over. All she had wanted was to come home to her family and to this sky. Now that she was, she felt peace.
They were just putting the baby down for the night when the phone rang. Aidan answered and from the sidelong glance he tossed her way as she was slipping out the back door, he was either talking to the sheriff or someone on the East Coast. Much to the shock and surprise of everyone, and against Joel’s wishes, her mother had come out from Philadelphia after learning that Maggie had been shot. They had a lot of work ahead of them before they’d be on good terms, but it was a definite start. She’d been checking in daily since returning to her home, as did most of the McAllisters and the residents of Trappers’ Cove. Aidan had to convince two state’s worth of people and one Irishwoman into not coming to welcome Maggie home. She would be forever thankful he knew her so well.
She heard him behind her but didn’t turn. She felt the warmth of the jacket he draped over her shoulders and tucked around her before closing his arms around her waist and pulling her back against his front. They stood there quietly for a moment, just enjoying each other. Aidan broke the silence. “That was Teague on the phone.”
“What did he want?”
“To let us know they’re not pressing charges. You acted in defense of self and others.”
“So it’s over.” Maggie sighed and felt weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying lift from her shoulders.
“Yeah, rock star, it’s over.” Aidan pressed a kiss to her crown and rested his chin there. Maggie smiled and snuggled closer to her soul mate. “How’d you find me that morning, Aidan? You still haven’t told me.”
“Do you want to sit?” She nodded and he pulled her down so that she was sitting on his lap in the large wooden chair that not so long ago had sat within the forest’s edge. “I dreamed I was Gealach and I was searching for you, but knew I’d be too late. I woke just before dawn with Gealach urging me to hurry as though still in the dream. You were gone, but I could smell you like I could when I was the wolf. I could smell the lovemaking we’d shared and the coppery scent of fear and someone, something else, with a foul dead odor surrounding him. I hurried to the nursery. Tala lay there, wide awake and completely silent, staring at me with wide eyes and the wolf clutched in her tiny hands. I scooped her up and took off for the stable.