Authors: Gwen Campbell
Cutler heard a woman laughing on the other end of the line.
He rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee.
“The date will be held for you upon receipt of your five
hundred dollar deposit.”
Cutler was impressed by how quickly Fina had picked up on
the particulars of his brother’s business. Nobody had asked her to. The second
day she’d been there, she’d figured out that Nath had a business line hooked up
in the home office. If nobody there picked it up, it switched to his base camp.
The official home of Green Mountain Eco Tours sat at the end of a dead-end road
out of town. A number of trails their dad had introduced them to when they’d
been kids, ones that snaked around the Great Divide Basin, branched out from
there. Nath’s base camp was a pretty log building that he stored his company’s
gear and food supplies at and ran his tours out of. During the summer Nath
hired a high-school kid from their pack to run the office in his absence…keeping
the shelves stocked, checking on the solar panels, running the sleeping bags
into town for cleaning, answering the phones, that sort of thing. But Fina was
just really, really good with customers.
“There’s a full information pack. I can fax it or email it
to you.” Fina flicked her long, auburn hair out of the way, tucked the receiver
between her ear and shoulder and started typing. “That’s right…you can bring
your own gear or Green Mountain Eco Tours can supply everything you need except
for shoes and the clothes on your back. There’s a complete supply list in the
pack and you check off what you’d like us to provide and we’ll have everything
ready for you. There’s also a physical fitness self-check sheet. Oh that’s
okay. The Highland Trek package will be perfect for you. It’s two days and one
night under canvas. Just work yourself up to an hour of walking per day at a
slightly faster than normal pace and you’ll be fine.” She glanced up at Cutler
again. “Thank you for calling Green Mountain Eco Tours and have a terrific day.”
“My brother should pay you,” Cutler grunted after she hung
up.
“Yes, he should,” Fina agreed saucily. “Remind me to tell
him.”
Cutler grunted again, this time in agreement, and drank the
rest of his coffee. He watched Fina with feral heat when she stood, lifted her
arms over her head and stretched her back. His cock twitched inside his
regulation tan trousers and he adjusted his gunbelt. He wanted this woman even
more than when he’d met her but his wolf, always the hormone-driven one, still
wanted him to wait.
Cutler was just about ready to go out of his mind with need.
“Don’t forget there’s a pack run tomorrow night. Nath and I
will take you. Dorothea Pike and her mate will be watching the kids this time
so we’ll drop Ryan off there before we go.”
His high-handedness obviously irked Fina but he was Alpha.
It was how he was made. He wasn’t being rude, he was just being…Cutler. “You’re
even bossier than my father was,” Fina grouched.
“Hmm. Sounds like a remarkable man.” Cutler grinned and
walked up to her. He set his mug down, fit his hands around her waist and
pressed his freshly shaven cheek to hers. Her hands settled lightly on his arms
as she accepted the nuzzling. She’d been touching him back for a couple of days
now—Nath too, although that irritated the hell out of Cutler. And this was the
first time she’d talked about anyone from her past without prompting. Cutler
took it as a hopeful sign she was opening up, becoming more comfortable with
him…and Nath. “Maybe you’ll tell me about him. Sometime,” he added with his
friendly-guy smile and a light shrug of his shoulders.
“Um, speaking about that…” Fina pulled back from him and
leaned on the edge of the desk. “I haven’t spoken with any of my old friends
and I was wondering—”
“You want to know if it’s a good idea to get in touch with
your human friends,” Cutler finished for her with a discernment that, judging
by the way she blinked, caught her off guard. But then he was a cop. He leaned
back against the desk beside her. She was wearing shorts and his uniform pants
had to be rough against her bare leg. Fina didn’t seem mind. He could only hope
she liked the warmth and muscular solidness of him pressed against her leg, hip
and shoulder.
Cutler looked down at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve
made some contacts with other wolves near your home pack lands,” he told her
and waited for her reaction. When Fina simply raised her brow and looked up at
him without censure, he continued. “The rogues are lying low. They’ve had
little or no contact with nearby humans. I think it’s okay for you to contact
some of your friends but do it safely.” She shot him one of what he thought of
as her oh-yeah-big-tough-guy looks. He ignored it and felt his expression
harden. “Who do you want to contact?”
“Helen, my best friend.”
“She’s your age?”
“Three months younger.”
“Hmmph. Is her mother smart? Level headed?”
“Definitely.” Fina nodded emphatically. “Right after I
escaped, I wanted to run to her…”
Fina’s voice dropped away and Cutler felt her tremble. He
wrapped his arm around her shoulder, drew her close and pressed his lips to the
top of her head.
“But you didn’t because you’d endanger her,” he said with
quiet surety and kissed her hair. “Set up a new email account. Make sure it can’t
be traced to Wyoming. Use it to contact your friend’s mother. Let her know you’re
safe but were advised to go into seclusion because of the violence. No need to
tell her anything else,” he added firmly when Fina tensed. “Tell her you’d like
to contact Helen but have to be sure she’ll keep her mouth shut about it. If
your friend is
like any of the other twenty-year-old human females I’ve
come across,” he snorted with disdain, “she’ll get so excited about hearing
from you she’ll blab it to everybody before realizing she could be jeopardizing
your safety.”
“My safety?” Fina blurted out. Her head popped up. “There’s
no way those rogues would still be interested in me.”
“Why not?” Cutler asked coolly, holding her eyes with his
and tucking his finger under her chin. “I’d never be willing to let you go.” He
gave that a moment to sink in.
Fina averted her eyes. “By now they know the money’s gone.”
“There
is
that,” Cutler agreed with a sigh. “But I
know I’d abandon everything I had to follow you if you left me.” He kissed her
forehead, squeezed her shoulder gently then stood up. “We have to assume
that
Alpha would too.” He glanced at his watch. “Now I
am
going to be late
for work.” Cutler inhaled her scent once more. “Damn I wish I could bottle the
smell of your skin. That way I could take it with me everywhere.” He offered
her a crooked grin and a wicked flash of his eyes, turned away and headed for
the front door.
Fina was still leaning against the desk and stroking her
forehead absently where Cutler’s warm, firm lips had touched it when her wolf’s
ears heard Ryan’s voice.
“Please, Cutler, just once,” he wheedled from the front
yard.
“It scares the cattle, buddy. You know that. How about you
just turn on the lights. We’ll save the siren for some other time.”
“Cool,” Ryan blurted and she heard his canvas shoes crunch
the gravel in the driveway, heard the door of Cutler’s big sheriff’s SUV open,
heard Cutler grunt dramatically and figured he was hoisting the six-year-old
into the driver’s seat.
“Whew! You’re packing on the muscle, big guy. Soon you’ll be
too big for me to lift.”
Fina realized she’d started to cry and she hated
it…absolutely hated it. She hated the constant flux of her emotions, her
thoughts.
She’d stuck her nose into Nath’s business because it was yet
another activity to escape into. When she was working it was easy to carry on
like nothing bad had happened to her, easy to deny her family’s death, her pack’s
death. Sometimes the tears just started to fall and she felt dark and numb
inside. Fina had gotten good at burying her face in the blankets at night and
crying soundlessly. The worst part about the tears was the anger that followed.
She’d get mad at herself for being weak and being alive and then she’d get mad
at her pack—her father and brother and Ryan’s dad—for not seeing this coming,
not protecting them like they were supposed to, and she’d cry even harder.
Fina picked up Cutler’s coffee mug and carried it into the
kitchen. She cleaned out the coffee maker, started up the dishwasher, grabbed
the bucket of cleaning supplies from beneath the sink and headed for a corner
of the front hallway like she did every day about this time, preparing to
obsessively scrub the house from end to end until the phone rang or it was time
to make Ryan’s lunch or drive him into town to pick up groceries or take him to
a playdate or mow the lawn. Anything so she didn’t have to think.
Fina inhaled slowly. The first things she picked out were
the gas and oil smells from at least fifty vehicles parked in the big, grassy
field. Beyond that she caught the scent of a pack—Cutler’s pack—in the forest
beyond the field. The pack scent was fresh and old at the same time. It was an
area wolves had used for decades, maybe a century. The sun had already set and
it was almost fully dark. The full moon would be rising over the foothills in
about a half hour. Fina’s wolf eyes showed her a wide trail leading beneath the
trees and after Nath helped her out of Cutler’s personal, oversized and beefy
SUV, he held her hand and headed for the trail. Cutler caught up to them,
walked on her other side and laid his arm around her shoulders. The scents
coming out of the forest clearly identified this as the pack’s running grounds.
Privately owned land, probably hundreds of acres of it where the pack gathered
to run and socialize in their fur.
“How many are in your pack?” she blurted out, registering
the number of cars and the fact that two more were just pulling in.
“One hundred ninety,” Cutler replied with smug pride.
“One-ninety-one,” Nath corrected him gently. “Don’t forget
the Andersons’ new pup.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He grinned crookedly and gave Fina’s shoulder a
squeeze. “That makes number six for them. I haven’t figured out if they’re
wolves or rabbits.” He chuckled ribaldly and Fina poked him in the side with
her elbow. He grunted obligingly and cradled his waist. “We’ve got thirty-two
families and forty singles, most of them male.” He raised his hand in greeting
as they passed two older couples walking together.
Fina felt the sadness creep in again. Her pack had been
comprised of only eight families with no singles living on their own. Two of
the families had been her older, mated sisters’ and even her older brother—whom
everybody expected to take over as Alpha when her father got too old—had still
lived at home. She saw that her pack had been small and wealthy, ripe for
takeover.
“Hey, Fina…” Nath squeezed her hand and nuzzled her temple. “You
up for this, sweetheart?” he asked quietly. Even Cutler was looking down at her
with open concern and he could be as emotionally subtle as a tick with gas.
“Just…remembering,” she whispered and blinked hard. When
another couple, followed by two single males, passed them on the trail, she
lifted her head, forced a smile and waved with her free hand. “I’ll feel better
after I run. It’s been awhile. Maybe too long. I’ll be better after,” she added
firmly and even Fina wasn’t sure if it was for the brothers’ benefit or hers.
The path opened out onto a big, flat, grassy clearing,
roughly oval in shape. A mixed ancient forest ringed it. Fina could smell the
growing excitement in the hundred or so wolves already there. She’d never seen
so many assembled at once.
Cutler led her and Nath in a slow, informal loop of the
clearing, greeting members of his pack and introducing Fina to the few she hadn’t
met. He laughed, asked after their families or their jobs. A lot of the single
males looked at her with open interest. There was a time when Fina would have
blushed under the attention. Now she physically withdrew behind Cutler’s and
Nath’s bodies—as much as she could without being obviously rude. Cutler’s
unsubtle growls whenever another male showed too much interest in her kept any
of them from getting too close.
Because of Ryan, she’d met most of the families with young
pups. The two weeks they’d been alone and on the road, his cognitive skills had
started to retard. Fina didn’t know why but his ability to read, even his
vocabulary and his ability to form complete sentences had diminished. From the
first day with Cutler’s pack she’d asked the Alpha to introduce her to families
with pups Ryan’s age so he could socialize and she could watch the parents
interact with their kids, hoping to pick up clues about what she was doing
wrong. She really hadn’t learned anything except Ryan needed to sit in a
booster in the backseat when she drove but for whatever reason Ryan was almost
back to a full post-kindergarten reading level, could do addition and
subtraction again, and he played readily and happily with other children
instead of withdrawing into his electronic games.
By the time they’d completed the full loop, the perimeter of
the clearing was packed with wolves.
“Time to get started,” Cutler said to no one in particular. “Any
latecomers can catch up with the rest of us.” He led Fina and his brother over
to an unoccupied spot and nuzzled Fina’s hair before lifting his arm from her
shoulders. He began to unbutton his plain, ironed, light-blue shirt.
The rest of the wolves began disrobing.
Fina didn’t feel nervous or self-conscious being naked
around others. It was something she’d been used to since reaching puberty and
she lifted her lightweight sweater over her head, folded it, set it on the
ground beside her then reached back to undo her bra. With puberty came the
ability for a young werewolf to change into wolf form…and changing meant
getting out of your clothes first unless you felt the need to shop for more to
replace the shredded ones. She glanced at the brothers’ bodies and her
heartbeat picked up.