Which was fine with her. She wasn’t doing this for money. She hadn’t gone to work for Barry for money. Her parents had left her enough so that she could sit back and collect interest and dividend checks for the rest of her life.
She was just determined to make a difference.
So here she was, in an empty house, dressed in a baby blue pantsuit and open-toed high heels, waiting for a man who might be a killer.
She ran a hand through her long hair, then flipped it back over her shoulder. Her nerves were too on edge for her to stand there in the living room like Andromeda chained to a rock, waiting for the sea monster to come and get her.
She wasn’t sure why her mind had leaped to that image. But even as a child back in Costa Rica, she’d been fascinated by mythology and read and reread a lot of the old stories— from many different cultures. Today the Andromeda story was a dark vision, and she needed the sunlight.
So she stepped out the front door into the spring afternoonand looked up at the sunshine filtering through the leaves of the towering oaks and poplars that someone had planted sixty or seventy years ago.
With narrowed eyes, she checked her watch again. Where was the guy? Lost?
Well, he had her cell phone number if he needed directions.
Striding down the driveway past the house, she walked toward the detached garage. It was a little far from the house to be convenient, and she realized that she should have checked it out in case Mr. Langana turned out to be a legitimatecustomer.
That thought made her firm her lips. She was focusing on the murder part of this assignment and forgetting that she also had to play a convincing real estate agent, one who would obviously have paid more attention to the house.
Let’s see. She’d taken a good look at the kitchen. It had been updated, but maybe not recently enough to go with the $800,000 asking price for the property.
She was almost to the garage when movement in the woods made her stop. With a jolt, she turned. Had she and the police totally misread the killer’s method of stalking his victims? Was he coming on foot to isolated locations where female agents were showing houses?
All that ran through her mind in a split second. Then she saw it wasn’t a man at all, but a dog. A Rottweiler, she guessed.
He looked large and dangerous, and her blood ran cold when she realized he wasn’t alone.
Behind him, five more dogs stepped out of the underbrush.They were all about his size. One looked like a Shepherdmix. Another was a Doberman. And the remaining two appeared to have at least half pit bull genes.
But what they mostly had in common was the threatening look in their eyes.
Did they belong to someone? Or were they a feral pack? Peering at them more closely, she saw that none of them appearedto be wearing collars—which wasn’t reassuring.
Bent on getting out of their way, she took two quick steps to the side door of the garage and twisted the knob. Unfortunatelyit was locked, and she realized that the key was lying on the counter in the kitchen, along with the key to the house.
The Rottweiler, who appeared to be the leader of the pack, started barking. The others followed suit.
Then they broke off as quickly as they had started.
Somehow, that abrupt silence was more threatening than the previous noise.
The leader bared its teeth and snarled at her. The others did the same.
They were maybe sixty feet away, but she could clearly hear them growling.
Instinctively, she knew they were out for blood, and that she was no match for them.
She drew the gun hidden in a holster below her suit jacket at the small of her back. She’d never shot a dog in her life, and the idea of doing it now made her sick. But that might be her only chance to get out of there alive.
Would a warning shot scare them away—or send them charging toward her?
Her mind scrambled for what she remembered about canines.You weren’t supposed to challenge a dangerous dog by looking him in the eye. And you weren’t supposed to show fear.
Yeah, right.
Should she try to run back to the house? Or should she walk? And should she turn her back?
No, that had to be a mistake. Then she wouldn’t know what they were doing.
She took a step back and then another, keeping her gaze slightly to the side of the pack.
But she saw the leader raise his head as the snapping and snarling become more furious.
And she knew in that moment that they were going to charge her.
Just before the leader could charge, another dog came dashing out of the woods. A bigger dog with gray fur. Her gaze took in the details. The pointed ears. The long, upturned tail. The dark gray fur along his back and flanks that graduallylightened as it reached his lower body and legs.
Was he a dog . . . or a wolf?
She did a fast recalculation. A wolf in the Maryland woods?
Was that possible? Still, she’d heard of coyotes returning to this area. So why not a wolf?
Whatever he was, she saw how the others reacted to him.
Moments ago they’d looked like they’d been ready to tear her to pieces. They were still agitated, but in a different way. Somehow the newcomer had changed the equation. It looked like he had taken over the position of alpha male in the pack within seconds of his arrival.
He faced the others squarely, his chest forward, his teeth bared, his tail puffed and standing straight out. Then he turned so that he was squarely between her and the feral animals,growling a warning.
In that moment she sensed that he had told them she was his property, and he would tear any dog apart who dared to get near her.
All of the other dogs had changed their stance. Their tails and heads were down.
When the newcomer took a step forward, the other dogs backed up. The former leader of the pack whined and kept moving backward.
The new dog kept advancing, challenging all of them at once, continuing with his calm aggression.
As if someone had flipped a switch, the former leader turned tail and ran. And the others followed his lead.
Her rescuer stood watching them disappear into the woods. His stance was still aggressive, but she saw a slight relaxation in his posture. He was probably pretty sure that he’d chased them away, but he was still waiting to be certain they didn’t come back. Long seconds ticked by. Then a minute. Then another. Finally he turned and gazed at her.
She’d only seen him from the back and the side. Now she caught her breath as she took in the handsome features—his light gray facial fur contrasting with his dark nose, and intelligentblue eyes, rimmed with dark margins.
She waited for frozen moments, almost expecting him to speak to her. But of course no words came out of his mouth, only a low growl that she took to mean, “Get back in the house while the getting’s good.”
“Yes,” she answered. Then added, “Thank you for chasingthem away.”
He nodded as though he understood her, then growled again, this time more sharply.
“Okay.” She spun on her heel and dashed back down the driveway, running at full speed.
When she reached the front porch, she turned and looked back, expecting to see him still standing there. But he had silently vanished into the woods.
Stepping into the house, she closed the front door behind her, then leaned back against the barrier, breathing hard. Her narrow escape was sinking in, and she knew those dogs would have torn her apart if the big gray wolf hadn’t arrived.
Wolf. Yes, he had to be a wolf. He’d faced them down, then turned to make sure she was all right before running off.
WEREWOLF
Jacob Marshall breathed out a sigh. When he’d seen those dogs getting ready to attack Renata Cordona,his heart had stopped.
He could have followed the dogs. Instead he headed in the other direction, toward a spot about a hundred yards from the house, where he found what he’d scented when he first arrived. Raw meat, dumped on the ground. Meat that had attracted the animals. So what the hell was five pounds of chuck steak doing out here on this property? It looked like someone had deliberately put it there to lure the dogs.
He turned and stared toward the house—and stopped short. The dark-haired beauty he’d saved was standing at the front window, staring out. Looking for the dog pack? Or looking for the wolf who had saved her?
He took a step back, then another, fading into the woods. It wouldn’t do him any good to confront her now, not when he couldn’t talk to her.
He’d met her a few times. She was a real estate agent who had come to some of the meetings of the Howard County Citizen’s Association. But he had his reasons for keeping his distance.
There was something about her oval face, her dark eyes with their fringe of sooty lashes, her full lips, and that marvelouslong, dark hair of hers, that called to him in a way he couldn’t explain—except in the most basic terms of sexual attraction.
No, it was more than that. He kept fighting the uncanny feeling that he’d held her in his arms before. Made love to her before. Declared his undying love for her before. Althoughnone of that could possibly be true.
The fantasy had alarmed him enough to label her off-limits.But as soon as he’d seen she was in trouble, he’d stepped between her and those dogs. And now he had to make sure she was all right.
He’d passed a For Sale sign down at the entrance to the driveway, and he guessed that she’d come here to show the house. He’d been restless and out for a run in wolf form. Not long after seeing the sign, he’d picked up the scent of the dogs. Then he’d felt the dangerous vibrations coming off them. If he’d had to articulate what he’d sensed, he wouldn’t have been able to put it in terms a human could understand, but he could have described it to the other Marshall men, his brothers and cousins who also carried the werewolf gene.
While he could have told them how he sensed the dogs and the danger they represented, he couldn’t have explained exactly what he had done to make them break off the attack on Renata. It was more than a canine face-off. In his childhood,he’d discovered he had the ability to communicate with animals in ways that his brothers and cousins did not possess. He used that special talent in his job, working with damaged dogs at various pounds and shelters around the area. And he’d used it in the past to talk dangerous dogs out of attacking, one or two at a time. But he’d never faced down such a large pack of feral dogs before.
Thank God it had worked.
Now he wanted to know who the hell had put that meat there, and if it had anything to do with her specifically.
But going back was a problem, because when he changed to human form, he’d be naked.
He could run home, of course, although home was five miles away. But maybe there was a solution to the problem. A half mile from here, behind a rectangular cinder-block house, he’d seen a clothesline with a wash flapping in the breeze. He retraced his steps until he reached the clothesline.
Breaking through the cover of the woods, he approached with caution. No one was outside, and he was able to snag an almost-dry pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt off the line. After stashing them in the woods, he went back for a pair of muddy sneakers sitting by the back door. But as he went for the shoes, a guy with a shotgun came barreling out of the house.