Outfoxed by Love (Kodiak Point Book 2) (2 page)

When Reid called Boris to let him know Jan was missing
, along with a visiting human, the stutter of his heart had nothing to do with the vexing vixen. What did he care if the attractive receptionist—who’d made her interest clear in him since his return from the war despite his rebuffs—was missing?

T
his didn’t stop him from snapping, “Where was she last seen?”

“Heading out of town
last night.”

Right into danger.
Boris held in a sigh. What were the chances Jan made it from their town to the city unchallenged? Unlikely, and it would explain why the clan’s attempt to net some varmints intent on causing problems had failed. His alpha, Reid, had wondered if the guy determined to challenge his leadership position had suddenly decided to behave. Given the snow fox’s disappearance, along with a certain woman Reid had taken a shine to, Boris would guess he hadn’t.
It seems Miss Prim and Proper Jan has bitten off more than she can chew.

Kind of like me.
He’d known for years the vixen wanted a piece of him. She made her intention quite clear. But Boris resisted. Pesky as she might be—beautiful, intelligent, and sexy beyond belief, too—Jan deserved better than an ornery bastard like him. Needed a man who didn’t wake in the night with fucking nightmares, pointing his gun at a phantom enemy and clicking on empty chambers.

He’d learned after a few incidents to not sleep with a loaded weapon. Plasterwork sucked
, as did waking in a rain of falling debris and dust.

But his
mating situation with a certain ravishing blonde wasn’t at issue here. A missing Jan was. Any member of the clan could have and would have searched for her, everyone in town loved Jan, but what did Boris do?

“I’ll take my truck and go looking for her.”
Yeah, like a dumb fucking moose, he volunteered. He tried to justify it with the knowledge that if she was in trouble then he was best equipped to handle it. Truth was, he didn’t trust anyone else to do it right. Despite his avoidance issues, Boris felt responsible for the woman. He just wouldn’t sleep with or claim her like she wanted. No matter what his cock—or his moose—thought.

“Not alone you won’t. We don’t know what you might run into
,” Reid said.

“Nothing my stash can’t handle.”
And by stash, Boris meant the mini arsenal he kept stocked in his truck. A man never knew when he might have to end or start a minor war. Or just want to shoot things for fun—and stress relief.
Stress relief that is needed every time I run into that blonde vixen and her bloody smile.

Given he refused to hook up with her, it irritated him to no end that his body refused to
honor his decision. His damned dick just couldn’t stay asleep when the woman was around. And not for lack of trying!

He’d threatened it.
Smacked it. Taken cold showers. And, yes, beaten it—coming with Jan’s name on the tip of his tongue. Nothing ever took the edge off, not even the rare visits into the city where bars always had someone for a bastard like him. Travis called it the asshole effect; the more Boris acted aloof and uninterested, the more the ladies wanted him.

Whatever the reason for his ease in finding a temporary bedmate, Boris didn’t indulge often. The se
x, while okay, never filled the void in him, and the odd guilt he felt, the reason which he couldn’t pinpoint, left him feeling dirty. Dirtier than a week spent in the wild without bathing. Not by choice but because he lost a fucking bet.

Boris tuned back in to Reid
as he said, “I want you to take Travis with you.”

“Like fuck.”

“I’m making it an order.”

“
But he’s an idiot.” A young grizzly who tended to act before thinking. Boris would rather hack his own leg off than get saddled with him.

“
I won’t deny that, but he’s got a sharp sense of smell, he’s not half bad in a fight, and—”

“You want him out of your fur.”

“Exactly,” Reid replied, not at all chagrined in admitting the truth.

“
I don’t like you.”

“You don’t like anyone.”

True. Boris grunted.

Reid laughed. “Admit it, Travis is growing on you.”

“So do blood-sucking leeches. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to carve them off and toss them in a fire pit.”

“We all want to do that with my dear cousin, but then you’d have to deal with his mother.”

Boris didn’t need to see Reid’s shudder, not when he experienced one of his own. Everyone feared Travis’ mother. “Fine. He lives. For now. Tell him to get his ass here in the next ten minutes though, or I’m leaving him behind.”

Speed was of essence when it came to finding missing people
, especially out here and in the winter. Shifters might prove more adaptable to the harsh climate, but predators abounded, both wild and cognitive. Bullets were also unforgiving, and Boris couldn’t help but recall the thriving market for lush arctic fox fur.

No one has a nice
r coat than Jan.
Soft fur, pure and unblemished just like her skin, which covered a—

The fist
that connected with his wall barely dented the solid wood surface. Given the plaster incidents over the years, Boris had gradually converted his interior to a more durable material. Because, again, he hated fixing drywall.

Supplies gathered, truck fueled
, and with an extra gas tank strapped in the bed behind the cab, Boris sat at the wheel about to pull out when the passenger door opened and Travis hopped in.

Damn. I almost managed to escape.

“Boris, my man, I hear we’re going fox and human hunting.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Two tough dudes on a quest to save the hot chicks. Do you think we’ll find them?”

Boris snorted.
Of course they would. Failure was never an option.

“
I wonder if that guy who’s been fucking with the clan attacked them?”

If he had, Boris would have a bone to pick with the bastard.

“Think the girls are ok—Gurg. Blerg”

Enough
with the questions!
Was it necessary for Boris to strangle Travis to get him to shut up? Probably not, but he did enjoy it. But thoughts of Aunt Betty-Sue—real aunt or not, no one dared  call her anything else—had him ease his grip before the boy completely passed out.

Casting a wounded look his way
, Travis complained. “Dude, that was so uncalled for. You know I can’t fight back. You’re a veteran, and my mother taught me to respect my elders.”

Elder?
Boris growled. “I just turned thirty-one.” Which was only about six years older than the pup beside him. Some days it felt like a hundred years.

“Middle
-aged, I know, and still single. That’s gotta suck. Maybe if you grew a moose-tache you’d snag yourself a lady.” Travis slapped his leg and laughed.

Boris gave his steering a sharp jerk and sent his passenger’s head rapping off the glass. As if the young grizzly took offense.
Travis chuckled harder. “You military types with your fetish for being clean shaven. Which I guess is cool. Chicks probably dig that too. On the bright side, at least you’re not living in your mom’s basement or something. Because that, you know, would be really pathetic.”

“Says the boy still living at home.”

“Hey, I’m the man of the house. I have my own bedroom upstairs, and I’m barely on my Xbox these days.”

“Only because every time you logged on I kicked your ass at
Call of Duty
.” A man trying to forget the war playing a war game? Don’t judge him. He found it soothing—and liked following Travis’ avatar around and shooting him; anger therapy that didn’t leave bruises.

“One of these days, dude, we are going to have to go head to head in a Kinects Sports battle.”

“Bring it, cub.”

“You got it, old man.”

The banal banter served its purpose. It kept Boris’s mind from veering down dark paths. Twisted violent ones where he couldn’t help but imagine finding Jan in a pool of blood, her lovely blue eyes staring unseeing and crimson matting her golden hair.

A vision made more concrete once he found the wreckage. He almost didn’t spot it, the wind having smoothed over the tracks her SUV made when it plowed over the steep edge of the gorge. It was Travis, damn him, who spotted the clue.

“Dude, something took out the snowbank.”

Which just went to show how frazzled Boris was.
He should have seen it first. Usually he would have, and it was stupid little things like this that made him more determined than ever to stay away from Jan. The woman addled his mind, whether present or not.

Boris
slammed on the brakes, and the truck fishtailed slightly. He hopped out of the cab and circled around to the other side for a closer look.

As if he could see much in the dark.
Enhanced eyesight was all well and good, but it only went so far.

“Light,” he ordered.

Travis fumbled in the back of his truck for a moment before a blinding beam lit the slope angling away from the road. Despite the wind doing its best to sweep the area clean, evidence of something plowing a trail was clear, but even more telling was the crumpled truck at the bottom of the steep embankment, its front end embracing a tree.

Boris didn’t recall moving
. All he knew was he half slid, half jogged down the steep incline, eyes trained on the wreck, inhaling as well as he could the scents in the area. Nothing fresh jumped out at him, but the lingering aroma of blood and animal, many animals, permeated the area. He also couldn’t help but note the numerous snowmobile tracks.

Reaching the bottom, he slowed his steps as
his old friend fear—a fucking asshole he kept trying to ditch but who kept coming back—made him dread peeking through the smashed driver side window of the all-too-familiar crushed SUV.

He offered up his first silent prayer in years.
Please let her be alive.
Jan might vex him, but Jan was too beautiful and bright to die so young.

A noisy breath escaped him when he saw the empty cab. No bodies.
Yet.

He turned to survey the area
, the shadows mocking him in the bobbing beam of the flashlight Travis brought with him.

The grizzly skidded to a stop beside him. “No
sign of Jan or Tammy?”

Boris shook his head.

“Think whoever was on these sleds took her and the human chick?”

If they had, Boris would get
them back.

Despite
Boris’ dislike of the cub, Travis was a decent tracker. Between the two of them, they pieced together events and were able to present them to Reid when he arrived.

In a nutshell
, the human female got carted off, dead or alive, no one could ascertain, but Reid would go after her with a clan posse to fetch her back. It seemed his alpha, a once respectable Kodiak, had fallen for a human. Ugh. But at least this Tammy broad wasn’t completely useless. The way Boris heard it, she’d faced down Reid in his Kodiak form armed with only a frying pan. That took guts, and Boris respected that.

As for Jan,
she also showed more courage than he would have expected. It looked like his vixen fought back, or so he judged by the residual scent of gunpowder and trails of blood. He’d heard rumors of the fox learning to shoot with her dad. He’d not put much stock in them. Women like Jan, always perfectly coiffed and dressed, weren’t the type to get their hands dirty.

Bypassing the muddle of prints and scents around the crash site, he move
d outwards. While the prints were faint, he managed to locate some fox tracks leading away from the chaos. But more worrisome were the two larger sets of wolf prints and the single set of cougar ones chasing after.

Delicate Jan wouldn’t stand a chance against three large predators. He only hoped she would have the common sense to run and hide.
I’m coming to get you. And if they’ve harmed a single hair on your head, they’ll pay.

“Want me to change into my bear to sniff out their trail?” Travis offered.

“No.”

“Grab a rifle and scout?”

Boris leveled a look at him. “No.”

“Guard your rear?”

“No.” Boris stared at him until Travis fidgeted.

“Then what do you expect me to do?”

“Help your cousin.” Yeah, he paid back his alpha by sending the cub on a new task, but truthfully, he’d fare better alone. And Reid could use the help.

While Reid’s crew prepared to rev off to the rescue
of the human, Boris equipped himself from the back of his truck. He could have adopted his moose form and chased after her; however, if Jan was injured or suffering from the elements, then she’d need more than just his naked body to keep her alive.

Bet her naked body could keep me alive.

Bad thought. Bad. Bad. Bad.