Loe raamatut: «Alaskan Sanctuary»

Chapter One

“Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?”

Piper’s heartbeat hammered against her rib cage. There was just something about looking into the eyes of a wolf at close range, something thrilling that brought about an instinctual response. Breathtaking. Primal.

The animal stood less than a foot away, one hundred forty pounds of sinuous muscle, gleaming white teeth and ebony fur. A timber wolf, with penetrating eyes the color of Klondike gold.

He took a step closer.

Breathe. Just breathe.

The wolf blinked once, twice, three times. Then, without breaking eye contact, he rose up onto his powerful back legs, planted his front paws on her shoulders and licked the side of her face.

Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? Tra la la la la.

“Big and bad, my foot.” Piper gave the wolf a generous rub behind his ears. “You’re a marshmallow, Koko.”

Koko showered her with more wolf kisses, heedless of the fact that it took every ounce of Piper’s strength not to shrink beneath the weight of his massive frame. At only a year old, Koko was still very much a pup and seemingly unaware of his size. And his power. Not to mention the intimidation factor that came with being a wolf.

Stature, strength and piercing gaze notwithstanding, he didn’t frighten Piper. She couldn’t remember a time when any of the wolves did. Years ago, perhaps. Before she’d ever had the idea to start the sanctuary. Before the first rescue.

Before.

“Piper! We’ve got a visitor.” Caleb White, the one and only paid employee that she could afford, stood outside Koko’s enclosure, eyeing their interaction with curiosity. Koko swiveled his massive head in the teenager’s direction and dropped back down to all fours. “I think it’s him.”

Him.

Piper didn’t need to ask whom Caleb meant. There was only one him whose arrival she’d been anticipating, only one him who mattered at the moment. “I’ll be right there. Give Mr. Hale some hot cocoa while he waits, okay? With marshmallows.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Caleb’s feet crunched through the snow as he followed the trail back in the direction of the tiny log cabin that doubled as the visitors’ center and Piper’s living quarters. For now, at least.

Once she got the sanctuary certified by the National Nature Conservatory and secured one of their coveted grants, all that would change. She’d have the funding she needed to make this place everything she dreamed it could be. And the first step in making that happen was to get the support of her new home, Aurora, Alaska.

That’s where Ethan Hale, a journalist for the Yukon Reporter newspaper, came in. Or so she hoped.

She fastened the double gates of Koko’s enclosure and gave the wolf a final wave. “Wish me luck.”

Koko loped to the fence and poked his slender muzzle through the chain link. Piper felt the wolf’s gaze on her back for the duration of her walk to the visitors’ center. Of all the animals she’d rescued—from the turtles she’d gathered from the middle of the Colorado streets and carried to safety at the side of the road when she was a little girl, to the wolves she’d driven hundreds of miles to pick up and bring back to the sanctuary—Koko was her favorite. He was special. He’d needed rescue, perhaps more than the rest. He remembered where he’d come from.

Wolves never forgot. Neither did she.

When she reached the log cabin, she brushed the snow and straw from Koko’s paws off the shoulders of her parka and sent up one last silent prayer. Please, God. We need this. Then she pushed open the door, prepared to greet Ethan Hale with her warmest, most welcoming smile.

He stood inside the cozy cabin, clad in a brandy-colored parka with a fur-trimmed hood, frowning into his cocoa. Piper felt like frowning herself at the sight of that fur. It looked an awful lot like coyote. Or possibly even wolf, which was too revolting to even consider.

But this was Alaska, not a fashion runway. Things were different this close to the Arctic Circle. She knew that. Still...

She averted her eyes from the parka’s hood. “Good morning. You must be Mr. Hale.”

He looked up and pinned her with an impassive stare from the most luminous set of eyes she’d ever seen. They were a mysterious, fathomless gray, set off by lashes as black as raven wings. It was rather like looking into the eyes of a wolf. Not just any wolf, but an alpha.

Cool. Confident. Intense.

She blinked, and felt fluttery all of a sudden, as if she’d swallowed a jarful of the Arctic white butterflies that sometimes drifted on Alaska’s purple twilight breeze.

That was odd. Odd and more than a little bit unsettling. She’d never reacted to a man on first sight in such a way before. Certainly not in the months since Stephen.

Her heart gave a little clench. Now was not the time to examine such things. And this man in particular should not be giving her butterflies. First off, there was the matter of the suspect fur-trimmed hood. Secondly, he was here to be wooed by the wolves. Not her.

“You’re Ms. Quinn, I take it?” he asked flatly. Clearly he was in no mood to be wooed. By anyone.

“Call me Piper. Please.” She smiled and waited for him to reciprocate. He didn’t. “So, um, thank you so much for coming. I’m thrilled that the paper has agreed to run a story on the work we do here at the Aurora Wolf and Wildlife Sanctuary.”

He said nothing, just kept appraising her with those enigmatic eyes of his. The mug in his hand was piled high with an almost comical tower of marshmallows. They’d begun to melt, drip over the rim and onto Ethan Hale’s massive hand. Good old Caleb. The boy was such a sweetheart. He even picked flowers from the grounds on occasion and brought them to her. The vase of violet bell-shaped blossoms resting in the center of her kitchen table was just such a bouquet.

She reached for a napkin, handed it to the reporter and tried to imagine him picking flowers for someone. Not likely. “Sorry. I think my helper may have gone a little overboard with the marshmallows.”

“Thanks.” He traded her the mug for the napkin and dabbed at the sticky mess. “Your helper? Singular? You have no other employees?”

“No, just the one.” Why did she feel the need to apologize? Again. This time, for her lack of help. “For now. Although the youth program at Aurora Community Church has been a real help since I’ve moved in. They spent an entire Saturday here last week putting up the fences.”

“High school students? You plan on staffing this place with minors?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notepad and wrote something down.

Piper couldn’t bring herself to look and see what that something was. “A larger staff is one of the improvements I plan to make once we’ve been accredited by the National Nature Conservatory.”

He lifted a dubious brow. “Your facility has been open for only five days, and you already meet the standards for an NNC grant?”

She’d expected to have to explain what exactly the NNC was and the types of monetary aid they provided for ecological programs that qualified, but it appeared Mr. Hale had already done his homework.

Good, she told herself. Maybe this means he understands how important this is. He gets it.

“Not yet.” She cleared her throat. “These things take time. I’m still putting together the necessary paperwork. But applying for certification is my immediate goal, because once we have NNC approval, we can provide care for animals on the endangered list.”

He crossed his arms. She’d just confessed her dearest wish, and he didn’t look the least bit impressed. “So you intend to bring more species into the area.”

“I hope so.”

He glanced out a frost-covered window toward the enclosures. “Will these additional animals be dangerous predators, as well?”

Dangerous predators?

Maybe he didn’t get it, after all.

“While wolves are indeed predators, I wouldn’t be so quick to call them dangerous. Particularly rescued wolves living in captivity.” Her hands were shaking. She forced a smile. “Unless you’re a bunny rabbit.”

“Or a child.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, and suddenly it seemed as though the most dangerous predator in Alaska was Ethan Hale himself.

How was this interview going so horribly wrong when he’d yet to set eyes on a single one of the animals?

Yes! That was the answer. He simply needed to see the wolves for himself, then he would realize they weren’t the ravenous, bloodthirsty monsters that he was apparently imagining.

“Why don’t I give you a tour of the sanctuary? I think that will put to rest any worries you might have.” At least she hoped it would. At the rate things were going, she wasn’t quite sure.

He walked wordlessly out the door and into the snow. Piper took a deep breath and followed. The crisp morning air swirled with snowflakes as she led him down the path toward the wolf enclosures, their footsteps muffled by a blanket of pine needles. When she paused at the first metal gate and turned to look at Ethan Hale, snow had already begun to frost the tips of his dark eyelashes. He looked less angry out here, beneath the snow-covered blue boughs of the hemlock trees. As if he belonged here, in Alaska’s white, wild outdoors.

She wished he were less handsome. Disliking him would have been easier, and so far, he hadn’t given her much reason to like him.

She looked away and focused instead on the white wolf peering at them from behind the chipped gray bark of an aspen tree. “This is Tundra. She’s an Arctic wolf, and it looks as though she’s decided to play hard to get.”

He squinted into the wind. “I don’t see anything.”

“She’s behind the tree. Look for the pair of copper eyes blinking back at you.”

“There she is. Her white coat is quite striking in the snow.” A hint of a smile creased his rugged face and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Those annoying butterflies began to dance again. Piper assured herself they’d reappeared only because she’d succeeded in drawing a smile from him, if just for a fleeting moment.

“She’s a beauty.” Piper reached into her pocket for a chunk of dried meat. “Here, toss this over the fence.”

He eyed her open palm for a second before reaching for the treat with fingertips that felt unexpectedly warm in the frosty air.

“Go ahead. Give it a good throw.”

He did, and Tundra charged out from behind the aspen tree in a flurry of kicked-up snow and powder-white fur. She leaped a foot off the ground, a flying snow angel, and caught the treat midair.

“Impressive,” he said.

“Would you believe that until three months ago, she’d never been outdoors? A pair of college kids in Canada got her as a pup from an illegal breeder and decided to keep her as a pet—” Piper paused “—in the bathtub of their dorm.”

Ethan Hale’s brows rose. “The bathtub?”

“The bathtub. They fed her mainly pizza and leftovers from the dorm cafeteria. They thought it was cute. Then she grew into an adolescent wolf.” Piper watched Tundra make a sweeping circle around the perimeter of her enclosure. Piper could have stood in the same spot all day, watching this wolf run. Free at last. “Tundra has no idea how to live in nature like a real wolf. She’d never survive on her own. But wolves are wild animals and aren’t meant to be pets, either. Wild is wild. This place is her last resort.”

“How’d she get here?” he asked.

“I drove to Edmonton and picked her up.”

The corner of Ethan’s lips quirked up. It was only a half smile this time, but she’d take what she could get. “You drove to the middle of Canada to rescue a wolf from a dorm bathroom?”

Piper shrugged. “How else was she going to get here?”

He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. “I suppose you have a point.”

“Come on, I’ll show you the others.”

As they walked from one enclosure to the next, she gave him a brief history of each wolf—its age, type, where it had come from and the circumstances that had led to its rescue. She explained that so far, the sanctuary was home to two wolf species—the Arctic and the Timber. Once the rescue center was accredited, she planned to provide sanctuary for the Mexican Gray wolf, as it was in serious danger of extinction. There were only seventy-five of them left in the wild.

If this sad fact tugged on Ethan Hale’s heartstrings in any way, he gave no indication. Piper was beginning to wonder if he even had a heart.

But she’d saved the best for last—Koko. He pranced right up to the fence to greet them, ears pricked forward, ebony coat dusted with snow. Beside her, the reporter tensed as Koko pushed his muzzle through the chain link.

“Are they always so...so...” Ethan frowned. Piper wouldn’t have thought it possible for a face so handsome to frown any harder. Yet somehow the tense set of his stony jaw made him appear even more mysterious. Impassioned. Alpha-esque.

Good grief. What was wrong with her? She’d been hanging around wolves too long. Clearly.

“I suppose the word I’m looking for is agitated.” Something flickered in the restless depths of his moody gray eyes. “They seem borderline aggressive. Are the wolves always this wound up?”

Are you?

“Actually, a more appropriate description would be playful. Not agitated.” Piper smiled as sweetly as she could manage, given the circumstances—the circumstances being that the future of her wolf sanctuary, her lifelong dream, now rested on whatever this...this arrogant jerk decided to write in his newspaper.

How had it come to this? She’d packed up and moved from Colorado to Alaska with little more than the clothes on her back and a trailerful of rescued wolves. She’d spent every penny she had on this place. She’d taken a leap of faith. Didn’t God normally like that sort of thing?

She hadn’t been running away, no matter how badly things had ended with Stephen. She’d been running toward something. Her future. And now a very large part of that future depended on this interview, this interview that was going so horribly wrong.

She lifted her chin and did her best to ignore the way Ethan Hale was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “And the answer to your question is no. They’re not always this active. It’s the weather. Wolves love a pretty snowfall. Doesn’t everyone?”

Ethan scribbled something in his notebook, again without cracking a smile.

Not everyone. Obviously.

Piper couldn’t let the tour end this way. She just couldn’t. This man needed to meet a wolf, one on one. He needed to look into Koko’s eyes and see him the way that she did.

“Let’s go.” She unfastened the lock on the first gate, held the door open and waited for Ethan to follow.

“What?” He stood rooted to the spot. “Where is it that you think you’re going?”

“Inside, of course.” She motioned toward Koko, watching the two of them with keen interest. “And you’re coming with me.”

* * *

Ethan stared at Piper. Standing in the snow with her blond hair whipping in the wind, framed by evergreens and wolves moving among the shadows, she looked like Red Riding Hood come to life. Then again, maybe her crimson parka was messing with his head.

“Come on.” She beckoned to him, as if he’d been waiting his whole life to follow her into a wolf den.

“Right.” He rolled his eyes. She couldn’t possibly be serious.

By all appearances, she was. She stood staring at him, holding the first of two metal barred gates open. Waiting.

“I don’t think so,” he said grimly, and turned to leave, to go back to his cubicle in the newsroom where he couldn’t feel the kiss of snow on his face or smell the perfume of alder wood and forest that had once clung to his skin, his hair and every piece of clothing he’d ever worn. Back to a place where he wouldn’t be forced to remember things best left forgotten.

“Suit yourself,” she called out from behind him.

He heard the gate clang closed. Good, she’d come to her senses and was back on this side of the fence, where any reasonable person belonged.

He kept walking. He’d already been here too long. Where had the day gone? He’d unwittingly spent more than three hours listening to Piper wax poetic about her wolves. How on earth had he let that happen?

Without turning around, he held up his hand in a parting wave. “Goodbye, Ms. Quinn.”

“I asked you to call me Piper, remember?” She sounded farther away than she should have.

Then Ethan heard the jingle of keys.

Gut clenching, he turned around. Sure enough, she was unlocking the second gate, about to step right inside the enclosure. With the wolf. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I told you.” She shrugged. “I’m going inside.”

“No, you’re not.” Ethan had no intention of watching her walk in there by herself. Alone. Behind two locked gates where he couldn’t get to her if something went wrong.

Leave it. She’s a grown woman.

Clearly she’d done this before, and she’d lived to tell about it. But wolves weren’t pets. They weren’t dogs, cats or harmless little hamsters. They were wild animals. Wild is wild. She’d said so herself.

“I know what I’m doing, Mr. Hale. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” An unspoken challenge glimmered in her eyes. Eyes the color of glaciers in springtime.

Afraid? What did she think he was afraid of? Death?

Death would have been easy. Survival, on the other hand, had been far more difficult. Even now, five years later, he still wished it had been him. It should have been him.

He crossed his arms. “Do I look scared?”

The only thing he was afraid of was watching her put her life on the line. He’d seen this sort of thing go badly before. Once. And once had been more than enough.

“Actually, no. You look angry.” She turned the key. Even from where he stood, Ethan could hear the padlock release. “You know, the company of an animal is scientifically proven to lower blood pressure.”

“I highly doubt that applies to wild animals. Kittens, yes. Wolves, not so much.” Nor pretty blonde animal rescuers. In fact, right now, it was a toss-up as to which one of them was a bigger pain in his neck—the wolf or Piper.

“You’ll never know unless you give it a try.” She glanced at the dark wolf standing just on the other side of the unlocked gate.

Ethan stared at Koko.

The wolf looked back at him with the same cool detachment Ethan had seen in the eyes of other wild animals. Wolves. Mountain lions. Bears. One bear in particular.

Bile rose to the back of Ethan’s throat.

“I’m going in. It’s now or never.” Piper raised an expectant brow.

As much as Ethan wanted to leave, to climb in his car and head back down the mountain, he couldn’t. Not if it meant leaving her locked in a pen with a wolf.

“Fine.” He stomped back toward the enclosure.

Piper beamed at him, entirely too pleased with herself. Ethan just shook his head and tried to slow the adrenaline pumping through his system. Every nerve in his body was on high alert, prepared to deal with the worst.

She locked the first gate behind him, and suddenly it was just the two of them in the small fenced-in space between the double entrances. She stood close enough for him to see tiny flecks of green in her blue eyes. Nature looking back at him. Her hair whipped in the wind, a halo of spun gold.

Ethan nearly forgot about the wolf standing behind her.

“There are a few rules before we go inside.” Her voice went soft, as if she felt it, too—the unexpected intimacy of the moment.

The wolf moved behind her, a shifting shadow in the violet Alaskan light, catching Ethan’s eye. “I’d imagine there are.”

“When we walk inside, just ignore him. Let Koko come to you on his own terms.”

In other words, don’t go chasing the wolf. “Got it.”

“He may get up on his hind legs and put his front paws on your shoulder. This means he’s curious, not aggressive. Whatever you do, don’t push him away.”

Ethan didn’t have a problem with this particular rule, either. If the wolf wanted to slow dance with him, so be it. At least it meant he would be the only one in harm’s way. Not her.

“And he will definitely lick your mouth.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Oh, joy.”

“It’s how wolves greet each other. Just keep your mouth closed, and you’ll be fine. Don’t turn your face away under any circumstances.”

Now the rules were getting a little strange. “You’re telling me to stand there and let a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound wolf kiss me on the mouth?”

“One hundred and forty,” she corrected.

“Even better.”

She ignored his sarcasm. “And yes, let him lick your face. It’s customary wolf behavior. Koko’s an alpha. If you turn away, he’ll be highly offended.”

And would that really be such a tragedy? “Got it.”

“Good.” She shot him a dazzling smile. “Then we’re ready.”

She turned around to slide the padlock off the interior gate. Without even realizing what he was doing, Ethan reached for her elbow. His touch said what his lips wouldn’t.

Don’t.

Stay here. With me.

But she didn’t notice. The moment his fingertips brushed the rich red fabric of her parka, she moved out of his reach. The look on Piper’s face—the rosy cheeks, the slight parting of her lips, the breathless anticipation—it wasn’t about him. It was about the wild animal waiting on the other side of the fence.

He’d mistaken the moment for something it wasn’t. Which was fine, really. He had nothing to offer anyone. Not anymore. Not even the first woman to capture his attention in as long as he could remember.

Anyway, attention and attraction weren’t one and the same. Sure, he found Piper Quinn interesting. Who wouldn’t? He also found her headstrong and impetuous. He knew her type. She was a crusader.

So was he, and the two of them happened to be on opposite sides of the crusade.

Fine. This whole ordeal would be over within a matter of minutes. Once he’d seen her walk safely back to her little log cabin, he could drive away, write his article and forget he’d ever set foot in her wolf sanctuary.

“Hey there, Koko.” She spoke in matter-of-fact tones to the wolf, as if the two of them were old friends.

Koko gave her a cursory glance and then trotted straight for Ethan. He barely made his way inside the enclosure before the wolf rose up on his back legs, just as Piper had predicted, and planted his massive front paws on Ethan’s shoulders. It had been less than five minutes since she’d talked him into this escapade, and already there was a wolf breathing down his neck. Literally.

Ethan didn’t feel panicked. Nor particularly threatened. The creature was simply curious, just as Piper had said he would be. Ethan knew as much. But that didn’t mean he enjoyed it.

“Magnificent, isn’t he?” she asked.

Once Koko had dropped back down to all fours, Ethan responded, “He’s something, all right.”

“Come sit down.” She strode toward a fallen log near the center of the enclosure.

He followed, took a seat beside her on the log and braced himself for another lick on the face. But Koko seemed more interested in Ethan’s feet. The wolf systematically sniffed his right shoe from toe to heel, then moved to the left. Once he’d thoroughly inspected that one, he returned to Ethan’s right shoe and began the behavior all over again.

Piper laughed. “Wow, he really likes your shoes. Do you have pets at home? A dog maybe?”

“No.” Ethan shook his head. “No pets.”

The wolf began to tug on one of his shoelaces. He took a bite, and the lace snapped in two. Ethan didn’t particularly care. Although he was slightly worried about losing the entire shoe, his foot included.

“I’m sorry.” She frowned. “I haven’t seen him do that before. He’s not hurting you, is he?”

“No.” Ethan shook his head. Koko pressed his nose so hard against his ankle that he could feel the heat of the wolf’s breath beneath both his wool sock and the leather of his hiking boot.

Ethan grew very still. His thoughts were beginning to spin in a direction he didn’t like.

No. Impossible. It can’t be.

Then he looked into Koko’s eyes, and knew that however much he tried to pretend that the wolf’s interest in his shoes was arbitrary, that wasn’t the case. His odd behavior was no coincidence.

The wolf knew.

A chill ran up and down Ethan’s spine. He pulled his foot away, but Koko’s jaws had already clamped down. Hard. The hiking boot slipped right off.

“Oh, no.” Piper paled, but she didn’t make a move to retrieve his shoe.

Good. Ethan doubted Koko would willingly let it go. In any case, he didn’t want it back.

The wolf knew.

It didn’t make sense, but Ethan was convinced that was what was happening. Maybe it was some sort of animalistic sixth sense. Or maybe the wolf just recognized the scent of blood. And fear. And death. And grief. So much grief.

The wolf could have the shoes. Both of them.

Ethan pulled off his remaining hiking boot and tossed it to Koko. An offering to the ways of the wild.

“What are you doing?” Piper asked.

Ethan shrugged. “What am I going to do with just one shoe?”

“This is highly unusual. Koko doesn’t make a practice of devouring shoes. Shasta maybe, but not Koko.” Piper tore her attention away from the wolf and fixed her gaze with Ethan’s. “Please believe me.”

For the briefest of moments, looking into those earnest blue eyes of hers was almost like looking into a mirror. “I believe you.”

She blinked. “You do?”