Her eyes shiny with tears, Elizabeth waved at Darien and Lelandi. Then Peter got into the driver’s seat, and they were off.
Darien knew that no matter what had happened between Elizabeth and Tom, this was not a good way to say—or not say—good-bye. Darien, for one, didn’t want the job of having to deal with the mood he knew Tom would be in when he woke.
***
That morning, Tom felt something wasn’t right as soon as he got up. The sun was too high in the sky. He never slept this late, and he wondered why no one had bothered to wake him. He hurried to dress, then headed for Elizabeth’s room. Her door was shut. He knocked. No answer. He opened the door a crack.
She was gone. The bed stripped. Her suitcases nowhere in sight.
With a sickening knot in his stomach, he ran down the stairs, expecting to see her eating breakfast with Darien.
The toddlers played in the den, squealing in delight, then arguing—the way he and his brothers had done when they were that age—while a couple of wolf nannies watched over them. He thought Lelandi would be plying her psychology on a human client in the office they had built next to the house. The home was off in the woods, but this was the only way she wanted to work when the babies were still little. Bonding and pack dynamics were all too important, from the youngest lupus garou to the oldest.
To his surprise, Lelandi was sipping coffee with Darien. Jake and his mate were there, too, which was odder still. They normally ate breakfast at their own home.
Elizabeth wasn’t there. Everyone looked at him as though they didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to act.
“Where is she?” he asked, sounding much more growly than he intended.
“Peter took her to the airport,” Darien said.
Tom turned and began to stalk out of the dining room.
“Tom!” Darien called out. “She’s gone. She left two hours ago.”
Tom scowled at Darien. “Why didn’t anyone wake me? Tell me she was leaving?”
Why didn’t she tell him herself?
“She didn’t want it that way,” Darien said.
Tom was the most even-tempered of his brothers, but right now he was so angry that he could have put his fist through the wall.
“What happened between the two of you?” Darien asked in a voice that was meant to calm him, but Tom didn’t want his brothers’ or their mates’ sympathy or interference.
“Nothing,” Tom said.
“Was she scared of the men? Afraid to stay?”
“Hell, no. She would have gone into the hotel after them if I hadn’t stopped her.”
Darien took Lelandi’s hand in his. “Anything else that you can think of that happened, Tom? She asked if someone could take her to the airport, then had a glass of orange juice but no real breakfast. She was in a rush to leave. She barely said a word or two to us in response to anything I asked.”
“She was supposed to be here three more days.”
“You said yourself she had a job to do,” Darien reminded him.
Lelandi said, “She was running away from something. She might not be afraid of the men, but maybe something else is going on that we don’t know about.”
Tom ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know about that, but… I asked her to join our pack. She didn’t act interested in the idea.”
Everyone stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown vampire fangs.
He folded his arms across his chest. “She’s a damn good tracker. We could use someone with her expertise in the pack. And we don’t have a newspaper. Maybe she could have started one.”
“Is that what you told her?” Lelandi asked, her voice a little edgy.
“Not about the paper.” Then Tom frowned at Lelandi. “Are you implying that if I had told her I wanted her to stay, she would have done so?” Lelandi’s raised eyebrows indicated she thought just that. Before she could respond, Tom shook his head. “She was completely against the idea. She’s not a loner, but she’s afraid of belonging to a pack for some reason.”
“Or making a commitment to a wolf possibly,” Lelandi said.
Tom didn’t want to mention he’d gotten a little frisky with her last night, and that that had brought tears to her eyes. “Was she okay this morning? Hurting still?”
“She was fine,” Darien said. “She moved fast and started hauling her bags out of here when she saw Peter arrive, so she couldn’t have been feeling any pain.”
Not physically. Then it dawned on Tom. She’d been emotionally upset—hurting. Shit.
Irritated with himself, Tom said to Darien, “Unless you have something else for me to do, I’m tracking those rogue wolves today.”
No one said a word. Tom stalked out of the dining room, grabbed his parka and other cold-weather gear from the coat closet, then left the house.
Before he reached the garage, Jake joined him outside. “She left you something. She’d taken a picture of you helping an injured little girl on the slope, and she used it as your desktop picture. She also left you a note.”
“Why the hell didn’t Darien say so?” Tom strode back to the house. “Did you read what she said?”
“No. Not that I didn’t want to, mind you, and it killed me not to. If it helps tell us why she rushed out of here, we’d all like to know,” Jake said. “Lelandi said that the picture she left on your desktop has significance. Of all the photos she took, and she took lots, she put up that particular one. Lelandi believes your helping the little girl really touched Elizabeth. If you want to see more of her, you might have to take the initiative to make it happen.”
“I already plan to,” Tom said. He was so irritated at his brother for thinking he needed to suggest such a thing that he couldn’t help snapping at Jake.
Jake smiled. “That’s what we all wanted to hear. Darien got all her information—her cell number and home address—before he turned over her bags. Look, Darien and I have both been in the same position as you. We’re with you all the way, however you want to deal with this. I’ll see you later.”
The little red wolf-coyote thought nobody cared anything about her when a whole gray wolf pack was ready to take her in.
Jake didn’t join Tom in the den, giving him some privacy, for which he was grateful. Tom opened his laptop and turned it on. The monitor showed the picture of him crouching before the crying girl who had wrenched her knee on the slopes.
Looking at it now, it made him sick to think Elizabeth had taken a Norman Rockwell-type picture of him and the little girl, and then some bastard had shoved Elizabeth down the slope right afterward.
On the desktop, she had created a folder of the pictures she had taken of her visit here, as if it were a gift to him. Which frustrated him even more. She couldn’t come into his life like this and pop right out again without him having any say in it.
He opened the folder. A separate file was labeled “Elizabeth’s Note to Tom.” With apprehension, he paused, then clicked on the file and opened it.
Dear Tom,
You are the nicest man I’ve ever met, for a wolf. You should meet a nice she-wolf and settle down. I think you’d make a great mate and father.
I’m sorry for not saying good-bye properly. I just thought it would be easier this way.
You said I wasn’t a loner, and you’re right. I love what you and your family have. But it’s just not for me. It never has been.
Thank everyone for me, will you? I won’t be back, but I just wanted you to know how much I appreciated your kindness.
Elizabeth
Lelandi’s words came crashing back to Tom: She’s running away from something.
His thoughts in turmoil, he closed the letter. He wouldn’t let her run away.
He stared at the scene she’d captured of him on the slopes. The central figures in the picture were Kemp, the little girl, and him. Off to the side, the distrau
ght mother had her hand over her mouth. The father and son had still been on the slopes. A couple of skiers watched the scene—spectators interested in who had gotten hurt. One man, a few feet away, wore a black ski bib, hat, and balaclava, and a blue-gray parka and reflective sunglasses—but he wasn’t observing the scene with the little girl. Instead, he stared straight at the camera operator—Elizabeth.
“Darien!” Tom called out.
Everyone came, his brothers and their mates, all looking anxious. He pointed at the man in the photo. “Wasn’t he the one seated on the chairlift behind Elizabeth? The one she thinks pushed her down the expert slope?”
***
Elizabeth felt awful for leaving Tom behind without saying good-bye. She hadn’t wanted to stay after her strange call to North. She had no intention of dragging Tom and his family and pack into her troubles. She’d tried twice more to get hold of North before she took off on the plane, but she only got his voice mail. She wouldn’t leave any messages.
She’d finally found a safe haven away from her family. If they knew she lived in Texas, no one seemed to care. Staying in Silver Town would be a dangerous thing to do if her uncle knew she was there and decided he wanted her dead, again.
She didn’t need to screw up her life by getting involved with a gray wolf, even as sweet as he was, who didn’t know her past history. Making her uncle pay for his crimes seemed to be only a dream. She prayed North hadn’t been hurt in the process.
Once she arrived home, she’d dropped her camera off to be repaired. Even though Jake was a pro with cameras, maybe the camera shop could do what he hadn’t been able to. Then Elizabeth immersed herself in her job. She wrote the article for her paper about the Silver Town Ski Resort, making sure to mention their great ski patrollers and staff, and turned the story in.
After that, she started an article about red wolves. Her research showed that two theories existed: one that red wolves were a special species separate from gray wolves, and the other that red wolves were descended from gray wolves mixing with coyotes. She slanted the article toward the latter.
Carol had said that gray wolves weren’t mixing with coyotes in the States, but Elizabeth found that Virginia coyotes had mated with Great Lakes gray wolves, and she found further articles stating that coyotes from other locations had a percentage of gray wolf DNA.
It made sense to her. Coyotes hunt in packs just as wolves do. They’re also both predators, eating rodents that cause plagues. Both species are bound to their families and take care of their young as a group. The Native Americans thought coyotes were clever and savvy because of their ability to adapt everywhere. Elizabeth couldn’t understand why some people were so strongly against them. Why was it so bad to recognize that red wolves are just coyotes with a heavy dose of gray wolf DNA?
Intending to call her editor about the new article, Elizabeth realized she hadn’t turned her phone back on since she flew home. She slipped it out of her bag and turned it on.
Twenty-two messages.
Surprised, she stared at the number before she clicked on it to see who had called her, hoping North might have tried to get in touch with her and was all right. She never got that many calls to her cell phone, and no one except her editor knew she was back in town.
She felt a pang of guilt, hoping Tom hadn’t called some of those times. She hesitated for a minute, then clicked on the messages.
Tom had phoned her seventeen times, but he hadn’t left her any messages. She closed her eyes. She had hoped he would figure out that nothing could be gained by the two of them speaking further. He needed someone who was local and all wolf, rather than someone like her.
Two of the calls were from Lelandi and the rest from Darien. Their messages were brief and just asked her to call them back. Maybe they’d caught the guy who pushed her down the slope. No calls from North. She should phone Darien or Lelandi, since they were the pack leaders. She shouldn’t get in touch with Tom, knowing full well he’d be upset with her. She didn’t want to explain what a mess her life had already been and why she was best being on her own.
So what did she do? She called Tom.
The phone rang several times. He didn’t pick up. She reached his voice mail but didn’t leave a message. He’d see that she’d called anyway. If he wanted to call her back, he could. This time she’d have her phone turned on. She tried getting hold of North again. Voice mail again.
She punched in the number for her editor, Ed Bloomington, and when he picked up, she could hear the smile in his voice, welcoming her home. But it wasn’t home. Not for her. A shifter without family. She realized just how much she had been fooling herself ever to think so.
She put on her business persona, swallowed the emotions welling up inside, and said, “I just sent you the story about the ski resort, and I’ve got a great idea for another one that I got from… a friend in Colorado. It’s a story about gray wolves not having mates, finding coyotes to love, and their pairings resulting in red wolves. Some call the offspring a coywolf. But evidence exists that’s how red wolves came to be. What do you think?”
“Sounds great. Send it to me.”
She barely breathed as she emailed Ed the story and he read through it. “All right. Top-notch story. Love the angle, Elizabeth. I’ll print it first,” Ed said after a few agonizing minutes on Elizabeth’s end. “I’ll print the other story at the end of the week. Damned glad to have you home. Got to run to a family birthday get-together. I’m surprised you came home so early, though.”
“I missed home,” she said, even though Ed’s mention of attending a family birthday party made her feel isolated and alone. She shrugged the notion off, not wanting to deal with it. Not wanting to think of Tom and his close-knit family. Not wishing to think of how she would have loved to have a family like that growing up. “I’ll see you when I finish my leave.” Even though she’d come home early, she was still using her vacation time, and she would attempt to enjoy it.
“All right. Talk to you later.”
Later that week when her article about the wolves came out, she received an unbelievable number of hateful responses. She hadn’t expected that. She’d only reported what scientists believed.
She was damned tired of burying her feelings. If gray wolves didn’t have a mate and they found one in a coyote, what was the big deal? They were pack animals at heart. They deserved to find mates who would love them back.
But to get death threats?
Five emails, six phone calls. Really? The people who responded to her article in the paper were wolf lovers, maybe even red wolf shifters. They didn’t ID themselves. Of course, she got some irate calls from farmers and ranchers who said any of them—wolves, coyotes, and any mix of the two—should be shot on sight.
How would they feel if shifters felt that way about humans?
The phone rang again, with caller ID showing Caller Unknown. “Hello?”
“How dare you say the red wolves are part coyote,” a man’s voice said, though it was muffled and she couldn’t identify him.
Her half brother Sefton? Uncle Quinton?
“How does it feel to know you’re just like me?” she asked, chills running up her spine at the thought that they had her cell number, if one of them was calling her. Then again, if one of them had answered North’s phone, that’s how he got it.
She didn’t know if the caller was really one of them. If he wasn’t, the man had to have thought she was nuts.
The phone clicked dead and she felt shaky, as if she had just come face to face with her uncle. Goose bumps erupted on her skin.
The phone rang again. Another unknown caller. “Damned stupid article, if you ask me. Are you one of those animal activists? One of those vegetable eaters? Red wolves are beautiful and rare predators, while coyotes are sneaky scavengers. Damn coyotes are not part gray wolf.”
Elizabeth ground her teeth, irritated that
people were so hateful about the wolves and coyotes.
The caller hung up the phone. She guessed he didn’t have anything more to say.
Elizabeth thought again about Tom. Every call gave her heart a little start. Every call might be from him.
She hadn’t heard back since she’d phoned him a few days ago. He must have given up on her, which was for the best. So why did she miss him and his pack and Silver Town so much? Despite the misadventure at the ski resort, she loved how the pack members on the slopes had treated her, loved Tom’s bossiness about taking care of her.
She would have given just about anything to eat more of Bertha’s cinnamon rolls while talking to her about gardening. Elizabeth would have shared more with Carol. She wanted to know what had happened to Lelandi while she was with the red pack. She would have loved to go to the grand opening of Silva’s Victorian Tea Shop, and even see Silva and Sam get together as mates. She wanted to learn more about Peter’s brother and if he was causing trouble for the sheriff during his visit.
Most of all, she wanted to see Tom again, feel his touch, experience his kisses, and so much more.
She’d never felt that way about any other wolves she’d met, never had any others act as if they’d already made her part of the family and she’d accepted the role. She had to quit thinking like that.
Uncle Quinton was still in the area. If she returned to Silver Town, he’d try to eliminate her. If she did and his pack leader was agreeable to hearing Elizabeth out, Quinton would be a dead wolf. He couldn’t trust her to leave well enough alone.
When the sun began to set, she ran through Palo Duro Canyon State Park in her furry form. She scattered the two longhorn cattle living there, chased a cottontail rabbit, startled a white-tailed deer, and snagged her fur on the thorny mesquite. She ran and ran, trying to quit thinking about the article and Tom and what had happened to North.
She had nearly reached home when she spied a coyote.
That made her stop dead in her tracks.
Was it a shifter? Or a plain old coyote? Could he be family on her mother’s side? Couldn’t be. They lived in the Oklahoma Panhandle.