A Temporary Arrangement

“Dad doesn’t lock it anyway!” he shouted back to her.

Even minus a shoe, he raced up the long driveway and reached the covered porch well before she did.

Soaked and shivering, she joined him at the log house and stared out at the deluge. “Well, this is certainly an adventure,” she said, wishing she dared put a comforting arm around his thin shoulders. “But at least we got here, right?”

He must have sensed her thoughts, because he pointedly moved a few yards away. He looked down at his muddied sock and some of his tough-kid veneer slipped away. “Mom is gonna kill me when she hears about my shoe.”

“Surely that won’t be a big deal. Not when she hears the whole story, right?”

When he didn’t answer, she grinned at him. “Anyway, you’re here with your dad for the summer. I’m sure he’ll get you another pair if we can’t find it.”

“I guess.”

“I suppose we’d better go inside, don’t you think? You can put on some dry clothes, and I’ll call for a tow truck. Then you can tell me about the animals we should feed while we wait for help.”

She followed Keifer to the end of the wrap-a-round porch, where a side door led into the kitchen. It felt strange walking into Ethan Matthews’s house with him away.

Several bloodied towels still lay on the counter by the sink, a macabre reminder of Ethan’s accident earlier in the day. She quickly filled the double sinks with cold water and put the towels in to soak while Keifer changed upstairs.

By the time he returned, she’d mopped up the rest of the evidence of Ethan’s injury and had left a message for the towing service. “I should call the sheriff and let him know about the road hazard, too. I’d hate to have anyone rear-end my car in the dark.”

“No one lives back here but Dad,” Keifer said as he rummaged in the cookie jar on the counter.

Now, there was an eerie thought, with a storm rumbling overhead and the kitchen lights flickering. “No one?”

“The road dead-ends just over the hill, so no one ever comes out this far, Dad says. That’s why I can ride his horse all over and he doesn’t worry.”

“Oh.” Feeling a sudden chill, she rubbed her upper arms. “So he doesn’t have any neighbors?”

“He doesn’t want neighbors.”

Well, that certainly fit her impression of the man. A stubborn recluse, who clearly resented any sort of interference from others—even with a serious injury to contend with. Abby suddenly felt very sorry for Keifer, who faced an entire summer in such isolation. “So…we’re entirely alone, then.”

“Yeah.” Keifer didn’t look too concerned. “Dad likes it because—”

He broke off suddenly as a fierce rumble of thunder shook the house. He hurried to the window. “Holy cow. The animals are loose!”

She went to look out the window, too. Her heart sank. There had to be four or five cows milling just beyond the chain-link-fenced perimeter of the yard.

Her heart sank even further when at least three goats and several muddy sheep wandered by. “Where are they supposed to be?” she said faintly. “And how on earth will we put them back?”

He looked up at her, his cocky bravado now gone and his eyes wide. “I think I know where they belong, but I don’t know how to make them go there.”

So in minutes those animals could be spread to the four winds, and there’d be little hope of finding them. And who knew how many more of them were already gone?

Matthews had been groggy when he’d handed her his keys, but she’d seen the distrust in his eyes and it had rankled ever since. For some reason he’d instantly judged her as incompetent…but who was he to judge?

She sure as heck didn’t want to prove him right.

“Wait a minute, I remember a pasture fence running along the road when we came up here, and lining both sides of the driveway. Wasn’t there a gate down by the mailbox?”

Keifer shrugged.

“If the entire property is fenced, and I can pull the gate shut across the driveway, then the livestock can’t escape. Right?”

“Maybe.” He chewed his lower lip. “But I don’t know anything about the other fences.”

“At least I’d be doing something to help.”

A gust of wind blasted the side of the house and rattled the gutters. A light tap-tap-tapping overhead rose to a deafening roar as hail battered the roof. Torrents of marble-size pellets bounced crazily off the driveway.

The livestock were clearly agitated as they disappeared into the sheltering trees. Where, she hoped, they wouldn’t find another way to leave.

“The moment this lets up I’m running down to close that gate. Stay here in the house. Promise?”

“You kidding? There’s no way I’m going out there.”

She waited until the hail stopped and the rain slowed, then grabbed a yellow slicker from a peg by the door. Outside, she crossed the yard and ran down the long, sloping lane. Slipping and sliding, she careened into a fence post once and then fell to her knees at the bottom of the hill.

With cold, wet fingers she struggled to untwist the wire that held the metal pipe gate securely open. She dragged its heavy weight shut across the rain-slick gravel just as the rain began to pick up again with a vengeance.

“Of course. Why not?” she muttered as she started back to the house, her head bowed against the wind. Nothing had been easy since she moved here, and now she and Keifer were stranded at this isolated place with no way to get back to town.

And then a long, dark shape materialized not twenty feet ahead. Its form blended like watercolor into the early dusk and driving rain, but the piercing yellow eyes were unmistakable.

She took in a sharp breath and stumbled to a stop, the hair at the back of her neck prickling. Her senses sharpened with an elemental awareness of danger. The house was too far away. There was no place to hide. She could never outrun it. The wolf took a step closer…

CHAPTER FOUR

ABBY’S HEART LODGED in her throat and her knees threatened to buckle as she stared at the wolf.

It stared back. Silent. So perfectly still that it seemed more apparition than real, its gray coat melting into the rain.

Primal fear flooded her veins with adrenaline. She took a small step backward. Another.

The wolf lifted its head, its gaze never wavering.

But there was nowhere to run.

Behind her, past the gate, Keifer had told her there were thousands of acres of government land. Even if she could scramble over the wire fence, the wolf could clear it much faster.

And running away would immediately identify her as prey.

Visions of lurid newspaper headlines rushed through her head as she took another step back.

Nursing Professor Killed By Rabid Wolf.

Stupid City Woman Killed While Roaming North Woods Of Wisconsin.