Alaskan Sanctuary

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?”

“Yes, I do.” He believed. He believed in her passion. He believed in her commitment to the wolves. He believed that even though they were on opposite sides, he and Piper Quinn had something in common.

Something had happened in her past to make her identify with the wolves and care for them the way she did. She was their champion. A warrior. And warriors were seldom born. They were made. Ethan knew this all too well, because he was a warrior himself. He’d had his defining moment, and she’d had hers. Whatever had happened to her had cast her on the opposite path. The pendulum had swung the other direction. She couldn’t walk away from the past any more than he could.

That didn’t mean he would write the things she wanted him to write. He wished he could. Gazing into her looking-glass eyes, he wished it very much.

But he simply could not.

Chapter Two (#ulink_1c53c719-81d4-527b-9d8b-6c79c4a9ae31)

The cursor on Ethan’s laptop flashed on-off, on-off, taunting him. Daring him to write. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting at the Northern Lights Inn coffee bar, staring at his blank Word document. Definitely long enough to down several cups of coffee beneath the watchful eyes of the giant stuffed grizzly bear in the corner.

Ethan was less than fond of the bear. But given that it no longer possessed a heartbeat, he preferred it to Piper’s wolves. Besides, he was in Alaska. Stuffed and mounted wildlife wasn’t exactly an oddity. He couldn’t even grocery shop at the corner store without rolling his cart past a moose head.

Even so, he’d chosen the seat farthest away from the bear. Unfortunately, that meant he was situated directly beneath an enormous bison head. Because, again, this was Alaska. He should have been grateful he wasn’t given an antler to use as a stir stick.

He glared at the bison head. Bison were deadly. So deadly that they’d killed more people in Yellowstone National Park every year than bears had. Most people didn’t know this. But Ethan knew.

Four years as a park ranger in Denali had taught him a thing or two. But it had been a while since his park ranger days. A lot had happened. Too much. Five years was a long time, but it wasn’t long enough to erase the sight of a little girl being torn apart by a bear. It wasn’t long enough for him to forget the sounds of her screams. And it most definitely wasn’t long enough to forget the remorse he’d felt at his failure to save her.

Of course, he probably could have sat beneath the mounted bison head without revisiting his past if he hadn’t just spent the afternoon locked in a pen with a wolf.

He hadn’t been ready to go home after leaving the wolf sanctuary. He wasn’t sure why. If he thought hard enough about it, he’d probably realize that his reluctance to return to his quiet, empty house had something to do with the memories that had been unlocked by looking into the cool, dispassionate eyes of a wild animal. The scent of pine, the wind in his hair. The enigmatic Piper Quinn.

And his hiking boots. The hiking boots.

They’d been the shoes he’d worn the night of the bear mauling. They’d been at the back of his closet for years. When he’d left the park service in the wretched aftermath of the bear event, he’d traded cargo pants and hiking boots for more proper office attire. Knowing he’d likely be tramping through the forest today, he’d grabbed them and put them on this morning without thinking. Without remembering. And now everything had conspired to make him do just that. Remember.

The last place he wanted to be was someplace empty and quiet. Someplace like home. He needed distraction and conversation, and the Northern Lights Inn coffee bar was typically one of the busiest spots in Aurora. Which was why Ethan wasn’t the least bit surprised when his friend Tate Hudson plopped down on the bar stool beside him, even though they’d had no plans to meet.

“Hey.” Tate nodded at Ethan’s blank screen. “Don’t tell me you’ve got writer’s block.”

“Something like that.” He clicked his laptop closed. Why was he having such difficulty writing this thing? The wolf sanctuary was a bad idea. The worst. Case closed. His article should be writing itself.

The wolves were an accident waiting to happen. He’d decided as much before he’d ever set eyes on Piper Quinn and her collection of sad rescue animals. Not that wolves typically preyed on humans. Ethan’s rational self—the former park ranger that still lurked somewhere beneath his bruised and brooding surface—knew this.

Things happened in the wild. That’s what made it wild. Just because wolves didn’t make a habit of harming human beings didn’t mean it would never come to pass. As Ethan saw it, the potential risk to the townspeople was reason enough for the wolf sanctuary to be shut down. And if it wasn’t, he was certain the owners of the nearby reindeer farm would have an opinion on the matter. While the fair citizens of Aurora might not be on the typical wolf menu, reindeer most assuredly were. In recent years, the reindeer farm had become one of the town’s most popular attractions. And its favorite resident was a certain reindeer named Palmer, who was something of an escape artist. Ethan ought to know. He’d penned his fair share of articles for the Yukon Reporter about Palmer’s legendary antics. So this piece on the wolves should absolutely be writing itself. He wasn’t sure why the words wouldn’t come.

Tate ordered a plain black coffee and turned his attention back to Ethan. “You’re starting to worry me, friend.”

“Because I haven’t finished my column?” He shrugged, even though his untouched Word document was starting to become cause for concern. He had a midnight deadline, after all.