Jillian pulled her comfy old bathrobe around her shoulders and headed down the hallway. It had been a hot day and the shadows on the tile floor were deep and cool. Easy on the eyes, too. She could imagine the headlines:
Mole woman subsists on ice cream. Gains 500 pounds in the dark.
Well maybe not. She’d noticed the past couple of days that her jeans were loose around the middle.
Mole woman discovers new wonder diet—concussion and ice cream.
Just as she neared the kitchen, there was movement at the end of the dark hall. She blinked and held her breath as a large pale object resolved itself into a canine shape. An enormous canine shape, but no dog moved with such supple grace. It was the white wolf—and it was heading in the opposite direction. She held her breath as she watched, and even at this distance, even in the shadows, she could see the orchestrated movement of muscle under the snowy coat.
Omigod.
How long had the wolf been here? Although it surely must have been lingering outside her door, it seemed unaware that she was now in the hallway. She took a step forward in spite of herself as the animal disappeared around a corner. It was in the livestock wing.
Jillian hesitated only a moment. Then she was hurrying—gingerly, and with a hand trailing the wall to steady herself—down the hall as fast as her condition would permit. She rounded the corner and regained sight of the wolf just as it bounded silently to the top of the bales she’d stacked against the far wall. It leapt across an impossible distance to land neatly inside the loft door. Sheer surprise kept her frozen for an entire second. And then she was running for the ladder. At least she intended to run. The best she could manage was an embarrassing sort of rapid shuffle. Breathing hard, she clambered awkwardly up the ladder, favoring the arm with the cast on it and trying to be quiet all at the same time.
Dizzy from the effort, Jillian topped the rungs and peered into the loft. It was easy to spot the wolf, even in the dark. It would have no trouble spotting her either, but luckily it wasn’t looking in her direction. She was trying to catch her breath and decide what to do next when she became aware of a fine vibration running through the metal ladder rungs under her hands, her feet. Her eyebrows rose as she began to feel it in her teeth too. The vibration was subtle, not an earth tremor but finer, as if the ladder was being bombarded with sound. But there was no sound. . . .
She glanced up to see if the wolf had also noticed, and was astonished to see the massive animal begin to shimmer like a mirage. Its snowy fur gleamed with strange bluish light. A breeze picked up, swirling bits of straw and dust into a lazy vortex around the creature. Jillian could feel the cool, dry air on her face now, and with it came the tang of ozone. Her skin tingled, the hairs lifted on the back of her neck. Through it all, the wolf stood perfectly still, even when blue sparks danced in the air around it. Suddenly the animal vanished completely. In its place stood a tall, powerful man. The breeze stopped, as did the vibration. The last of the sparks sizzled into the straw and winked out. And Jillian stared, open-mouthed, as James Macleod shook himself, stretched, then walked over to the window at the far end of the loft.
She struggled in vain to make sense of what her eyes were telling her. Then backed slowly down the ladder, praying James would not hear her. If it
was
James. When she reached the floor, she half-stumbled, looking over her shoulder as she walked. Thank God that she was still in her slippers—while her footfalls were clumsy, they were at least silent. She hoped. Which was more than she could say for her heart. It was pounding loudly in her chest, so loud that she could hear it herself. Jillian drew air in great shaky gulps that threatened to become hiccups until she was forced to stuff the sleeve of her bathrobe over her mouth to suppress the sound. Nausea and dizziness from the exertion nearly overwhelmed her. She paused to lean on the wall frequently for support as she made her unsteady way back to her apartment.
Chapter Twenty-seven
S
omething was sparkling as Jillian opened her eyes. Blinking, she realized the morning sun had caught the little crystals in the dream catcher. Or was it afternoon sun? She had no idea what time it was and didn’t feel well enough to care. Jillian lay in bed and watched the light bounce around the wall in bright colors. Amber, green, purple, red, blue.
Blue.
Blue sparkles, blue
sparks
. There had been blue sparks last night when the white wolf turned into James Macleod.
That had been one wild and crazy hallucination. She knew it couldn’t have been a dream, at least not completely—she had only to look over at the furniture stacked in front of her door. The dresser, the table, even the magazine rack. And how dumb was that? The last weighed, what? Two pounds, maybe three? But she’d been desperate for anything she could get her hands on, anything that might keep out whatever she thought she had seen in the loft. And when the adrenaline had finally subsided, she’d paid heavily for the overexertion. She’d spent half the night in the bathroom throwing up and the other half trying to rally the strength to get to her bed.
She was still paying for the night’s activity. She felt drained, ill. A headache maintained a steady throb just behind her eyes. And it didn’t help to know that she’d brought it on herself. “I have a moderate to serious concussion. Birkie told me not to overdo it, Connor told me not to overdo it, Lowen and Bev both told me not to overdo it, even the clinician who ran the CAT scan told me not to overdo it,” she lectured herself. “So what do I do? Go running around the clinic in the dark. Of course I saw weird things.”
One niggling question remained, however. Was everything she saw a hallucination? The DNA tests on the white hair from her couch had proven not only that a white wolf existed but that it had been inside her apartment. Had the wolf found its way back into the clinic last night? Had she followed a real wolf or a dream wolf? But if it was a real wolf she followed, why did the event suddenly turn into complete fantasy? And at what point?
That leap, for instance. Jillian worked it out in her head. The livestock area was huge, and the span between the stacked bales and the loft door had to be at least thirty-five feet, maybe more. No wolf could jump that. A tiger might, she supposed, but even a big cat would have to work at it. A wolf? No chance. Therefore what she saw in the livestock wing could be no more real than what she saw in the loft.
“Duh! What did I expect after racing down the hallway? And I can’t believe I climbed up that stupid ladder. I’m lucky I didn’t pass out and fall.” And as for the wolf turning into James, that was no stretch of the imagination. She had just talked to him, was just thinking about him, and then she had read all those stupid stories. “Therefore, none of it was real. I didn’t see the wolf in the hallway, I just thought I did.” She didn’t much like the idea of seeing things, though. She got up carefully and headed to the bathroom, stared at herself in the mirror. Her reflection looked more tired than usual, disheveled, but not particularly crazy. At least she didn’t seem to be foaming at the mouth or rolling her eyes back in her head. “Lycanthropy. Werewolves.” She tried out the words, watched for changes in the mirror. Saw none. “Guess I’m still sane, even if I’m seeing things. Well, mostly sane.” Her head pounded while she brushed her teeth, and she decided to forego a shower. For a moment she thought about breakfast, but her stomach refused to discuss the subject unless it involved something creamy and frozen.
By the time she climbed back into bed, she was resigned to staying there for the rest of the day. Jillian hoped Birkie would stop by in the afternoon. It would be good to have a friend to talk to, although she might not mention that part about the ladder.
Please God, let her bring ice cream.
She moaned aloud as she remembered all the stuff piled in front of her door. “Dear God, skip the ice cream. Please let her bring a forklift.”
Roderick Harrison was just as Douglas remembered him. Just as devoted to the Pine Point Ranch as ever. Just as hardworking and active as always. Just as bullheaded and bossy too. But gradually it became apparent that Roderick was also as fixated as ever on something Douglas would rather forget.
It began as a stray comment over dinner. “Wolf tracks in the northwest pasture, Dougie. We’ve got to keep an eye on the stock.”
It probably didn’t mean anything more than that, Douglas told himself sternly, but still, his stomach clenched and he found himself unable to finish the meal. When he retreated to his room, it took a tall glass of Jack Daniels to help him calm down. More to ensure he didn’t dream that night.
It was mid-morning before Douglas finally made his way downstairs again. He was on his way to the kitchen, intent on putting something gentle in his stomach, maybe poached eggs and toast. Maybe just toast. Something to soak up the acid so he could have a drink to start the day.
“Dad?” He was startled to find his father still in the house. Shouldn’t he be out riding the goddamn range or something? Roderick didn’t appear to notice him though. He was standing in the living room, staring at the collection of family photos on the stone mantel. There was still a photo of Douglas’s mother there, a tall, pretty woman, her hair dark red and wavy just like her son’s. Douglas had always liked the picture but now wished he’d followed his instincts months ago and put it away. He took a careful step backward, then another, hoping to exit the room, but it was too late.
“Corena was a good woman.” Roderick continued to stare at her photo. He was still as stone with his hands at his sides, but they were clenched hard enough to make the veins stand out. “It wasn’t her fault, not really. Damn werewolves, they laid claim to her. I fought to keep her with me, but they claimed her and in the end, they got her. I should never have listened to her. I should’ve shot every damn one of them when I had the chance. She’d still be alive if I’d done that.”
“Dad, I—”
“They’re back, you know. We didn’t finish the job and now they’re back.”
“Goddammit, Dad, give it up already,” Douglas burst out. The fleeting thought crossed his mind that if he’d had that drink, he would have been mellow enough to keep his mouth shut, but maybe he’d been silent too long, much too long. “I’m sick of hearing about your fucking werewolves. You already shot two people that I know of, and God only knows how many others.” He was shouting now.
Roderick roared back. “I was protecting this family. I tried to protect your mother, even after she had you, and then I tried to protect you, too.”
“Protect me? You took a fourteen-year-old kid along to commit a fucking
murder
. What kind of protection was that?” Douglas paused and sucked in air. It was enough time for something his father had said to sink in. “What do you mean,
even after she had me
?”
“I raised you as my own. I didn’t ask any questions. We couldn’t have kids and God help me, I wanted a son, someone I could leave the ranch to.”
He stared at his father for several seconds. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the man must be having a relapse. He walked over and took his father’s arm, and when he spoke, it was with a lowered voice. “Dad, it’s me, Douglas. Your son. And I have a sister, remember? Rosa.”
“We adopted Rosa. Corena had a young niece out east that got herself in trouble, so we took on the baby, pretended she was ours. It was easy enough, she had red hair like your mother. No one was ever supposed to know. Even Rosa doesn’t know. Then a few years later your mother came up pregnant with you.” Roderick shook his head from side to side, still staring at the photo. “It was a damn hard pill to swallow. God, I didn’t talk to her, couldn’t even look at her. But after you were born, I thought maybe we could work things out.”
Douglas let go of his father’s arm then. This wasn’t sounding like a recurrence of the Alzheimer’s, not at all. In fact, it didn’t sound like any episode his father had ever had. “What are you saying here? That I’m not your son? Are you trying to make me believe my mother was a cheat?”
“It wasn’t her fault, not really. It was the damn werewolves. She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t resist them.” The old man turned and faced his son, his eyes sad but steady. “We had an argument one night, and she went out. I found out later that she’d met some of them wolf people in a bar, started hanging around with them behind my back every chance she got. I didn’t know then just how evil they were but I knew it would end badly.”
“What?
What?
” Douglas sank into a chair then, his legs rubbery and his heart beating against his ribs like an animal trying to escape a cage. It was possible that his father had slipped into some bizarre hallucination, some new neurosis. Not just possible, but plausible. Maybe an aneurysm, a stroke? Yet Rod appeared calm, his color good and his breathing steady. His words were clear, distinguishable. Douglas looked for some clue in his father’s eyes, some subtle tip-off that Rod had regressed or fallen prey to some new ailment. He found none. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“She left us for one of them, Dougie. She left us to
become
one of them. She wanted to take you with her, make you one of them too, but I couldn’t let her do that.” He turned back to the photo and spoke more to himself than Douglas. “I couldn’t let her.”
“Don’t hang up.” He’d given up on any kind of traditional greeting. A couple dozen calls in a week had netted him nothing more than the click of the receiver on Jillian’s end. “We need to talk.”
“Please stop calling me.”
The connection went dead. Again. James swore and nearly threw the cell phone out the window of the tractor cab, but at the last moment jammed it into his shirt pocket instead. He’d gotten the phone from Culley the day after the accident, resolving to be more prepared to protect Jillian in the future. After all, what if Birkie hadn’t tuned in to his mental calls for help? What would he have done? Yet the cell phone sure wasn’t helping him much now. Culley had regaled James with a mind-numbing array of available models and features. But what he really needed was a phone that could say the right words for him, words that would persuade Jillian to listen.
Were there any? Her fine features made her look faery-like, but Jillian Descharme was tough and strong and smart. He couldn’t blame her for shutting him out. He’d been a complete moron and he’d hurt her. It was unforgivable, and yet he had to find a way to persuade her to give him a chance. Somehow.
He’d tried going in person. So far, knocking on her door hadn’t yielded any better results than calling her. After the first time, the door no longer opened. She was ignoring him, and while that normally would have pissed him off, he was having a hard time holding onto his anger for more than a moment. In fact, what he felt was lonely. Sad. He missed her, so much so that he’d gone out running as the wolf a few nights ago. Initially he’d intended to distract himself, but instead, he ended up at the clinic. He’d lain outside her door for a very long time, with his head on his paws. Knowing she’d embrace the wolf if she saw it, but wanting her to welcome the man.
He hadn’t Changed since.
James made a point of talking with Connor and Birkie frequently. He always started out with farm topics—
Any clinic suppliers offer organic products? Anyone got Angus heifers for sale right now?—
and then eventually worked in questions about Jillian.
How’s her progress, how’s she coping?
He could see in their eyes that neither Birkie nor his brother was fooled by his casual act, but thankfully they played along and didn’t ask questions or, worse yet, offer sympathy.
He was pleased to learn that Jillian was up and around, and active again, although it concerned him that her version of being active meant walking the perimeter of the clinic’s ten-acre property. Birkie had assured him that Jillian stopped to rest frequently, but James knew full well the small blond woman would push herself to go the distance, every day, no matter how crappy she felt. She was already campaigning to return to work, but Connor hadn’t relented yet. James could well imagine that frustrated her—after all, she lived and slept and breathed her work—but privately he sided with his brother. Birkie had let slip, however, that she and Caroline were passing Jillian small projects, not so much because they needed the help but to keep Jillian from going stir-crazy and to help her feel connected to the work she loved.
He could relate to that. Wasn’t he doing almost the same thing? Making up excuses to go to the clinic, seeking small tidbits of information just so he could keep from going crazy, so he could feel some kind of connection to the woman he loved?
The shadows were long when he finally finished in the fields. He shut down the equipment and climbed down from the tractor, deciding to leave it where it stood. He was a long way from the main farmyard but he wanted to stretch his legs. And think. The scent of alfalfa and earth rose to meet him as he walked across the fields. The sun was low in the sky and golden—and James thought immediately of how it had glinted in Jillian’s hair. Automatically he looked over toward the forested coulees and remembered his night with her. There had been passion, but the experience had also touched him deep inside; some essence of Jillian had moved him. And the next day he had ruined everything.
Ah, hell.
He had to try again. And this time he’d damn well camp out on her doorstep. If he could just persuade her to listen. He didn’t dare think past that.