At first, she stood stock-still, just staring into the woods. At the very place from which he watched her through a grove of Douglas firs. But he didn’t think she could see him.
And then? She rubbed her hands together as if she were on a wolf-hunting mission and stalked toward the woods, headed straight for him! The notion that she’d hunt him down appealed on a strictly primal level. Her hell-bent determination wreaked havoc with his need to keep this on a purely professional basis. Willful is how he’d describe her actions. What if he’d been bad news?
But he wasn’t, although right now he had the strongest urge to circle around her through the woods and stalk her right back. A game between wolves. A competition. And more. Which made him wonder if she’d understand their wolf ways, not having grown up learning them. He also was curious just how far she’d go to discover who he was.
Instead of tracking her down, he moved deeper into the woods, as if luring her into his trap, and listened to her steady footsteps. They were more hurried now as she tried to reach the forest before he disappeared for good, he figured. Or maybe the fact he wasn’t in plain sight gave her more courage.
She stopped only a few feet away, the gray-green leaves of a Douglas fir brushing her arm, her eyes searching the dark woods as he watched her. His heart beat harder—the urge to hunt in his blood. Then she lifted her nose in a wolf’s way, trying to catch his scent. Seeing her react the way his kind would—smelling for scents, tilting her head as she listened more carefully, attempting to track him down like a wolf on the hunt—he felt a new wave of respect for her wash over him. He hadn’t seen this side of her before. It suited her.
Quickly, she turned her head, and when she saw him, her eyes widened. Luminescent. Huge. Bewitching.
Unable to help himself when he should have been annoyed with her impulsivity at leaving the house without protection, he gave her a slight smile. The woman would be his undoing.
What now? He wanted to force her to return to the house. On the other hand, he’d probably never get another chance to question her in private like this. He laughed at himself. Yeah, he’d shift, stand here naked in the cold as a human, and question her as if she was a suspect in one of his cases. He’d make such an impressive and frightening inquisitor that she’d quickly spill her story.
He took a deep breath and inhaled her feminine scent. Sweet like peaches and jasmine mingled together in a tantalizing combination, it triggered the lingering memory of when he’d managed to get close to her before. But not too close. Darien and his people had made sure of that. It was as if she were a fairy-tale princess in a gilded cage, and only those in Darien and Lelandi’s close inner circle were allowed to draw near.
A feeling of satisfaction swept through him that he finally had a private audience, although it didn’t do him much good while he was in his wolf form. He didn’t smell any indication that she was fearful, which could have gotten her in trouble if she’d come out here without worrying about his intentions.
“Who are you?” she asked, her brow deeply furrowed as she wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, defensive but firm in her stance.
He had half a mind to shift. She’d asked a question she knew he couldn’t answer any other way. What would she do then? Run screaming for the house to alert Darien and everyone inside? He’d shock the hell out of the woman, he was certain.
He swung his head toward the house in his wolf’s way, ordering her to return.
Determination etched in her brow, she shook her head. “Shift. Tell me what you want.”
Without his express permission, his jaw dropped again. He couldn’t believe she’d order him about. Him, an alpha male and pack leader. She smiled a hint, her eyes narrowing. Devious. Appealing. She didn’t think he’d shift?
She had asked for it. He stood taller, tail straight out, summoning the urge to change. Her brows lifted a little.
Heat poured through every blood vessel, spilling through every vein and artery. His muscles stretched, reforming, and then in a flash, he was standing as a man before her. The cold breeze swept across his heated naked skin, and he expected Carol to vamoose or, at the very least, stare him in the eye to avoid looking at his nakedness.
A whisper of an intake of breath caught his attention, but she quickly recovered and took her fill of him, her gaze drifting all the way down to his bare feet, appraising him in an unhurried manner. He’d never had a woman peruse him in such an arousing way.
She snapped her gaze back to his face. “You look nice and healthy to me. I thought maybe you needed medical attention.”
That’s when it dawned on him. Miss Nightingale wouldn’t be bothered by his nudity. She was used to seeing naked men. Why did that thought irk him? Maybe not so much that she had seen a lot of nude men, just like their wolf kind would when shifting, but that she didn’t think his maleness was special in any way. Just… healthy. Yet he could have sworn she looked him over in much more than a clinical manner.
“Well?” she prompted.
“To the point, Ms. Wood—”
“Call me Carol. If you’re going to talk to me in the dark forest without a stitch of clothes on, it seems silly to be so formal.”
“I’m—”
“Chester McKinley. I didn’t recognize your wolf form, but I remember you so gallantly wanting to help Lelandi find her sister’s killer, no matter how much Darien disapproved.”
The tone Carol used didn’t sound as though she was impressed with Ryan’s gallantry. In fact, she seemed downright irritated to see him. Despite her tone, he couldn’t shake loose of the fascination she held for him.
“I go by Ryan.”
She hesitated to speak and then asked, to the point, “So, Ryan? Why are you here? Does Darien know?”
“No. I wanted to speak to you about—”
Lights suddenly flooded the back porch and Jake yelled, “Here! She’s taken off into the woods this way!”
Chapter 2
“OH, NO. GO,” CAROL WHISPERED TO RYAN IN THE dark woods, at once sounding vulnerable and desperate. Darien and his brothers were sure to be on the warpath as they searched for her. “If Darien finds me with you and you’re…” She motioned to his nudity, her gaze lingering lower. “There’ll be hell to pay.”
“He’ll smell me anyway and see my wolf tracks.” Ryan couldn’t pinpoint why he delayed leaving. Maybe he was worried he might have gotten her into trouble because of their actions. Yet, the inexplicable feeling kept gnawing at him that when he had wanted to question her during the investigation and after she’d been injured, Darien hadn’t allowed it. Ryan didn’t like to be thwarted in any fact-finding mission he set out to accomplish. And he wouldn’t be this time, either.
“Go,” she pleaded.
“Tomorrow, I’ll speak with you at the celebration.”
“Darien won’t allow it. You know he won’t.”
At that, Ryan felt a stab of guilt. The only reason he came here was to see Carol and prove she didn’t have any special abilities. For an instant, he thought she sounded hopeful that he wanted to see her about some other matter, something more intimate. Which struck another chord deep inside.
He had to remind himself that his own wolf pack hadn’t had a newly turned wolf in a couple of decades. So he wasn’t used to the notion that someone like Carol might have difficulty adjusting to pack life where a leader had to ensure the newbie didn’t stray far and cause colossal problems that couldn’t easily be resolved.
“Carol…”
She shook her head. “Go, now. I’ll try to see you tomorrow.”
He ground his teeth and listened to the hurried footfalls headed in their direction. Then he shape-shifted and, at a wolf’s loping run, took off for the river to hide his tracks again. Eventually, he’d return to the bed and breakfast and settle in his room for the night. Although he might not be able to keep the room if Darien learned about it.
He had wanted to face Darien and his people and explain why he had been there tonight, knowing they’d question Carol mercilessly about what she had seen in the woods. Although as a naked man, he’d have had no chance to explain himself, especially when he couldn’t come up with a half-logical reason to explain it to himself.
“Carol!” Darien said, his tone sharp but worried.
A pack leader carried the burden of keeping all of his people safe, Ryan knew only too well. He headed toward the river and thought he saw a flash of red fur. Coyote? Another red wolf? He glanced back in the direction he had come. Couldn’t have been Carol, and he doubted it would have been Lelandi.
Unless it was that sneaky cousin of Lelandi’s, Ural. Or some other member of her family. Why slip around in the dark out here in the woods like he was doing? Ryan’s spine stiffened as he considered what might have happened to Carol if she had encountered whoever this was alone in the dark.
He had never liked coincidences and rarely believed in them. His P.I. instincts pressed him to investigate the red in the event he could be trouble for Darien’s people.
With a quick twist in the wolf’s direction, Ryan dashed in hot pursuit after the red.
The image of Ryan in the nude was still foremost in Carol’s thoughts as he raced off in his wolf form. Although his eyes, pools of darkened amber, were entrancing enough to nearly make her forget anything else. Dark coffee- colored hair curling around his ears had somewhat softened the hard, angular planes of his face, a shadowy stubble adding to the sexy ruggedness. She hadn’t seen him in five months, but that amount of time didn’t diminish the way she had remembered him—the way he had studied her months ago when she explained to Darien what she’d envisioned and helped him bring the murderer to justice.
Ryan had observed her the same way just now. He seemed to be intrigued with her. Most likely because he’d never met anyone quite like her. At least that’s what she thought.
But then she was back to thinking about his naked body. Healthy. Right. Sleek hard muscles toned to perfection, darkly pebbled nipples and an indented navel meant for licking, skin glistening, his sex stirring even as she had admired it, jutting out from a bush of dark brown hair, muscular legs, and large feet, all very well proportioned, caught her imagination. She’d definitely not seen him in that way before.