Alaskan Sanctuary (12 page)

He lied.

Ethan’s gut churned, and the word
Killers
flashed in his mind like a warning sign. He still hadn’t told her why he was so worried about her and the sanctuary. He needed to explain. He didn’t want to be another man who lied to her.

He gazed out the window at the snow. It looked almost like cotton candy beneath the soft lights of the auroras, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t ruin the sweetness of this moment. Not just yet.

“Come inside for a while? Please.” There was a tremble in her voice that foretold of the breaking of walls. Of wills. And Ethan knew without a doubt that if he didn’t leave at once, he would cradle her lovely face in his hands and kiss her obstinate mouth. “You must be freezing. I’ve got cocoa. I’ll even forgo the marshmallows, since you’re not a fan.”

How easy it would be to follow her inside her cozy cabin and talk into the wee hours while the auroras swirled overhead. To believe that his presence here had more meaning than just words on a page. To believe that maybe, just maybe, he’d found his way to this place for a reason.

Never had it seemed so easy to believe.

But he couldn’t. Not anymore. And certainly not with her, the wolf woman. Here in the close quarters of the car, with snow billowing around them outside the windows, it felt as if they were somehow protected from the real world. Secluded in their own little snow globe. But that wasn’t reality. Seattle was waiting. It was time to start over. His new life would be a safe one, in a big, anonymous city. No more bears. No more wolves. No more memories. “I should be getting back.”

“To your hotel,” she said flatly. Her next words weren’t spoken, but heavily implied.
Because you love hotels so much.

He forced a smile. “Yes, to my hotel.”

“I understand.”

No, you don’t. I don’t understand it myself.

She reached for the door handle, then paused. “Ethan, why are you here? You never told me.”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d go for a drive. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay up here.” He nodded toward the wall on the cabin where the graffiti had been scrawled.

“But the police are keeping an eye on things, and we’ve had no more trouble.” Her lips parted ever so slightly, and the ache in Ethan’s chest became an actual physical pain. “Tell me the real reason. I think there’s more to it than the graffiti.”

Of course there was more to it than that. More than he could admit even to himself. More than he could articulate, when every thought in his head revolved around kissing her.

Time was running out. He needed to put a stop to this. Now, while he still could. “It’s late, and you can stop looking at me like that. I’m not one of your wolves, Piper.”

She flinched. His words had hit their mark with the desired effect. “I don’t... I mean...”

What was wrong with him? He was a mess. And an idiot. Such an idiot that he kept talking when he should have shut his mouth. “I don’t need a champion, Piper. And I don’t need saving.”

An awful silence fell upon them, a quiet that cut to the bone. She gathered her mittens and coat, pushed the door open and fixed her gaze on him, eyes shining bright. “You sure about that?”

She’d seen right through him. Probably because he’d never told a bigger lie in his life. “Piper, wait—”

But it was too late to apologize. Before he could get another word out, she slammed the car door in his face.

He watched her walk away until the swirling snow hid her from sight. Only then did Ethan lift his gaze to the sky, finding it dark and empty. A silent, limitless void. The auroras...they’d gone, leaving him to wonder if he’d only imagined them all along.

* * *

Do
not
look back. Don’t do it.

Piper’s hands shook as she jammed her key in the front door of the cabin. Her furious exit from Ethan’s SUV would have been far more effective if she could have kicked up some snow in her wake, but the walkway was clear. Apparently someone had shoveled it for her. Someone who she felt like strangling at the moment.

Chalk up another good deed for Ethan Hale. He didn’t even have the decency to play the part of villain properly so that she could feel good about despising him. It was infuriating.

And humiliating. Because for a moment there, she’d thought something was happening between them. At last she’d thought she’d understood him. He’d shared his life with her, his pain, and she’d never seen a man so conflicted. So beautiful.

She’d thought he was about to kiss her. What’s more, she’d
wanted
him to kiss her. Very much. The intensity with which she’d wanted it had been altogether terrifying.

I’m not one of your wolves, Piper. I don’t need a champion, and I don’t need saving.

How could she have misread things so thoroughly?

Ethan didn’t feel anything for her. He didn’t want her.
Nobody ever does.

To top it off, he’d apparently been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Could they possibly have less in common?

And yet...

He’d turned down his family’s millions—maybe even billons—to come to Alaska and work as a park ranger. She hadn’t been imagining those hidden glimpses of a man who felt at home in the woods, among the wind, the trees and her beloved wolves. That was the real Ethan. Somewhere, deep down, buried beneath the pain, that man still lived. The bear hadn’t killed that man. She knew it hadn’t. She also knew she might even be able to love a man like that.

If he would let her.

He didn’t want her. Piper shouldn’t have been so upset. She and rejection were old friends. She didn’t know why Ethan’s dismissal bothered her so much. Beyond what he wrote about her in the newspaper, nothing he thought mattered. At least it shouldn’t. Yet it did.

Maybe because despite all his insistence to the contrary, she had the distinct feeling that no one needed saving more than Ethan Hale. But he was right. She wasn’t the one to save him. The man was full of secrets. And she rescued wolves, not people.

She threw her keys on the kitchen counter and watched his headlights disappear from view through the sheer curtains on the front window.
Good riddance.
He was gone, and suddenly she felt unbearably lonely.

Her throat grew tight, and everything that had gone on in the past year started pressing in on her. Things she’d managed to not think about in the day-to-day business of life—the ring Stephen had given her on her last birthday, the picture that had fallen out of his wallet that same night when he’d reached for his credit card at dinner, the sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach when she’d seen the smiling faces in the photo. A wife. Two small children.

Piper had known without having to ask. Somehow she’d just known. He’d tried to explain, begged her not to leave, promised to leave his family. Maybe. Eventually.

As if that would have made a difference. She could never have anything to do with breaking apart a family. Families were sacred. Holy. Even more so for someone who’d never been a part of one.

She squeezed her eyes closed. She didn’t want to think about that night any more than she wanted to think about how happy she’d been to find Ethan’s car in her driveway when she’d come home from the tutu-making party. How could she have been so stupid? Again.

She grabbed a winter hat, wound her hair up in a makeshift bun and tucked it inside. Then she pulled her mittens on, zipped her parka all the way closed and walked back outdoors. The moon hung low, swollen and as creamy white as a pearl. She remembered that a February full moon was sometimes called a snow moon, and she could see why, here in this land of perpetual winter.

She didn’t mind the cold. It made her feel more alive, more connected to the world around her. She liked being able to see her breath in the air. She liked the way she could sometimes catch the scent of pine and slow-burning firewood on her clothes, in her hair. As if Alaska were imprinting itself on her, the way wolf cubs imprinted on their mothers.

Imprinting—a lifelong, unbreakable connection to a specific thing—was crucial for wolves. It was what cemented the bond between mother and child. In wolves, it happened when a wolf cub first opened its eyes. The cub saw its mother, and for the rest of its life, looked to her for survival. For comfort. The wolf mother experienced the same phenomenon as she looked into her little cub’s eyes. Biology told her that this tiny creature was a part of her. It was her child, to care for and protect. Forever. A wolf’s eyes fluttered open and a lifelong bond was formed. Unbreakable.

Piper thought it was possibly the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard. She wished that human biology could be so simple. What if when a mother first looked into her child’s eyes, an everlasting, unshakable love was born? What if love, real love, happened with something as simple as a glance? Love at first sight. Between a mother and child. Between a man and a woman.

She wished that was how things worked. She wished it so very much. But people were people, and wolves were wolves.

Eyes glowing in the thick darkness, Koko loped toward the fence to meet her. He paced back and forth as she unlocked the gates to his enclosure. First one, then the other.

“How’s my boy, huh? How’s my sweet, sweet boy?” she cooed as he rose up on his hind legs in greeting.

This was what she needed. This. The solace of her wolves. Not her long-lost mother. Not Stephen. Not Ethan Hale. The wolves were her family now. They were imprinted on her heart. They were hers. And they were enough.

They had to be.

She buried her fingers in the velvety cold comfort of Koko’s fur, let him lick the salty tears from her face and wondered when she’d begun to cry.

Chapter Eight

To: Ethan Hale [email protected]

From: Anna Plum [email protected]

Subject: Touching base

Hello Ethan,

I’m just touching base with you to see how your schedule looks for the coming week, and if you’ve managed to find time to pay us a visit.

My assistant would be happy to arrange transportation on your behalf. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Anna Plum

Editor in Chief

The Seattle Tribune

“T
he caffeine is on me.” Lou plunked a mug down on the coffee bar the next morning and slid it toward Ethan. “Because you look terrible, and I do mean terrible.”

“Thanks. I think.” Ethan closed the email browser on his phone, scrubbed his hands over his face and pressed the heels of his palms against his closed eyelids. He was sick of this place. Sick of the Northern Lights Inn. Sick of the miserable grizzly bear in the corner. Sick of Alaska. Sick of making a mess of things.

Sick of all of it.

But Lou was still his boss, at least for the time being. Ethan needed this job, so it was probably best to make an attempt to look enthusiastic. Or at the very least, awake. He sat up straighter on his bar stool.

Lou gave him a sideways glance. “Seriously, what does the wolf woman have you doing up there? Running laps around the mountain? Because you look bad.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all. I’m fine.” He forced a smile. He wasn’t fine. He kept hearing the awful things he’d said to Piper the night before. They went round and round in his head in a continuous loop.

I’m not one of your wolves.

She was kind. She was compassionate. She was real. And he’d taken that extraordinary authenticity of hers and thrown it back in her face.

His head hurt, along with his heart. “Is that what this urgent breakfast meeting is about, Lou? My appearance?”

Ethan’s phone had begun ringing at six o’clock. Again. These early-morning calls from his editor were becoming a habit. He’d ignored it the first time. But less than two minutes later, when his phone rang again, he’d managed to rouse himself and take the call. Ethan could think of only a handful of reasons his boss would want to drive to Aurora and talk to him first thing in the morning, and none of those reasons were pleasant. Then again, the last time Lou had demanded to see him like this he’d given Ethan his own column on the front page. So maybe things were better than they seemed.

Lou shook his head. “Things are not good, Ethan. Not good.”

So much for optimism.

He slapped the morning edition of the
Yukon Reporter
on the coffee bar and stabbed at Ethan’s thumbnail photo with his pointer finger. “Do you mind telling me what this is?”

Ethan flinched.
My face?
“Is there a problem with my column today, Lou?”

“Yes. Absolutely there’s a problem.” Lou tugged at his tie, and his face reddened a shade or two. Never a good sign. “Read it.”

“You want me to read my own column?” Lou’s behavior was bordering on ridiculous. Which could only mean he was even angrier than Ethan had realized. But why?

“Yes. Right now, while I wait.” Lou pushed the newspaper toward Ethan.

He took it and reread the article he’d turned in just prior to ten o’clock last night, before he’d made his ill-fated trip back to the wolf sanctuary. He’d proofread it for mistakes and typos, but maybe he’d missed something. He hadn’t exactly been giving his work his full attention lately.

But the piece read clean. He couldn’t figure out what his boss was so upset about. “Help me out here, Lou. I still don’t see anything wrong with it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with what you wrote. There is, however, something very wrong with what you
didn’t
write.” He snatched the newspaper from Ethan’s hands, flipped it to the center page and spread it open on the bar. “A rather glaring omission, don’t you think?”

At first Ethan didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking at. The page Lou had offered up for inspection was the section reserved for local personal interest news. Bake sales, craft fairs, church picnics. That sort of thing. The editor in chief of the paper didn’t even oversee this section. Final copy was approved by a junior editor.

Case in point—the article at the very top centered around an upcoming dance recital. Ethan scanned the piece, just in case. “Tap, jazz, ballet.” Blah blah blah. “The recital will feature a fairy-tale theme, with dancers playing the parts of Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and even Little Red Riding Hood.”