Cold Mercy (Northern Wolves) (3 page)

When he opened them the dog was still there. The pup’s head tilted as he stared down at it, horror growing in Bay’s gut even as the dog started to wag its tail.
Fuck, fuck, fuck
. It had to be a coincidence. Maybe he’d seen the dog in town the other day and just hadn’t realized it; maybe the dog in the dream was his subconscious’s way of blending real life with the crazy.

Hell, maybe he was just plain crazy.

***

Eden slumped back against her house, exhausted. The wind had left her cheeks raw and red after hours of searching the trails of Mercy Pass, and looking at the eight dogs finally back home and tied to their houses, she should have felt triumphant. Instead, a sense of defeat washed through her and she closed her eyes, jaw clenched.

“Still one short,” Kennedy, one of her best friends, said as she leaned against the house next to her. “The pup right?”

“Yeah.”

“Poor thing,” Rowan murmured, the last to make up their best friend trio, and Eden opened an eye to see the black haired woman staring at her dogs. Rowan was a tried-and-true cat lover, and
only
cat lover. She tolerated Eden’s dogs with a curled lip and an uneasy regard. But now, Eden could see the sympathetic cast to her face, the downward tug of her lips.

As if sensing her watching, Rowan turned and glared at her. “He was just a baby. Even I feel sorry for babies.”

That made all of them laugh, something Eden desperately needed. Smug’s first real trip out and she’d lost him. A bear, or hell, that damned over-sized wolf no one had managed to find yet either, could easily pick him up for a quick snack.

Kennedy reached out, caught her shoulder, and squeezed. “I’ll go grab us dinner. We can veg out on your couch and hope he comes home.”

“You guys—” Eden started, but they both waved her off.

“Don’t. Start.” Kennedy pointed a finger at her. “The two of you pick a movie and I’ll be sure to drive by and grab us some real movie theater popcorn.”

“You got it, Dee,” Rowan said with a wave, and Kennedy was off towards her over-sized blue Ford truck, Mercy Pass Animal Hospital emblazoned on the doors. She was the town veterinarian and Eden knew nothing short of knocking her out and dumping her off at home would get Kennedy to budge from her house tonight.

But she wouldn’t. She wanted her friends here tonight, she just couldn’t bring herself to say it. A lump welled in her throat, but then Rowan was leaning back against the house next to her, their shoulders touching. Rowan opened her mouth, no doubt to say something sympathetic, but Eden couldn’t take it. One more kind word and she was going to start blubbering like an idiot.

“I hope she brings you your own bucket,” Eden said, forcing her voice to sound light, teasing. She gave her friend a squinty look, but Rowan just laughed.

As the beauty of the bunch, Rowan had the kind of looks that made every man in Mercy Pass stop and take notice. Long black hair that trailed past her shoulders in waves, a heart-shaped face, full lips, and a curves in all the right places. And she ate like a Big Mac equated a plateful of broccoli.

“Ah girl, I’m counting on it. You don’t get my figure by watching your weight.” She winked at Eden, but her smile was soft. “You okay?”

That was a loaded question. Eden blew out a sigh, feeling the unease coil in her belly. Okay, as in alive? Sure. Okay, as in she understood what the fuck had happened? Not even close. She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m missing a member of my family.”

“I know that part. That wasn’t what I was asking.”

“I don’t know, Rowan—” Eden glanced back out towards the woods, towards the snowmobile tracks that had taken several police officers and a few members of the Fish and Wildlife Department out to where she’d been attacked. They’d found nothing. Quinn Dawson, an old friend from high school who now worked for the Fish and Wildlife Department had even come over to break the news to her personally.

There was no physical evidence of any bear, wolf, or other large animal.

They could see where she’d lost control of the sled and flipped it. Could see the trail the dogs had left behind as they high-tailed it to freedom. Could even see where she’d scrambled around to free Smug and get her bear spray. But there hadn’t been any wolf prints. And where she’d lain in the snow, it just looked like she’d slipped and fallen on her ass.

“I didn’t imagine it,” Eden said, voice soft. Rowan’s face pinched with sympathy.

“I didn’t think you did. Regardless of what Quinn says,” she waved her hand, “I don’t think you hit your head and saw something funny. I know you better than that.”

“Then what happened out there, Ro? Because there wasn’t any tracks. Smug, a five month old puppy, left tracks in that snow! Why didn’t a wolf big enough to be part grizzly do the same?”

She was shaking and she couldn’t stop. Eden hugged herself and started to turn away when Rowan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “It’s okay,” she whispered. Her head leaned against Eden’s. “But I don’t know.”

Rowan sighed and Eden felt the tension building inside her ease a notch. She might have been crazy, but she had friends who believed in her, trusted her. Neither of them had doubted her for even one second. Even when they’d stood outside staring at the snow unable to see a thing, they’d had perfect faith in her.

Rowan pulled back a bit, enough that Eden could see her face as she said, “But I think there are things in this world we can’t explain.”

“You think I saw a ghost?” Eden didn’t bother to hide the skepticism in her voice. Rowan’s aunt was big into tarot reading, ask-the-pendulum, palm reading, and all that, but Eden had never bought into it. She was too practical for that. Logical. Magic and all that new age junk just didn’t fit into the real world.

She’d thought Rowan had agreed with her.

“I don’t think a ghost could pack that big of a punch,” Rowan said wryly, a little half smile curving her lips. “Nana used to tell me stories about creatures like that though, when I was real little.”

The half joking tone brought a laugh to Eden’s. ‘Fae’ stories Rowan had always called them, because her grandma apparently couldn’t say ‘fairy’ correctly. “What are you saying? This was Little Red Riding Hood gone wrong? Or that I got bowled over by some pup from the Abominable Snowman?”

Rowan snorted. “No. I always figured there were white grizzlies. You know, how sometimes a white lion pops up in the wild? An anomaly.
Although
, the Abominable Snowman probably wouldn’t leave tracks, being make-believe and all.”

“Ha ha.” Eden punched her friend lightly in the shoulder, but it was an explanation she could partially believe. Maybe panic and the earlier howls had made her see a wolf, maybe she’d just seen a scrawny, hungry, weird-colored bear. Or, maybe a wolf had bred with a mastiff or something. But this wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on, so Eden changed the subject. “We should have had Kennedy stop by your place. I could totally use some of your homemade BBQ sauce tonight. Mmm-mmm-mmm.”

Rowan ran the Fairy Cat Café, a small dive bar in town, but it that made the best food in the state. And her barbeque chicken and cheddar jack sandwich was mind blowing. Almost as good as her homemade doughnuts. On the days of their breakfast meetings, Eden normally scrambled out of bed and rushed through her morning work, just so she could get a taste of one of them.

Rowan hooked an arm around Eden’s and tugged her towards the door. “Why don’t we go in and warm up while we wait? I’ll even make you a mean batch of hot cocoa.”

Eden didn’t dare argue. Standing outside wouldn’t bring Smug home any sooner than waiting inside would, and it was already too dark to keep searching. In another half hour, the only way to see outside would be through the beams of flashlights. With a wolf or bear like that out, it was just too dangerous, no matter how much the guilt tore at her heart.

They’d settled in, stretched out in the living room, and Rowan had just carried in three mugs of hot cocoa when Kennedy gently kicked the door. Eden hopped up to let her in, her stomach rumbling at the scent of buttery popcorn and an extra cheese with anchovies pizza.

“You are my hero,” Eden sing-songed as she followed Kennedy into the kitchen, snagging a mug from Rowan as she passed. “Both of you. Seriously, you have no idea how much I appreciate it. I needed this tonight.”

Kennedy snorted. “Oh, but we do. Remember the time when the two of you sat with me after Roger and I broke up? I was a miserable wreck, absolutely convinced I needed to go back to the abusive prick, and by the end of the night the two of you had convinced me I had two new men in my life.”

“Ben and Jerry,” Rowan said with a laugh, raising her cocoa mug in salute. “God bless them both. They are my soul mates.”

“I think you can only have one.” Eden winked as she dragged out a stack of plates.

“You can’t split them up. So it just means I have to have two.”

“I think it means she’s got a big ego,” Kennedy teased. Flipping open the pizza box, she sagged against the counter and inhaled. “Oh, my God. Does that smell like heaven or what?”

“Mm-hmm, girl. Move out of the way.” Rowan waved a plate at her and slid over to dig out the first piece. Thick cheese dripped off the sides as she slid it onto the plate. “I vote we watch
Pretty Woman.”

Kennedy grinned. “Love that movie.”

Eden had always been more of an action movie aficionado herself, but it was hard to disrespect Julia Roberts when her character ended up with a man like that. Besides, tonight she wanted a movie that was soft and sweet with a glowing happily ever after. “I’m in. I think I still have it on top of the DVD player from when Kennedy left it here.”

“It’s probably under
Terminator,”
Rowan said with a chuckle.

Eden groaned as she wrangled her piece of pizza onto her plate, the cheese dangling off the edges, and her stomach gave a hungry rumble. “Under
Die Hard
most likely.”

“You’re such a dude at heart.” Rowan shoved in the disc and then plopped down on the sofa. “But this is the way to spend the night.”

And surrounded by her two best friends, downing comfort food and watching a good movie, Eden had to agree. It didn’t completely erase the day, but it took it out of the gutters and let it end on a high note.

Tomorrow, though, she was going back out there. She had a dog to bring home and a wolf to find. She wasn’t crazy. She had the claw marks on her jacket and a bruise on her side to prove it. Something had happened out there, something not quite natural, and she intended to find out what it was. Until then, business was shut down. She couldn’t take tourists out there. Not with a risk like that hanging over her head.

Hell, she also needed to get her sled fixed.

Rowan elbowed her in her uninjured side. “Are you watching the moving or fretting?”

Eden grinned. “Both, but I’m relaxing now. No worries.”

And to prove it, she kicked her feet up on her coffee table and watched the movie. Tomorrow she could deal with everything else.

Chapter Three

The sandpaper was rough under his hands as he slid it down the wood, the scratch a low whisper in the shop. It was the only thing to punctuate the silence besides the pup’s fitful snoring. Bay turned to see the small husky curled in a heap at his feet, the little white-tipped tail flicking as he no doubt chased some imaginary squirrel in his dreams. The little guy gave a whimper and Bay relaxed.

The nightmares hadn’t quit, though thankfully, outside of the pup showing up at his doorstep, he hadn’t had any meltdowns. Outside of a coppery tang lingering in his mouth most mornings, nothing else in his dreams had managed to come true. The dog was just some odd figment of his subconscious melding with something he’d probably seen around town.

And for once, it was nice waking to something other than his own panic.

This morning he’d been sprawled over his back deck, face down, snow swirling around him, when a wet tongue had licked him awake. For the first time since the dreams had begun, he’d felt grounded. Waking up to something had given him hope, purpose. The dog didn’t give him time to fret over the fact that he was losing control of his life.

Not when the little guy needed food, walks, potty breaks. Bay ran a hand over the now smooth wood and let out a soft sigh. “Well, Rascal, how about some lunch?”

It sounded almost normal coming from him and for the first time in a long time, Bay felt the bone crushing loneliness that had surrounded his life start to ease. The pup lifted his head and yawned, his dual-colored eyes blinking sleepily up at him.

Bay leaned down and gave him a scratch under the chin. “How ‘bout some grub?”

The pup wiggled, all tail wags and full body squirms. Bay set the sandpaper aside and headed for the front door, patting his thigh so the pup would follow. Shouldering open the shop door, Bay was met with a blast of frigid air that had him huddling into his coat. Rascal scurried out the door and raced for the house, obviously every bit as eager as Bay to get back inside and out of the cold. Bay pulled the shop door shut behind him, locked it, and was on his way up to the house when he heard the crunch of tires over snow.

Curious, he tilted his head towards the road, his hands stuffed in his pockets. It wasn’t often he had people driving out here to visit him. On occasion, a customer who wanted custom work would make an appointment to come out, but for the most part, he dealt with everyone in town. Rascal barked from the porch but Bay didn’t move, his eyes on the white pickup pulling up the drive. It damn near blended in with the snow.