Wolf Signs (2 page)

A sauna. Someone had built a sauna.

She’d died and gone to heaven.

Tad was going to be pissed he’d missed this. But the real debate became whether she wanted get the fire going in here or if she should stil go fishing for

her dinner.

Robyn ran her hand over the smooth wood and breathed in the rich scent. Actual y, it was an easy decision. She’d do both. Getting the fire going wasn’t a

big deal and she’d have time to fish before it warmed up properly.

The next hours passed quickly while Robyn set up her fishing line, laid out her camping mattress and bag, and got the two stoves going.

By six it was dark and Robyn lay flat on her back on one of the upper benches in the now-toasty sauna. She had enjoyed pan-fried trout for dinner along

with a glass of merlot, and she was on the edge of feeling very, very good. Her frustrations were slipping away with the sweat pouring off her body.

This was roughing it.

She sat up, scooped some more of the melting snow from the pot on the stove and poured it with care over the hot rocks to build up the steam in the

room. Noticing the pot was close to empty she slipped out into the annex and pul ed on her boots. Propping open the outside door Robyn walked into the

darkness with a bucket in either hand.

And slammed into something solid that hadn’t been there before. Something tal and hard and covered in…Gore-Tex?

Spinning around TJ saw a naked woman, metal buckets flying from her hands as she bounced off him and fel backward. He reached to catch her before

she could hit the snow and spoke calmly as she struggled frantical y in his arms.

“Whoa now, settle down. I’m sorry I surprised you.”

She continued to twist and scramble, one hand reaching down toward her boots. He wanted to release her but was afraid with how much she squirmed

she would hurt herself. A sharp jab in the ribs made him gasp and loosen his grip. Another blow landed closer to his groin and his hands grew looser stil .

“TJ, let her go, she’s freaking out,” Keil cal ed from a short distance away and distracted, TJ dropped her. Suddenly he swore.

“What the… Damn it, put that away, you little hel ion. I told you I’m not going to hurt you.” He stepped back from where the woman crouched, a fixed-blade

hunting knife extended between them as she scurried backward toward the safety of the sauna house. She slammed the door shut and they heard her

dragging something heavy in front of it.

“What is going on? Hey, lady, we’re not going to hurt you. We’re just—”

“Stop.” Keil joined him at the door. “There’s something happening here that isn’t normal. We surprised her but something else is wrong.” He lifted his hand

to touch the door, leaned forward and sniffed a couple of times, concern drawing his face tight.

TJ stopped as wel and sniffed the air. “Oh shit, she’s a wolf. Try and get away from pack for a few days and look what happens. It’s like a conspiracy. Do

ya think that someone out there has a spy camera keeping track of us when we leave Haines? That would be kinda cool if it was a hot group, you know,

like the KGB, FBI, CSI, SEALs and al those letter guys. But not the SPCA or PETA. It would be scary having them on our ass.”

TJ shuffled up to where his brother concentrated on scenting the air. He watched Keil lean his forehead against the door and close his eyes while

continuing to draw long, slow breaths. Moving closer TJ sniffed again, hard. What was making Keil act so weird? He was like a kid in a candy store. Mr. In

Charge, Super Wilderness Man, always total y with it and in control, sniffing like a dog after a long-buried bone.

Something was up, but for the life of him TJ couldn’t figure out what. He shrugged and turned away, hitting his brother’s arm as he moved, letting a wicked

chuckle escape. “Of course, she was rather sweet. Think she’d be interested in—”

A violent push sent TJ flying backward into the snow.

“Hey, watch it!” TJ sat up in the waist-deep snow and brushed off his hands. A low menacing growl made him pause from his fussing. Glancing up he saw

that Keil had begun to stalk toward him, eyes dark, teeth showing. The hair on the back of TJ’s neck stood up, and he scrambled backward through the

thick snow trying to keep a safe distance away.

“Damn it, what is wrong with you? I was joking around.”

Keil paused. He dropped his head, and TJ watched his brother’s body shake as he took some calming breaths. Long heartbeats later Keil’s hand

reached to help pul TJ to his feet. They stared at each other before Keil turned back toward the sauna.

“Ummm, Keil, what’s up? You look a little grey around the edges and that’s not like you. I mean, there’s a chick here. It won’t be the quiet getaway we

planned, but it’s not like we ran into an Elvis-impersonator reunion. She’s not going to be any trouble.”

Keil choked out a laugh, a brittle, tight sound that made TJ take a cautionary step farther out of reach.

Just in case.

Final y dragging his gaze off the sauna door, Keil gave TJ a soft push on the shoulder toward the cabin. “We’re going to have to write her a note or

something to convince her it’s safe to come out.”

“Why don’t we let her stay in there until the morning? She might feel safer venturing out in the daylight,” TJ suggested as he started up the path.

“I’m not leaving her locked in there!”

“Hey, don’t bite my head off, bro. I wasn’t the one streaking in the moonlight. This time. And the only time I did try it those rotten twins, Rachel and Beth,

stole my clothes and I had to climb in the back window of the pack house…” TJ’s voice trickled away to nothing as he realized that Keil was stil standing

by the door. Shaking his head, he cal ed in a singsong voice, “Hel oooo. Earth to Keil. Hey, I thought we were going to write a note. What is the matter with

you, man? You’re acting like you’ve never seen a woman before and that’s not true. You have the chicks al over you, al the time. In the pack and out of it.

Not that you take advantage of your opportunities like I think you should. Leave her alone. She’l be fine. It’s not like she’s going to freeze or anything.”

A loud snort fol owed him. “Look,” Keil said, “I’m not leaving my mate locked in a sauna al night because I was too stupid to figure out how to fix a

misunderstanding.”

TJ stopped in midstride. “Your mate?”

Keil sighed, his head turning to the sauna as if drawn to it. “Yup. I think so.”

“Oh shit.”

Robyn watched as the two men disappeared from sight and candlelight appeared in the windows of the cabin.

Robyn watched as the two men disappeared from sight and candlelight appeared in the windows of the cabin.

Wel , that had been just peachy.
Great going, Robyn. Way to use your brains.
What a stupid, idiotic thing to do, walk outside in the buff without checking

around first. She knew better than to assume people wouldn’t show up. She hadn’t even thought about animals, although right now she wished she had

wandered up against a bear.

This was the kind of accident Tad had warned her about. Why he didn’t like it when she did trips without him or their core group of friends. She was

capable of taking care of herself in a survivor-type situation, but adding people to the mix always made it tough. The fact she was deaf kind of guaranteed

that when meeting new people in the wilderness something was going to go screwy.

She dropped back on the sauna bench and tried to relax. She was stil holding her knife, and twisting the handle in her palm, she rubbed the carvings with

her fingertips like a worry stone. The familiar sensation calmed her to the point that she could begin to see the humour in the situation.

I bet they never expected to get flashed, she thought as she poured some of the now-hot water over her skin, cleaning off the sweat and rinsing down her

hair. She wondered if the men would want the sauna once she was done. She wouldn’t stock the stove, but leave a bed of coals.

Because she had to go back inside. It would be monumental y sil y to spend the night in here just because she’d had a bit of a shock.

Besides, now they knew she had a big knife.

She toweled off in the sauna then dressed in the annex. A piece of white against the window caught her eye, and she lifted a candle up to examine it.

We apologize for frightening you. We are Keil and TJ from Haines, Alaska, and operate the wilderness excursion company Maximum Exposure. We

are members of the Granite Lake pack. If you are afraid to come to the cabin, please put two candles in the window, and we will bring your sleeping

gear and food/water to the door and you can retrieve it when you feel safe. But we promise you are safe to return. If you want, approach in wolf.

Robyn read the note with some puzzlement. Wel , the first part was nice but what were they talking about “approach in wolf”? It must be some kind of

backcountry code she hadn’t picked up yet. They were from Haines, maybe it was an American slang. Sometimes the smal differences between

American and Canadian vocabularies caused weird things to happen.

Hanging her wet towel in the sauna, Robyn wrapped her hair in a dry one and faced the door. Squaring her shoulders she drew a deep breath. She could

do this.

Walking toward the cabin she peered in the window, checking it out before approaching the door. One of the men sat on the edge of the sleeping

platform, his face out of sight as he spoke, his hands wild as they swung in big circles.

Great, a waver. Al that energy saying nothing.

The other leaned back against the table, his arms supporting him, his gaze roaming around the room. Suddenly his eyes stopped and looked straight at

her out the window. Even though she should be invisible to him, a person in the dark while he was in the light, he’d seen her. He stood a little straighter and

lifting up his arms, he crossed them over his heart and dipped his head.

Robyn stopped in shock.

That was the ASL sign for “love”.

Robyn’s last straw broke and she stomped the rest of the way up to the cabin and threw open the door. Dropping her things on the bench, she kicked off

her boots and marched up to him and started the deaf equivalent of shouting with her hands and body in his personal space.

“You do not insult me like that. Asshole. I accept your apology for the mistake before, but you go too far. You are rude. What does…?” She pul ed the paper

she’d retrieved from the window and pointed to the line “approach in wolf”. “What does this mean?” She stepped back and crossed her arms while she

waited for his response.

The look on his face was priceless.

Confusion, complete and utter confusion.

Robyn spun toward the waver as he stood and she caught the last thing he said. “…using sign language?” She nodded, bicycling her hands in front of her

while mouthing “sign language”.

The larger of the two men made sure she was watching him before he spoke. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand sign language. I think I’ve upset you and I didn’t

mean to. Is there a way we can talk?”

Al the bluster drained out of Robyn like sand through a sieve. Typical. She came to get away from the drain of communicating with people and instead

she was going to have to use extra energy.

Oh wel , maybe they’d eat a few pieces of her cheesecake and save her the calories.

She held up a hand with a lifted finger, a signal she’d seen many hearing people use to ask for a minute. Going back to the door, she cleaned up her

boots and went to her backpack, tucking away her gear and tidying up her hair. She turned to get a drink and found the man she’d yel ed at standing with

a glass in his hand.

“Would you like some water?” He offered it to her and she touched her fingers to her mouth then opened the hand toward him before accepting the glass.

She drained it in one shot. Robyn grinned at the funny expression on his face as she returned the glass. It had been hot in the sauna, and she wasn’t going

to be ladylike and sip when she was thirsty.

He smiled back at her. Dark brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, twinkled at her.

“Would you like some more?”

She nodded and made a circle motion over her chest with her hand.

“Was that ‘please’?” he asked.

Robyn gave him a reluctant smile. She nodded and sat at the table. There was something fascinating about the man, and she watched as he went to get

her some more water. She’d placed snow-fil ed buckets here in the main cabin before her sauna, and the men knew the routine. They had one of the

buckets on the side cupboard for cool water, and the other simmering on the stove to melt snow and keep the air moist.

She let her eyes wander over him as he added more snow to the hot bucket. He was big. One of the biggest men she’d ever seen, and perhaps rushing

into the cabin and shouting at him hadn’t been the smartest thing to do.

His dark brown hair hung in a braid almost to his hips. Broad shoulders covered with a dark T-shirt, he had a tribal tattoo that wrapped around his left arm

at the biceps. She was tempted to move closer and examine it, but he returned with her ful glass and she tried to hide the fact she’d been staring at him

with a quick shift to face the table. She spotted the notepad and pencil she’d left out earlier. She tapped it and motioned for him to sit beside her.

You talk and I’ll write. You need to make sure I see your face.

“I’m Keil and that’s my brother, TJ.”

Robyn Maxwell from Whitehorse.

“I’m sorry we frightened—”

Robyn interrupted him by waving a hand in the air and starting to write.
It was an accident. I couldn’t hear you and I wasn’t paying attention. Tell TJ I’m

sorry I pulled my knife on him.