Wolf’s Glory

Wolf’s Glory

After the Crash, Book 2

Maddy Barone

Published 2011

ISBN 978-1-59578-840-5

Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509

Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2011, Maddy Barone. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Liquid Silver Books

http://lsbooks.com

Email:

[email protected]

Editor

Jean Cooper

Cover Artist

Lyn Taylor

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author"s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Blurb

When goth-girl Glory Peterson"s plane crashes she walks to find help. What she finds are people living in teepees like it"s the Old West. Wolf"s Shadow knows Glory is his mate.

Glory"s happy to take a roll in the hay with him while she"s waiting for transportation back to civilization, but when she finds out she"s gone fifty years into the future and Shadow is a bossy werewolf who thinks he owns her, her attitude changes fast. Shadow is used to giving orders that are obeyed. Glory hasn"t obeyed an order since kindergarten. When two strong-willed lovers clash, who will win?

I dedicate this book to the entire DME Adjudication and MSP Recoupment Teams at

NAS in thanks for letting me borrow their names. A big thank you to Gary, Jill, and Razz Lura. You know why. And especially to Jessica Pease, because this one is for you. Thanks, Jess. You rock!

Maybe they were doomed to walk the prairie forever, never finding help. Glory shook her head fiercely. No, that was tiredness and hunger speaking. There had to be people somewhere. This rotted old railroad track would lead them to civilization eventually. Glory threw a desperate look around and saw nothing but tall dry grass and blue sky as far as her eyes could see—just empty prairie as bare as it must have been when the pioneers first settled the West. If she and Jane didn"t find help, people would die. Maybe people had already died.

It had been over twenty-four hours since they"d left the crash site, and dozens of people had been hurt, some so badly that they hadn"t regained consciousness before the rescue teams had left the crash site. Jane still trudged along in her sensible librarian"s shoes, but turned her head back to look at Glory, a thin eyebrow raised in inquiry.

“Just hoping I might have missed some sign of civilization,” Glory muttered.

She watched Jane pull out her cell phone and try again, for the millionth time, to make a call. Glory sighed when Jane returned her cell phone to her purse. “Still nothing?”

Jane"s brown hair, having fallen out of its prim bun, pushed her shoulders when she shook her head. “Maybe a search and rescue team has already found the crash,” she said hopefully.

“Maybe.” Glory didn"t say anything else. What was there to say that they hadn"t already said? Their plane had crashed, and the only surviving member of the crew had tried repeatedly to send a Mayday, but the plane"s radio didn"t work. Nor did any cell phones, and none of the survivors could connect with the Internet to send an email Mayday. The co-pilot had told them that help was certainly on the way, and organized the efforts to free those trapped by the debris and make the injured more comfortable.

“Perhaps the co-pilot has gotten the plane"s radio to work by now.” Jane persisted in her cheery optimism.

An optimist Glory was not. “Fat chance,” she grunted as she stumbled over the rough ground. “She spent hours trying to call, right?”

“Yes. She did.” Jane was slightly subdued, but lengthened her stride in determination.

“Now it"s up to us to find help.”

Glory had to hand it to Jane. She had plenty of energy and enthusiasm. And she had to hand it to the co-pilot. Even though her ankle was smashed to smithereens, she had kept it together. She had done everything she could to get the passengers help. But hours later, with no help yet on the scene and medical aid desperately needed, she had asked for volunteers to pair up and walk for help. Glory had volunteered, and so had a bunch of others. The co-pilot rejected some as too young or too hurt, leaving six to be paired up into three teams that she sent in different directions. Glory had been paired up with Jane Harris, a forty-something librarian from St. Paul, and they"d been walking since yesterday afternoon without finding any sign of people at all. The prairie seemed eerily empty.

Glory caught up with the librarian and resumed walking. “You know, I was so excited yesterday morning when I got on the plane in Minneapolis,” she ranted. “Four years as a glorified aquarium cleaner at the Mall of America"s Underwater World, and I finally landed a face-to-face interview with an international ocean-life study center. Dream come true, you know? It"s the reason I got my degree in marine biology.”

“Yes, you mentioned that,” Jane murmured drily. “Repeatedly.”

Okay, maybe Glory had already had this conversation a couple dozen times, but …

“Dammit!” Glory swore when her low-heeled pump got caught in the thick grass covering the rail, making her stumble again. Damn, that hurt. Jane gave her a prim glance of reproach, and Glory forced back more curses at her new shoes.

“Are you okay?” Jane asked.

Glory wondered what Jane would say if she cut loose with her normal repertoire of four-letter words, and cleared her throat. “Fine,” she grumbled. “Why did I buy these stupid shoes, anyway? Oh, yeah, because they go with this stupid business suit.”

“You want to make a good impression at the interview,” Jane said, looking approvingly at the boring business suit Glory was wearing and less approvingly at her hair.

True. Glory wanted the job so much that she had bought the sedate navy blue trousers and jacket for the interview. She doubted her usual dressy goth gear of black jeans, black satin bustier over a blood-red silk T-shirt, and ankle-length black duster would have impressed them much. Too bad. She loved the way the bustier cinched in her waist and emphasized the curve of her hips. She was a big woman, but she had all the curves a woman could want. And then some. Her figure was more along the lines of Marilyn Monroe than Tyra Banks. Too bad ultra-thin was in and ultra-curvaceous was out. Her best friend Jill always said Glory would have been a sex goddess in another era.

“Yeah. Like this outfit is going to impress anyone now. It"s ruined.”

“I"m sure your prospective employer will reschedule your interview. You can wear

something else to that one and do something about your hair color. Our misadventures are completely out of our control. It"s probable they are already aware of the crash. I"m sure that by now rescue teams have found the crash site.”

Geez, talk about Miss Pollyanna. The never-ending wind blew Glory"s hair into her eyes, and she shoved it behind her ear with an impatient hand. She had stripped the purple, red, and black streaks from her hair and changed it to a pink that matched the blouse she"d bought to go with the suit. Yesterday before boarding the plane she"d smoothed it into a sleek French twist. Now it blew like a ragged curtain over the tops of her shoulders. She had left her nose ring and the rings for her left eyebrow at home, wearing only a tiny fake-diamond stud in her nostril, with a matching pair of studs for her ears. When she had boarded the plane she had looked like a successful business person. A little boring … Well, a lot boring, but she really wanted this job. They were supposed to land in San Francisco at 2:36 p.m. Pacific time, and her interview was at 4:00. She figured she"d have time to touch up her hair and makeup in the airport ladies" lounge before taking a taxi straight to the interview.

Well, she had missed the job interview, and her new suit was ruined by her

misadventures. She liked that word—misadventures. It sounded better than “her shitty luck.”

“You"re probably right.” Glory tried for some of Jane"s optimism. “They"ll reschedule the interview, won"t they? Sure, they will. After all, we"re heroes, braving the wilderness to get help to save the rest of the passengers.” The cheerfulness died when she stepped on a rock and bit off another four-letter word. “It never seems this hard in the movies.”

“Heroines,” Jane corrected. She smiled, but it was sober. “You"re right. The movies make things look comfortable and quick. But we"re still better off than the ones left at the plane.”

So many of the passengers who had boarded the plane yesterday morning had been

killed, including the little girl whose whiney complaints about not being able to run around had made Glory want to slap her during the first hour of the flight. Remembering her made Glory feel sick. What was she doing, worrying about her clothes and her feet and her interview when that little girl would never have a chance to grow up and have a job at all?

Hey, was that—? Glory squinted at a distant low hill. Yes! Something had moved out there! People? Her heart pounded so hard it felt like it was making the stupid ruffles on her fuchsia silk flutter.

“Hey, Jane, look! Look!” She jabbed Jane in the arm to bring her attention to the dots bobbing along in the distance and began hollering and waving her arms madly. Jane was more sedate, but she waved her arms too.

“Thank God,” Jane said. “Finally, we"ve found help.”

The dots came closer, turning into a half-dozen people on horseback, with a bunch of big dogs running alongside. Glory gaped as they rode up to them at a gallop and formed a circle around them, the horses kicking up so much dust that she began to cough. What the hell?

When the dust settled a bit she could see that they were Indians. They had long black hair and bare brown bodies made barely modest by a strip of fabric that covered their important bits in front and back but left their chests and legs bare. Every last one of them was model handsome. Damn. Their bodies, unconcealed by clothing, were mouthwateringly perfect.

What was this, a movie set? These guys looked like they were actors in a
Dances With
Wolves
movie. The dogs were
huge.
She thought they were wolves, but they were too big for that. Maybe a mixed breed? One of the dogs came right up to her and sniffed her crotch. She slapped at its muzzle, shouting, “No! Bad dog!”

Some of the Indians looked shocked. Laughter bubbled in her throat. Hysteria? Gloria refused to do hysteria. She swallowed hard to force it back. The dog stared at her for a minute, grinning at her with its tongue hanging over sharp teeth, then trotted off and disappeared behind the horses surrounding her.

She turned her attention back to the Indians, searching them for phones. She didn"t see any phones, and none of them wore enough clothing to hide a cell phone in, so she supposed they didn"t have any with them.

“Um.” Glory had to clear her throat to cut through the dust coating it. “Hi. Sorry to interrupt. But can you help us? Our airplane went down back that ways and … and … Wow.”

Another Indian walked between the horses, tightening the string around his waist that held his diaper thing up, and Glory completely forgot what she"d been saying. It
was
a movie set! That was her favorite wrestling star in makeup and a really long black wig. And very little clothing. Yowza. He was living proof that guys like the ones on romance covers really did exist. She swallowed, wiping a hand over her chin in case she was drooling, and started over.

“Hi. Look, sorry to bother you, but our plane crashed, and we need help. Like an

ambulance. And…” Her voice trailed off again because all these men were looking at her very strangely and sniffing the air. She and Jane weren"t freshly bathed, but, geez, talk about rude. “Hey!” She snapped her fingers. “Listen up! This is important.”

Jane gave her a patient look and took over. “Yes, gentlemen, Glory is correct. We need immediate medical assistance. There are approximately three dozen injured at the crash. Our cell phones are not working. They may have been damaged in the crash, or perhaps there"s no coverage here?” Her voice lifted at the end, inviting them to make a call for an ambulance.