Arielle and the Three Wolves (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (3 page)

The operation was a success. She drove to her office and retrieved the equipment she needed and performed it that morning in her home. Arielle was able to piece back together the fractured bone on the wolf’s hind leg. It went better than she could have anticipated, and she didn’t even have to use any wire to repair the damage. The wolf would live. Now a two- or three-month recovery period would ensue before the animal could be turned back to the wild once more.

She kept the wolf under the tranquilizer for the rest of the day. Eventually she would have to let it come out from under the drug or risk brain damage. Just in case it woke up early, she made sure the muzzle remained firmly in place.

She made a bed for the animal just beside her own bed. She couldn’t really fathom why she wanted to keep the wolf so close to her. It was like she didn’t want to let it out of her sight. No longer did she feel guilty because she hit it. Now she had done her part to save it.

No, she knew the real reason was the beauty and intelligence of the animal. It was noble and big and strong. The way it had looked over its shoulder at her like it was a human had piqued her curiosity. In some ways she could hardly wait for it to wake up so she could see if it was as smart as she had first thought.

Or maybe she had just wanted it to be smart and human-like. She was lonely. She had lived out here on the outskirts of town like a hermit for the last eighteen months. She had suffered a lot in that time. The introduction of a wild animal in her life was enough of a change to shake up her humdrum life.

Perhaps when the wolf regained consciousness, it would turn vicious like a forest animal should, and she would be forced to finally come to grips with how bad her life sucked, and how much she longed for a change, any kind of a change.

After she had performed the operation, she had spent the rest of the day out in her backyard in her garden. She had house cleaning to do inside and laundry that had to be done, but it was a beautiful day after the storm of the previous night, and it was one of those days where it was just too nice to remain indoors. However, every twenty minutes, she ran inside her back door and down the hall to her bedroom to check on her house guest. As she had suspected, there was no change in him all afternoon, and he continued his peaceful sleep.

That night she fixed herself the dinner she was supposed to have had the night before. It was strange that she had never been a good cook until after she lived on her own. In the last two years she had actually turned herself into a top chef. Of course this was just her opinion. She rarely fixed a meal for anyone else. Her sister, Bethany, and her husband, Adam, had told her she should open her own restaurant and give up her vet practice, but of course they just joked around. Then when her mother and father had visited in the winter, she got her mother to make the supreme sacrifice and admit her oldest daughter had actually become a better cook than she was. Other than that, no one had ever tasted anything she cooked, and maybe her family was biased in her favor.

The chicken teriyaki with broccoli and the Caesar salad were, in her opinion, excellent. She even poured herself a glass of wine. She had almost gotten used to a meal alone and really didn’t mind it anymore. On this night she would run down the hall after every second bite of her chicken. Each time she entered her bedroom, she found the wolf asleep.

The dishes were an easy chore since she just had a single person at the table. She removed them from the dishwasher and hand dried them and placed each neatly back in its proper place in her cupboard.

Outside there was still another hour of daylight left. She thought briefly about a walk in the woods behind her house, but quickly discarded the idea. She was still too enamored of the wolf in her bedroom. She wanted to be there at its side when it woke up. Besides, she was tired, and tomorrow she had to start the weekly grind all over again at the clinic in town.

She took a brief but warm shower and then hopped into bed. With the remote on her bedside table she flipped on her TV mounted on the wall at the foot of the bed. The comedy on the cable station was one she had seen at least two dozen times. Her attention alternated between the flat screen, the sun about to set over the Tetons outside her window, and the wolf on the floor not six feet away from her.

Her favorite part of the comedy played out and she had let herself become engrossed in it for five minutes. Also the first signs of sleep overtook her, and she thought with any luck she would drift off for the night in another few moments.

There was a muffled bark from the floor, and Arielle threw herself up beneath the covers. The wolf was awake. His eyes were open. He stared up into the bed at her. She took a minute to let the heart palpitations calm inside her chest.

“You frightened me,” she told the animal. She threw back the covers and cautiously approached him. Because of his bad leg, he would not be able to move, so she was in no danger as long as she kept her distance. The muzzle over his fangs also gave her comfort. “How are you feeling tonight?” she asked him and knelt down to the carpet to be at his level.

This time there was no doubt about the stare out of his eyes, or the deep-seated intelligence. He didn’t seem to mean her any harm. He seemed gentle and kind. She would have removed the muzzle because she knew it was uncomfortable, but the wolf was just too damn big and she was too big of a coward.

She reached out an unsteady hand and touched him, allowing her fingers to play over his coat. He was soft and even smelled good, raw, like the forest. Beneath the layer of soft fur, she could feel the muscles. They were hard and strong.

He moved his head back to her skin and nestled his face against the bare underside of her arm. All the time his eyes never left her own. She chanced a longer glance into his eyes. He blinked at her as if he tried to tell her everything was okay.

“Try not to move your leg,” she admonished him. “Don’t move it at all if you can help it. The less you move it now the better and faster you’ll heal in the next few weeks.”

He blinked at her over the leather folds of the muzzle he wore. It seemed cruel and unnecessary. His eyes were so kind and beautiful. Surely there was no way he would harm her. But he was a wild animal, and she was trained as a vet. She had to leave it on, at least for now.

“You’re tame, aren’t you?” she asked the wolf. “You know how to be around people. Do you belong to someone? If you do they must be out of their minds with worry over you. Don’t worry. I performed an operation on your leg this morning. You were lucky and got run over by the town vet. You’re going to be able to walk again. It’ll just take a couple of months, and I’ll have you back out there in the forest running through the woods better than ever.”

The wolf stretched out its massive body at her side. Could it really understand her words? It held out the broken leg away from its body and did not move it.

She gave it another pat on the head. “Good wolf,” she told it. “I’m glad you and I had this little talk tonight, buddy. I didn’t have anywhere else to take you so guess what, you’re inside my bedroom. But you better promise me you’ll behave yourself in here. Don’t make me regret helping you.” The wolf lay his head down in her lap, and she sat cross-legged on the floor. She only wore her underwear, but this was just a wolf so she didn’t have to worry about modesty. The wolf let her pet him, and he slowly went back to sleep as the two of them watched the sun set together.

When she was certain it was asleep, she bent to it and gave him a kiss on top of the head. She was happy with herself for the decision she had made about this animal. It was a good creature and didn’t deserve to die, and she had saved its life. She loved animals, but somehow she realized with this wolf, things were different.

The answer had to be that he was a tame wolf. Tomorrow when she went into town, she would start some inquiries to see if anyone reported him lost. But she didn’t know if she really believed the story about a trained wolf. She didn’t think it really answered all the questions about him. He was just too special, too big and strong and noble. His eyes didn’t seem to be those of a wolf’s.

She lay his head gently back down on the floor and stepped over him. She crawled back under the blankets of her bed. Outside it had grown completely dark. The moon had not yet risen, and she could not see out her window. The comedy had gone off the television and the action flick that followed it held no interest for her, so she turned it off.

It was late. She had wasted a lot of time down on the floor with the wolf. Somehow she felt a deep loneliness, felt it down to her soul, of a kind she had not felt since she moved out to Wyoming eighteen months ago, or since she had ended her long-term relationship with Gary two years ago. Why did the brief companionship that the wolf brought her make her feel lonely? She rolled over in the bed and curled into a ball. Maybe it was time to sell the clinic out here and move back to St. Louis. Maybe she had shut out life for too long.

Her dreams were simple that night. She dreamed about the big man from the night before.

* * * *

The next day was Monday. It was just as busy as Arielle suspected it would be. She worked a ten-hour day at the clinic. She owned the clinic, or rather paid for it through loans she had with the local bank. She was the only vet present at the clinic. In fact, she was the only vet in the small town of Wolf Creek, Wyoming.

By the time she put the closed sign on the front door and made the half-hour drive back to her home on the edge of town, she was exhausted and a little frustrated. She had been the town vet for a year and a half now, but would still hear negative remarks from her customers. They compared her to Dr. Adams, the former vet in town and the man she had purchased the clinic from. Needless to say, they were not favorable comparisons. She had to bite her tongue.

On her way home she thought that it was time for her to sell the clinic and make the move back to St. Louis. Her mother and father and her sister and her sister’s husband all lived there. Her sister was expecting. Arielle would soon be an aunt.

Of course her ex-fiancé, Gary, also lived there. But St. Louis was a large place. She may never see him again even if she did move back. Her experience in charge of her own animal clinic in Wolf Creek would look nice on her resume when she went to look for a job back home. If she planned things right, she might even make a small profit on the sale of the clinic. The allure of small-town life had been nothing more than an escape plan for her. She needed to go back and face life. After all, at twenty-eight, she would not get any younger.

She was lost in thought as she pulled into her driveway. That was when she noticed a strange truck parked in front of her house. She gave it a frown, pulled her Suburban to a stop, and got out.

Her house was located in the country. There were no other residences around for nearly a mile. She had a lot of privacy out here, and she never had to worry about another person. She had always preferred animals to people, so it worked out for her. But now with a truck parked directly in front of her house, it told her they had to be out here to see her.

Cautiously, she stepped up onto her front porch. She pulled her house key out of her shoulder bag and had it ready for the lock. Then she turned around at the sound of loose gravel kicked in her driveway.

Two men were stepping around from the back of her house. They were two of the biggest men she had ever seen in her life. They were young, probably a few years younger than she was, dressed in cowboy hats and cowboy boots. They had determined looks on their faces and didn’t look like they were in any mood for an argument. They looked serious, and she detected something not quite normal about them.

“Can I help you two?” she called down to them from her front porch. A wind blew across the prairie, and her voice sounded small.

The men tipped their hats to her. They didn’t seem polite. “We were hoping you could help us, miss,” the biggest of the two said. He was about six foot seven and seemed to be made of pure stone, his body was so hard. They took the steps of her front porch and came up to her. They towered over her.

She took a step back. She was afraid of them.

“My name is Luke Wildback and this is my brother, Kyle,” the second man spoke to her. She thought she might have to reconsider. Now that they were up close, he seemed like he might even be larger than his brother. He wasn’t as tall, but the muscles on his body positively rippled out of the tight-fitting T-shirt he wore. Both of their voices were baritone and severe.

“I’m Arielle Banks.” She didn’t feel comfortable with introductions to these two but forged ahead anyway. They had her cornered. “I’m the town veterinarian in Wolf Creek.”

“We know who you are,” Kyle, the tall one, said to her.

Luke, the muscle builder, reached deep into the pocket of his tight-fitting blue jeans and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to her. “Have you seen the man in that photo?” he asked.

She could hardly concentrate with both huge men up so close and on her own front porch. She felt claustrophobic all of a sudden and like she couldn’t breathe. She caught a scent from each man. Not that they smelled bad or had body odor, because they didn’t. On the contrary, they actually had a musky scent that was disturbingly male and aroused her. Arielle wiped her brow as she looked at the photo. It was too hot on that little porch.

“I’m sorry,” she told them and had to clear her throat. She had no idea why she should apologize to them except for the fact that they scared her. “This isn’t really a very good picture. I don’t think I’ve seen this man. Who is he? Is he from Wolf Creek?”