Caleb (4 page)

“Looks
like we might make it after all.”

Leave
now!

She
didn’t have to ask why the order screamed through her mind. She could hear the
crashing in the bushes, hear the growls, literally feel death approaching.

She
wrapped her arms around the massive torso. “Help me, Big Boy!”

To
her shock, the wolf did, getting its feet under itself, exerting the last of
its strength, heaving its torso up so they both fell into the cargo area. She
didn’t waste a second marveling at the miracle. She just grabbed its hind legs
and shoved them into the small space before slamming the hatch.

A
glance toward the woods revealed eight massive wolves of assorted colors
spilling out of the shadows, closing in on her fast. She tore around the car,
sobbing as her bloody hands slipped uselessly on the door handle, trying twice
more before she got it open. In the time it took to get a prayer of thanks out,
she had the door closed and the key in the ignition.

For
once the car started without protest. As she slammed it into gear, something
struck the windshield. She threw up her hands and screamed, the impression of
fangs and glowing eyes striking terror through her. Another body hit the
driver’s door window so hard she expected the glass to crack. It held. Thank
God for safety glass.
Drive, Allie.

As
before, calm soothed her panic and for once she didn’t mind following an order.
She stomped on the gas, yanked the wheel so the wolf slid off, and headed for
town, glancing in the rearview mirror as her tires grabbed the blacktop. The
wolves were in hot pursuit.

Turn
around.

“And
drive back into fang and company?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Another
glance in the rearview had her blinking. The wolves were gaining. She checked
her speedometer. She was doing thirty-five miles an hour and climbing. That
wasn’t possible.

“What
in hell are those things?”

No
answer, just more of that calm stroking of her nerves, and another statement of
fact.
No one in town can help you.

She
stepped harder on the gas. “So Mr. Know-it-all, where would you suggest I go?”

She
shouldn’t have been surprised by the answer.

The
Circle J.

The
turnoff to the Circle J was a mile in the other direction. On the other side of
her house. On the other side of that rabid pack of monster wolves.

She
tightened her grip on the wheel. “Come up with another suggestion.”

There
isn’t one.

She
believed him.

“Shit!”
She hit the brakes, spun the wheel, and accelerated out of the slide. Behind
her there was a heavy thud. A glance in the rearview showed the black wolf in a
heap on the other side of the cargo area. She winced. That had to have hurt.

The
tires squealed a protest as she floored the accelerator, heading straight for
the wolves. She expected them to separate, not form a solid wall across the
road. She instinctively went for the brake.

Don’t
stop.

“Okay,”
she licked her lips, “but I hope you realize hitting one of those things is
going to total my car.”

Don’t
hit one.

Great
advice from the amorphous voice in her head, but she wasn’t sure she was going
to be able to avoid it. They were a solid line of snarling determination spread
across the narrow road. She fumbled with the gun in her lap until she found the
safety. She flipped it to off.

On a
“Here goes nothing,” she tromped on the gas.

The
wolves didn’t move, just held their position slightly behind the one in the
middle, the expression on his black-masked face both arrogant and vicious. In
the second her gaze met his, his chin lifted. A challenge?

Keep
going.

There
was an edge of desperation in the weak order.

Why
did everyone, from her family to voices in her head, think she was unreliable?

“Don’t
worry, I’ve never lost a game of chicken yet.”

They’re
not playing.

“News
flash.” She ducked her chin and braced her arms. “Neither am I.”

She
hit the wall of flesh doing fifty, at the last minute swerving so the fender
glanced off the lead wolf’s shoulder rather than hitting it dead-on. Yanking
the wheel to the left, she sent another wolf flying. In the interim, four more
swarmed the car, their snarls bruising her ears while their claws screeched
against the metal. One jumped up onto the hood, limiting her view to the
gray-black of its chest and the white gleam of its huge teeth.

She
pulled the gun from her lap, pressed the muzzle against the windshield, closed
her eyes, and pulled the trigger. The roar was deafening in the small interior.
The recoil slammed her forearm down into the wheel. Only her death grip on the
revolver kept it in her hand.

When
she opened her eyes, there was a huge spatter of blood on the windshield and
open road in front of her.

“And
stay off my car,” she muttered in weak relief as she hit the windshield washer
button. Most of the blood cleared, leaving an oily smear between the maze of
cracks.

She
looked in the rearview. The wolves were gone. For the first time in ten minutes
she took a deep breath. She glanced at the unmoving wolf in her cargo area.

“We
might just make it after all.”

They’re
going to head you off.

“Gosh
darn it!” She slapped the wheel in frustration. “Can’t you even let me enjoy
one stupid second of relief?”

The
man was becoming quite the killjoy.

Listen.

The
weakness in the faint order alarmed her.

Get
to the Circle J. Stay on the road and keep going. Don’t trust your eyes. No
matter what you see. No matter how bad it gets, do not take your foot off the
gas.

Call
her a skeptic, but how much worse could it get? “What do you mean, ‘no matter
how bad it gets’?”

Get
to Circle J. The wolves cannot go there.

She
glanced longingly at her driveway as she passed by. “How do you know that? Do
you have some sort of monster wolf fencing installed?”

Yes.

That
might have been just a trace of mocking amusement she heard at the end of the
soft affirmative. When she didn’t answer, she felt the mental nudge again.

Damn
persistent man. She just wanted to go home and pretend this never happened.

Promise
me you won’t stop. No matter what.

She
turned right onto the entrance road to the Circle J ranch, feeling like she was
heading down a path of no return. “I promise.”

His
Good
was just a sigh in her head. It winked out on a whisper of energy, and then he
was gone, leaving her alone on a strange road in a race with killer wolves that
planned on cutting her off from a sanctuary she wasn’t even sure existed. Son
of a bitch. Wasn’t that just like a man?

“Caleb?”

There
wasn’t an answer. And she wasn’t really expecting one. There was an emptiness
where his voice had been. A dead feeling void that scared the bejesus out of
her.

She
shook her head and drove as fast as she dared up the rutted, tree-lined road.
Her car bottomed out in a deep hole, making her jump. The gun fell to the
floor. She swore and fished around for it, not taking her eyes off the
treacherous path.

Another
bump had her abandoning the gun in favor of trying to stay on the road.
Clenching the wheel tightly in her hands, she squinted through the smears and
cracks into the night and cursed her luck. It just figured the first man to
believe that she could keep a promise would be a fictitious voice in her head.

She
wrestled the car around the corner against the series of ruts trying to bounce
the vehicle off the road. By the time the car hit the next smooth patch, her
teeth were vibrating in her head. Lord knows how her passenger felt. If he was
even still alive.

“Sorry
about that,” she whispered, afraid to look, wrenching the wheel to the right,
narrowly missing a big boulder sticking up in the middle of the road. Caleb had
to be out of his mind to think her little car could handle this path
masquerading as a road. She had half a mind to turn around.

The
white wolf that leapt out of the trees put paid to that idea. She hit the gas
and fishtailed to the other side of the path, narrowly avoiding the collision
that would have taken out her car. More wolves appeared on both sides of the
car, taking advantage of her slowing to swarm her. It scared her, how willing
they were to sacrifice themselves to stop her. They had to be after either her
or the wolf, but since they were a package deal at this point, she wasn’t
slowing for love or money.

The
car leaned precariously into the next curve. She was driving too fast for the
road, but it was impossible to slow down. Herded on by the wolves like a lamb
to slaughter, she could only pray that the car held the road and that there
weren’t any unpleasant surprises between here and the Circle J. Sweat poured
down her face, and her hands slipped on the wheel. The bumper scraped a tree
before she got it back on the road. The wolves howled at the near miss, and
then fell back into formation around her. The masked wolf paced alongside the
driver’s door, seemingly content to wait. For what? Were they waiting for her
to crash?

She
wiped the sweat off her brow with her coat sleeve. She wasn’t going to crash.
The only course she’d ever gotten an A in had been the defensive driving course
in high school. She was damn proud of that A. She wasn’t about to blow her
perfect record tonight with a bunch of maniacal wolves as witnesses.

She
looked up, and her heart sank to her toes. Even an A in defensive driving
wasn’t going to get her past that. The road dead-ended at the biggest boulder
she’d ever seen. Just ended right at the base of it. With the thick growth of
trees on either side, there was no way around. With no room to turn and no way
back, she was out of options.

Beside
her the masked wolf gave a victorious yip. She met its glare dead-on. Again the
uncanny expressiveness of its face shocked her. And then pissed her off. There
was nothing worse than a gloating wolf. She looked at the rock coming up fast.
She was almost at the point of no return. The wolves around her picked up their
leader’s yip, their voices blending to a nerve-racking war cry.

Don’t
trust your eyes. No matter what you see. No matter how bad it gets, do not take
your foot off the gas.

Caleb’s
words came back to her. She trusted Caleb, but more than that, she did not want
to die as a wolf snack.

She
caught the lead wolf’s eye, flipped him the bird, and then jammed the
accelerator to the floor. The little car shot forward. Her scream echoing all
around the tiny interior, she closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable
collision.

NO
sudden impact. No grind of metal against stone. No shattered glass. And most of
all, no horrendous pain.

She
opened her eyes. There was nothing ahead of her. No gloom. No sense of
foreboding and certainly no boulder the size of Mount Olympia. Just a straight
rutted path dappled in moonlight. Allie depressed the brake and looked back.
The wolves milled a hundred feet behind. She could see them through the
shimmering mirage of the boulder. Freaky.

Caleb
was right. For whatever reason, the wolves couldn’t follow her here.

She
slowed her speed to a manageable level, following the path for three more
minutes before the ranch house came into view. It was a huge, well-lit
structure sprawled between two hills. Nothing had ever looked more beautiful.
She laid on the horn as she bounced along the road. She wanted Caleb front and
center as soon as she stopped. She had a bone or two to pick with him.

A man
came out of the house as she slid into the drive. He was tall and from his
silhouette, well muscled, but she knew instinctively he wasn’t Caleb. He was
down the steps and at the back of the car before she completed her sideways
skid. In the time it took to open her door, he was speaking into a gizmo on his
shoulder and popping the hatch as if he knew exactly what she carried.

Which
maybe he did. If Caleb could communicate with her telepathically, he could most
likely do so with others. She opened the door and got out of the car, ignoring
the stab of discomfort that thought gave her. Slamming the car door shut, she
asked, “Is the wolf still alive?”

The
answer was curt and slightly muffled as it came from the depths of the compact
“Yes. No thanks to you.”

No
thanks to her? “I saved his life!”

The
man leaned out of the car, his expression drawn into one of disgust as his cold
gray eyes flicked over her with impatience. “You would see it that way.”

His
gaze narrowed as he looked over her shoulder, the military cut adding to his
aggressive aura. “You two help me here.”