Hunter's Heart: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 5) (19 page)

You see, half-breed isn’t exactly true. I’m a
quarter-breed. Maybe if my grandmother and parents hadn’t died when they did,
it wouldn’t have mattered so much. Now, though, they take it as objective fact
that bad luck follows me wherever I go.

I gave Lloyd a bright smile and grabbed a shopping
basket from the wall. “Bread, eggs, milk, and that awful orange powdery stuff
he likes to put in his tea.”

Lloyd raised a brow as he followed behind me down
the first aisle. I pulled a loaf of bread off the shelf and turned back toward
him. He stood with his hands on his hips and his head cocked to the side.

“Honey, you sure you need all that?”

My turn to cock my head back at him. “Every
Wednesday.”

Lloyd nodded. “I know. It’s just, uh, honey, Wyatt
was in here about an hour ago picking up the same stuff.”

I dropped my shoulders and turned to face him. “Are
you kidding?”

“No, hon. Ya know, I’m sorry. I should have tried to
call you. My nephew told me I should.”

My heart raced. My grandfather had been fast asleep
when I left him two hours ago. Just like every day right after lunch. I had
spent that last two hours in the Oodena Public Library looking over college
admissions applications. We didn’t have internet up at the house and the cell
reception was for shit.

Just then, the bell clanged over Lloyd’s door and
Beau Karrow walked in. He cut a tall, hulking figure in the doorway with his
black nylon jacket with a fur collar, his shiny sheriff’s badge catching the
light.

“Hey, Beau,” Lloyd called out. His lips parted, and
I knew he was about to tell Beau about the possible issue with my grandpa. I
put a hand up to stop him. Lloyd looked from me to Beau but clamped his jaw
shut and gave me a slight nod. I didn’t know if this was a crisis yet, and Beau
never seemed to miss a chance to get me alone.

He walked over to me, holding his black campaign hat
with its pinched Montana crease and gold band around the center. Beau put a
hand on my shoulder and leaned down as if he were going to kiss me. Startled, I
took a step back. He had a habit of invading my personal space. His dark eyes
flicked over me and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. I caught Lloyd’s
face from the corner of my eye. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other
and chewed the side of his lip.

“Good to see you, Tamryn,” Beau said. “It’s getting
cold out there. A storm’s coming. You need a ride back up the hill?” He wore
his coal dark hair clubbed in the back. His dark brows cut straight across his
forehead, lending him a fierce expression even when his lips curled back in a
smile.

I shook my head. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”

I set the loaf of bread I was carrying back on the
shelf and looked out the window. The sky had darkened in the short time since
I’d entered the store.

“Maybe he’s home again already,” Lloyd said, trying
to convince himself more than me, I think. “Why don’t I just call up to the
house right now?”

Dammit. Now, there was no way I could easily get rid
of Beau’s questions.

“Wyatt take off again?” he asked.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ll let you know if
that changes.”

Beau raised a thick eyebrow, but the half smirk
didn’t leave his face. I said a silent prayer, and for now, he seemed to let me
drop the issue.

I nodded slowly at Lloyd, crossed my arms, and
walked to the front window, pressing my forehead against the cold glass. Lloyd
grabbed a cordless phone from the counter and dialed my grandfather’s number.
He only had one phone in the house, a clunky black rotary dial with a receiver
heavy enough to brain someone with. But, the thing was deafeningly loud and he
could hear it no matter where he was in the house. Hell, when it rang it chased
squirrels out of the trees.

I looked back and Lloyd gave me a smile and a shrug
as he listened to the phone ringing on the other end. With a sigh, he set the
receiver down. “I’m sorry, honey. I really am,” he whispered as Beau had
wandered off to the back of the store near the soft drink cooler.

I pulled my hood back over my ears and plastered on
a smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not your job to watch him. And even if you
had called me, I couldn’t have stopped him from leaving.”

Lloyd nodded, and his shoulders sagged with the
relief of knowing I didn’t blame him. “Tamryn, old Wyatt Redbird knows those
woods better than anyone. If he isn’t back up that hill by now, he will be by
the time you get there.”

I gave Lloyd a friendly salute and stacked my empty
shopping basket back against the wall. “It’s okay. I’ve got the four-wheeler.
Shouldn’t be too hard to track him. The snow has been blowing a little, but not
falling fresh.”

“Now you hang on, Tamryn.” He put a hand on my
shoulder and shot a quick glance toward the back of the store. “Why don’t you
let Beau help you out? I don’t like the thought of you going up that trail on
your own. If Wyatt’s got hisself in some trouble, no need for you to get in it
too.”

God bless Lloyd and his sweet, if not slightly
sexist, inclination to look out for me. I can’t deny it. Oodena was far from
perfect. But, after spending half my childhood in Tallahassee away from anyone
who knew that I’d played the Little Mermaid in my first-grade pageant, or that
my mother had been a mostly self-taught opera singer who made every wedding and
funeral in Oodena feel like an evening at the Met, the place felt like home. Quirky,
pain-in-the-ass, backwoods home. A twinge of anger mixed with grief bubbled
beneath my breast. What if I’d never left? What if I’d never come back at all?

I shook my head and waved to Lloyd as I hurried out
the front door. My grandfather had come down from the hill putting one
obstinate foot after the other. He’d be no match for me on the four-wheeler. I
heard Lloyd cluck something else after me, but I was already halfway down the
street.

I hopped on the ATV and hoped that the thing would
fire up. It had been twitchy all week, and if I couldn’t get it started, I knew
Lloyd would be two steps behind me offering up Beau or some other nice, Odawa
boy of suitable marrying age to help me out. The other thing about Oodena: Everyone
wanted to play matchmaker, whether I was cursed or not.

Mercifully, the machine started up on the first try.
I snapped the chin strap on my helmet and sped off in a cloud of snow. Once I
got off Main Street and hit the trail toward home, I slowed down. Squinting
against the blinding white, I tried to pick out my grandfather’s tall shape
against the barren birch and maple trees. I scanned the ground for tracks in
the snow but found only squirrel and maybe a hare. No footprints. The wind
wasn’t blowing as hard up here either, so I knew if I kept on going, I’d
have
to find something.

On a hunch, I veered off to the east. Grandpa liked
to check his rabbit traps, and I just bet that’s where he’d been headed. Sure
enough, as I slowed the four-wheeler, I saw a deep set of footprints cutting a
zigzag path toward Miskwaa Creek. I parked the ATV and climbed off.

“Grandpa!” I cupped my hands around my chin. The
wind kicked up and whistled back, but he didn’t answer. My heart dropped. It
was getting damn cold out here. In mid-January, it got dark by 4:30. I had
maybe twenty more minutes of good light.

I hated to leave the ATV behind, but there was no
way I could ride it through the thicker part of the woods. Grandpa’s footprints
were starting to blow over, but he couldn’t be that far ahead of me. I kept
going. Some niggling part of the back of my brain told me I’d been stupid not
to wait for Beau or somebody else to come with me.

I called his name as I tromped through the woods.
Low branches tangled in my hair where my hood had fallen back. About ten yards
away from the vehicle, I hit a drift of snow that buried me up to my waist. I
pulled myself free of it and stumbled forward, nearly landing face first in the
creek. Fed by a deep underground spring, Miskwaa Creek never quite froze over,
but it was shallow here. I could see my grandfather’s faint boot prints on the
other side.

“What the hell?” I said to myself. He usually didn’t
venture off that way. Well, he usually didn’t venture off much at all. He must
have gotten some bug or another up his ass. I took a big leap and just made it
to the other side of the creek without falling in. That was the good news. The
bad news was that if I did find him and he wouldn’t come willingly, there was
no way I could get the four-wheeler through here.

Another twenty yards up the hill and Grandpa’s
tracks disappeared. The wind started to howl and grainy snow like sugar blew
straight at my face. I told myself I’d go another hundred yards or so then I’d
have to turn back. I was getting to a part of the woods I didn’t know very
well. Lloyd was right; there was no sense me getting myself into whatever
trouble Grandpa had.

I went another hundred yards, then maybe another
hundred yards after that. Then, I saw him. My heart shot straight to my shoes.
I recognized his red and black checkered wool hat. Thank God for it, or maybe I
wouldn’t have seen him at all. The snow had covered him almost completely. He
was lying face down and very still. I ran as fast as I could through the
deepening snow and skidded to my knees at his side.

“Grandpa?” I put my hand to his cheek. Thank God, he
was still warm. He moaned a little as I nudged his shoulder. I couldn’t see a
scratch on him. Was it his heart? A stroke? His eyelids fluttered as I got him
to his side and he tried to look up at me. But they went in and out of focus.
He tried to say something but erupted in a fit of wet coughing.

I needed help. Now. Whatever had made him collapse
was secondary to the fact his lips were turning blue. If I didn’t get him warm,
I’d lose him.

I tried to get my bearings. He’d come far east. Way
off his property line. The house was probably a good two miles northwest and
uphill. The ATV was maybe a half a mile back the way I’d come, but I couldn’t
drive it up here.

“Don’t move,” I told him. “Just hang on.” I ran a
little further up the hill to get a higher vantage point. There was nothing but
barren woods around me.

Then, I saw it. A memory flashed from when I was a
little girl and he’d brought me out here looking for walnuts. A small, red
brick cabin nestled almost against the side of the hill a half mile in the
other direction. The place was abandoned, almost falling in on itself. My
grandpa had let me pick wild strawberries from an overgrown garden nearby but
warned me never to go up to the building.

It looked the same to me at first. My eyes played
tricks on me. I shielded my brow with my hand and squinted. Someone had fixed
the place up. The roof no longer caved in and smoke poured out of the chimney.
Thank God, someone was there!

I ran without thinking, calling for help as I went. They’d
have a landline maybe. At least another pair of hands to help me get my grandfather
back down the hill.

I’d almost made it to the front door made of thick,
dark wood with an arch at the top and an old-fashioned brass knocker at the
center. Then a pair of strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and whipped me
around so hard I nearly lost my balance.

A mountain stood in front of me. My eyes came just
to the center of his chest and the wall of rippled, sinewy muscle that seemed
to go on forever as I craned my neck to meet his eyes. He was shirtless. Sweat
beaded across his sculpted pecs and in some back corner of my brain I knew this
should puzzle me. Twenty degrees with the wind howling through the trees and
snow swirling all around and this man looked more like someone standing on a
sun-soaked beach.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice a deep,
rich baritone that sent heat through me. But his words didn’t come smoothly. He
strained over them like he hadn’t spoken in days.

I took a step back. He kept his hands on my upper
arms. I felt them burn hot, even through the thick down of my jacket. I had the
urge to reach up and run my fingers along the anvil-sharp lines of his jaw as
he clenched it. Dark stubble covered his face and neck and his hair fell in
chestnut-colored waves, scraping the top of his shoulders. God. He was
beautiful. Strong. Dangerous.

“Help me,” I said past a dry throat. “Please. My
grandfather’s had a bad fall. He’s just a few yards down the hill. I can’t move
him by myself and he’s going to freeze to death if he stays out here much
longer.”

I saw something stir in him. Storm clouds seem to
swirl behind his bright green eyes as he stared down at me with a fierce scowl.
My heart hammered behind my rib cage, and for a moment I thought maybe I was
the one about to collapse. He made a sound that seemed more animal than human.
A low growl that made the air vibrate somehow. Like I heard it with more than
just my ears.

He tore his eyes away from me and looked back down
the hill. With a slight lift of his chin, he sniffed the air. Then, he looked
back at me with those penetrating emerald eyes. Finally, he let me go. It felt
as though the air had been sucked from my lungs. I stood for a moment as though
my feet had grown roots. Then, he moved down the hill with the speed of an
avalanche, his body a blur as I ran after him.