Shadow on the Moon (4 page)

"Don't push yourself." He
put a supporting arm around her back. "You took a nasty bump."

This time Dana didn't argue. His
shirt felt soft against her cheek, and his scent—a merging of pine needles and
smoking firewood—comforted her.

"You're supposed to take it
easy the first time you get up after a concussion," he chided gently.
"I'll walk you around the room until you get your legs back."

"I have a concussion?"

She got no answer. Instead, he
nestled her firmly under his arm and urged her into a first step. She was five
ten herself, but he towered over her, easily holding the weight of her body.
His warm breath brushed her hair, and his chest rose and fell evenly against
her shoulders. She settled into the shelter of his arm and took one tentative
step after another, suddenly feeling safer and more secure than she'd felt in a
long while.

By the second trip around the tiny
room, her feelings of dependency started getting uncomfortable.

"I think I can manage
now." She pulled away and began walking alone.

He stood nearby, watching. When she
stopped, he said, "You have a strong will, Dana."

 
"Thank— Say, how do you know my
name?" "I brought one of your bags up." He gestured to the foot
of the daybed.

"Oh, the tag." Her legs
were feeling a little wobbly, so she backed up, sat on the bed, and plucked at
the sleeve of her thermal undershirt. Suddenly, she remembered she hadn't been
wearing it when the accident happened. This giant of a man had stripped her
down, seen her half-naked.

Looking up uneasily, she said,
"By any chance do you have a name, too?"

She hoped he would reward her with
a smile and was disappointed when it didn't come. "Morgan. Morgan
Wilder."

"So where am I, Morgan?"

"You're in my home."

 
"I kind of figured that one out. Where is
it?"

 
"Strong willed," he said.
"Bright. What a woman."

Although his tone was light, the
lines near his mouth had deepened and Dana didn't quite know how to respond.
She'd never been good at that kind of thing. To her, people were a little
unfathomable. You didn't know what was going on behind their eyes when they
said things. Not like the wolf. That creature was direct. Every sound, every
movement had meaning.

"You didn't answer my
question." Obviously he didn't understand this wasn't just idle curiosity.
"Where are we?"

"Up some distance from the
road."

"How did you get me
here?"

"I have my ways." He
pointed to a narrow door near a stack of open pantry shelves. "You still
need the bathroom?"

"An indoor outhouse?" She
involuntarily wrinkled her nose.

"Better than actually going
outside." His face softened as though her reaction had mildly

amused him. "I have a few conveniences. One of them is
indoor plumbing. You need help?"

"No, no, I'm fine." She
got up unsteadily and kept an eye on him as she reached for the doorknob.

"Not that door!" Morgan's
eyebrows met in a line as sharp as his tone.

Startled, Dana saw that her hand
was wrapped around the doorknob of the room from which he'd entered. The door
had large, heavy crossbeams fortified with metal plating.

"My bedroom," he said,
more gently. "I, uh, I have a thing about my privacy."

"Sorry," she mumbled,
wondering at his sharp response. But she ended up admiring the small bathroom,
which had a pale solar light. It featured a small bathtub and a toilet with a
water tank hung quite close to the ceiling. Obviously a cistern on the roof fed
both the tub and toilet.

After taking care of her business,
she planned to check out her head injury. Somehow she couldn't believe it was
as bad as Morgan said. Unfortunately, there was no mirror, which went a long
way toward explaining his unkempt appearance.

Well, chances are she didn't look
so hot herself after all that. Not that it was important. The vital thing was
to get Morgan to understand that she had to leave immediately.

When she came out of the bathroom,
he was waiting for her.

"Some ground rules." He
spoke so abruptly, Dana snapped her head around to stare at him.

"About what?" she asked,
trying to act as if the sharp movement hadn't hurt.

"Looks like you'll be here for
a few days at least."

"No, oh, no. I'm leaving
tomorrow."

"Naturally, you'd be better
off in a hospital, but we'll never get out of here in this storm."

Dana had almost forgotten the
storm. In her pain and disorientation, she'd virtually blocked out the noise.
Now she could hear nothing else. It beat at the walls and roof, rattled the
windows. Fierce, angry sounds.

"What time is it?" she
asked abruptly.

"The sun went down a little
while ago."

"Then I've only been asleep a
few hours or so. I haven't lost that much time."

"Try twenty-four hours or
so." Morgan raised his thick eyebrows. "This is another day. I roused
you, walked you around the room a few times, but you never really came
to."

"It was you. . ." Soft
hands touching her, the gentle murmuring voice, sometimes close sometimes
distant. "You took care of me all night?"

He nodded.

"I thought I was
dreaming." The depth of his kindness nearly brought tears to her eyes and
made her realize the extent of her injuries. If not for him, she could have
died. "How can I thank you?"

He regarded her intently for a
second. "Now you see why you can't leave. This storm could last all week,
but even if it doesn't, you're in no condition to travel."

"Not all week," Dana
shook her head, and immediately regretted the action. "I can't stay! The
mission— I should have been there last night."

"Dana. There are no
wolves."

"You can't say that for
sure," she replied hotly. "Maybe there are. Maybe a pack's survived
up here all these years. You don't know. If they have, they need my
protection."

"No one can outguess the
weather," he replied, plainly dismissing her concerns. "I'll take you
out as soon as your health and the weather permits. In the meantime, I want the
rules clear. You have full reign in this room. Help yourself to food, add logs
to the fire, whatever you need."

"I'm leaving in the morning,
Morgan. No —"

"Don't go outside after
dark."

"—matter how hard—"

"It's for your own safety.
This is not a civilized national park. It's a wild forest land. There are
dangers out there you can't imagine."

"—it's snowing."

Morgan waved his hands toward the
bedroom with a grace unusual for a man his size. "Please respect my
privacy and stay out of my room. My taste in music is rather unusual, so you
may hear strange sounds at night. Ignore them. They mean nothing."

"Didn't you hear me? I'm
leaving in the morning."

"Yes, I heard, but you can
talk forever and it won't change anything. There are already drifts over twelve
feet high out there, and you're still weak as a lamb."

Dana slammed her hands on her hips.
"Don't tell me about snow! I grew up in the backwoods of Montana. No
Arizona snowstorm could compare to that."

"Oh?" Morgan walked to
the window and lifted the shade. "Come here, Dana."

She didn't know why she obeyed so
meekly, but she did, and what she saw outside shocked her.

A maelstrom of black and white.
Nothing but swirling blizzard. The wind howled. The cabin walls creaked and
moaned. The roof shuddered. An icy draft swept down the chimney, creating a
shiver in the licking flames.

Dana felt the chill to her marrow.
Turning away without uttering a word, she went to the daybed and climbed
beneath a warm blanket, suddenly grateful to be inside this sturdy shelter. Her
head throbbed, her every muscle ached, and Morgan was right. The storm was a
bad one, and she wasn't in any condition to go out in it.

At least not soon.

Chapter Three

"Unit thirteen-twelve calling
Base Camp Lobo," called Charlie Lonetree into the speaker of the stat icky
CB.

 
"Give it up, man." Deek Kowalski swiveled
his seat and gestured at the radio. "They can't hear you, for crissake.
There's too much weather."

"Yeah well, I'm trying to get
an okay to go in."

 
Deek glanced skeptically out the windshield. A
foot or more of snow surrounded their well-equipped van. "I'm guessing
even four-wheel drive won't move us till the plow gets here. Why worry? We got
plenty of fuel and a week's worth of food." He leaned over, pulled a bag
of Cheetos out of a cupboard and began ripping it open. "Want some?"

Charlie shook his head. "What
I'd like is to get some miles between us and Ebony Canyon." Deek hooted
and slapped his knees.

"You don't believe those old
legends, do you, man?"

 
"Shit, no. But the snow's heavier at this
elevation. Sooner we get down, sooner we'll move out of it."

 
"You can't pull one over on me. You half
think it's true."

 
Charlie ignored him and peered out the
snow-battered windshield, thinking he saw man-shaped shadows darting among the
swirls of white. Imagination. Spooks from tales told by the grandfathers. He
didn't even do the sweat lodges anymore, much less practice the old ways.

Deek was still laughing, the son of
a bitch.

 
"Dooweep, dooweep, dooweep." Deek
waggled his fingers ominously, then clutched his chest. "Help! Bigfoot's
coming! Watch out! There's the ghost of Geronimo! Whoops! Here's a
tyrannosaurus rex looking for supper!"

 
"Knock it off, asshole." Charlie
snatched the speaker back up. "Unit thirteen-twelve calling Base Camp
Lobo."

 
"Hey," Deek exclaimed, apparently
losing interest in giving Charlie a bad time. "The storm's easing
up."

 
"Yeah?" Charlie glanced up from the
radio. Sure enough, the snowfall had ebbed to drifting flakes, and the wind had
slowed. "The CB's still not getting through."

 
"Chill out, man." Deek shoved out
the Cheetos bag. "Sure you don't want any?"

 
"Maybe later." Charlie slammed down
the speaker, then moved the driver's seat forward and turned on the ignition.
"I'm going to try to get us out of here."

 
As Charlie shifted into gear, Deek suddenly
fanned the air around his face. Charlie pinched his nose and turned accusingly
toward his partner.

 
"Sorry." Deek got up and headed for
the chemical toilet in the back.

 
"Not there, man. These are close
quarters. You'd better go outside, or we'll be living with the after effects
for the entire ride."

 
Deek glanced out the window, then back to the
curtained-off potty area, clearly torn between two bad choices. "Even
worse." His voice held resignation. "It's my guess we won't be
getting out of this snow, which means we'd have to put up with it all
night." He sighed heavily. "I'll probably freeze my butt off, but . .
. okay. Where's the paper?"

 
"Under the backseat." Charlie shut
down the engine.

 
A few minutes later, Deek, armed with a roll
of Charmin and a Baggie, opened the side door. A blast of frigid air rushed
into the van.

 
"You got a Playboy anywhere in case this
takes a while?" he joked, clicking on his flashlight as he stepped
outside.

 
"Just hurry," Charlie grumbled.
"And shut the freaking door. We're losing heat."

 
"Yes, sir!" Deek gave him a mock
salute, then started for the back of the van. In seconds, all Charlie could see
was the light, and pretty soon even that disappeared.

* *
*

"Has it been storming ever
since—"

"It's gotten worse.”

 
Morgan seemed restless. He prowled the room
like a big cat, his mane of hair crackling with static, until he finally
stopped to glance at Dana.

"How's your head?"

"It aches a little."

"I thought so."

 
He came to the bed and picked up the basin,
which he carried to a free-standing sink and filled with water from a pump.
Next, he lifted a brewing kettle from a stove that Dana assumed was propane
powered, although she couldn't see the tank. As he poured steaming water into
the basin, she took in the remainder of her surroundings.

 
In an exposed area beneath the sink were some
rags and a collection of cleaning supplies. Next to it stood a refrigerator,
with a fuel tank attached.

 
The room had two windows. Several solar light
fixtures, still glowing dully, dotted the walls between them. But if the storm
didn't abate soon, Dana knew they'd be using candles.

 
Living by candlelight in a small cabin with a
giant of a man. Now that was a thought. Not a particularly comforting one.
Before he'd snapped at her, she'd felt right at home. But his surliness,
combined with the remoteness of the area, and the idea that he'd undressed her
while she was unconscious, undermined her feelings of comfort.

 
He approached with the steaming water.
Instinctively adopting the submissive behavior she'd learned from her wolves,
Dana pressed against the wall, only vaguely aware that the movement exposed her
vulnerable neck and stomach.

"I frighten you." He set
the basin on the table.

 
"No . . . no," Dana hastily
reassured him, lowering her eyes to avoid any hint of challenge. "I'm
still sore . . . I . . . well, you know what I mean."