Kitabı oku: «Wolf Whisperer»

She wasn’t going down without a fight.

Kelly watched as her unwanted visitor opened the car door. Without an umbrella, the tall, broad-shouldered figure pulled up the hood of his jacket as protection against the downpour before striding up the path. She noted he didn’t even flinch as the brisk wind slapped the cold rain at him like a sodden whip. Something about his bearing said military. Great. Another one of those Protectors. The last thing she wanted or needed.

As the stranger stepped up onto her covered porch and lowered his hood, Kelly got her second shock of the day. Even drenched, the man was beautiful. Breathtakingly, stop-your-heart gorgeous. Worse, she’d seen his face somewhere—in her dreams perhaps? She didn’t remember.

To her shock and disbelief, she felt her body stir to life deep inside. While she tried to grapple with this unpleasant surprise, she drew her weapon, pointing it directly at his heart.

“Inside,” she ordered. “Hands where I can see them.”

Dear Reader,

Because I support numerous animal rescue organisations, this topic is very close to my heart. When I wrote The Wolf Whisperer and I learned the heroine Kelly McKenzie was a shape-shifter who ran a dog rescue ranch, I was thrilled.

Every single day, whether on social media or on the news, I hear another horrific story about animal abuse or neglect. This breaks my heart. I do what I can, giving donations when I’m able, and offering my support in other ways. Eventually, I hope to become a foster parent for rescued Boxers with Legacy Boxer Rescue, a fantastic organisation in my area.

As a dog rescuer, Kelly has a big heart. She gives her love and compassion freely, even to Mac Lamonda, a man who is actually her enemy. She never could resist a wounded animal, even one whose wounds are strictly internal. As for Mac, dare he accept the healing she offers, since her people are the ones who have stolen his children?

I enjoyed writing Mac and Kelly’s story and watching them grow as they overcame the obstacles fate placed in their path. I hope you enjoy reading about their journey.

Happy reading,

Karen Whiddon

About the Author

KAREN WHIDDON started weaving fanciful tales for her younger brothers at the age of eleven. Amidst the Catskill Mountains of New York, then the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, she fuelled her imagination with the natural beauty of the rugged peaks and spun stories of love that captivated her family’s attention.

Karen now lives in north Texas, where she shares her life with her very own hero of a husband and three doting dogs. Also an entrepreneur, she divides her time between the business she started and writing the contemporary romantic suspense and paranormal romances that readers enjoy. You can e-mail Karen at KWhiddon1@ aol.com or write to her at PO Box 820807, Fort Worth, TX 76182, USA. Fans of her writing can also check out her website, www.karenwhiddon.com.

Wolf Whisperer

Karen Whiddon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Legacy Boxer Rescue of Hurst, Texas for all you do

to help abandoned and abused Boxers, offering love and

medical care, and best of all, hope. I salute you.

Chapter 1

The three-legged dog with one torn ear raised his head, sniffing the air. When he looked at Kelly McKenzie, she could have sworn he gave her a canine smile. Kelly had rescued the mixed breed three months ago from the filthy backyard where he’d been kept, chained to a tree and nearly starved to death.

A bottle of Jack Daniels and ten dollars had been all it’d taken to persuade the mean-faced owner to part with the starving pup. No doubt the fury simmering in Kelly’s green eyes had helped convince him. The guy was lucky Kelly hadn’t shot him. Only the urgency of the dog’s condition and the fact that she couldn’t help any animals if she was locked in jail had prevented that. The rescue, the dog took precedence.

With skill and care and love, Kelly had nursed the abused canine back to health. After all, that’s what she did. Her calling. She rescued hurt dogs, some of them so mistreated that they lashed out in kind, unable to accept or understand love or kindness.

But not this one. This one had wagged his crooked stump of a tail as Kelly’d unchained him from the tree and lifted him into her arms. Normally, a dog of his type would weigh at least fifty pounds. He’d probably tipped the scale at thirty, at most. He’d felt like a bag of bones.

Bringing him first to her vet, then home, she’d tended to him, with the same quiet patience she gave all of her bruised and battered animals. This one she’d named Lucky and he’d responded to food and love—most likely received for the first time in his short life—with a single-minded devotion. Fully healed both inside and out, he’d proven to be smart and sweet and forgiving. He appeared to have completely forgotten his horrible past. Always at her side, Lucky became Kelly’s constant companion.

Or one of them. Glancing around at the six or seven dogs roaming the hilltop near her, she smiled. She always had several rescues she couldn’t let go of and didn’t rehome, because in one way or another, they were part of her. These beloved animals made up her personal dog pack, all the company she wanted or needed.

To say she kept to herself might have been the understatement of the year. But, by virtue of what she was, her solitary lifestyle wasn’t even a choice, it was a necessity. Actually, she’d grown used to it. Truthfully, she was happy and didn’t need anything—or anyone—else.

She stood on her land, with her dogs, watching as the sun began to brighten the horizon, and knew that life was good and full. Here in Wyoming at sunrise, even in late summer, the early-morning breeze skated down off the mountains, snapping at her skin with a chilly bite. If any time of day made Kelly want to wax poetic, sunrise would be it.

Her cell phone rang, startling her. Fumbling to get it out of her pocket, she answered.

“Kelly McKenzie?” The thick Scottish brogue was instantly recognizable even though she hadn’t spoken to her cousin Ian in years. Worse, this call was not only unprecedented, but strictly forbidden. Except in dire emergency.

“Ian? What’s happened?” Kelly asked, gripping the phone. “Is my mother all right?” The last time she’d seen Rose, she’d been grieving over the death of Kelly’s father, while faced with the necessity of sending the rest of her family away for good.

“Your mother is as well as can be expected, considering what’s happened. It’s Bonnie.” Ian took a deep breath, audible over the crackling phone line. “Your sister’s been captured. And no one can figure out who has her or where she’s been taken.”

Mac Lamonda despised driving in the rain. And of course, while on this assignment that he’d had to pull strings to get, right after his plane landed in the middle of nowhere Wyoming and he picked up the rental car, rain had begun to fall.

Big fat drops, the kind that almost hurt when they hit your skin. Cold, even though it was the end of August.

Naturally. He would have laughed at the irony if he wasn’t so damn exhausted. Exhausted and on edge, verging on furiously giddy. Driving in the rain was … bad luck. A frisson of remembrance skittered up the nape of his neck. People died. People had died, and he let himself remember that since, after all, he was on his way to finally start the wheels in motion to regain part of what he’d lost.

His wife, Maggie, had been killed in a car crash in the rain. The car had exploded and the fire had killed her. Her loss alone had nearly destroyed him, but when he’d emerged from the depths of grief to realize that her family had stolen their two children, their combined loss certainly had. The one thing—the only thing—that had kept him going was knowing he would get them back. He had to. Or die trying.

His target, the woman he was on his way to see in his official capacity of Pack Protector, this Kelly McKenzie, was a distant cousin to his wife. She also had a history of being resistant to anything Pack. Since he wasn’t going to offer his help, like those who’d come before him, he really didn’t care. It didn’t even bother him that the very organization he’d taken an oath to serve had now become one he’d willingly betray.

He planned to use Kelly McKenzie as leverage to regain his children. Her for them. If need be, he’d eliminate her, just to show the rest of her thieving family that he meant business. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Getting her to let him in might be difficult, but subduing her would be easy. These Tearlachs tended to be a peaceful lot, or so his wife had always claimed.

As he pulled out onto the feeder road heading for the interstate, the rain became a steady downpour, then an outright deluge. In the space of thirty seconds, visibility went from fifty feet to ten, if that. Rain lashed at his compact rental car and he slowed to a crawl, wishing he had the luxury of exiting the freeway and holing up in a motel until the storm was over.

But no, with a fatalistic shrug, he knew he couldn’t. Time was of the essence now. She’d let him in. She had to. Failure simply wasn’t an option.

Heading east on I-25 out of Casper, he switched on the GPS unit. Though it took some time for the thing to hook up to the satellite, it finally did and the metallic voice came on, announcing his location and the instructions that he should remain on I-25 for 76.3 miles.

Of course. With a sigh, he switched on the radio and forced himself to mentally review the case file one more time, even though he already had the contents memorized.

Subject—female, age 28. Name—Kelly McKenzie. Single, no children, owner of a dog sanctuary and rehabilitation center in Wyoming.

And a Tearlach. Rarest of the rare, virtually an anomaly among their kind. So rare, few had even heard the term. Mac had, of course, though he didn’t let on.

During the initial briefing, which had been highly classified, he’d pretended to be surprised to learn that Kelly McKenzie came from an entire family of her kind. When the Pack had learned of them twelve years ago, they’d begun negotiations with the Patriarch, one Douglas McKenzie, Kelly’s father, now deceased.

Talks had reportedly been going well until tragedy had forced them to disperse and go into individual hiding. No one knew of Mac’s connection with the Tearlachs, and for now, he wanted to keep it that way.

Once the family had scattered to the winds, Kelly was the only one they’d been able to locate, and only because of a chance encounter with a Pack newspaper reporter who’d known her father and had recognized her. The rest of her extended family had managed to stay hidden, despite extensive searches.

Mac knew how extensive. He’d searched privately as well, aware he’d never find his missing children unless he found them.

Meanwhile, the Protectors silently kept an eye on the lone representative of the McKenzie clan, attempting to make contact from time to time, always rebuffed, and always retreating to observe from a distance. Mac had pulled strings to be allowed to be sent to talk to her, preparing to go on his own if his request was denied. Luckily, it wasn’t.

The Protectors wanted to have the Tearlachs as allies. After Douglas McKenzie’s death, no one had emerged as a new leader, no one had stepped forward indicating they were willing to resume negotiations. So they had begun contacting Kelly, with the plan of remaining in the background, and letting her know they were available should she wish to form an alliance.

After all, they were The Protectors, the Pack equivalent of the CIA and FBI, all rolled into one. They were highly respected among all the Pack, especially now that they’d vanquished the corruption inside their own organization. They were certain that sooner or later, surely even Kelly McKenzie would welcome their assistance.

This time, Mac had been successful with his machinations and he had been sent as their representative. He was supposed to wine and dine and charm her, talk her into agreeing to take a tour of the Protector headquarters.

No one knew that he planned to get the truth out of her, one way or another, use her in whatever way possible to enable him to find his children and bring them home again.

After hanging up the phone, Kelly paced, restless. She had to come up with a plan, since apparently the rest of her family wanted only to continue their passive lives, remaining in hiding, doing nothing. Ian had said that as far as he knew, they were making no attempt to rescue her sister.

This shouldn’t have surprised her. After all, these were the same people who’d refused to organize and avenge her father’s death. Green and gullible at sixteen, Kelly had let them talk her out of her pain-filled, planned vendetta, aware as they so carefully pointed out that her father would have wanted her to live.

But no longer. This time, she refused to roll over and play dead. As long as there was a chance she could save Bonnie, she’d take it. Now all she had to do was formulate a method of attack and go for it. Since her father had taken pains to engineer their reputation as peace-loving sorts, no one would even expect it.

The Protectors—or whoever was responsible—would pay.

The weather mirrored her mood, almost as though the downpour with its booming thunder and flashes of lightning fueled her inner turmoil. She blazed through one pot of coffee, started another, then mentally yanked herself up by the scruff of her neck and made herself stop. Overindulging in caffeine would only make things worse. She needed to be calm and focused in order to come up with a coherent plan of action.

The first thing she did was go online and purchase plane tickets to Canada. According to Ian, Bonnie had been living on Vancouver Island when she vanished.

Outside her window, nature raged. Still. Odd.

The force of the rainstorm didn’t bother her. The duration did. In Wyoming, a sudden, swift downpour was common. One that lasted all day was not. An omen of things to come? She hoped not.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was about to happen. One of her premonitions. Her family had called her the witch of the wood for that reason. Her premonitions usually were accurate.

Finding herself at the front window for the sixth time that day, she frowned. What the …? A soft blur of headlights cutting through the murk as they swung onto her long, narrow driveway.

Immediately, every nerve on alert, she located her pistol and loaded it with silver bullets. Were her sister’s attackers now coming to attempt to take her? Holstering the gun, she shook her head and bared her teeth. Let them. She’d make sure they died trying.

As the unfamiliar vehicle slowly approached, one by one her dogs came to attention, climbing to their feet, cocking their heads and adapting various poses of alert anticipation. Eerily still, they listened as though they could hear what, in her human form, she could only anticipate.

Closing them off in the den, she went to the front door and opened it. Standing in the doorway, under the overhang, she drew her weapon and watched as the rain-lashed car coasted to a stop in front of her garage. Since she didn’t know exactly what to expect, she was ready for just about anything.

She knew one thing. If her visitor thought she’d go without a battle, they had another think coming.

Annoyed and tense, she watched as her unwanted visitor opened the car door. Without an umbrella, the tall, broad-shouldered figure, unmistakably male, pulled up the hood of his jacket as protection against the downpour before striding up the path toward Kelly. She noted he didn’t even flinch as the brisk wind slapped the cold rain at him like a sodden whip. Something about his bearing said military. Great. Another one of those Protectors. The last thing she wanted or needed.

As the stranger stepped up onto her covered porch and lowered his hood, Kelly got her second shock of the day. Even drenched, the man was beautiful. Breathtakingly, stop-your-heart gorgeous. Worse, she’d seen his face somewhere—in her dreams perhaps? She didn’t remember.

To her disbelief, she felt her body stir to life deep inside. While she tried to grapple with this unpleasant surprise, she drew her weapon, pointing it directly at his heart.

“Inside,” she ordered. “Hands where I can see them.”

He blinked, clearly shocked. As he raised his hands, she saw a muscle working in his jaw, revealing his anger, as he stepped into her foyer.

Tough.

“Who are you and what do you want?” she snarled, kicking the door shut behind him.

She could see his aura, that fine identifying shade encircling him like a faint halo. This—his aura—told Kelly he was a shape-shifter, like her. Which meant he was Pack, as she’d thought. The ones she avoided like the plague. They were the only ones who had even the slightest inkling of what she truly was, and they didn’t even know the half of it. They never gave up, especially those known as the Pack Protectors.

She wondered if she was like a trophy to them and if her constant refusal to join them had turned her into The One That Got Away. She also suspected that they’d finally gotten tired of her constant rejections and had resorted to grabbing what they wanted instead. Like her sister.

Ian’s phone call proved it. They’d started with Bon nie and now had come for her. But she was ready for them. She’d neatly turned the tables.

“Tell me where my sister is,” she demanded. “Or I’ll kill you where you stand. I have silver bullets.”

The too-perfect-to-be-true man stared at her, silently dripping onto her Italian tile floor.

“You’re trespassing,” she warned. “I’m well within my rights to shoot you.”

Ignoring this, he gazed down at her, unafraid and boldly confident. Then, with water running off his tanned skin like diamonds, he flashed a smile so brilliant Kelly felt it like a punch to the gut.

“Afternoon, Tearlach,” he drawled.

She froze at the casual use of the old, now-forbidden word. She’d not heard it spoken out loud since she’d been a teenager living in the wild, distant mountains of Scotland, and even then it had been uttered in a whisper, under the breath, with reverence.

Tearlach. Her father had died because of this word. This stranger, this man had no right to use it so brazenly. She felt a flash of irrational anger, which she quickly tamped down. He wouldn’t understand. The uninformed never did.

While she formulated a response, the stranger continued to stare at her, his amazing eyes boring into her. “I don’t know anything about your sister, but I think you might know about something of mine. How about it, Tearlach? You tell me, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Ignoring this, she clenched her jaw. “Did the Pack send you?” she asked. Then, without giving him time to formulate an answer, she dismissed him with a flick of her hand, keeping her pistol trained on him. “Of course they did. I don’t want to join your little club, so they sent you to grab me, just like they did my sister. Too bad I’m going to make you tell me where they’ve taken her instead.”

“Put the gun down.” Narrow-eyed, he glared at her as if she was the one in the wrong. “Or at least be careful where you’re pointing it.”

“Answer me and I’ll let you leave,” she told him. “I promise.”

Instead, he smiled again, no doubt well aware of his effect on women. “I’m with the Protectors. I came to offer you our assistance. As many as you need, all armed and ready to help. You say your sister’s been abducted? We can help you find her.”

She sensed he was ad-libbing, making it up as he spoke. “I’ll bet you can.” She stared him down. “Especially since you’re the ones who took her. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” Inconceivably, he smiled again, a pleasant and oddly compelling smile that infuriated her. “We didn’t have anything to do with her abduction, I swear to you. You’re the only one of your kind we’ve been able to locate, since your father died when you were sixteen. You are aware he was in the middle of negotiating with us?”

“Liar,” she snarled.

“I assure you I’m telling the truth.” He met her gaze. “I have nothing of yours, but you do have something of mine. I’ll help you if you’ll help me. How about it?”

She clenched her teeth. Something of his? What that could be, she had no idea. Nor did she care. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want to hear your lies. You aren’t the first one they’ve sent to talk to me. Now, I’ll tell you like I told them. I have no interest in joining your Pack. Not now or ever. The answer will always be no.”

As he lowered his hands, reaching for his pocket, she snarled in warning, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Immediately, he did as she demanded. “I promise we had nothing to do with your sister being taken. We only want to help. Protect and serve, that’s our motto.”

She cocked her head, considering him. Her sixth sense, which she always trusted, told her this man, no matter what he wanted, was trouble. Nicely packaged, but trouble with a capital T.

Problem was, should she let him go? Her sister had been taken, and even if they weren’t responsible, once the Protectors learned she’d pulled a gun on one of their men, she had no doubt they’d exact retribution. They were like that, with their pseudo good-guy image, working behind the scenes to cause death and destruction. Her father had made the mistake of trusting them. No one in the family would ever make that mistake again.

“You don’t know where Bonnie is?” she asked again.

“No.” His blue gaze never wavered. “But I’m willing to help you find her.”

This time, she sensed he spoke the truth. Partially. Aware she might be making a mistake, she slowly lowered her pistol. “I have no need of your help. You can go. Just leave. We’ll pretend this encounter never happened.”

Feeling both oddly hollow and self-righteous all at once, she turned, opening her front door to let him out.

“Wait.” Instead, the man actually pushed the door closed, shoving her up against the wall.

Once again she raised her gun. “I’ll shoot you,” she warned.

To her stunned disbelief, he dared to reach out and touch her bare arm with his cold, wet fingers, ignoring the weapon. She felt a shock go through her, an electrical jolt, which she knew must be because his unusual masculine beauty attracted her. Living alone for so long, she was nothing if not honest with herself. Looking at this man made her desire him, which of course infuriated her. Not now. Especially not now, while Bonnie’s life was at stake.

Shaking her head, she bared her teeth as she shook off his grip. “Back off or I’ll shoot.”

“I hope you told the truth when you said you have silver bullets in that thing,” he drawled. “Otherwise, you know as well as I do that you’re wasting your time.”

“Of course I have silver bullets.”

“Why resort to violence? You could at least let me talk, listen to what I have to say.” He shrugged. “For me, violence is always a last resort, to be used when all other avenues are exhausted and I’m at the end of my rope.”

Again, truth. This man was nothing if not truthful. Mostly.

“If you’ll talk to me, I won’t report this to the authorities,” he said.

Blackmail. Still, it was effective. Since he had a point, she lowered the gun. Of course she had no intention of trusting him or letting him pretend to help her find her sister, but she could listen to his spiel, and then send him on his way. They always said the same thing, with very little variance. She’d listen and pretend she’d never heard any of it before. And she’d keep her pistol ready.

“I’ll give you ten minutes,” she said. “If I let you say your piece, after that you have to go. Agreed?”

Instead of answering, he moved on past her. Startled, she followed right behind him into the foyer of her small ranch house, trying to ignore the fact that he was dripping puddles of rainwater on her clean tile floor.

From the bedroom, one of her dogs started barking, prompting the others to join in.

“What do you have in there, a kennel?” he asked, one brow raised.

She didn’t even crack a smile. “My personal pack. Canine pack,” she elaborated, crossing her arms. “Start talking. Your timer is running.” Glancing at her watch, she met his gaze. “Right about now.”

Instead of jumping to do her bidding, he simply stared at her, one corner of his sensual mouth curved in the beginning of a smile.

Short of manhandling him—and really, as if she could—there was little she could do. They were getting smarter and more brazen, these faceless shifters who made up this Pack of Protectors. Prior to this, they’d always sent females, probably in the hopes that she would bond with them. This time, sending a hot man to try to coerce her, aware that she lived alone, without companionship or sex … Nothing short of brilliant.

That is, brilliant if she were anyone else. But Kelly McKenzie didn’t need anyone. Ever. She was fine on her own.

As the seconds ticked past, she felt a flash of fury.

“If you’re not going to speak, then go. Leave me alone,” she growled, holding herself stiffly in a classic lupine warning, knowing he’d recognize it.

“I can’t leave you alone,” he said, his deep voice ringing with both sincerity and desperation. “As you’ve said, your sister’s been taken. So have my children. I’ve come to bargain with you, Tearlach. Yours for mine.”

Staring at him, she narrowed her eyes. He dared to confirm what she’d only suspected? The Protectors truly had been the ones who’d captured Bonnie?

Disbelief mingling with fury in her gut, Kelly brought her weapon up to bear on his heart. “Don’t use that word. Your kind only defile it. I should shoot you where you stand.”

Either unwilling or unable to see how close to the edge she was, the stranger stood his ground, meeting her gaze dead-on. She could have sworn rage rather than fear simmered beneath his calm expression.

“Look,” he said. “I know your family split up. I’m not saying we have your sister, only that we can help you find her. What I am proposing is a trade for a trade. Your people have something of mine, my kids. I want them back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said distinctly. “I don’t know anything about any kids.”

His clear gaze never wavered. “You might have had the luxury of lying once. But not now, not to me. The stakes are too high. Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am.”

She should just shoot him. But something about him—maybe his firm belief that he spoke the truth—interested her. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Briefly, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the deep blue startled her. “Then let me educate you. I’m Mac Lamonda.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar. But still, she couldn’t place him. “Okay, Mac Lamonda. Now tell me what you mean that I have your kids. If you’d bothered to take a look around here, you’d see there are no children, yours or anyone else’s.”

His jaw set, he stared her down. “I think you know I don’t mean you personally,” he spat. “You Tearlachs. Your people. When my mate died, your father came and took them. Without my permission, without my knowledge. I want them back.”

Then it clicked. This couldn’t be him. He should have been dead. “You’re Maggie’s husband,” she whispered. “The one who … I’m so sorry.”

“You ought to be,” he snarled. Then, while she was puzzling over this new development, he jumped her, knocking her gun from her hand and twisting her arms behind her back. And then, just before he began to speak, her front window exploded.