Defending from Danger
Author
Jodie Bailey
Reads
16.0K
Chapters
19
ONE
Nights like this made Paige Bristow shudder.
She paced to the window, her wolf-husky hybrid Luna close at her heels, and peeked between the slats on the blinds, looking down from the second-story living area to the animal refuge below. As a dry front swept through the narrow valley in the Lemhi Range, wind whipped the firs and pines into a frenzied dance, accompanying their sways with an eerie whine. The waning full moon layered the midnight hour in thin blue light.
Luna leaned heavily against Paige’s leg, the pressure of her eighty-pound, gray-and-white body a sure indication the animal wasn’t a fan of the vibe in the air.
On the other side of the gravel driveway, Howling Moon Wolf Refuge backed onto a sloped hillside that eventually led to the mountains on the edge of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Tall fences ran up the slope. A dozen wolf-dog hybrids paced in their enclosures, where they were housed in pairs. Each was as restless as Luna.
One of them, probably Havoc, howled. The mournful cry raised the hairs on Paige’s neck. When two others joined the chorus, she did shudder.
Usually, the occasional howl from her small pack of rescues thrilled her. Not tonight. Tonight, it all felt wrong.
Shaking off the chill, Paige dropped the slats and rested her hand on Luna’s thick, furry neck. “Don’t even think about singing along, girlfriend. If you wake the kid up, there won’t be a bedtime treat for you.”
Luna tilted her head and looked at Paige with eyes so light they were almost silver. She seemed to contemplate the words, almost as though she was gauging whether or not her owner would make good on the threat. With a sigh, she padded to the corner and sank onto her bed, licking her front paws, something she did only to calm herself.
“Good girl.” In spite of the eerie night, Paige’s favorite rescue never failed to draw a smile with her personality. Luna had been the first wolf hybrid Paige had personally brought to Howling Moon nearly six years earlier. They’d bonded immediately and, rather than board her with the rest of the pack, Paige had allowed Luna to become the family pet.
When Paige’s daughter, Hailey, was born a few months after Luna’s arrival, the wolf-dog had immediately taken on the role of protector. Even Paige’s husband, Noah, had been “required” to ask permission before snuggling with Hailey.
Paige peeked out the window, the restless pacing of the animals making her edgy. Maybe the wind was the problem. The weather had kicked up like this ten months earlier, the day Noah had died in a flash flood on the Salmon River. The wolves had been restless then, too, before four of them had escaped through a hole in the back fence a few hundred yards upslope.
Surely they hadn’t managed to bust through the fence, not after she had worked with her sole employee, Daniel, to reinforce it.
Havoc howled again. Most of the pack joined in.
Luna eyed Paige. What do you plan to do about this racket?
Pressing her lips together, Paige glanced at the stairs. Her daughter hadn’t surrendered to slumber until half an hour earlier. While Paige wasn’t a fan of leaving her five-year-old alone in the house, it wouldn’t take her but a few minutes to run down the stairs and across the driveway to check on the animals.
She’d take the monitor.
Shrugging into her canvas jacket, Paige snapped her fingers for Luna to heel. A willful creature, Luna often obeyed only when she decided the plan of action was her own idea. The wolf side of her personality was stubborn.
Fortunately, Luna was curious about what the rest of the pack was up to on this wind-whipped August evening.
Paige grabbed the monitor, listened for her daughter’s even breathing, then slipped out the back door with Luna trailing behind. It might be summer, but the temps at night typically hit the upper forties.
Clicking on her flashlight, Paige descended the deck stairs and followed the gravel path across the driveway to where the rescues were housed in spacious enclosures made for play and exploration. In the first pen, Havoc and Mercy roamed the fence line, but they didn’t approach Paige.
Odd. The animals were smart. They knew she carried treats when she came out to check on them. Normally, they’d bound to the gate to greet her.
They advanced slowly when Paige called them. She slipped two small homemade treats through the tall fence then moved on to the next pen, where Tank and Cleo left off their pacing and approached the fence. Treats were more enticing than whatever they were watching.
The pair was her newest duo, brought in only three months prior from a rescue in Colorado. Tank, a male wolf-shepherd hybrid, was about eight. Cleo, a wolf-malamute, was likely nine. They’d become fast friends and had chosen each other over any other animal on the property.
She fed them treats, scrubbed their noses with one finger and then moved on. Between the anxiety in the animals and the strangeness of the weather, that haunted feeling wouldn’t let up. Sweeping the light along the enclosures and toward the house, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Still, everything felt wrong.
The blue darkness pressed closer as she neared the pen Camelot shared with his close companion, Hope. The two had been boarded together for years. Hope was an affectionate wolf-shepherd hybrid, with a gorgeous gray-and-tan coat, who never failed to meet a human at the gate, hungry for affection.
As Paige neared the enclosure, Hope did not appear. Neither did Camelot. Slowing her steps, she surveyed the huge pen that ran along the flat ground in the trees and up the side of the hill. It was impossible to see the entire area, but there was definitely no movement.
She swept the flashlight over boulders, past the covered shed where the animals bedded down, and toward the base of the hill.
There.
Hope stood protectively over a heap on the ground. When the light sparked off her eyes, she lifted her head and raised a soul-wrenching howl.
Paige’s stomach bottomed out. “Camelot.” Surely the two hadn’t fought. She’d have heard it. There had been no indication...
It didn’t matter. Paige unlatched the gate and jogged into the enclosure with Luna panting close at her heels. She slowed as she neared Hope and Camelot, not wanting to spook them or to get in the middle if an ongoing battle rage.
As she neared, Hope lay down beside Camelot and whimpered.
Whatever had happened, Hope hadn’t caused it.
Paige dropped to her knees beside Camelot and lifted the flashlight. The wolf-malamute panted heavily and bared his teeth as Paige looked him over. He was in pain. She didn’t dare touch him or move too quickly around him. Despite his usual gentleness, he could snap.
“It’s okay, boy. I’ll take care of you.”
Behind her, Luna paced, growling low in her throat, but it seemed to be directed at the gate and not at either of the other animals in the pen. “Calm down, Luna.” The last thing she needed was her beloved pet running off into the night. That was how Noah—
Now wasn’t the time for memory.
Paige carefully inspected Camelot from the snout down. Blood matted the dark gray-and-red fur at the animal’s rear flank, by his hip. It looked like... She leaned closer. Like pellet wounds. The type from a shotgun blast.
Bile soured her throat. How had she not heard the shot? She should have checked sooner, when she’d first sensed the pack’s restlessness.
Why would someone do this?
This wasn’t the first horrible injury she’d seen. She’d just released Storm back into his enclosure with Willow after he’d been slashed in the side by a wild animal.
Maybe it hadn’t been a wild animal after all.
Another of her precious rescues was in pain, and this time there was no doubt it was at the hands of a human who’d sought them out. It wasn’t like her hybrids freely roamed the area. Not one had escaped since the day Noah died.
Someone had come onto her property and purposely harmed Camelot.
Paige scanned the area, searching for movement, but the wind in the trees made the shadows come to life. Whoever shot Camelot could still be around.
But she couldn’t move the animal to safety, and she wouldn’t leave his side. She didn’t dare risk a bite from the wounded animal. She needed help. Although she hated to rouse her friend and on-call veterinarian, Sebastian Farr, this close to midnight, there was no way she could nurse Camelot alone.
Luna rumbled low in her throat as Paige reached for her cell phone in her hip pocket. “It’s okay, girl. We’re going to take care of this.”
Her cell phone wasn’t there. Paige stared at the sky. In her hurry, she’d grabbed the monitor but not her phone. As much as she hated to leave Camelot alone, there was no choice.
She leaned as close to Camelot and Hope as she dared. “I’ll be back.” Hopefully they’d understand why she left to jog toward the wood-and-wire gate at the enclosure’s entrance.
As Paige neared the gate, Luna jumped in front of her. Her ears were laid back and she bared her teeth, growling deeply.
What? Paige slid to a halt.
A shadow moved to her left and Luna snarled louder. Something heavy slammed into Paige’s left arm and shoved her down. Her head crashed into the thick wood post that held the gate. Stars exploded and pain whipped down her spine.
Paige slid to the ground with a cry as a weight punched her upper back and shoved her into the dirt.
Snarling, Luna leaped over her, charging at the threat.
There was a cry, definitely human. Luna yelped. Footsteps pounded into the distance. Then silence.
If someone had forewarned Rocky Mountain K-9 Unit officer Reece Campbell about how that last meeting would go, he’d have never believed them.
Or maybe he would have. There was already chaos swirling around the RMKU as it approached its one-year contract review with the FBI. The unit had been created to assist the FBI and law enforcement with cases across the vast Rocky Mountain region. But Daniella Vargas’s resignation from the team was just one more in a long list that included a dangerous incident with a training weapon and an unlocked kennel that had allowed several K-9s, including his own partner Maverick, to escape.
If the unit was disbanded in November, would he return to Denver PD? Or would he move on to something else? The RMKU had offered new challenges. Going back to his old life felt a little empty.
He slid on his sunglasses as he exited the unit’s HQ. Stopping in the center of the sidewalk, he stared at the brick building that housed the kennels where their K-9s rested or trained while the humans were at headquarters. The air conditioner hummed loudly in the midst of an August heat wave. At almost five in the afternoon, the atmosphere felt as though someone had set the temperature to broil. He was already hating the short walk.
Then again, the “short walk” gave him a minute to contemplate the latest earthquake to rattle the RMKU.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” The voice over his shoulder so perfectly echoed Reece’s thoughts that, for a second, he thought he’d spoken out loud.
But the voice belonged to fellow K-9 handler Harlow Zane. Her long blond hair was pulled up and away from her face. She was a couple of years older than Reece and the kind of beauty that tended to intimidate people. It also tended to make them underestimate the very capable officer.
“It’s past hard to believe.” Reece started walking again as Harlow fell in beside him. “If I was going to guess which of us would walk away from our jobs to start a family, Daniella would have been the last one I imagined.”
His teammate chuckled. “Guess it’s true love that changes people.”
“Maybe.” But so drastically? Daniella Vargas was a career cop who’d come to the RMKU from the Montana State Police K-9 Unit. She was tough and focused on the job almost to the point of obsession. But she’d fallen in love on a case, and that was that.
The announcement had rocked them all. Most of the unit was still sitting in the conference room, waiting for a punch line.
Reece knew there was no punch line. It was obvious in the way Daniella had talked about Sam Kavanaugh and his young son, Oliver. They’d changed her life. He recognized deeply rooted, forever love. Recently, he’d seen it in a couple of his teammates.
He’d also seen it in himself. Once. A long time ago.
He thought he’d seen it in the eyes of the woman he still tried to forget. The one who had crossed his mind too many times over the past couple of months.
The one who had turned out to be anything but in love with him.
His phone vibrated against his hip and he pulled it from his holster to glance at the screen. A 208 area code preceded the number. Nobody he knew. He shoved the phone back into place.
“Not taking calls today?” Harlow kicked a pebble. It skittered along the sidewalk and bounced off the metal door to the kennels.
“Don’t recognize the number. It’s a 208 area code, not from around here.” He pulled the door open and stepped into the cool building. Sure, he didn’t know the number, but he also didn’t feel like talking. He was mulling over the sudden change in Daniella. It made no sense how someone so career-oriented could instantly flip to the family side of the coin.
“Did you say 208?” The slamming of the heavy door punctuated Harlow’s question. “That’s Idaho. Western side of the state. It’s the same area code as Nelson’s cell.”
Fellow handler Nelson Rivers had come to the RMKU from Idaho State Police.
Wait. Idaho? Western Idaho?
Reece’s heart tripped a few extra beats. He stopped walking. There was no way he’d received a phone call from western Idaho when he’d been thinking about...her.
“You okay?” Harlow faced Reece. “You look like you have a problem with Idaho.” She planted her hands on her hips and raised one eyebrow in mock anger. “There’s more there than potatoes, you know.”
“It’s not the state. It’s—” He shook his head. That would be the wildest form of coincidence. “I knew somebody who lived there.”
“Good rafting. Hiking too.” Harlow shrugged and walked toward the kennel area. “Maybe your buddy looked you up.”
“It’s not—” Never mind. His past wasn’t Harlow’s business. Besides, she’d already disappeared through the double doors into the main kennel area anyway.
Reece leaned against the wall, the cinder block cool through his navy blue T-shirt. He slipped his phone from its holster. As he thumbed the screen to view the last number, the phone rang again, just in time for him to swipe to answer.
The incoming call was from the same 208 number.
“Hello?” A man’s voice came thinly from the speaker. “Officer Campbell?”
Reece puffed air out slowly. It was a man. God might do some strange things, but it would be seriously weird if He’d had her call right when Reece had their past on his mind. Very funny, God. Very funny.
He raised the phone to his ear. “This is Officer Campbell.”
“Officer Campbell, this is Sebastian Farr. I’m a veterinarian near Crystal Ridge, Idaho.”
Reece’s throat spasmed, choking on the words he’d planned to say. Crystal Ridge? This was way too close for comfort. Not funny after all, Lord. He tried to swallow, winced at the pain in his tight throat then tried again. “How can I help you?” The words emerged strained but with enough force to carry the weight of his authority.
“It’s not me who needs help.” The man exhaled loudly and said something away from the phone. “Hold on, please.”
Reece pulled the phone from his ear and glanced at the screen. This call kept getting weirder.
“Reece?”
The feminine voice ran like ice water over the top of his head to the floor underneath him. It was her.
There was no way it could be. No way it should be.
But it was.
He said nothing. The sound of her voice after six years of silence was more than his mind could process.
“Reece? It’s...Paige.”
He sagged against the wall. “What do you want?” He’d meant to sound unmoved, emotionless, but the question clipped the air, marked by years of questions and heartache.
The phone was silent except for her breathing. Something like a chair creaked. In the background, a man spoke and a woman answered. Finally, Paige sniffed. “I know I promised—I mean...” The words trailed off into nothingness.
She’d destroyed him six years ago, had disappeared without a backward glance or even a goodbye. If she was calling him now, he didn’t want to know why.
Except part of him did. That iota of morbid curiosity kept him from killing the call and blocking the number. “I’m at work, Paige.” This time he managed to sound professional and detached. “What is it the Rocky Mountain K-9 Unit can do for you?”
“I don’t know who else to call.” Her voice seemed to have found itself. It was stronger, though a barely perceptible something threaded through the words, tweaking a heartstring or two. He’d heard that tone before; on those days when her past was causing her pain and she was desperately trying to pretend it wasn’t.
Reece straightened and pressed the phone tighter to his ear. The room suddenly felt twice as cold. Paige Bristow might have taken dynamite to a future he’d been certain was carved in stone, but she wouldn’t call him years later to rub it in. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Nobody here in Crystal Ridge believes me, but I’m pretty sure—” She paused as the man’s voice spoke in the background. “Seb’s pretty sure too, that...last night, someone tried to kill me.”
