you.”
“I asked you to stay inside.”
“About that. I seem to be going through a rebellious streak that makes me impervious to reason. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“Hell, woman, my warning must not have been nearly strong enough to convince you of the danger.”
“I was pretty sure you could handle one lone wolf.”
“Lone wolf? You have no idea...”
Maddeningly, Harris didn’t finish the statement as he fought for his breath.
“I thought you heard me coming,” she said. “You were speaking to me, weren’t you?”
“I was talking to myself.”
“Is that a habit rangers often pick up?”
“Yes.” He took some time to go on. “It’s not safe here. Not safe anywhere near here. It was foolish of you to ignore me.”
“Yes, well, right now the problem is being able to breathe.”
Harris only then seemed to realize he was on top of her. Slowly, he backed onto his knees. Seconds later, he offered her his hand and a word of caution. “We have to get you out of here.”
Skylar took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. The man was little more than a dim outline in the dark, but she saw him turn his head as if expecting someone else to appear.
Holding tightly to her right wrist, he said, “I can’t do my job if people run all over these hills in the dark. There are always a few who think they’re above the rules.”
Skylar stumbled forward when he snapped his arm. “Meaning I’m one of those.”
He didn’t challenge her remark.
“Did you find the wolf?”
“No.”
He was lying again. She could tell by the way her inner radar was going off.
“I’ll go with you to look for it,” she suggested.
“You’ll do no such thing. You can leave this place as quickly as possible. In fact, I’ll take you.”
“I don’t need a chaperone.”
“On the contrary, I have every reason to believe you might.”
He began to walk, more or less dragging her with him. “Please listen to me, Skylar. There’s a dangerous animal on the loose, and that’s no joke. If you’re out here, I’ll worry about you. Distractions can make these situations so much worse. Surely you can understand that?”
They slid in a damp patch of dirt on the slope, but righted easily enough. Skylar resolved to pay more attention to her feet. She wasn’t going to be the bimbo of horror flicks who always tripped and fell in the scary scenes. She had always been fleet.
She wasn’t afraid to be out here with Harris beside her, yet she felt uneasy, and as if they were being watched.
“I think my father might have been chasing a wolf when he died,” she confessed, matching Harris’s lengthy strides. “If so, then I want to see it skinned.”
Harris’s sharp intake of air wasn’t her imagination. Something out here had bothered him, and bothered him still. He was wired and on edge. He kept looking around.
“I’d like to hear about that, but this isn’t the time or place for conversation. You’ll have to trust me on this.”
“Okay,” she said.
The relief in his voice was evident. “Good.”
The odd feeling of them not being alone stuck with her on their steep downhill descent until she had to speak of it.
“I think we’re being followed.”
His response was to utter a choice four-letter word and to walk faster. Skylar wasn’t going to argue with him about getting to safety this time. The new presence she sensed was heavy enough to siphon some of the air from her lungs. The night had grown colder, and each breath she struggled to take felt icy after the day’s heat.
“Maybe it’s a ghost,” she whispered.
Harris urged her into a jog.
Thing was, she thought, if ghosts existed, this one hovering in the woods might turn out to be what was left of her father. But if it was her father, why did the spirit feel so dark? Why was she suddenly afraid?
She let Harris lead her through the night, clinging to his hand. She’d been right. They were being followed, and the man in front of her knew this as well as she did. Clearly whatever he had been chasing out here now stalked them, and it was something Ranger Harris feared.
Halfway down the path, Skylar resisted the impulse to stop and face whatever tracked them. Only then would she confront the awful fear building inside her.
Her guide didn’t seem to share her impulse to stop. His hold on her wrist remained unyielding as he led her over rough, unfamiliar terrain ignoring holes and vines as though he saw every detail in the dark.
She couldn’t see a blasted thing.
He didn’t produce a flashlight, either, seeming to rely on his own internal GPS system. She supposed that rangers had to be familiar with the areas they patrolled and that Harris walked these same paths over and over on a daily basis. All she saw were glimpses of his back, highlighted whenever the moon peeked out from the clouds.
Deliberately, she didn’t offer the use of the flashlight she’d used to find him in the first place, now tucked inside her pocket. She was fascinated by how Harris maneuvered and afraid that if she shone that light behind her, the sanity she presently held on to might desert her. She was sure something otherworldly lurked on this hillside.
She thanked God that Harris wasn’t the kind of creature she’d almost expected him to be—though the voice he shared with the man in her dreams continued to plague her. He didn’t use that voice now, though there were questions that sorely needed answers. Questions having to do with wolves being bold enough to stalk two humans, or if it might be some other Colorado animal. Mountain lion. Bear. Recently escaped homicidal human.
The icy sensation of being tracked didn’t ease up as they ran. Traversing the downward path, Skylar felt positive she heard sounds of the creature breathing beyond the two of them.
She kept as close to Harris as possible and his grip on her remained a comfort. But although they had gone a fair distance already, the cabin’s porch light didn’t appear. Were they lost?
A gravel road suddenly loomed up out of nowhere, noticeable by its ghostly gray color.
“Stop,” she said, tugging at Harris’s hand. “This isn’t anywhere near the cabin. The road to Dad’s place is dirt.”
“Just a few steps more,” Harris urged.
When
