CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The meeting with Mary Applewhite continued to nag at Josie all through the afternoon and into the next few days. She had shared everything she could remember with Eli that very night as soon as he’d gotten off his shift. He had listened intently, asked a few deliberate questions, then expressed his own frustration. The problem was that while Josie stayed frustrated well into the weekend, Eli put the emotion behind him after approximately fifteen seconds and demonstrated that he thought the best way to put the problem out of their minds was for them to screw each other senseless.

And while that plan worked very well in the short term, as soon as her breathing returned to normal, Josie’s mind went right back to the problem at hand.

She stayed busy on Thursday and Friday with a full schedule of appointments, but she found it hard to concentrate. Her mind kept wandering back to what Mary had said, turning it over and over as if the words represented the colored blocks on a Rubik’s Cube, and if she just kept moving them around, eventually they would fall into place and show her the solution to the puzzle.

Saturday turned out to be the worst. The hours until the clinic closed seemed to drag by, and no matter how many problems she diagnosed, cures she dispensed, or ears she scratched, Josie felt helpless every time she so much as thought about the Lupines. Worse, she felt useless. After all, Mary had said she didn’t think they had much time left, and Josie couldn’t even figure out what the heck was wrong with them.

She tried to assuage her feelings of impotence by experimenting with different sedatives in the hope of rendering Bill and Rosemary unconscious again. Unfortunately, so far none of them had proved effective. But that didn’t keep her from thinking that maybe her theory about Rosemary’s progress being slower because she’d been unconscious longer had some merit. If that was the case, then finding a way to tranquilize the pair again might help to slow their deterioration and give them more time to find a cure.

Of course, first it would help to know what it was that they were trying to cure.

When she locked the clinic doors on Saturday afternoon, she rounded on Eli with a muffled scream of frustration. “I thought you said your friend Steve was going to take a look at our samples as soon as he got them.”

Eli blinked at the sudden attack. “He did.”

“And we sent the samples by overnight express on Tuesday, right?”

“Yes . . .” He drew the word out like he thought it might be a trick question.

Josie ignored him. “So that means they were delivered to him on Wednesday morning, correct?” When he opened his mouth, she held up a hand to silence him. “That was a rhetorical question; I already know the answer. And do you know how I know? Because the delivery company offers this handy little service that allows customers to go online to track the status of their packages. So I know for a fact that our package was delivered at nine fifty-two on Wednesday morning. And do you know what else? That same handy little service tells me that the package was signed for by Mr. Stephen himself. So there’s no need to wonder whether or not someone accepted the package for him and then forgot to hand it to him. Or set it on his desk where it got buried under an avalanche of paper. Or whether it fell off the back of the truck and was consumed by a wandering Gila monster. He has the samples, Eli! When the hell is he going to take a look at them?”

She finished her rant on a near screech and stood panting up at him, her eyes blazing, her hands fisted, and every muscle in her body tensed for a fight. Eli just crossed his arms over his chest, quirked a dark eyebrow, and waited.

And waited.

After several tense seconds of silence, he finally asked, “Am I supposed to answer that question? Because you seemed to be handling both sides of that conversation just fine on your own. I thought you might like to finish up the same way.”

Damn it, the man couldn’t even have the decency to fight with her when clearly she was spoiling for one. How was she supposed to deal with something like that, huh? Didn’t she already have enough on her plate?

Deflated, Josie slumped against the clinic’s front door and wondered if maybe she should just try one of those sedatives she’d been experimenting with on herself.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered and grimaced. “I’m acting like this is somehow your fault when I know perfectly well that it isn’t, but sitting around waiting like this is driving me crazy. I’m a doctor. My job is to solve problems, not wait around for other people to solve them for me. I’m not equipped to deal with this.”

Eli crossed the floor and pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. “You’re equipped just fine,” he murmured against her hair. “You’re just frustrated. Believe me when I tell you, so am I. But Steve is doing this as a favor to me and on his own time. I can’t ask him to prioritize that over his work. That wouldn’t be fair or realistic.”

“I know.”

“We’ll get the answer when we get the answer, sweetheart.”

“I know.”

“And in the meantime, you are not doing nothing, so don’t let me catch you saying that again. You work harder than anyone I’ve ever met. You put ridiculous hours into your practice, and when you’re not working you’re running a series of experiments that would put your average university research lab to shame. How many different drugs have you tried on Bill and Rosemary now?”

“Seven.”

“Seven. In the last three and a half days. In between running your practice, tending to your patients, and pretending to have a social life.”

“I haven’t been pretending,” she muttered against his shirt. “It’s been real every single time.”

Eli chuckled. “I appreciate you telling me that, but I’m being serious, Josie. You’re too hard on yourself. You push yourself too hard. You need to cut yourself some slack.”

“You know, you might find this surprising, but I’ve heard this speech once or twice before during my life.”

“I imagine you had it memorized by the time you graduated from college.”

“High school.” She tilted her head back and smiled wryly up at him. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t need to hear it again. Thanks.”

He kissed her. “You’re welcome.”

They stood in the silence of the waiting room for several minutes, wrapped in each other’s arms and perfectly content to be there. Finally, Josie pulled away and sighed. “I had another idea for a sedative. I suppose I could give that a try now. It’s either that or twiddle my thumbs while I wait for the phone to ring. For your phone to ring, I mean.”

Eli shook his head. “No way. You’re going to drive yourself crazy. What you need is a break. A real break. You need to get away from the clinic, away from your apartment, away from Stone Creek. What do you say that you and I run away together?”

“Run away.” Josie snickered. “And do what? Join the circus?”

He smacked her behind and guided her toward the back room. “No, smart-ass. Run away and do something fun. Just the two of us. We could go into Portland for dinner. Or maybe drive out to the shore and walk on the beach. The clinic is closed tomorrow, and I’m off duty. We could even drive up to Seattle and spend the night.”

“You’re trying to distract me with sex.”

“Is it working?”

She laughed.

“Sex was actually only part of the plan. I’m serious about getting out of town. I think it would do both of us some good.”

“But we can’t leave Bill and Rosemary all alone.”

“You have a whole staff here who are almost as well equipped as you are to keep an eye on those two. At this point, we can’t do much for them except keep them fed and in that pen, right?”

Josie frowned. She supposed that was true, but she didn’t exactly relish hearing him give voice to the powerlessness she kept fighting not to feel.

“Maybe, but . . .”

“But what? You think if you don’t stay within fifteen feet of them for the rest of your life, you’ll miss the song-and-dance number where they reveal the secret to curing them?”

She made a face. “Very funny.”

“Come on,” he urged. “You need to take a break before you run yourself completely ragged.”

“I don’t know . . .”

Eli tugged her back into his arms and pursed his lips. “Well, I did have one other idea . . .”

“Which is?”

“We could go back to my place and have sex.”

He grinned at her and wriggled his eyebrows like a silent-film villain.

Josie laughed, then tilted her head to the side and frowned. “Actually, do you know that I have no idea where you live?”

“That’s because you lured me to your web of seduction and kept me a prisoner in your wicked lair.”

She thumped him on the shoulder. “I’m serious. I don’t know where you live. I’ve let you see me naked, and I couldn’t even tell you your address.”

“As I recall, when you got naked, you let me do a whole lot more than look.”

“I know. I’m such a slut.”

“And I thank my lucky stars every day and night.”

“Yes, but now that it’s been brought to my attention, I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to sleep with you again unless I’ve at least seen your . . . house? Apartment? Cave? What?”

He chuckled. “Would you believe cabin? I like having privacy. When I took the job as sheriff, I bought a cabin out in the woods behind Douglas Park.”

Josie eyed him for several seconds. “Now, when you say ‘cabin,’ do you mean as in ‘a little cabin in Aspen we keep for the ski season’? Or do you mean ‘that old miner’s cabin where the out house overflowed back in ’67’?”

“Strictly indoor plumbing. I promise.”

She decided to trust him. “Okay, let’s do that then. But we’re stopping at the grocery store on the way. If you’re whisking me off into the woods to have your wicked way with me, you’re going to have to feed me, too.”

“Deal.”

They did stop at the grocery store—the only one in Stone Creek—to pick up provisions of French bread, Brie cheese, thin-sliced prosciutto, and crisp local pears before setting off in Eli’s big black SUV. Bruce’s initial reluctance to abandon his spot on Josie’s sofa was quickly overcome by a slice of prosciutto, and he grudgingly consented to ride in the backseat, provided that Eli rolled his window down until he could hang his entire floppy head out and let his flews flap in the breeze.

Josie, having never had the opportunity to ride in a “cop car” before, spent most of the short trip enthralled by the police scanner, official computer, lights, sirens, and other bells and whistles that set the vehicle apart from others in its class. She literally had to sit on her hands to keep from pushing any of the fascinating buttons.

When the Jeep slowed, she did manage to look up just in time to see Eli guide it to a halt in front of a small but snug-looking clapboard cabin with a wide, welcoming porch and a front door painted a welcoming shade of blue.

“Relieved?” Eli teased, turning off the ignition and pocketing the keys.

“I’m reserving judgment until I see the inside. And the plumbing.”

He was laughing when he rounded the trunk and opened both passenger-side doors, having grabbed the single grocery bag from the cargo area on his way past. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Before I rip your clothes off, even.”

Unlocking the door, he pushed it open and stepped back, inviting her to precede him. Josie did so eagerly, pleased but not entirely surprised to find the front room spare, but neat. He might be a bachelor, but Eli had never struck her as the kind of man who would be content to live like a pig. Still, she couldn’t resist teasing him.

“Did you clean up in the hope of luring me into your clutches?”

“Why? My clutches seemed to work just fine at your apartment.”

She humphed and ran her fingers over the timber mantel above a snug fieldstone fireplace. The wood was old, smooth as silk, and stained a dark cocoa brown. “Looks like whoever built this place did a pretty good job.”

“I like it.”

He left her to admire the decor, which consisted mainly of a deep, inviting leather sofa—on which Bruce immediately made himself at home—and a club chair in a shade that matched the mantel almost perfectly. A low cocktail table in weathered gray wood squatted in front of the sofa, and when Josie bent for a closer look, she saw that it wasn’t a table but an old carpenter’s truck, obviously antique, with traces of green paint still clinging to the corners. At each end, heavy metal D-rings had served as handles. She fell instantly in lust with the piece and wondered if she could seduce Eli into letting her have it.

The room boasted little else, except for a couple of lamps, a tall one in the corner between the sofa and the chair and a short table lamp on a tiny magazine table at the other end of the sofa, near the fireplace. She noticed sheets of newspaper stuffed into the bottom where the magazines would go and guessed he used them to get his fires going.

Turning away from the fireplace, Josie moved to the doorway on the right where Eli had disappeared and found herself looking into a surprisingly spacious kitchen with old-fashioned checkerboard tiling on the floor in blue and white. The cabinets had been painted white, the appliances chosen to match, and the counters, instead of the laminate she’d been expecting, were topped with wooden butcher’s block.

Eli stood at the counter, emptying the groceries into the refrigerator, which contained a lot more than beer and leftover Chinese food containers, she noticed—sheesh, it looked like the man usually ate healthier than she did! At the front end of the kitchen, a snug round table for four sat beneath the curtained window.

“This is really nice,” Josie commented, giving in to the urge to touch him, even if it was just a hand on his broad back. As she approached the counter, she noticed a low hum and a faint flicker of static in the background. She tilted her head. “What’s that noise?”

Eli reached up and tapped a rectangular black box mounted to the underside of the upper cabinet. “Scanner. Sheriff is always on call, especially since our force is so small. I need to be reachable in case of an emergency.”

Josie made a face and pulled her pager out of her pocket. “The local vet is always on call, too. But for me, it’s just this and my cell phone. I don’t get the fancy super-secret cop toys. Admit it, you just like seeing all this manly equipment scattered here and there, don’t you?”

He bumped the refrigerator door closed with a hip, spun around, and hauled her against him. “Wanna see my nightstick, baby?”

“You mean that wasn’t what you showed me this morning?” She laughed up at the mock scowl on his face.

He growled and kissed her ferociously and thoroughly. She emerged several seconds later feeling flushed, rumpled, and aroused. She figured she probably looked that way, too.

“Come on,” he said, taking her hand and tugging her back toward the living room. “There are still one and a half rooms left in this grand tour, and one of them is my favorite. I’ll let you guess which one it is.”

The lascivious wriggle of his eyebrows kind of gave that one away.

Eli stepped into the living room and turned immediately through a doorway at the rear of the cabin. His free left hand flicked a switch on the wall, and the mellow light of a slender iron lamp illuminated the bedroom. For furniture, it boasted a five-drawer dresser, a single nightstand, and a bed the size of a small Central American nation, covered with a satiny chocolate-colored spread. Josie could see two doors in the right-hand wall separated by a narrow wooden desk. She assumed at least one of the door opened into a closet.

“I hope one of these leads to that indoor plumbing you promised?”

He grinned and gestured toward the far door. Josie strolled through, froze, and let out a gasp of astonishment.

She’d been expecting a bathroom to match the rest of the cabin—neat, spare, and just a little old-fashioned. She’d been prepared to be charmed by a claw-foot tub, maybe an antique wood-framed mirror, a porcelain pedestal sink. Instead she got a lesson in modern decadence cloaked in the mask of tradition. The pedestal sink was there, as was the wood-framed mirror, but the tub was built into the wall abutting the kitchen, huge, round, and gleaming white. Jetted. Deep. Big enough for two. If it weren’t for the inevitable pruny skin, Josie would have wanted to live in it.

“Sandbagger!” She turned on him with narrowed eyes, saw him laughing.

“Does that mean you like it?”

“The tub and I will be sending out engagement announcements shortly.”

“You should eat something first. I hear all that pre-wedding planning can take a lot out of a girl.”

She followed him back into the kitchen and collapsed into one of the seats at the table. “Was that here when you moved in, or did you do that yourself?”

“I’d like to take the credit, but it was here. The couple I bought the place from used it as a vacation getaway. They had planned to renovate the kitchen, too, but then their work transferred them to the East Coast, and they decided this would just be too far for quick weekends away anymore.”

Josie shook her head. “For a bathroom like that, I’d rack up the frequent flier miles.”

“Yes, but you’re special.”

Something intense lurked under that teasing comment, something that made Josie’s heart pound and her belly do somersaults and her adrenaline gland launch into panic mode. Unable to find a reasonable answer, she just smiled and felt like an idiot.

Thankfully, Eli took pity on her.

“Are you ready for dinner yet, or would you like to go for a walk first?”

“Walk. It’s still early. Now watch this.” She grinned, turning to lean over into the living room. “Hey Bruce! Wanna go for a walk?”

The normally lethargic mutt threw his head back on a throaty howl of joy and leapt immediately for the cabin’s front door.

Eli and Josie were still laughing minutes later as left the cabin hand in hand and walked a short distance down the quiet, single-lane road to the top of a path that angled off into the woods. It looked broad and fairly well used, and they stepped onto it readily and followed it away from the cabin. Bruce roamed in front of them, zigzagging back and forth across the trail, nose to the ground and tail waving high in the air.

“It’s moments like these when I think I should have a dog,” Eli said, mocking himself as he watched the mutt’s antics. “A Labrador gamboling on ahead of me, chasing a stick, then bringing it back so I could throw it for him to chase again.”

“And again. And again.” Josie grinned. “It’s a nice image, though. Why don’t you get one? I’m sure a dog would love it out here.”

“Dogs don’t love me. I think it might be the fangs. Or maybe I just smell like their mortal enemy.”

“Really? I’m surprised, because Bruce has no problem with you.” Josie frowned. Eli seemed so incredibly normal most of the time that it was easy for her to forget he was a shifter. “Then again, you did bring him meat loaf, and he is cheap. Haven’t you ever had a pet?”

“I also smell like you a lot of the time.” He smiled, looking almost as wolfish as a Lupine. Then he sobered and shook his head. “No, I never had a pet. But on the other hand, my family was never bothered by unwanted strays showing up on the doorstep, either.”

“Don’t joke. That’s sad.” She tugged his hand to scold him. “I can’t imagine growing up without pets. My sister and I both got kittens as soon as we were old enough to take care of them, and my dad always kept at least one dog. Usually a hunting dog, like a retriever or a hound. And of course, we always played with whatever animals came into the clinic, as long as they were well enough. And now I have Bruce.”

“I think you develop a different perspective on animal ownership when you spend some time as an animal.”

She scowled up at him. “You’re not going to go all PETA on me and say that humans shouldn’t be allowed to domesticate or own any animals from cows down to ferrets, are you? Trust me, left to his own devices, Bruce would be miserable. He’s lost without meat loaf takeout and a nice, cushy sofa to sleep on.”

He laughed. “No. I’m convinced that cows are too damn dumb to be allowed out of a pasture on their own. They need us to save them from themselves. I’ve got nothing against humans taking care of an animal, but there is something about confining one inside all the time that give me a few skin crawls.”

“I could give you my vet speech about how dogs and cats kept as indoor pets live longer, healthier lives than not only outdoor pets, but also those who are allowed to move back and forth between outdoors and in.”

“You could.”

“But then I’d be a big old hypocrite, because clearly I don’t keep Bruce inside twenty-four seven.”

The dog gave a ferocious flurry of barks and made a mad dash after a squirrel, who evaded neatly and then proceeded to perch on a high branch and taunt the frustrated canine.

“And also I’d picture how I’d feel if someone locked me in a house twenty-four hours a day and asked me to use a litter box, and all your impassioned pleas would go unheard.” He grinned down at her. “Or do you think I might be anthropomorphizing?”

“Well, if anyone has an excuse to do it, it’s you.”

“Maybe. But I also grew up in an area with lots of wildlife and fewer pets, so that might be a factor, too.”

“Where are you from? The gossip tells it that you moved here all the way from big, bad Seattle.”

“For once the gossips have it right, but I grew up in Colorado. I moved to Seattle later on. It’s a great city, though. For a city.”

“Just a country boy at heart?”

Eli shrugged. “I like going to a city from time to time, having access to good restaurants and shows and all that, but I think I’m done living in them. After I while, it just starts to get hard to move around in one. And I definitely wouldn’t want to try to have a family or raise kids in one.”

Josie felt her stomach give that nervous little flip. “You’d like to have kids one day?”

“Sure. And before I get too old to chase after them.” He grinned.

“More than one?”

“Definitely. Being an only child sucks.”

She laughed it off. “Sometimes, so does having a sibling.”

They continued to walk along the path through the trees, crunching leaves and twigs underfoot as they went. Or rather, Josie and Bruce crunched. Eli seemed to move in a kind of unconscious silence, as if he weren’t even trying but didn’t know of any other way to move. It was a little disconcerting, actually. At least partially because it made her feel about as graceful as a herd of elephants in comparison.

They crested a small rise in the trail, and the view as they continued down the other side made Josie’s breath catch in her throat. The trees opened up onto a gentle slope down to a fast-moving stream. The water frothed and gurgled over submerged rocks, and aspen and birch trees clung to the banks, their bright leaves rustling in the wind high above the dark, shiny surface. Bruce headed right for it, gave a cautious sniff, then leaned down to lap delicately, careful not to splash any water on himself as he drank.

“This is gorgeous,” Josie breathed. “Is this your land?”

Eli nodded. “Up to the bank and for about another five or six yards that way.” He pointed away from the cabin. “This is the far edge of mine, and the stream continues across my property, but this is the prettiest place to come look at it.”

She continued to drink in the loveliness of the sight. “Wow. Take my advice: Don’t show this to Dr. Shad. He’d take one look at it, plant his butt on that downed log, cast his line in there, and that would be that. You’d never get rid of him.”

“Hm, I wonder if he’d still come out after he heard that there’s a big old cranky lion around here who likes to sun himself over by that log?”

His eyes twinkled down at her, and Josie found herself laughing at the image of the two men coming face-to-face in that . . . er . . . situation. Or maybe that would be face-to-whisker. “I think that depends entirely on how good the fishing is.”

“Let’s take a closer look and you can tell me what you think.”

She let him tug her down toward the rocky bank. Josie peered into the clear, dark water for ten seconds and saw a flash of something silver. She shook her head.

“It’s perfect. You’re doomed.”

When Eli didn’t answer, she looked up and found him staring intently at the ground about six feet upstream in the direction of his cabin.

“Eli? What is it?”

He squeezed her hand, then released it. “I just want to check that out.”

She followed behind him, puzzled when he moved to the place he’d been staring at, hunkered down, and studied the rocky forest floor as if expecting it to sit up and do tricks. She tried briefly to figure out what had him so fascinated, but was forced to give up. All she saw was rocks, dirt, tree roots, and pine needles.

“Okay, I just need to know. What in the world are you staring at?”

He pointed to the ground. “Tracks. Fairly fresh ones.”

Josie squinted down, but the view didn’t change. She saw nothing unusual. “Tracks from what?”

“People. Two, it looks like. And I’m guessing they came through here within the last few hours.”

“Really?” She stared at him, disbelieving. “How on earth can you tell that? I don’t see a thing.”

He pointed to what looked to her like a smudge in the dirt, an area of around three inches by four inches where some pine needles had been swept away and formed tiny walls on either side of a valley of crumbly soil.

“That’s a partial footprint. The guy who made it balances on his toes instead of his whole foot. And he was moving pretty fast. And his friend”—he pointed to another spot about a foot and a half away—“toes in. The print is deeper on one side than the other.”

Josie was astounded. “You can tell that from those little . . . bald spots? That’s amazing!”

He shot her a dry look. “It’s pretty average for a good tracker, halfway decent for a predatory Other. There are Lupines and Felines with advanced military training who can follow a trail more than a week old on desert footing. Just miles of sand and bare rock and they can practically have conversations with each individual grain of sand. I can’t even tell you if these guys were traveling light or heavy. I suspect light, but that’s just because I’m not seeing enough to make me think different.”

“I’m still amazed. I didn’t even realize those were footprints until you showed me, and I still think I’d lose them if I looked away for a minute. I only see them because you pointed them out.”

Eli grunted and rose, taking a few long strides forward. She followed quickly.

“They’re headed farther onto my property.” His voice sounded grim.

“That worries you?”

“It makes me curious, which is worse. There are no strange cars in the area, and my neighbor and I have an understanding about trespassing. The only reason anyone would need to get onto my property would be for hunting or fishing. Fishing season just ended, and I’m posted for no hunting. Plus, hunters and fishermen both use cars to get to their spots. Where’s the car these guys drove in with?”

“Could it be farther down the road we came off?”

Eli shook his head. “Only a few yards past where we turned off, the road curves into my neighbor’s drive. There’s no place to park down there. At least, not on the side of the drive.”

“So maybe they parked in the woods.”

“Only reason to do that would be if they didn’t want anyone to know they were here.”

Josie thought about that and frowned. “Poachers?” She looked around warily for Bruce, who had thrown himself down in a patch of sun for an impromptu snooze.

“Maybe.”

“What else could it be?”

“Last summer when we had that trouble with the protestors and all, some of those skinheads—the young, stupid ones, mostly—decided they shouldn’t have to pay a fee to camp. It’s a free country, right? So I had to . . . discourage a few of them from helping themselves to a couple of clearings on my land.” He grimaced. “A few of them seemed to take a dislike to me.”

As diplomatically as Eli put it, Josie could envision the scene in her head. With reasonable people—like most of the citizens of Stone Creek—the sheriff maintained an easygoing, mellow, and friendly demeanor, but she’d seen what happened when he got mad. She’d also encountered a few skinheads in her time, since the breed seemed to like the Northwest quite a bit and not to feel any need to hide their beliefs from a mainly white population. She didn’t imagine the two immovable forces would deal well together.

In fact, she was pretty sure that when the two groups mixed, the combination could prove explosive.

“But why would they come back now? Things have been pretty calm on the whole Others-versus-humans front lately, right? I haven’t heard about any upcoming protests.”

“Neither have I.” He scanned the tree line and the opposite bank of the stream like a soldier looking for an ambush. “Things have been quiet for quite a while now. That might be part of what’s making me nervous. Plus, something about this smells funny to me. There’s no reason for strangers to be sneaking around on my land.”

“Like I said, maybe it’s poachers.”

“If it is, they’re not from around here. Locals and local hunters know to stay away from here, because they can’t be sure they won’t be shooting someone’s relative. We have Deerskin in the community, so folks who know Stone Creek don’t like the idea of accidentally shooting the high school English teacher because they mistook her for an actual western mule deer. And even those who aren’t from Stone Creek have usually heard of us by reputation. They stay away out of fear of running into a Lupine who’s pissed off they took down one of his prey items.”

She nodded. “Okay . . .”

“So the only people who would be out here sneaking around would be folks who haven’t got honest intentions. Or ones who don’t really care what they shoot.”

Josie winced. “Oh. What are you going to do then?”

He sighed. “If I were alone, I’d follow the trail, find the people who left it—or their camp—and have a little come-to-Jesus talk with them. But since that can’t happen at the moment, I’m going to take you back to the cabin, call the station, and let my staff know they need to be on alert for strangers wandering around in or outside town.”

“Why do you have to take me back to the cabin? I’ll go with you to look for these guys. I don’t mind a hike.”

Eli shook his head and reached for her elbow, guiding her inexorably back the way they’d come. “No, we’ll go back now.”

“Eli—”

“There are some things that I don’t believe in leaving to chance, Dr. Barrett,” he said firmly, “and the possibility of putting you in danger is one of those things. It’s not up for negotiation.”

“Um, excuse me?” Josie dig her heels into the ground and refused to move any farther. “I believe that if the descriptor my or mine precedes a noun, that means that I am the only one who gets to make decisions about that noun. As in safety. The operative term there is that it’s my safety. You don’t get to decide what to do with it. It’s my safety, so if I want to toss it to the wind, light it on fire, or run it through a blender, that’s my decision, and you don’t get a say in it.”

“That’s not how this is going to work, Doctor.”

“Not how what is going to work, Sheriff?”

“This relationship.”

Oh please, dear God, Josie prayed, don’t tell me he’s really this stupid. Please.

She opened her eyes very wide and blinked at him. “I’m sorry, are you referring to my relationship with you? Which is all of about five days old at this point?”

He stepped forward until they were poised toe-to-toe and he could glare down at her from his vastly superior height. Why did big men always try to use it against a woman? she wondered idly. And why did she keep falling for them anyway?

“No, I was discussing our relationship. With each other. And who the hell cares how old it is? The operative word there is the is. It exists; you’ll have to adjust. End of story.”

“Right, clearly I missed the point in this conversation when we stepped into the time warp and were transported back to the Neolithic era. Because that kind of sentiment is not only out of place and outdated, it exists in the realm of time before written speech. It frickin’ carries a club and is afraid of fire!”

“Well, you can adjust to that, too.”

He started forward again, practically dragging Josie along behind him. Infuriated, she jerked her elbow from his grasp and bellowed for Bruce. The dog leapt to his feet in obvious surprise, but took one look at his owner’s face and immediately trotted after her.

Josie stomped ahead of Eli, all but jogging back up the path. The faster she got to his cabin and called someone to come drive her back to town, the happier she’d be. In fact, she might not even wait for a ride. At this point, walking back into town would be preferable.

Eli stalked along behind her like an angry bear. Or a pissed-off tomcat.

“So now you’re going to give me the silent treatment because I’m trying to protect you?”

Her eyes narrowed, but Josie didn’t bother looking back toward him. Maybe if she could have turned him to stone like Medusa, it would have been worth the effort. “First, I’m not giving you the silent treatment. And second, if I were, it wouldn’t be because you’re trying to protect me. I have no problem with being protected. In fact, I prefer it to the alternative of being maimed, tortured, or killed. The reason I have every right to be quite justifiably displeased with you is that in the process of trying to protect me, you stopped treating me like an intelligent and capable woman with enough common sense to protect herself when such behavior is warranted, and instead began to act as if I were either six years old, brain-damaged, or both.”

“I didn’t—”

Finally, Josie paused just at the point where the path curved around to offer a glimpse of the opening to the road beyond. “You did. And you should probably know right now, Eli Pace, that I do not appreciate being treated like an imbecile, nor do I appreciate being ordered around like some kind of subservient human being. If you want me to do something because you’re concerned for my safety, tell me you’re concerned and then ask me to do what you believe is necessary for me to preserve that safety. Don’t turn into a raving barbarian, because all that’s going to do is piss me the hell off.”

There was a moment of silence as the two of them stared at each other in the dappled light of the woods, struggling to come to terms with the stark reality of suddenly having someone both to worry about and who worried about them right back. For Josie, it was a revelation. Judging from the look of exasperation, concern, tenderness, and manly determination of Eli’s face, she guessed he might be feeling something similar.

“Piss you off, huh?” he finally said, his tone softening to something close to musing. “I think I might have noticed something like that.”

Josie crossed her arms over her chest. She felt the unraveling of tension as the worst of the storm clouds between them passed, but she didn’t want him to think she was some kind of pushover.

“Well, that’s just because you’re unusually perceptive for a man, Sheriff Pace,” she quipped.

He grinned and reached out to grab her by both elbows and tug her not forward, but close against him. A much wiser use of his strength overall, she decided.

“Thank you for noticing, Dr. Barrett,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to her lips. “But I have one question for you.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“If I’m not allowed to act like a barbarian, can I still kiss you like one?”

He really didn’t give her time to answer, but that didn’t matter. She figured he must have read her response in her eyes. Or maybe in the way her lips parted, her arms opened, and she stood on the tips of her toes to meet the fierce descent of his mouth.

She loved the way this man kissed. If the darn things had any real nutritive value, she would have happily lived on them. The taste of him made her tingle; the scent of his skin sent her stomach into a roller-coaster ride of spins and flips, and the thrust and stroke of his tongue made a complete mess of her panties.

All he had to do was look at her, and she wanted him. When he touched her, she lost all connection with reality.

She reminded herself of that when she felt him walk her backward several steps into the tree line and push her back against the trunk of a wide old pine. He managed it without lifting his lips from hers, and Josie marveled at his sense of direction. Especially since she could no longer tell which end was up.

She figured it out only when she felt the world tilt on its axis, followed by the cool, uneven surface of the forest floor. He laid her on the ground and settled his body above her, all the while continuing to consume her mouth as if she were his world’s only source of nourishment.

In the past, the idea of outdoor sex had always seemed to Josie to be completely implausible. She figured no one in her right mind—her, specifically, since guys never noticed things like this so long as they were getting some—would agree to take off her clothes where there were bugs and cold breezes or hot sunlight and bits of sand or leaves or dirt or who knew what else that could get stuck in places where God had never intended such things to be. She had always thought that there was a reason why people had invented beds and other pieces of furniture, and it wasn’t just because they needed something to prop their pillows on. Beds made things more comfortable, as did sofas and lounge chairs and tabletops and even the occasional piece of carpet. So what kind of idiot would let herself be seduced right there in the euphemistically “great” outdoors.

Her kind, apparently.

The kind who stretched out beneath an amorous and insistent Feline who kissed like a dream, possessed magically gifted hands, and fit against her body like the other half of herself.

Instead of lodging a firm protest, she lifted her hips to help him remove her jeans, and she was the one who tugged her own T-shirt up over her head. She knew it was worth it, though, when his mouth latched on to her breast and proceeded to suck her soul out through her right nipple.

She moaned and squirmed when his fingers slid between her bare thighs, teasing the curls over her mound before parting her soft folds and doing their best to drive her completely crazy.

Fair was fair, she told herself, releasing her grip on his hair and reaching for his shirt to strip it off. Unexpectedly, he growled a protest and caught her hand pulling it up over her head. Abandoning her center for a moment, he dragged the other up alongside it and pinned both of her wrists to the ground in one of his large, powerful hands. Then he returned to his previous task with a purr of satisfaction.

Josie swore and squirmed, but his grip remained unbreakable. Not only did he outweigh her by a good seventy-five pounds, but he had the strength of any three men his size. Easily. She’d have had an easier time bench-pressing his SUV than breaking free and moving when he wanted her to stay still.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t try.

She drew a leg up untl she could press a knee to her own chest, which allowed her to press her foot against his shoulder and use her powerful thigh muscles to push him away. She didn’t really want him to stop touching her, but something inside her demanded that he at least have to work for it.

Eli didn’t budge. He kept her hands pinned to the forest floor and made a low curious sound in the back of his throat. Before Josie had time to speculate about what it might mean, he swapped his grip on her wrists to his other hand so that he could grab the leg she still had extended and position it to mirror her other—bent totally in half, her foot on his shoulder and her knee pressed up near her ear. Then he pressed a brief, affectionate kiss to her belly, shimmied south, and opened his mouth against her weeping core.

She screamed. She didn’t mean to. In fact, the sound of her own voice nearly scared her witless. She hadn’t realized she could even make that sound. It was barely human, but then, Josie barely felt human as Eli ran his tongue through her swollen folds, tasting her and purring with pleasure. She felt like flame, weightless and burning, dancing up from the wreckage of something else. Her past self, maybe, or the part of herself that had thought she could control this thing that had grown between the two of them.

She had been fooling herself, obviously. Who could control something this intense? This unexpected?

This perfect.

The knowledge exploded in Josie’s consciousness along with the sensation of his wicked, talented tongue flicking over the tiny button buried between her folds.

She needed to give in. There was no other option. She had to surrender, not just to Eli or to this moment, but to the inevitability of their togetherness. The back of her mind acknowledged the fear that came along with such a momentous shift in her reality, but that little voice was completely overwhelmed by the sense of certainty that created it. The decision, she realized, had never really been hers to make. It had been made somewhere else, by some force she didn’t even understand and could never hope to control; because she belonged with him.

He belonged with her.

They belonged together.

The knowledge flashed white-hot and overwhelming as his mouth began to draw on her, pushing her over into the abyss. She felt herself hanging there, floating, suspended between the now and the infinite for what felt like days, yet raced by in seconds. From a distance, she heard her own voice calling his name. And then just calling, a high, rich, exultant sound that echoed in the woods around her.

She collapsed, utterly spent, utterly boneless. Her hands ceased their determined struggle to be free, and her legs slid like water off his shoulders and onto the ground. She could feel bits of leaves and dirt clinging to her sweat-dampened skin. She couldn’t have cared less. What she cared about was the man hovering over her.

He watched her face with an intensity she could sense even through her heavy eyelids. His entire being focused on her. It made her feel as if the fate of the world hung on her next move, her next word. Only she couldn’t think of any words to say. Nothing seemed appropriate. What were her options? Wow? Talk about an understatement. I love you? Inappropriate. They hadn’t reached that point yet, had they? They couldn’t have. They had known each other less than a week. Love didn’t happen like that, even if it felt almost like it already had.

But she couldn’t hide behind this deliberate blindness forever. He deserved more than that, some piece of herself, besides the ones he’d already stolen. And besides that, she wanted him to know, even if it was too early for love, what she felt for him. The strength of it, if not the name.

Her eyes flickered open, and she found him exactly as she’d pictured him in her still-reeling mind, intent, hungry, and expectant. So she gave him what she could. She let him see the smile that had built inside her, the one that spoke of peace and profundity and a well of unspoken emotion.

With a supreme effort of will, she coerced her hand to move languidly from the position in which he had held it pinned and cupped his stubble-roughened cheek in her palm. Her thumb tracked the sharp blade of his cheekbone, and her fingertips hinted at all the things she couldn’t quite say. And then she whispered.

“Thank you.”