WolfSong-WolfSong-
By Barbara Raffin
Published by Awe-Struck E-Books
Copyright Š2000
ISBN: 1-58749-052-8
CHAPTER ONE
Madison Montgomery winced when the bus driver tossed the red Samsonite suitcases 
onto the slanting sidewalk. Not because they almost landed on her toes, but 
because the luggage had belonged to Laurel, vivacious lover-of-vivid-color 
Laurel. Irreverent Laurel who'd challenged the ever-trying-to-be-good-girl 
inside of Madison to abandon her perfection. Flawed Laurel who'd shared 
Madison's understanding of what it was to be a fractured soul in search of a 
place to fit.
Madison glanced at the highway doubling for the town's main street and the aged 
brick courthouse proclaiming the county seat. Small town. Old town. It was a 
place not so different from the one where she once did belong...before a 
careless driver cut short the lives of her mother and father.
Still, abandoned ten hours from her point of departure, Madison was having a 
moment of self-doubt, a moment of hope that the guy who was supposed to meet her 
had forgotten and would never show up. That she could just go inside the slice 
of a diner occupying the corner space behind her and buy a ticket for the next 
bus back downstate. But Madison Montgomery had a lost soul to vindicate and 
another guilt torn soul to repair before she could reclaim her unruffled life.
Maybe the guy picking her up was waiting for her inside. Madison slipped the 
strap of the carry-on over her shoulder, hoisted the red Pullman, turned, and 
entered the diner.
The place smelled of rancid grease and there were too few fluorescent bulbs 
humming against the yellow ceiling to compensate for the afternoon sunlight 
she'd just left. She felt awkward and vulnerable blinkingly searching out the 
face of a stranger. She should have asked for a description along with the job 
details. But she'd expected this Armstrong guy to be watching for her.
The scrape of chair legs at the back of the cafe snagged her attention. A man 
unfolded from a chrome-framed chair, a man so tall and broad-shouldered that his 
size dwarfed the chair, the table, the very room. Madison blinked at the 
colossus eyeing her through two inky slashes above cheeks darkened more by 
heritage than sun.
"About time you got here," muttered the mountain of blue chambray and Levi denim 
striding toward her.
"See ya 'round, Walker," called the sandy headed man still seated at the table.
She gaped at Walker Armstrong as he passed without a word. He towered over her 
five foot eight inches, his raven-wing black hair swaging across his broad, 
burnished brow and plunging past high-planed cheeks to linebacker broad 
shoulders. She should be relieved that he wasn't pale. She'd joined the wolf 
study project in this remote corner of Michigan's upper peninsula to hunt a 
lighter man...like the one still seated at the Formica table, his unnaturally 
glinting grin aimed at her.
The diner door banged shut and she realized Armstrong had left without her. 
Madison closed her mouth, gave the diner patrons a sheepish glance, and bumped 
herself and her luggage out into the daylight.
Armstrong waited beside a baby blue, four wheel-drive pick-up truck patched with 
rust blithely watching her drag her luggage up the sidewalk. He nodded toward 
the cargo bay of the truck as she neared, his voice flat over his shoulder as he 
opened the driver's side door and climbed in. "Throw your gear in back."
She easily hoisted the carry-on bag over the shoulder-high side of the 
4-wheeler's cargo box. But, on her first attempt, she banged the Pullman against 
truck fender. He didn't give her a second try.
Wordlessly he climbed down from the cab, snatched the Pullman from her, and 
tossed it over the truck fender. Duly chastened, Madison scooted around the 
truck and climbed into the passenger seat barely before he threw it into gear 
and shot out into traffic.
She glanced through the rear window at the bright suitcases skidding about the 
rusty cargo box. Guilt nagged at Madison. She should be taking better care of 
herinheritance , meager as it was. She should have demanded he secure her 
luggage with the black rubber bungee cords lumped in the corner of the cargo 
box.
She should have. But she didn't and she knew why before her gaze even scaled the 
broad shoulder beside her and broached the hood of hair from which a hawkish 
nose and set jaw jutted. He intimidated her. Not by his size, though that was 
enough in itself. Not even by the power radiating from his bunching muscles as 
his arm worked the gearshift lever sticking up from the floorboards. It was his 
tension.
She'd felt it in the cafe the minute he'd skidded the chrome chair legs back 
from the table. She saw it now in how his lips tightened across his teeth. A 
muscle popped along the sharp jaw line. Why had he clenched his teeth?
She realized then that that jaw, that face all rough angles as though hewn from 
wood was tipped toward her. From the narrow slits above the polished copper 
cheeks, something dark and glittery slid in her direction.
Madison started and turned her face away, her cheeks prickling with a blush, her 
voice hollow and forced in her ears. "How far are we from the camp?"
"Forty miles," he answered in a flat tone, his big hands steering the truck hard 
from the main street into the parking lot of a supermarket.
Madison's shoulder hit the door and she braced herself as he skidded into a 
parking space nose-to-nose with a sub-compact, the smaller vehicle all but 
disappearing beyond the high, broad hood of the truck. When the truck rocked to 
a halt and there'd been no crash, she gaped past her white knuckled fingers 
clamped on the edge of the dash and through the wide windshield in wonderment.
"Meet me at the check-out when you're done," he curtly ordered, unfolding a 
sheet of notebook paper, tearing it in half, and handing the bottom portion to 
her.
By the time Madison realized she was staring at a grocery list, Walker Armstrong 
had disappeared through the automatic doors of the supermarket. She slid down 
out of the truck, her finger out of habit depressing the lock. She glanced at 
the red luggage full of her belongings in the open back of the truck, glanced 
about the sparsely filled lot, and reluctantly headed into the store.
Twenty minutes later Madison gaped at Walker's brimming cartload of meats and 
produce. He was frowning down at her sparse collection of dairy, canned, and 
dried goods.
"The list didn't say how much," she said lamely.
He plucked a fifteen-ounce can of tomato sauce from her gathered goods and 
muttered, "The bigger ones."
"The list didn't give sizes."
Abandoning his cart in front of the bakery shelves, he plowed off with hers. She 
trailed, fumbling the small cans and packages out of the cart wherever he 
stopped while he piled in larger ones.
"I was told I'd be cooking for only four men," she mumbled miserably.
"And I was told I was being sent someone who knew how to cook for a crew," he 
growled back.
"Maybe if I'd been told we were shopping for the month," she snapped, her 
control slipping.
"We're not," he leveled. "I'll drive you into town weekly for supplies."
Resignedly Madison asked for his list of bakery needs and slunk off under his 
reminder, "Lots."
In the checkout line, he peered over her shoulder at the pile of breads, 
coffeecakes, and doughnuts capping off the cart of meat and dairy.
"Enough?" she stiffly inquired.
"Don't you intend to bake anything yourself?"
***
Walker swung himself back into the driver's seat, drawing a guarded glance from 
his passenger's green eyes. She should be wary. He had no use for women who 
toted red suitcases and colored their eyes with tinted contacts. He'd seen the 
blunt edge of one when she'd turned her wide eyes in the direction of the bus 
station. He'd gladly drive her back there and dump her off.
At the intersection, he paused longer than was necessary. Just in case she'd 
changed her mind about staying, he told himself. But she didn't say the words he 
willed her to speak.
He sighed and pulled out onto the main street, rolling them further away from 
the bus stop. Too late if she changed her mind now, he vowed, knowing he'd burn 
a U-turn if she so much as wavered. But she just sat there, pressed against the 
far door.
"Damn," he muttered and she jumped.
"Buckle your seat belt," he growled.
She fumbled for the straps with long, slim fingers he was certain had little 
experience with meat cleavers or potato peelers. He scowled and eased up on the 
gas pedal as they approached the highway turn-off. One last chance for her to 
say she wanted to go back to the bus station. But she sprawled her long legs 
across the floorboards of his truck as though settling in for a long ride.
He jammed the transmission through its gears, his feet punching the clutch and 
alternately forcing the gas pedal. She was no doubt just another city-bred girl 
dabbling in what was currently stylish.
As if saving wolves was a fad. If he got a look at the backside of her 
thigh-hugging jeans, he was sure he'd find a designer label. He knew what 
mattered to city girls, knew their penchant for trends and status symbols. A 
year ago, he'd promised himself never to be either again.
CHAPTER TWO
At least he'd secured her suitcases. Though Madison had the distinct impression 
that he'd bungee corded them against the back of the cab more to prevent them 
from banging into his groceries.
She glanced at her watch. She'd been closed in the truck's cab for half an hour 
with the silent Mr. Armstrong.
She peeked through her bangs at her new boss. The stoic profile hadn't changed. 
And she still hadn't figured out why she smelled Avon Skin so Soft every time 
she lifted her nose in his direction. Brut or Old Spice she'd have accepted. Off 
insect repellent she'd expected. But Skin so Soft?
The truck leaned around a sweeping curve; pushing Madison away from the man she 
had no business analyzing. Ahead, the blue edge of a lake popped into view. 
Between shoreline and blacktop sat a single story frame building, its 
whitewashed clapboard siding dusted the ruddy hue of the iron-rich dirt 
surrounding it. The Wonder Bread sign in one window, neon Schlitz Beer sign in 
the other, and pair of gas pumps out front suggested its one-stop convenience. 
Madison had a premonition that she was seeing the last of what this rural 
location called civilization.
Walker downshifted and steered the truck hard off the highway. She was grateful 
for the seat belt keeping her from being thrown about as the truck's tires 
skidded from pavement to dirt. A few jarring miles over the washboard gravel 
road and she was doubly grateful for the anchor.
More than aching insides, though, warned her of the wisdom of her plan. The 
dwindling numbers of two rut roads snaking away from the rough lane evidenced 
the increasing isolation of her destination. She'd be housed with worse than the 
inhospitable Walker. There were three more men waiting where she headed, one of 
them more menacing than this one whose foot did not ease from the gas pedal even 
as an oncoming Jeep jumped around a corner at them.
Brush raked Madison's side of the truck as the two vehicles shot past each 
other. A final twisting plunge down a pair of ruts scored beneath overhanging 
tree limbs and the wild ride stopped in the middle of a clearing cut from lofty 
pines.
She'd expected the out-in-the-boondocks location. She'd expected a camp, 
something spare even. What she hadn't anticipated was massive terra cotta logs 
climbing two stories from a grassy fringe into a sun bathed patch of blue sky. 
The broad building was no spartan camp furrowed out of a tangle of forestation.
The truck rocked with the slam of its driver's side door, reminding Madison of 
the man who'd provided the pounding ride here. She opened her door and slid out, 
her feet touching down on the earthen driveway that ended between the 
surprisingly substantial cabin and a two-story, double-stall garage.
Her new employer shoved two grocery bags into her arms, lifted three more out of 
the back of the truck, and headed for the cabin. Madison followed along the 
well-worn path angling from the drive to an addition at the back of the cabin. 
The antiquated spring catch of its screen door protested as he opened it and, 
amazingly, held it for her.
She trailed him through the low ceilinged, dank screened porch housing an 
automatic washing machine and washtub of a sink. Where the first room reminded 
her of the moss-endowed north shaded side of a tree, the kitchen into which he 
led her brightened like a sun turned leaf. Maybe it was the pale painted 
cupboards and light patterned linoleum that made the room seem airy. Perhaps 
what gave the room its welcoming air was the yellow, ruffled valance above the 
pair of French windows swung open over the worn enamel sink. Yellow wasn't a 
color she'd have linked with the brooding Walker.
He dropped his bags on a pale pine table along the inside wall and headed back 
out. Madison set hers beside his, but she lingered in the archway between the 
kitchen and the adjoining room.
Beneath a vaulted ceiling, the great room stretched the full width of the cabin. 
Hand-hewn posts the thickness of a man's forearm supported the balustrade of the 
stairway climbing the wall on the near end of the room. At the foot of the 
stairs was a massive, oak dining table. On the far end of the room, an 
over-stuffed leather couch and over-sized coffee table completed the testament 
to her new boss' physical stature and ruggedness.
But, prickly as the man seemed, the cacti on the sill of a broad, curtainless 
window that over-looked a sun-spackled river didn't fit the ambiance of this 
north woods cabin. Nor did the framed Georgia O'Keefe print hung prominently 
over an ancient television set fit its setting.
Like the yellow valance on the kitchen window, the southwestern touches made her 
wonder about Walker Armstrong- -made her frown with thought.
"We do have indoor plumbing," snarled a deep voice from the threshold between 
screen porch and kitchen.
Madison spun at Walker's words.
"If you're finding it too rustic for your tastes- -" he growled on, "- -I'll 
drive you back to town as soon as we stow the groceries."
His strides ate up the distance between them with such haste that Madison bumped 
back against the wall between rooms. He dropped the bags he carried on the table 
beside her and wheeled away, the screen porch door twang-banging shut behind him 
seconds later. He didn't want her here. He made that clear. He probably thought 
she was some pampered preppie. The indoor plumbing remark implied as much.
With Walker once again at the back door, she hustled to unpack the groceries and 
learn about the kitchen where she'd be working. She had no intentions of 
accepting his offer to drive her back to town. When he didn't bring in her 
luggage, Madison carried them into the kitchen herself.
"Where shall I put these?" she asked, shrugging her shoulder beneath the strap 
of the overnighter while hefting the Pullman marginally higher.
From the dark gashes above Walker's cheeks, a devilish light flicked from the 
crimson luggage to her.
Heat flared into Madison's cheeks and she quickly amended, "I mean, where's my 
room?"
The mischief dimmed from Walker's eyes. "That can wait. We'll need supper on the 
table in an hour."
"I beg your pardon," Madison snorted incredulously, "but I've been traveling all 
day!"
"While the crew has been working."
"Have you any idea how early I had to get up this morning to catch the bus 
coming up this way from downstate?"
"You've obviously confused me with someone who cares."
Madison gaped in open-mouthed astonishment.
"You trying to catch flies?"
She snapped her mouth shut. She was going to have to live the summer with this 
tactless man. Besides, she might be overreacting. She was tired and stressed.
"Look, lady," he spewed through chiseled lips, "you likely got this job because 
you knew somebody. You probably aren't even qualified for it. I don't have to 
like that. But it is within my power to make you own-up to what you're being 
paid to do."
No, thought Madison, she was not overreacting. But she said nothing. She had 
pulled every string remotely within her reach to get the job; just like he 
said...not that she was about to admit such a thing to Walker Armstrong.
***
Precisely an hour later the voice of the man who'd already judged her inadequate 
boomed above the splash of running water in the porch sink. She bumped the 
serving platter against the inside of the microwave and winced. He was sure to 
fault her shortcuts.
Then again, if he wasn't accustomed to shortcuts, why did he have a microwave? 
Certainly he couldn't expect much with only an hour's notice.
She glanced up and found Walker standing in the entrance, drying his hands, 
watching her. She dumped garlic-buttered green beans from pot to bowl and 
escaped into the main room.
She'd barely set the beans down between a bowl of re-dehydrated instant potatoes 
and basket of store bought dinner rolls, when she realized Walker was once more 
behind her. She turned, prepared to face his critique of her work with chin held 
high. But the trio of men trailing him to the table, heads tipped in her 
direction, snatched her breath away. Those three heads of hair shaded from ash 
to taupe reminded her she had more dangerous men to fool than a sullen boss. She 
gave herself a mental nudge.
"Go ahead and start on the salad," she said through a forced grin. "I just have 
to slice the meat."
She fled to the kitchen where she chastised herself for her faintheartedness. 
She would have to get close to these men if she wanted to learn which had 
destroyed her best friend's life.
She pressed the blade of the knife into the meat loaf. She knew the danger. One 
man. Unless they wereall dangerous.
Steam rose from the cut she made, scorching the side of her hand. She drew back. 
Another warning against this plan of hers. But if she didn't find and expose the 
man who'd raped Laurel, who would?
In order to accomplish that goal, though, she needed to walk back into that big 
room and face four men who frightened her. Madison stared down at the sliced 
meat loaf- -recalled how Laurel would imitate Julia Child while drowning that 
particular college cafeteria mainstay in ketchup. Humor and flirtation had 
masked Laurel's insecurities. Snatching up a bottle of ketchup, Madison spread a 
smile across her mouth and served her main course with a minor flourish.
"Hamburger again," groaned the fairest headed and youngest of the quartet seated 
around the big table at the near end of the great room.
"But the shape," simpered the man seated beside him, his twinkling, sky-blue 
eyes creased at their outer edges. "It's not flat and round."
"What's the matter, Trey?" quipped the third of the fair complected trio from 
across the table. "Forget how to use a fork?"
This one studied her through a manicured shaft of taupe hair. "We've had 
hamburgers almost every night for two weeks." He cocked an eyebrow up from a 
dusty brown eye. "Personally I'm glad for the variation."
Madison forced a cuteness into her voice that almost made her gag. "Help me 
through this first meal, guys, and I promise, no more hamburger in any form for 
three weeks."
"I like hamburgers," mumbled Trey.
"Two weeks then," she offered in deference to the pale imitation of the sullen 
Walker...who lorded over them all from the head of the table. "Now, I'm Madison 
and you are?"
"Dalton Adair," provided the taupe headed one smoothly, his pale eyes surveying 
her in a manner that sent a shiver down her spine. The playboy connected to the 
corporation funding this project, she mentally catalogued.
"Mike Knutson," volunteered the one who'd teased about the shape of the meat.
A notebook linked the man who had raped Laurel to the wolf repopulation project 
here. Did it belong to this man, the college professor in charge of the project? 
She searched his crisp blue eyes for hidden intent but found none.
"And this insolent pup is Trey Hautamaki." Mike nodded his ashen haired head to 
his right.
One corner of Trey's mouth twitched as he gave her a sidelong look. Surely those 
smoky blue eyes could fade to colorless on the fringes of a dim light. She 
thought of the grad-student her investigating had told her had schooled at the 
same university where Mike taught.
Madison eased into the vacant chair at the foot of the table and Trey's pale 
eyes widened then flicked from her to Walker. Madison looked at Walker. His dark 
hair hooded forward about his face as he spooned potatoes onto his plate. 
Madison glanced at the men to either side of her. Mike's eyes slid away from 
her. Dalton's lingered, studying.
"What's wrong? Aren't I suppose to sit with you guys?"
A predatory smile curled across Dalton's lips. "We wouldn't have it any other 
way."
She glanced at Walker, who now seemed intent on sliding slices of meat loaf from 
platter to plate. She found Trey's eyes still flicking back and forth between 
her and Walker.
"But I did something wrong. What is it?"
"Nobody usually sits in that seat," murmured Walker, his cloak of hair sliding 
over his shoulders as he lifted his face.
"I'll move," she offered.
"No."
He hadn't spoken the word loudly. But its timbre stilled them all.
"Don't move." The eyes dark as a bottomless pit accented the command with a 
pointed glance at each man. "It doesn't matter."
***
"I don't think we should hold Madison to her promise not to cook with hamburger 
for two weeks," Mike groaned as he pushed back from his plate fifteen minutes 
later. "That's the best meat loaf I've ever eaten."
"A variation on a recipe of my grandmother's," she provided.
"You saying yours is better than your grandmother's?" drawled Dalton.
Madison caught the disapproving look Walker shot Dalton and simply answered that 
her grandmother didn't have a microwave. Gathering up the ravaged serving 
dishes, she retreated into the kitchen. She'd noticed far too much of Walker 
through the meal and far too little of the men she was supposed to be 
investigating.
She knew why, too. She'd always been sensitive to how people reacted to her. A 
habit formed of second-guessing the moods of the aunt who'd housed her through 
half her childhood. But, surviving the sullenness of her current landlord was 
the least of her problems.
Mike came up to the sink beside her, his hands laden with the Corelle he'd 
clicked his fork against during the meal and teased, "Don't anybody tell her 
where the paper plates are. We could actually save a tree this summer." He put 
his dirty dishes in the sink.
"Thanks." Madison smiled, genuinely. The professor's banter throughout the meal 
had kept the tension to a bearable level.
"We've had a year's practice at cleaning up after ourselves." Mike shrugged. 
"Hard habit to break"
"Not for some." Madison nodded at Walker who passed empty-handed from table to 
couch.
"Actually, Walker's the neatest of the bunch of us. Keeps the rest of us from 
completely slobbing out."
Madison eyed Mike skeptically.
"Bet you didn't find so much as a dirty spoon in the sink when you got here."
"Him?"
"You'll know who's the neat one when you come to clean the dormitory," chimed 
Dalton, coming up behind them.
"Dormitory?" echoed Madison.
"Walker didn't give you the grand tour?"
She shook her head. "Don't you all stay here in the cabin?"
"No," answered Mike.
"Just where is this dormitory?" she quizzed with a false brightness, both 
relieved and uneasy with the news that she would be housed alone with the 
brooding Walker. At least she'd better hope her bed was in the cabin, she 
belatently thought.
"Upstairs over the garage. I'll be more than happy to give you a personal tour," 
crooned Dalton, leaning too close as he reached around her and put his plate on 
the countertop.
Slick and glib, the very type that made sport of women. Was that the type of man 
capable of rape? She wanted to carve his heart out. She wanted to slap his face. 
She wanted to return his innuendo with a snide remark. But none of that would 
foster the trust she needed to garner proof enough to put a rapist away.
"Hardly seems fair, the three of you above a garage and Walker by himself in 
this roomy lodge," she teased.
"The cabin is his home," snapped Trey, edging Dalton aside and dumping his plate 
into the sink before stalking out of the cabin.
Madison glanced sheepishly between Mike and Dalton. Mike waved a dismissive hand 
after the student. "Don't mind him. He's sworn off women, a casualty of love 
lost. Fancies himself in Walker's likeness."
"Is that what was wrong with my sitting at the foot of the table, Walker's lost 
love sat there?"
The playfulness vanished from Dalton's face. The relaxed contours of Mike's face 
tightened. Madison glanced expectantly from one man to the other but neither 
spoke.
"Did something terrible happen to her?" she pressed.
"The worst," grunted Dalton, stepping smartly for the back door. "She was 
unfaithful."
***
Madison tucked the last cleaned plate away and closed the cupboard door, flexed 
her shoulder blades and stretched her neck. The stiffness came more of tension 
than weariness. Still, she was tired, dead tired. Stepping into the main room, 
she eyed the red luggage still at the base of the stairs where she'd dropped 
them.
She eyed Walker across the room, sprawled on the couch, his boot heels propped 
on the thick edge of the coffee table. He was scowling at the newspaper in his 
hand. Apparently he didn't like what he read any more than he liked her. The 
latter bothered Madison's sense of rightness. She'd given him no reason to 
dislike her...unless she counted the less than aboveboard manner by which she'd 
maneuvered herself into his world.
As if that weren't enough to send her guilty conscience into spasm, the 
gauntness of Walker's face and the belt notched one hole beyond the old groove 
made by the buckle tugged at Madison's heart. She hadn't noticed that wasting 
about him before. Then again, she hadn't known before that he was a man scorned. 
Little wonder he resented any woman invading his private domain.
But this was a woman weary. "Where do I sleep?"
"Upstairs," he answered without looking up.
Madison hoisted her bags and started up the broad stairway. "Which room?"
"You can choose any bed up there you want."
Weariness must be playing tricks on her. She thought she heard a humorous note 
among his answer. She was on the first landing where the stairway curved to 
follow the wall when what Walker said sunk in.
"What do you mean, inany bed ? Hasn't a bed been made up for me?"
He peered over the top of the newspaper at her. "You're the housekeeper."
"But- -"
He snapped the newspaper up between them, effectively cutting her off. She eyed 
the balcony overhanging the half of the room where he sat. Beyond the rustic 
railing, a broad dormer housed a pair of metal frame cots, but no walls.
Alarmed, she glanced right and left into the shadow shrouded lofts above the 
front porch to the far side of the balcony and the kitchen on the near side. 
Their beds were sturdier, but one fact screamed at Madison.
"There are no separate rooms up there!"
Walker folded the newspaper down against his denim-molded thighs, the expression 
he lifted at her smug. "Your point is?"
"Where do you sleep?"
CHAPTER THREE
The aroma of coffee made Madison smile even as she slept. Mama always had a pot 
brewing bright and early. Any minute now, she should hear Papa's deep, cheery, 
"Rise and shine, Sleepyhead."
Madison wriggled deeper into the saggy, old mattress. The bedsprings creaked. 
The coziness elicited a throaty purr from her. No wonder she was reluctant to 
climb out of her little loft in the peak of the roof most mornings.
Her eyelids opened once, twice, a fluttering third and fourth times. Somewhere 
in her reluctant awakening, she registered the difference between the pine 
ceiling over her head and the one in her dreams.
Madison sat bolt upright and nearly bumped her head on the slanting ceiling. 
She'd fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow in spite of her 
apprehensions about the sleeping arrangements. She hadn't really believed that 
Walker slept in a room downstairs.
A quick scan past the iron scrollwork of the footboard and the rough-hewn 
balustrade beyond, though, and she had to admit the bed in the opposite loft 
didn't appear to have been slept in. As for the cots beneath the dormer windows, 
Walker Armstrong would have had to practically bend himself in half to fit in 
one of them. So Walker's bedroom really was beyond that door he'd indicated 
between the desk in the corner off the end of the couch and the wooden rocker 
outside the kitchen.
The sharp clank of a frying pan jolted Madison out of the iron frame bed in the 
loft at the top of the stairs. She tugged on her jeans, tucked in the tails of 
the T-shirt in which she'd slept, and raced down the steps. A quick detour into 
the tiled room beneath the wide stairways and she splashed cold water on her 
face and popped in her contact lenses.
She stared at the green eyes in the mirror above the sink as she slipped the 
contact case into her pocket. She still wasn't used to their brightness. They'd 
been Laurel's idea back in the days when they together lamented Madison's 
dateless state.
As if a pair of tinted contacts could enliven chocolate brown locks beside 
Laurel's flashy blondness. As if green eyes would make up for less than ample 
curves. When her quest was done, when she no longer need their flashing 
attraction, Madison intended to get rid of them.
The clatter of a second pan out of the stove drawer jarred her out of the 
bathroom. She stopped in the narrow archway between great room and kitchen. 
Walker's presence in front of the oversized range all but blocked her passage. 
She bet disapproving, dark eyes slanted in her direction beyond the swag of his 
black hair; and she wasn't a betting woman. But she was well versed in the 
virtue of placating.
"Sorry." The soft, uncertainty of her voice ruffled the hairs on the back of 
Walker's arm. "Guess I forgot to ask what time to have breakfast ready."
"Sun-up," he snapped and slapped a thick strip of bacon into the iron frying pan 
in front of him.
"Want me to do that?" she asked.
"Just set the table," he muttered, determined no woman would ever get under his 
skin again, especially not one timid as a church-mouse.
She passed behind him, a cool, sweet smelling breeze. Damn her and all her 
gender, he silently swore. When she breezed past him a second time, this time 
with plate-laden arms, he glanced after her.
She hadn't combed her hair. Not that that little crop she had on her head would 
need much. One tuft in the back stood contrary to the lay of the rest, a second, 
longer look revealed. The woman he'd almost married wouldn't have been caught 
dead with a hair out of place.
Walker grimaced. He didn't like thinking about Jordan. But Jordan was the 
yardstick against which he measured women these days. No Eddie Bauer shirt or 
Guess jeans were more artfully displayed than on his former fiancé. How was it 
then that Madison Montgomery stretching across his table with a handful of 
flatware made him think her the better model for denim and flannel?
Maybe it was the way her jeans tugged across the inverted heart shape of her 
behind that prompted the evaluation. Maybe it was because Jordan hadn't even 
owned a pair of jeans before he'd invited her to the cabin. That she'd bought 
only one pair should have alerted him to how brief she'd intended her visit to 
be.
With a jaded eye, Walker searched the jeans gloving his housekeeper's backside 
for a designer's mark but found none. They may never have born a hundred dollar 
price tag and she may be built for denim the way Jordan was built for linen, but 
this Madison could manipulate all the same. Hadn't she won over Mike and Dalton 
with her cheek dimpling smiles every time they'd complimented her on her supper?
Not that it took good cooking for any broad to win over Dalton, seared the fact 
through Walker as he stabbed at the sizzling bacon in the frying pan. It didn't 
take much of anything for a woman to attract that man's attention.
Mike, though, was just an easygoing kind of guy. Just like him to make a fuss 
over that meat loaf of hers. Remembering the meat triggered a flood of saliva in 
Walker's mouth and, before he could catch himself, he thought what a shame that 
there wasn't any leftover for sandwiches today.
"Shall I cook the eggs?" she asked, once again framed between the two rooms. He 
didn't like her being that close.
"I'll do the eggs," he snapped back at her, shifting to give her more room to 
pass behind him...willing her to pass.
"Toast then," she chirped and sailed to the four-slice toaster on the countertop 
beyond the stove.
Walker scowled. Perky was even worse than mousy. Three months of perky would be 
three months more than he could stand.
"We need bag lunches," he said with as much menace as he could muster. "And 
clean the dormitory. The men have been sleeping in the same sheets for two 
weeks. Laundry's piled up, too. Washing machine and supplies are on the back 
porch."
"What, no dryer?" she asked with a vexing cheerfulness as she popped bread into 
the slots of the toaster.
"Out back," he growled. "First rope to the right. You do know how to use a 
clothespin, don't you?"
"Sure do," she sang back and his blood pressure edged another degree higher.
"Have dinner ready when we get back."
"Which will be?" she inquired sweetly, arms crossed over her chest and chin 
tilted at him.
"Between six and nightfall."
"Anything in particular you want?"
"Why don't you just surprise me," he said, lacing his words with sarcasm.
The corners of her mouth twitched and the cheeriness faded from her features. If 
it hadn't been for the false color of her widening eyes, he might have pulled in 
his horns. He might even have apologized.
***
She'd actually had Walker on the defensive...for a minute maybe. Madison wasn't 
sure whether that was good or bad. She wasn't accustomed to having the upper 
hand with anyone. Maybe it was Walker Armstrong's can't-win-with-me attitude 
that made her want to make him squirm.
But then guilt stepped in and put an end to her fun. She'd come here to find 
justice for Laurel, not develop adversarial skills on some 
rebounding-from-the-stings-and- arrows of love guy. Besides, she might need 
Walker Armstrong's protection. With that in mind, she'd set no place at the foot 
of the table where his betrayer had sat and vowed to placate the man from then 
on.
"Scrambled again," whined Trey when she served up Walker's platter of eggs.
She straightened between Trey and Mike's chairs. Distrust flickered at her from 
the onyx depths of Walker's eyes.
"Been getting a lot of scrambled eggs lately, huh guys?" she probed, carefully 
avoiding placing blame.
"Enough that we've forgotten their original shape," snorted Mike.
"I think I could manage made-to-order eggs a few days a week," she offered, 
noticing the squint lines at the edges of Walker's eyes deepen.
"I'll take mine sunny-side-up," drawled Dalton suggestively. "Two of them, high 
and rounded."
Walker's features tightened. Before she could figure out why, the spring catch 
of the back porch door creaked in protest and he glanced away. She followed the 
direction of his gaze just as a khaki uniformed man walked into the room.
"Hey Swede," chorused the trio of paler men about the table.
"Even a place set for me today," the newcomer blew, plopping down beside Dalton 
in the place Madison had set for herself. "How's that for coincidence?"
"Coincidence hell," blustered Mike. "You know what time we eat breakfast."
"And with that nose of his," quipped Dalton, "our friendly Game Warden usually 
ferrets out whenever else we've got food on the table. So you'd best always make 
extra, Madison."
The uniformed man's piercing blue eyes zeroed in on Madison who still stood at 
Trey's shoulder. They examined her with a solemnity the rest of his face didn't 
exhibit. A shaft of dark blond hair bobbed as he nodded to her. "Swede Olafson, 
ma'am. I'm somewhat of a semi-regular at Walker's."
Madison forced a smile at the long weather-polished face of yet another who fit 
the vague description of the man she hunted.
"Oh now, Swede, don't be so modest," Mike chided. "You're a regular moocher."
"If my wife stayed home and cooked," quipped Swede, "I wouldn't have to mooch."
Trey shuddered. "Better that Sophie stays out of the kitchen."
"The pup here doesn't much care for casserole surprise," Mike explained for 
Madison's benefit.
"I don't even want to think about what those soggy brown things were on top of 
the last one," Trey said.
"I'm sure it was quite delicious for those who like casseroles," ventured 
Madison, feeling a little sorry for Mrs. Olafson who wasn't there to defend 
herself.
This elicited a snort from Swede and an emphatic, "No. Trey's account is 
correct. My Sophie's cooking is awful. Just ask Walker. He damn near starved to 
death this past winter, what with her trying to feed him."
"We're all better off Sophie chose career over cooking."
This last was spoken by Walker with a drollness Madison wouldn't have thought 
him capable of. The others clearly weren't surprised by it. They dissolved into 
laughter. Even the hard line of Walker's mouth softened.
But she wasn't here to contemplate how a full smile might warm Walker's face. 
Madison set a place for herself at the foot of the table and eased into the seat 
opposite him...once again. He glanced at her and his brow furrowed.
That shouldn't matter to her. He shouldn't matter. The paler men were the 
objects of her interest. She should be studying them, listening to what they 
said. There had to be a clue she could use somewhere in their conversation.
But they talked between mouthfuls of bacon, egg, and toast only of the lone wolf 
for whom they searched. They gulped coffee and debated reliable sightings. They 
shoved back emptied plates and spread out plat maps over which they plotted 
where next to search out the elusive wolf. She ceased to exist for them. Though, 
as she cleared the table around Walker, his shoulders tightened.
Not that she should care. She wasn't responsible for his sour disposition. Maybe 
that dour attitude of his was even the reason behind his fiancé's adultery.
Madison scraped the leavings from the breakfast plates into the garbage pail on 
the screen porch, annoyed that she wasted even a minute pondering the wounded 
Walker. She had the last plate in her hand when she noticed the rangy form 
beyond the screen door, his yellow eyes flicking between her and the plate. She 
was no lupine expert, but she was certain wolves didn't carry their tails curled 
tightly over their backs.
Madison opened the screen door. The leggy canine stepped back stiffly. She 
stepped out onto the stoop. He lowered his head and eyed her cautiously. She set 
the plate on the ground and retreated to the stoop.
The dog was licking the last traces of bacon grease from the dish when the 
screen door creaked open behind Madison and a frowning Walker strode past her. 
The wolfish animal turned and trotted after him.
"You shouldn't have come out alone to meet Wolf," Mike murmured as he stepped 
around her onto the path.
"Wolf? Is he?"
"Halfway," grunted Swede as he paused beside her. "Siberian bitch of mine run 
off with that lone wolf we're looking for. Got herself shot raiding Tom Maki's 
chicken coop up the road. She was full of milk. By the time Walker and me 
tracked down her den, Wolf was the only pup still alive."
"Lady's got a lot of pluck, facing him down by herself," chirped Dalton over 
Swede's shoulder, his dusty eyes narrowed.
"He didn't seem such a menace," parried Madison, suspicious of the emphasis 
being placed on the hybrid's supposed danger.
"Wolf's not keen on women," muttered Trey as he skirted them and lumbered after 
Walker. "Didn't like the last woman who came here at all."
***
So, hedidn't like the last woman who came here . Madison stared down from the 
dormitory window at the gray wolf dog belly-flopped in the driveway, but she was 
thinking of the dog's master. She should be so lucky that her only problem was a 
contrary boss. But she had a rapist to expose.
She turned away from the window. It had taken little deductive reasoning to 
determine which of the room's three cots and their immediate living area 
belonged to which man. The white T-shirts belonged to Mike. Those emblazoned 
with college insignias had to be Trey's. While the black silk shirt inside the 
wardrobe beside the third bed could belong to no other than a man who'd grown up 
in privilege and spoke in glib innuendoes. Dalton Adair likely thought no woman 
beyond his charm. But, was he a man to tattoo a harpoon-skewered mermaid on his 
chest then taunt a woman with it before raping her?
***
Dalton worked to free the ropes from the metal rings set into the slatted dock 
on which he knelt and Madison stood, a devilish grin curling his lips as he 
peered up at her.
"How about it Madison? Take a little ride up river with me to look for wolf 
sign?"
Madison wanted to turn and run, not stand there and smile back at his innuendo. 
But she also wanted to see his chest, to discover if he was the man whose game 
of victimizing included showing off a certain tattoo before doing his dirty 
deed. Maybe beneath a mid-day sun on a boat in the middle of a river he would 
remove his shirt.
But it was foolish to contemplate a boat ride alone with a man who was possibly 
a rapist. If only the authorities had done a chest-by-chest search of all 
possible candidates. If only they'd taken Laurel seriously.
If only Laurel had reported the crime when there'd been more physical evidence.
But for a fewifs , Madison wouldn't be here acting the avenging angel. Not that 
she was about to let herself be trapped in the middle of a river with a rapist.
"Anybody else coming along?" she asked.
"Me," sounded Walker's lead-timbered voice a breath before his boots hit the 
dock.
Madison jumped and Dalton steadied her with a hand to her elbow. Funny, that the 
man she suspected of a horrible crime against womankind should play the 
gentleman while the man who unnerved her was innocent. Or rather, not guilty. 
Somehowinnocent didn't fit Walker.
"How about it?" pressed Dalton. "Up for a ride?"
She had the necessary chaperon. She smiled at Dalton. "Sure. I'd love a boat 
ride."
Walker watched Dalton hand Madison down onto the center seat.
"Aren't you the gentleman," she chirped.
Walker scowled and dropped heavily onto the bow seat. The boat rocked violently. 
Madison frowned at him. No doubt she'd have preferred taking this little 
excursion alone with Dalton. But this was a working camp. If she didn't like his 
coming along, too bad.
Dalton took the stern, shoved off, pull started the outboard motor, and steered 
the craft hard away from the golden shallows into the black depths of mid-river. 
Madison shivered. If she expected Dalton to warm her up, she had a long wait 
ahead of her, Walker estimated. He'd be damned before he took over the helm so 
the two of them could get cozy.
She'd made a mistake. It was cooler, damper out on the river. Dalton wasn't 
going to take his shirt off. As for Walker acting as chaperon...
Madison tried to see into the hood of dark hair funneling around Walker's face. 
Maybe Dalton wasn't the only man in the boat from whom she needed protecting. 
She gripped the edge of the plank seat to either side of her hips and braced her 
feet against the bottom of the boat.
Walker noticed the legs bent at a sharp angle between them. Legs were what he'd 
first noticed about Jordan. Slender, shapely legs that climbed from navy blue, 
high heeled pumps past navy blue skirt hem. The slit in that tailored skirt had 
teased him with a hint of how much further those legs reached. He'd loved 
slipping his hand inside those splits and sliding it the silky length of her 
stockinged leg. Why did a bare pair crooked from denim cut-offs to white canvas 
tennis shoes stir memories of that sophisticated set?
Because the woman on the boat seat opposite him played a game same as had his 
deceitful fiancé. He'd spotted it the first time she'd smiled at Dalton, had 
heard it when she accepted Dalton's invitation. Being on the losing side of a 
love-triangle once had been enough to end Walker's enchantment with games.
She scratched at a mosquito bite on her calf, her narrow shoulders hunched, her 
eyes big and round as they scanned the heavily forested riverbank. Maybe she 
wasn't the player he thought she was. Maybe it was his viewpoint that was 
tainted.
Maybe he should give her a break.
He dug the travel-size bottle of Skin so Soft from his back pocket and tossed it 
to her. "Put that on. It'll keep the biting insects away."
She looked at the bottle, then at him. She looked at him so long that he added, 
"It doesn't work for everybody. But it works for me."
One corner of her mouth tugged upwards and, for a moment, he thought she was 
going to tease him about his choice of insect repellent. Part of him almost 
wanted her to do just that. But she said only, "Thanks."
Then set about coating her long legs with the oil.
Something deep inside him twinged, a desire he hadn't known in over a year. He 
forced himself to look away from her exhibition- -forced himself to study the 
landscape to either side of the river when it was the contours of the legs 
spread within touching distance that begged for his attention. He wasn't ready 
for that kind of diversion.
Or was he?
She'd just screwed the cap back on the bottle when Dalton steered the boat 
around a bend in the river more sharply than was necessary. Madison skidded 
across her seat, dropping the bottle and scrambling for a handhold. Dalton 
caught her one-handed by the waist before Walker even thought to rescue her. She 
should have looked pleased. Dalton was they guy she was after, wasn't he?
But, oddly Madison Montgomery's eyes were wide with fear.
"She's got her balance," he curtly informed Dalton. "You can let go of her."
So Walker would protect her. Madison was so relieved, she didn't even explore 
why Walker had intervened. She was safe, safe enough to pursue uncovering 
information if not a chest. Twisting on her seat, she lifted her chin over her 
shoulder at Dalton. "Thanks for the helping hand."
Damn her, Walker silently cursed. Whatever had made him think Dalton's touch had 
troubled her?
The look in her eyes...her false green eyes. He should have known the frightened 
expression was a ploy meant for Dalton. He should have remembered that uptown 
girls preferred uptown boys with money-stuffed pockets. No doubt she'd made the 
connection between Dalton's last name and the corporation where she'd 
interviewed for this job. Maybe she even knew Dalton's old man was the CEO and 
major stockholder of AdairCor. Appropriate that the angle of her trim eyebrows 
should resemble the sweep of a falcon's wing.
Dalton leaned in close to her and her knuckles whitened on the edge of her seat. 
Not that Walker was about to let himself be fooled again by any show of 
helplessness, especially not when she tipped her head in unison with Dalton's 
toward the sky where he pointed. Walker refused to contemplate why he noticed 
the slope of her throat or the way the wind rifled her mink-brown bangs back 
from her forehead.
Her chin dropped as an eagle plummeted from the sky and her mouth rounded in 
wonder as the bird of prey snatched a trout from the river. He'd give her credit 
for being duly impressed. In this age of titan-sized telephoto lenses and 
high-speed film, most people preferred nature in close-up shots on a television 
screen while stretched out in easy chairs.
"Pictures don't really show their size, their power," she murmured in an 
awe-struck voice.
"No, they don't," Walker answered before he caught himself, before he could 
remind himself that she was not a person with whom he wanted to share how often 
he'd tried to capture the power of that majestic bird on film but had failed.
Yet, she studied him with an interest that made him want to reconsider sharing 
his dreams. Then Dalton nudged her shoulder and pointed out the towering pine 
where the eagle perched, eating his trout.
"What about you, Dalton," she said, sighting off Dalton's upraised arm, "were 
you awed by the sheer size and power the first time you saw an eagle up close 
and personal?"
Walker grit his teeth. He should take pleasure out of the irony that she hunted 
Dalton since Dalton's predatory prowess equaled that of the eagle while 
Madison's was more like that of the trout which the eagle devoured.
Yet, when the cadence of Dalton's response matched the pattern of that Dalton 
used when wooing business associates...or prospective bedmates, Walker bristled. 
He knew why.
But he didn't know why he cared. A year ago he'd have simply smiled and watched 
Madison play out her hand. The innocent acting ones, and this one with the 
scrubbed next-door-girl looks was no doubt using that ploy, thought they had 
Dalton fooled. In the end, Dalton always had them serving up themselves to him 
for breakfast, dinner, and dessert.
Maybe the current flirtation bothered him because Dalton knew better than most 
how such amusement had ended for him. Silently, Walker cursed Dalton for 
bringing a woman here. He cursed them both for thinking to play their wretched 
games under his nose.
As enchanted as Madison was by the doe and twin fawns grazing on the shore and 
the otters skidding down the riverbank Dalton pointed out through the next half 
hour, local flora and fauna wasn't the sort of information she needed. Then 
there was the glum Walker. She simply had to stop letting him distract her. She 
had a rapist to ferret out and the silver-tongued Dalton headed her suspect 
list. But did he have opportunity?
"How long have you been part of the wolf study?" she asked Dalton.
"From day one."
"Through last winter, even?"
"More or less."
"More or less?" she probed.
He flashed a smile. "The dorm over the garage isn't insulated for winter use and 
Walker wasn't ready to have anyone else living under his roof."
From what Madison could tell, Walker still wasn't ready to share his living 
quarters. But that wasn't the issue at hand.
"So, you stayed in town?"
"Booked a condo up at the ski lodge."
The ski lodge...where Laurel had spent her winter vacation. Madison's blood 
drummed in her ears. Opportunity.
"Got a little crowded when Trey joined us over the Christmas break," he 
continued. "But we managed."
Madison's heartbeat slowed. "Us?"
"Mike and me."
Back to square one. All three men had opportunity.
"If you want to know about the project," Dalton added, "Mike's the expert."
"How'd he come to choose this place?" she asked, hoping to learn something about 
one man or the other that might narrow down her search.
"I told him about Walker's pet."
"Why?"
"Because Mike was a favorite professor of ours."
She'd meant, why had he told Mike about Walker's Wolf? The answer he'd given, 
though, piqued her curiosity.
"Ours?" she probed.
"Walker's and mine."
"You and Walker were college classmates?"
"Yeah, you heard right," Walker growled. "I'm a college boy. Didn't expect that 
of a man like me, did you?"
The wind direction shifted, pulling the hood of hair away from one side of 
Walker's face. She searched his features for hint of the man who'd only minutes 
shared his Avon Skin-so-Soft with her- -searched for a reason for his defensive 
response. But the hard hewn contours of Walker's face gave up nothing.
She turned back to Dalton. The plank on which she sat vibrated. She glanced at 
the feet propped one over the other between her hip and the gunwale, Walker's 
feet. She didn't have time for these wounded-by-love games. She turned back to 
Dalton.
"So, you got involved studying wolves because of a favorite professor?"
Dalton hesitated before answering. "More or less."
There was that more or less thing again. And there went the feet beside her 
again, shifting, thumping against the bench seat. Madison glanced at them, then 
followed the sprawl of the denim-gloved legs from buckskin Wellington's to 
cowhide belt.
"What do you mean, more or less?" she asked almost by rote, her gaze riveted to 
the area of Walker's belt buckle...or the vicinity slightly below.
Realizing what she was doing, Madison blinked and blushed and hoped Walker 
hadn't noticed. Their eyes met just as Dalton commented about not having 
anything better to do. A light gleamed in Walker's black eyes and she swore one 
corner of his mouth actually twitched with amusement. He'd not only caught her, 
he'd enjoyed catching her.
She glowered at Walker and started to turn once more to Dalton. A muscle molded 
jean leg brushed her thigh and she spun at Walker with a dark look, which he 
undoubtedly missed because his gaze was fixed on her legs.
"Enjoying the view?" she snapped.
The black-as-night eyes slid up the front of her, their fractured light pinning 
her like a butterfly to a cork backed shadow box and Walker tossed, "Not 
particularly."
CHAPTER FOUR
Not particularly, he'd said. Madison hugged her knees close to her un- abundant 
chest as she sat on the porch rail watching Walker cut an angry path behind a 
fractiously sputtering lawn mower. If anyone should be mad, it should be her 
after what he'd said to her in the boat.
Not particularly. Three days later the words still stung. His words. His 
opinion. It shouldn't matter to her that he'd found her physically lacking. It 
wasn't like she didn't already know what her shortcomings were.
Her spine curled further away from the porch upright. That's what she got for 
goading him.
He crisscrossed the lawn in front of the broad shaded porch where she perched, a 
bronze silhouette backlit by a sun-gilded river. All that muscle bulk rippling 
beneath a sweaty sheen gave him good reason for his inflated ego. Absurdly she 
wondered if he would still reject her if she were to slide her hands down his 
tapering sides and into the space where his waist didn't quite fill out the band 
of his jeans.
Madison was so startled by the direction her own meanderings had taken, she 
nearly tottered off the porch rail. She gave Mike, Trey, and Dalton a sheepish 
glance. But the professor still dozed on the rattan divan, the student remained 
engrossed in his maps, and the playboy was sprawled between the chair and 
ottoman beside the door, staring off into space. At least none of them had 
witnessed her embarrassing lapse.
If only it would stop. If only the flame in her cheeks would recede. If only she 
knew what that curious warmth spreading from the pit of her stomach was.
The lawnmower sputtered to silence and panic fanned through Madison. She wasn't 
ready to lose the fractious distraction of that machine. She wasn't prepared for 
the studied manner in which Walker ignored her as he passed, heading for the 
rear of the cabin.
Why should she care? She wasn't hunting a man for her own carnal purposes. Even 
if she were, she'd never have targeted a man like Walker. He was too dark, too 
big, entirely too feral.
He was also too wounded. A man on the rebound and she too much a sucker for the 
walking wounded.
She also had one rule regarding rebounding men. Sympathetic ears she offered. A 
warm body she did not. And as far as she could tell, Walker Armstrong wasn't 
talking.
Behind her, Trey thumped a finger against one of his maps. "What about sector 
five. He's been spotted there a dozen times."
Mike yawned. "None of those sightings were confirmed."
"And three quarters of the time when they think they've seen a wolf," muttered 
Dalton without shifting and giving up his relaxed pose, "it was just some big, 
bony dog."
"Why the hurry in finding the wolf?" Madison asked in an attempt to get her 
attention off of Walker.
"The Fish and Game Department has a female wolf recuperating from an injury," 
Mike explained. "When she's recovered, they intend to transplant her someplace 
where pack competition isn't so great."
"Why not just return her to her own pack?"
"Because she got injured challenging the alpha bitch for leadership," Trey 
supplied.
"And there's only one alpha pair in a pack," explained Mike as the screen door 
swung open and Walker stepped out onto the porch.
"And only the alpha pair breed," Dalton crooned, automatically dropping his legs 
out of Walker's way.
"Though sometimes," rumbled Walker as he leaned back against the porch railing 
beyond Dalton and popped open a Pepsi can, "the dominant male allows the second 
in command, the beta male to have at the bitch."
Madison got the distinct impression that last had something to do with her.
***
The Ford Bronco with the L.L. Bean hunter green and khaki custom paint job 
rumbled over the gravel toward the highway. Madison bounced in the passenger 
side bucket seat. She hoped Dalton hadn't taken Walker's comments about letting 
the Beta male have at the bitch too literally. She'd maneuvered this ride to 
Chick's Last Chance for, as Dalton called it, "A little Saturday night R & R," 
because he wore the black silk Pierre Cardan shirt and hadn't fastened the top 
three buttons. After a week of buttoned up khakis and close-knit tees, this was 
best shot she'd had at checking out Dalton's chest for the telltale tattoo.
She'd also taken the precaution of insuring they wouldn't be alone. She glanced 
over her shoulder at Trey in the back seat. He sure was glum for a young man 
going out for a social evening.
The Bronco skidded to a halt at the end of the main gravel road. The dashboard 
lights illuminated a flash of white teeth as Dalton smiled in her direction. 
He'd been telling her another reason why he was working on the wolf project, 
that his tax accountant had recommended he, "Take time off from making money."
"I would think there are easier ways not to make money."
Dalton gunned the Bronco onto the highway, one slick eyebrow hitched up. "You 
think traipsing God's country is hard work?"
"Judging by the muddy jeans and sweaty shirts I laundered, it can't be all that 
easy."
Dalton wheeled the Bronco hard off the blacktop, across the dirt surface of the 
parking lot of the one-stop grocery-gas station-bar she'd last seen the day 
Walker drove her into the camp, and chirped. "If you hunt a wolf, you hunt him 
where he hunts."
"Yes," Madison breathed inaudibly as she stepped out of the vehicle and into the 
wash of the neon lit letters of the bar she thought appropriately named. "You 
hunt him where he hunts."
The place smelled of smoke and beer. A jukebox on the wall that divided tavern 
from store blared country and western music. Dalton pressed his hand to the 
small of Madison's back and propelled her along the scarred bar that reached 
from front to back of the establishment. She eased up onto a stool.
"What're you drinking?" Dalton asked, his mouth close to her ear.
"Vodka and tonic," she answered, resisting the impulse to strain away from him.
Dalton tossed a twenty onto the bar.
"I'll buy my own," she protested, not wanting to be beholding to any man let 
alone one she suspected of rape.
"First one's on me, doll," he said.
This was part of the game, Madison reminded herself. Part of the enticement. And 
hadn't she come here to catch Dalton at his tricks?
The bartender set a beer can and two squat glasses in front of her. The vodka 
and tonic would be the first piece of business she took care of. She just had to 
get a moment alone with the bartender.
Trey snatched up his beer and darted off toward a cluster of woodsy types at the 
back of the bar. Dalton, surprisingly, abandoned her nearly as quickly. The 
trajectory of his departure, though, took him to a table full of fetching 
females.
That was easier than she'd expected. Madison smiled sheepishly at the bartender. 
"Guess I'm on my own."
"Never as long as I'm around, Madison."
She focused on the man across the bar from her. "How do you know my name?"
"You're chief cook and bottle washer up at Walker's. I had the misfortune,"- -he 
emphasized the last word and grinned broadly - -"of keeping Walker company while 
he waited for your bus."
She'd seen that glinting smile in the diner the day she'd arrived. It had made 
her uneasy then and it made her uneasy now. Still, she smiled back at the man. 
"Misfortune?"
He shrugged. "You've had almost a week of him."
Madison snickered in spite of her apprehensions. "So, what do I call you?"
"I'm Chick Thorson. Just call me Chick."
"Chick?" she repeated. "As inChick's Last Chance?"
"One and the same."
Madison began to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"The sign, your sign. I thought- -" She gulped back her laugher and smiled 
apologetically. " - -I thought Chick's Last Chance meant a girl's last chance."
Chick's mouth spread wide, very wide and Madison saw why it glinted so 
unnaturally. His upper canines were capped by silver crowns. Funny thing about 
paranoia, it made you suspect the most innocuous things.
She leaned over the drink in front of her toward the man who'd served it. "About 
my future vodka and tonics... "
***
Late in the evening, Walker slipped into the bar and took up occupancy on the 
nearest vacant stool. It was a familiar space to a man riding high the successes 
of career and manhood, but an alien one to a man disillusioned. He scanned the 
room, searching for a certain coffee brown cap of hair among the crowd. Not that 
he'd have admitted who he looked for should anyone ask. Not that he fully 
admitted the reason to himself.
Chick set a can of Pepsi down in front of Walker without waiting to be asked. 
"Haven't seen you in here on a Saturday night in some time."
Walker gave Chick a censoring look. Chick shrugged. "Just an observation."
The dull click of pool balls striking one another cracked discordantly among the 
sweet strains of the ballad playing on the jukebox. Walker glanced in the 
direction of the pool table near the front of the tavern and the throng 
surrounding it.
Chick folded his arms on the bar across from Walker, leaned into them, and 
grinned.
Two and a half decades of knowing the guy taught him how to read the bar owner's 
mannerisms. "What?"
"She's making a big hit and not just with the billiard balls." Chick nodded 
toward the game table. The crowd on the near side parted from the thick end of 
the pool cue being drawn back past a femininely curved hip- -a femininely 
curved, blue jeaned hip gloving a familiar inverted heart shaped behind.
"She's why you're here, isn't she?" Chick gave him one of his maddeningly, 
knowing grin.
Walker scowled at Chick. But the jabbing movement of the cue stick caught his 
eye and he turned his attention to the game. The cue ball shot forward and 
struck a solid blue one, which bumped against the felt edge, ricocheted off 
another, and rolled into a pocket.
"Lucky shot," he muttered, frowning as Madison whooped and bounced on her feet.
"Then she's been lucky all evening," snorted Chick.
Madison's beaten opponent flagged the barmaid. The waitress made her way to the 
space between Walker's and the next stool and dropped her drink tray on the bar. 
"She'll have her usual."
"Her usual?" quizzed Walker, wondering at how much his housekeeper had consumed 
in one night that she'd already established ausual .
"Vodka and tonic," supplied the strawberry blond waiting for Chick to fill her 
drink order.
"The high-test stuff," Walker snorted, raising an eyebrow at the svelte brunette 
taking bows tableside.
"She's been putting on that kind of show all evening," the blond supplied. "A 
real party girl."
"Is that a warning, Lacey?" Walker looked deep into the barmaid's wounded, blue 
gaze. Like Chick, they'd known each other since high school. Though Lacey was a 
few grades younger and had a longer history with the bar than either of them.
Chick set Madison's drink on Lacey's tray. The corners of Lacey's mouth 
quivered. "Just thought you should know, she's not one of those damsels in 
distress you're always rescuing."
Walker blinked self-consciously away. Lacey had an inflated opinion of him just 
because he'd stepped into her life a few times and happened to help make things 
better. She wouldn't think him such a nice guy if she knew the conquest games 
he'd learned during his years in the city.
Which brought him back to his city-bred housekeeper who was swigging the vodka 
and tonic Lacey had delivered to her like it was soda water.
"She been drinking them like that all night?" he asked Chick.
"Yup."
Walker snorted. "She won't be standing long at that rate."
"You counting on that?"
Walker flashed Chick a dark look. "I'm not counting on anything where she's 
concerned."
"Good," murmured Chick, sliding off toward another customer further along the 
bar.
"Come on, Dalton," his housekeeper purred from the far end of the pool table, 
"you said you'd play me if I beat them."
"But, doll- -"
"You promised," plied the dulcet voice that had assailed his solitude this past 
week.
Walker lifted the Pepsi can to his lips. His eyes strayed past the red, white, 
blue, and silver cylinder. She stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.
"If you can't keep a promise simple as this one, a girl would have to wonder 
aboutany promise you made."
The blond on Dalton arm raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
"Okay," Dalton said, releasing the blond and sauntering up to the table. "One 
game and I break."
Madison fit a cube of chalk to the tip of her pool cue.
"You won't be needing that, doll," Dalton chirped as he racked the balls.
No she wouldn't, Walker privately acknowledged, knowing what the chuckling 
locals knew. There was only one thing rich boy Dalton liked more than slumming 
and that was winning...no matter what the game.
The cue ball cracked against the racked balls. Striped and solid spheres flew 
across the table, three of them disappearing into the pockets. If Miss Madison 
Montgomery had figured out she'd been hustled, she didn't look like she cared. 
Her grass green eyes didn't so much as blink away from Dalton. Damn her.
Damn her for all the attention she'd paid the playboy back at the cabin. Damn 
her for flirting with the man now, here, publicly. Damn her for hitching herself 
up onto the lip of the table in front of Dalton.
"Come on, Dalton," she cajoled in the singsongy kind of voice Walker hated. 
"Give me a chance."
He will. But not tonight. Not when he's got you near at hand every day of the 
week and certainly not on a night when he's already got himself another primed 
for the taking.
Walker gnashed his teeth against the rim of the pop can.
Dalton grinned ruefully. "You wouldn't be trying to ruin my shot, would you, 
doll?"
She peeked up through her lashes at Dalton and the aluminum can in Walker's grip 
kinked. She slid her hand up Dalton's shirtfront and slipped her fingers into 
its opening, puckering, "Of course I am."
The Pepsi can in Walker's grip buckled.
Maybe it was his own erupting rage that made Walker think Madison's face had 
gone unnaturally pale. Maybe it was all the drinking she'd done at last catching 
up to her. She swayed and Dalton caught her from toppling to the floor.
"I think the lady just forfeited the game," Dalton jovially announced, easing 
her onto her feet. She stumbled. "Looks like you're ready to go home, too, 
doll."
Dalton glanced at his blond then around the bar. If ever there was a cue to 
depart, Walker realized with startling clarity, that this was it. He'd gotten 
stuck with Dalton's overflow before, had more than once wound up driving the 
man's extras home. Not this time, Walker vowed. He fumbled through his pockets 
for the right change. Finally he tossed two crumpled dollar bills on the bar for 
a drink worth a buck and a quarter.
A group of late arrivals crowded in just as Walker stepped for the door. Dalton 
called for Trey; a reprieve that was short lived when Trey proved to be too 
drunk to be behind the wheel of any vehicle.
Walker ducked his head and plowed into the throng between him and the door. 
Almost there. Just a pair of wide women between him and freedom.
"Walker."
Maybe if he pretended he didn't hear Dalton.
"Walker," Dalton repeated, more loudly this time.
What on God's green earth was so all fired important that those two women 
between him and the door had to discuss while blocking the exit!
"Walker!"
He scowled over his shoulder at Dalton...who herded Madison and Trey ahead of 
himself toward Walker.
"You heading back to camp?" Dalton asked.
"It's after midnight, Dalton," Walker leveled drolly. "Where else would you 
expect me to be going?"
"You got room for a couple hitchers?"
"I don't suppose it's occurred to you to drive them home yourself since you 
brought them here."
"I'd rather not." Dalton gave a meaningful glance in the direction of his 
waiting blond.
"Far be it from me to deny you your pleasure of any woman," growled Walker.
***
Madison slid across the truck's bench seat toward Walker.
"You're not going to be sick, are you?" he snapped.
She shook her head, not certain she wasn't going to be ill. Not because she was 
drunk, which she was certain Walker thought she was. Not that she could blame 
him. It was the persona she'd affected for a bar full of people. Only Chick knew 
otherwise, Chick to whom she'd slipped a twenty to make sure vodka never made 
its way into her tonics.
"Keep him awake." Walker flipped his thumb at Trey, who nearly fell out of the 
truck reaching for the door handle. "I'm in no mood to have to carry him up to 
his bed."
She wasn't in any mood for further complications, either. Exhaustion crawled 
over her, weighted her more than Trey's body slumped against her did. She 
elbowed him off. He mumbled something she didn't understand and hadn't the 
energy to care. Her body reeled from the roller coaster ride of a chase that had 
ended impotently. There was no tattoo on Dalton's chest. Who next, her overtaxed 
brain swam?
Walker jerked the shift stick into gear and his knuckles grazed her thigh. She 
tried to move away. But Trey's leg pressed leadenly against hers.
Keep him awake, echoed Walker's command between her ears. Numbly she cajoled 
Trey to consciousness. But, for all her attempts, he was soon once more a dead 
weight against her shoulder. She tried to ease away from Trey. But he drooped 
after her, wedging her even closer against Walker.
Walker roughly steered the three quarter ton pick up through the wooded roads, 
his arm hard against her. Suddenly the absurdity of the entire evening struck 
Madison, the absurdity of tipping a bartender to keep her sober, of stalking a 
man who proved no worse than a womanizer, of possibly being trapped between the 
rapist she hunted and a man who'd made no secret of his dislike for her.
Try as she might, Madison couldn't prevent the giggle building inside of her 
from bubbling out. It angered him. She could tell by the low rumble he emitted, 
by the way he wheeled the truck hard down the drive, jolted it to a halt in 
front of the garage, and baled out.
Madison sprawled after him, simultaneously pushed and pinned by Trey's body. 
Trapped halfway out the door, her head and arms dangling toward the ground, 
Madison's panic erupted into hysterical laughter.
"Drunken little - -" Walker grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her out from 
under Trey.
Her face and shoulder slammed into his chest. She groped him, trying to right 
herself, her feet taking an eternity to find the ground.
"Do I have to carry you to your bed too?" he snarled savagely.
"No," she snapped, control returning to her in jolts. "I can quite ably get 
myself to bed. I'll even help you with Trey since I so miserably failed to keep 
him awake."
"Don't bother," he rumbled, dragging the younger man from the truck and 
depositing him over his shoulder.
Determined to prove herself capable to Walker, Madison darted ahead of Walker. 
She flung open the service door of the garage, raced up the steps, and, mindless 
that Mike might be inside, swung open the dormitory door. Walker brushed hard 
past her as the hall light sliced over the three empty cots. Confused and 
emotionally drained, Madison fled for the sanctuary of the screen porch across 
the compound and the relief of a cool splash of water from its deep sink.
Walker strode toward the cabin. Moonlight cut through the porch screens and 
slashed across one blue jeaned leg. That limb pressed against his thigh in the 
cab of the truck had awakened needs that had gone dormant when love had died for 
him. He cursed Madison for putting her leg in the way whenever he shifted, for 
making him feel again.
She splashed water into her face with the hands that had raked him in her 
descent from the truck. He silently cursed her for rubbing her curves up against 
him as she'd righted herself. Didn't she know what contact like that did to a 
man?
Of course she did. Hadn't he felt her shoulder shudder against his before the 
first giggle even escaped her lips?
Why deny himself? She was here. He was here. Dalton wasn't. Hell, she was likely 
miffed enough at Dalton for not accepting her invitation to accept him as second 
best.
Walker paused outside the screen door and frowned. Since when had be begun to 
accept the position of second best?
Since Dalton had won one particular prize away from him.
A growl began deep inside Walker and climbed through him. All's fair in love and 
war.
He jerked open the door, stepped inside, and let the screen bang shut behind 
him. The woman who'd flirted her invitation all about a barroom tonight turned, 
all wide-eyed and slack-mouthed now. He took that mouth with his, hungrily, 
brutally. His thighs pinned hers back against the wall of the washtub.
A single, sharp blow to the side of his head startled the sense into him. He 
jumped back from her, refusing to touch his stinging ear, refusing to reveal to 
her that she could hurt him in any way.
"I watched you tonight offer yourself to Dalton!" he accused. "I listened to you 
near flirt the pants off of Trey! I heard plenty about your popularity at 
Chick's! Don't hand out invitations you don't intend to honor, woman!"
"I offered no invitations to you," she leveled back at him.
Walker jerked his head back, registering the blow, conceding with ominous quiet. 
"My mistake. I hadn't realized that your tasteslay with paler men."
CHAPTER FIVE
Madison listened for stirring sounds from the bedroom back-to-back with the 
kitchen. Her first reaction last night when Walker had kissed her was fear. Her 
second had been anger. Both were reasonable reactions to an aggressive male. 
Yet, she'd lain a long time in her bed in the loft of Walker Armstrong's cabin 
re-examining what had happened.
What had happened was, she'd smacked Walker up along side the head and he'd 
backed off. Head and shoulders taller than her and half again as wide, he could 
have forced anything he wanted.
But he hadn't.
Yet that wasn't what had nagged her sleepless for hours. It was the kiss.
No man had ever simply and without preamble kissed her. But then, neither had a 
man as primal as Walker Armstrong ever tried. The men she'd dated wore wing tip 
shoes and three-piece suits and kept their hair trimmed above their shirt 
collars. They'd been upwardly mobile types looking for the showcase wife. They 
would cheat on theirice princesses . The yuppie to whom she'd been briefly 
engaged had cheated. She wondered if things would have been different had her 
fiancé ever kissed her with as ravenous a hunger as had Walker Armstrong.
Heat climbed Madison's cheeks. With one unfinished kiss, Walker had kindled a 
fire in her that ignited emotions she didn't understand and cast light into 
shadows she'd never explored. She wanted to be wanted by Walker.
But he was a man on the rebound and rebounding men wanted only one thing from a 
woman- -a rebuilt ego- -which was generally done between the sheets. In the end, 
reason won out.
...And guilt. She'd played a game in the bar last night that had given Walker 
the wrong impression. When he'd acted on that erroneous impression, she'd 
rejected him. She'd hurt him, a man already injured by love. She had to right 
that wrong.
Walker's bedroom door opened and closed and he padded into the kitchen. Madison 
held out a coffee filled mug to him. He strode past her like she was invisible, 
opened the fridge, and snagged a Pepsi.
"Walker- - "
"You surprise me," he leveled, turning on her. "I didn't expect to see you crawl 
into the daylight quite so early. Or is that why the sunrise pot of coffee? Is 
that your hangover remedy?"
She winced. "About last night- -"
"Faint of memory, are you? You want to know what happened, do you?"
"I remember," she murmured.
"Good, then there's nothing to be said about last night." He wheeled away from 
her and headed for the door.
"I just make it a point not to get involved with men on the rebound," she 
blurted at his back.
"Men on the rebound?" he pitched almost chidingly, circling back at her. "Men on 
the rebound!" his voice crescendoed. "What the hell difference should it make to 
a one night stand?"
Madison blanched.
"Who the hell told you my business anyway? Mike? Dalton? Damn the pair of them!"
Her hand shook, spilling hot coffee out of the mug and over her fingers.
"You don't do rebounds, hell," he growled. "You uptown girls don't do anything 
that's nottrendy ."
"Trendy?"
"There was a time when having a man of my shading was trendy." His voice was 
low, threatening; and a shadow passed across his eyes, the same shadow she'd 
seen in them when he'd accused her of having tastes for paler men. She thought 
she understood why he was so deeply injured. "It has nothing to do with you 
being- -"
His eyes went dead, paralyzing her to silence.
"Have you forgotten the latest politically correct label?" he mocked. "I believe 
it's Native American."
"It had nothing to do with your heritage," she croaked. "You just surprised me."
"Now you say I surprised you. A minute ago you said you didn't do rebounds. Last 
night you said you hadn't offered me any invitation. Which is it?"
"It- -it's all of it."
"Yeah. Sure." He spat out the words, then turned on his heel and left her alone 
in the kitchen.
***
Madison circled beneath the showerhead, the jetting water massaging her tense 
muscles. Laurel would have told her she was obsessing about something that 
wasn't her fault.
If only she could pick up a telephone and call Laurel. Laurel would tell her 
what to do about this angry man...right after she asked what Walker looked like.
Madison lifted her eyes toward the ceiling. "He called me a one night stand?"
You wounded his pride, sounded a voice so like Laurel's that Madison tore back 
the shower curtain. But there was no one else in the bathroom. The voice had 
been inside her head, a memory of the only true friend she'd ever had.
Grief gripped Madison and tears burned into her eyes. "I haven't forgotten why 
I'm here, Laurel. I've already narrowed down the list of suspects."
An image of Dalton's bare chest beneath the tips of her fingers flashed behind 
Madison's wet eyes. The playboy with his libidinous leanings had seemed so 
right. But at the bar when she'd spread open his shirtfront...
So, who should she check out next? Amiable Mike? When she'd opened the dorm door 
last night for Walker, Mike's bed had been empty. As odd as it was for a man 
who'd planned an early start the next morning to be absent at such a late hour, 
she couldn't picture the easy-going professor assaulting anyone.
Her next most likely suspected had to be the angry, jilted Trey who'd drunk 
himself into a stupor...who fancied himself in Walker's contrary likeness.
Though Walker's wounded ego was considerably more menacing than Trey's. Yet 
Walker hadn't forced her when he easily could have.
She recalled the swiftness with which his broad hands had captured her and the 
sheer power with which his hard body had pinned hers. It was the kind of memory 
that should terrify a woman who'd witnessed the ravaging aftermath of rape. 
Instead, it prompted an almost giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Shame flooded Madison. She'd come here to avenge her best friend's destruction. 
How dare she entertain herself with titillating thoughts.
A girl's gotta relax sometime, the Laurel-like voice whispered inside her head.
"Which is exactly what I'm doing with a long, hot shower while the guys are 
miles away hunting their lone wolf," Madison muttered with another ceiling ward 
glance.
The portable radio propped on the back of the toilet trickled out the sweet 
strains of an Anne Murray love song. Madison let its lulling tune ease her away 
from the stress of her mission. To the energy of Bruce Springsteins'sBorn in the 
USA , she soaped herself. To a Wings melody, she rinsed. To the accompaniment of 
Janet Jackson'sBad Boys , she toweled herself off.
To the local station's oldies-but-goodies musical choices, she wriggled into 
cotton hip hugging panties and shimmied a white camisole down over her compact 
breasts. She swung her hips in rhythm to the thumping beat of a Lionel Richie 
song, untwined the towel from her head, and flung open the bathroom door. In 
cadence to Billie Joel'sUptown Girl , she strutted through the main room toward 
the bank of windows behind the couch, her imaginary audience.
Walker swung out of the truck, patted Wolf's head absently, and strode into the 
cabin. He frowned at the spotless countertop next to the sink. He'd rather have 
sent one of the other's back for the forgotten plat book of area maps. But he 
couldn't be certain where he'd left it. Besides, it gave him an opportunity to 
catch his housekeeper sloughing off at her job. He wasn't completely 
disappointed.
Stepping into the main room, he found her prancing about in skimpy attire. 
Jordan used to drive him to distraction slinking about in as much undress...and 
less. Her taste, though, had been for slicker fabrics, lace trimmed and colored 
careful shades that would not sallow her pale complexion.
"Uptown girl," wailed Billy Joel.
Madison strutted a half circle in front of the couch and stopped dead.
"I thought you were gone for the day," she said, dropping the towel she'd been 
rubbing her hair with over her breasts.
"You got a robe?"
She nodded.
"Use it," he rumbled and he snagged the plat book off the coffee table next to 
her leg.
***
It took a frenzy of housekeeping and baking to keep Madison's mind off Walker's 
inopportune entrance. Every time she remembered the dark disapproval in his 
eyes, mortification seared through her. She'd failed to remember that this 
wasn't hers and Laurel's apartment where she usually ate breakfast in a slip 
before heading off to her the local high school where she taught biology. This 
wasn't her apartment where she could unthinkingly and safely traipse from bath 
to bedroom wrapped in nothing more than a towel. There were men here, men far 
more threatening than Walker with his disapproving appraisal of her.
At least she assumed he wasn't as dangerous as the others.
Of course he wasn't, she soundly reasoned. With no one else within possible 
earshot but a passed-out Trey, one slap had backed him off. No, Walker didn't 
hate women and rape took hate. Walker distrusted women, saw ulterior motive 
behind their every move, and kept them arm's length away from himself with his 
anger. But he did not hate women.
Still, all the reasoning in the world could not erase the fact that Walker had 
caught her dancing in her underwear and that eventually she would have to face 
him. Him and the others, to whom she was sure he'd have bragged about how he'd 
found her. When she heard the crew drive into the driveway, she braced herself 
for their lewd remarks.
But not one smirk angled in her direction as Mike, Trey, and Dalton filed 
through the kitchen from wash sink to dinner table. Not one eye winked nor a 
single eyebrow cocked as she served the evening meal. They ate hurriedly, 
engrossed in their single subject of mutual interest. Wolf sign had been hopeful 
in one particular area. They'd return there tonight, maybe catch the nocturnal 
canine on the move. Then they were gone, anticlimactically gone without so much 
as a glance from Walker.
Madison stood for a moment in the middle of the abandoned cabin, only the 
rhythmic chirp of crickets and tympanic garrump of frogs invading through the 
open windows. She should be relieved. Instead, she felt oddly alone.
She carried the dinner platter of leftover roast into the kitchen. On the back 
stoop, Wolf whimpered. She opened the screen door, invited him in, and set the 
platter of remaining beef roast on the floor in front of him.
"Don't tell Walker," she whispered conspiratorially as Wolf gulped down the 
meat.
She washed dishes while the hybrid lay on threshold between porch and kitchen 
listening with rapt attention to a conversation he couldn't possibly understand. 
Afterwards, they sat side-by-side on the steps of the front porch listening to 
nature's symphony. Somewhere far off, at the edge of her range of hearing, 
Madison thought she heard a howl. Wolf's prick ears sharpened. He'd heard it 
too.
Much later, the crunch of gravel woke Madison. She lifted her head from her 
pillow and heard Wolf whimper a greeting and the slam of car doors. It was still 
dark. But the illuminated dial of the clock on her nightstand warned Madison 
there wasn't much left of the night, warned her to be alert to any demand Walker 
might make. But the only sounds he made as he came into the cabin were the thump 
of his boots when he dropped them on the back porch and the click of his bedroom 
door when it closed.
***
Walker stood in the archway between main room and kitchen, a can of Pepsi in one 
hand and a fresh-baked biscuit in the other. He was watching Madison through the 
broad window overlooking the river and wondering what the hell was she doing out 
there now?
He'd first noticed his housekeeper that morning when a dry mouth had nagged him 
out of bed and into the fridge for a pop. Then, she'd been outside the screen 
porch on her knees with a hand trowel loosening the dirt and removing the weeds 
from the flowerbeds flanking the back door. No one had done that since his 
mother died. What right did she think she had to do it?
But he'd said nothing, his anger too brittle, his mind too ragged. He'd slipped 
back to bed where he slept fitfully, where he dreamed he heard his mother 
calling birds the way she used to, a dream interrupted by the pressure of a full 
bladder.
The birdcalls didn't stop when he woke, though. He peered between the slats of 
the shutters on his bedroom window. Madison stood in the yard amidst a cluster 
of chickadees.
He grumbled and trundled off to the bathroom, certain he was imagining things in 
the muddled state between wakefulness and dream state. After all, she wasn't 
there when he came back. He'd tipped the shutters open and taken a good look.
But she was out there now, sitting on the end of the dock, her toes skimming the 
surface of the river. The luster of her hair in the late morning sun reminded 
him of a winter mink.
Slowly, he chewed on the bacon-bit filled biscuit he'd snagged off a cooling 
rack on the kitchen table. Another of her creations, no doubt. It tasted every 
damn bit as good as every other damn thing the woman made. Didn't she foul up at 
anything?
Yes she did, he thought with some pleasure. She'd fouled up at seducing Dalton. 
Her little flirtation from the edge of the pool table hadn't been enough to 
tempt him away from his primed blond. If he knew Dalton, and he did, Dalton 
would let Madison run the gamut of her paces before he had her.
So what was today's attempt, minimal attire? Looked like a one-piece bathing 
suit she wore beneath her short shorts. A stark contrast to the string bikini 
class Dalton generally frequented. But then, Dalton wasn't frequenting such 
places of late. He was here, in north woods country where women were a little 
fleshier and clothing a bit sturdier.
Maybe she expected to tease Dalton with that long expanse of spinal track 
exposed by a suit-back cut to her waist.
From out back came the crunch of tires over gravel and the low rumble of a 
truck. Madison's scrubbed-girl-next-door face lifted toward the driveway. She 
scrambled to her feet, loped across the lawn, past the front porch, and out of 
sight.
Walker recognized Swede's voice call out to her. Whatever she answered, she 
answered in a soft, feminine voice. He'd forgotten how pleasant a sound a woman 
could make.
Before sentimentality completely overtook him, he reminded himself that he 
couldn't make-out what she said to Swede. She could be flirting. And if she was 
so damn innocent, why the startled, "Oh," when she walked into the kitchen and 
saw him?
She hadn't expected to find Walker up. Madison turned to the coffee maker. "I 
just came in to get a cup of coffee for Swede. You want some?"
He raised the Pepsi can to his lips. His version of an answer, she presumed.
The message in the smoldering, black eyes sighted down the aluminum cylinder at 
her, however, reminded her how lies ate at the soul of trust. She'd been a 
person others could trust...back in the days before she hunted a rapist. The 
deceptions had begun the moment she'd lied her way into a job that brought her 
into the life of a man who'd been betrayed by a woman.
Never mind that she now deceived people for altruistic reasons. A lie was a lie. 
And she'd played hers out so well that Walker had called her a one-night stand.
Madison winced and dumped the bacon and onion chunked biscuits into a basket, 
excused herself past Walker, and strode through the main room. Swede opened the 
front door for her, his brilliant blue eyes brightening on the basket's contents 
before blinking up at the trailing Walker. "Madison thought you were still 
asleep. She shushed me up and wouldn't let me inside."
Madison shoved the coffee mug into Swede's hand in an attempt to silence him. 
She wasn't looking to force feed Walker more good intentions.
Walker slumped into the fan back rattan chair beside the door, the one Dalton 
had occupied the afternoon Walker had commented on the Alpha male sometimes 
letting the Beta male have at the bitch. She dropped the biscuit-filled basket 
onto the table next to Walker's elbow. He didn't so much as give her a glance.
That lack of recognition reminded her of something Dalton had told her after the 
Alpha and Beta wolf episode. The ultimate in dominance was to ignore a 
subordinate. Dalton may have been talking about wolves, but the two-legged wolf 
slumped in the rattan chair opposite the porch rail where Swede perched, 
munching a biscuit was using the tactic on her.
Madison frowned and retreated to the far end of the porch. Good girl Madison, 
who'd always strove to melt into the background, didn't like being ignored by 
the primal Walker Armstrong. She didn't like it at all.
"What's up?" a groggy Mike grumbled as he shuffled up onto the porch.
"Not much." The DNR officer chewed through a mouthful of biscuit. "Just took a 
swing by to see if you guys found anything last night."
Mike shook his head. "He's not moving. Too hot."
"I heard a howling last night," Madison interjected.
Three sets of eyes lifted at her, the darkest set boring a hole through her. 
She'd wanted Walker's attention and she got it...not that that was why she'd 
brought up the howl.
"A lone wolf doesn't usually howl," Walker said, his voice a low rumble that 
made Madison wonder if he was warning her against getting involved in the 
conversation or just his usual glum self.
"If he doesn't," she asked, curious partly about wolves but mostly about whether 
or not Walker was talking about himself when he referred to thelone wolf , "how 
does he attract other wolves...since wolves are not solitary by nature?"
She saw the question rise in the dark eyes.How do you know about wolves not 
being solitary?
She almost answered how she'd researched wolves in preparation for joining the 
study, almost confessed how she'd envied wolves their strong family unit...how 
she longed to belong somewhere, with someone. Good thing Swede spoke up then 
with the answer to the question she'd asked.
"Scent markings, droppings, that sort of stuff. That's how a lone wolf finds 
other wolves. Being accepted into the pack is another story."
Didn't she know it.
"Though lone wolves have been known to howl," Mike offered. "When did you hear 
it?"
"Late." She turned to the professor, grateful for the excuse to break from 
Walker's reproachful gaze. "After you'd all gone back out for the night."
"Where'd the howl come from?" Mike quizzed.
She shrugged. "I don't know. We- -"
"We?" Walker demanded, the word shot at her like an arrow.
Madison's heart lurched as though the barbed tip of that arrow had just pierced 
her heart and she met Walker's gaze once again, met the distrust in the stormy 
depths of his eyes.
"Wolf and me," she said, willing Walker to see beyond his own pain, to see she 
could be trusted. "We were sitting here on the porch when we heard this far off 
howl."
"Could have been coyotes," Swede said.
"Were the howls more like yelps?" Mike asked.
"There was only one howl, a long, lonely wail."
"Did Wolf howl back?" Walker probed, his eyes hard and shiny as onyx.
She shook her head, certain he'd lambaste her for playing wolf detective when 
she knew nothing about the critters...a rejection for a rejection. To her 
amazement, he nodded.
"I heard the howl, too. I thought it was Wolf." Walker looked at Mike. "We've 
been looking on the wrong side of the river for him."
Walker hadn't dismissed her. He'd actually given credence to her 
observation...to her. Madison wanted to leap for joy. She wanted to kiss Walker. 
But, in the midst of her imaginary celebration, Trey whined inside the cabin.
"Ain't there no breakfast?"
"Out here," called Madison, reminding herself she hadn't come here to win the 
approval of the wounded Walker but to catch a rapist. And that rapist could well 
be the grad-student stepping out onto the porch in cut-off sweatpants and a 
university logo T- shirt, a T-shirt she had to somehow convince him to remove.
"Where's the food?" Trey demanded, sounding not the least inclined to be 
persuaded out of anything.
"Head left and down," ordered Mike through a yawn.
"What are they?" the student asked, staring at the basket of biscuits at 
Walker's elbow.
"Try 'em, you'll like 'em," chirped Swede. "And while you're at it, toss me 
another."
"You'll eat anything," muttered Trey, suspiciously eyeing the biscuit he 
held...reminding Madison of the young man's wary disposition where women were 
concerned. Just her luck she fell into that gender category.
Trey took a bite, plopped down on the top step, and complained, "It's dry."
Madison jumped at the opportunity to win the student's trust. "I'll get the 
orange juice."
Minutes later she re-emerged from the cabin with a nest of tall glasses and a 
pitcher. She set the pitcher and glasses down next to the basket of biscuits 
beside Walker, filled one glass, and held it out to Trey.
"Fresh squeezed," Swede enthused. "Hot damn, but I love a domesticated woman."
Trey wrinkled his nose. "I don't like pulp."
So much for trying to please the student into cooperating.
"You don't like much of anything," charged Mike.
Madison bit her tongue to keep from agreeing aloud.
"I'll take that off your hands," puckered Swede, setting aside his coffee mug 
and taking the glass Madison held.
"Have coffee, then," Mike snapped at Trey.
"Too hot," Trey said, especially combative this morning.
Maybe this wasn't the best time to maneuver him out of anything, Madison 
reflected. Maybe she should wait for another opportunity. She could always walk 
in on him when he was showering...and end up face to face with a naked rapist. 
Not a good plan.
"You wouldn't be so hot if you'd let me open a window last night," Mike groused.
"I can't sleep in no drafts."
"Draft!" Mike howled. "You pull the frigging covers up over your head! How could 
you possibly get a draft?"
So the boy was hot. At last, Madison had an idea of how she might get Trey out 
of his shirt.
Though he feigned indifference, there wasn't a move Madison had made that Walker 
hadn't noticed. He hadn't missed the appraisal she'd given Trey's attire as he 
joined them on the porch. He hadn't missed the fact that she jumped to fetch the 
boy that fresh squeezed orange juice.
He didn't miss the hands-on-hips pose she now struck at the bottom of the steps 
in front of Trey. What he couldn't figure was why the switch so soon from Dalton 
to Trey?
"If you're so hot, how about a swim?" she challenged. "I'm game."
He bet she was...even if Trey wasn't the financial prize Dalton was.
"In the river?" Trey questioned.
"All that overheating burning up your brain cells?" muttered Mike. "Where else 
do you think she means?"
"Well hell, it took till the middle of July before that river got tolerable last 
year!"
That was true. As swift and deep as the current ran, the river never really 
warmed up. Walker knew. He'd lived a lifetime on these banks.
"Afraid of a little cold water?" she taunted, prompting Walker once again to ask 
himself why she targeted Trey when Dalton could still be had?
Trey sulked. "No."
"Then go get into your swim trunks and join me," she said, the little sway she 
gave her hips bring a scowl to Walker's lips.
"Don't have any," Trey puckered.
"Don't need any," she shot back.
Walker's fingers flexed around the half empty soda can in their grip, buckling 
the aluminum enough to cause a loud pop. She glanced up at the sound, at him. 
Damned if she didn't look more like a deer caught in the headlights of a car 
than a schemer. Must be those huge, doe-brown eyes of hers...at least he 
suspected her eyes were doe- brown beneath their falsely tinted contacts. 
Whichever, his direct view of thosewindows to the soul were gone in the blink of 
a green-tinted eye. What was she up to?
"A beautiful gal invites you to swim in the raw," huffed Mike, "and you're not 
game?"
Much to Walker's surprise, alarm blanched across Madison's face. "I wasn't 
suggesting- -"
"Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy," Swede heckled.
"I'm not wimpy," mewled Trey.
"I just meant," Madison murmured, ignored by all but Walker, "Trey could swim in 
the shorts he was wearing."
"I bet the boy can't swim," Mike goaded.
"Bet you're right," Swede agreed.
"I'll show ya," Trey muttered, kicking off his shoes and bolting from the steps 
toward the dock.
Madison spun after him. "Just take off your shirt. That's enough."
She wanted the kid out of some of his clothes but not all of them. That much 
Walker could figure. Maybe it was the skinny-dipping part that rattled her. 
Maybe she was afraid she'd be expected to likewise shuck her duds. Now, wouldn't 
that be interesting?
Trey stopped on the end of the dock and studied the clear water flowing past. 
"You sure its warm?"
"Sure," she said, folding her arms across her chest and flitting about Trey like 
some hyperactive kid. A telltale sign that she lied.
"Just peel off that shirt and jump in," she prodded.
There was that take-off-the-shirt reference again. Maybe she had a thing for 
chests.
"I don't know," Trey demurred, balancing on one foot and dangling the other over 
the edge of the dock, his big toe straining for the water.
One inch away from learning her lie for himself, calculated Walker. Though, he 
hadn't yet figured out why she'd lie to Trey about the temperature of the river.
Then Dalton joined them on the porch and Walker wondered if the whole thing 
wasn't a set-up to make the heir to AdairCor jealous. But that didn't make sense 
until...
She bumped the kid with her hip and sent him into the river.
Trey hit the water with a loud splash and an even louder string of oaths. The 
timing was right for getting Dalton's maximum attention. The only glitch in his 
theory, Madison seemed completely engrossed in hauling Trey out of the water. 
Though her attempts did little more than halfway pull the shirt from his back.
The kid flailed and wailed and slapped away Madison's helping hands. Dalton and 
Swede hung on each other, laughing so hard their knees buckled.
"It's not funny!" Trey howled as he slogged up to the porch.
"The hell it isn't," snorted Dalton. "You look like a drowned rat!"
Trey peeled the T-shirt up over his head and flung it at Dalton. But the shirt 
splatted harmlessly against the top step and Trey stormed off toward the 
dormitory.
"Don't you drip any puddles on the floor," Mike called after him.
"Much as I appreciate the hospitality and entertainment," Swede choked out 
through his own laughter as he dropped down the steps past Madison, "I've got a 
meeting to make."
Walker studied Madison, standing there at the base of the stairs looking all 
hang- dogged. What the heck was she staring at? There was nothing on that step 
she was staring at but Trey's sodden T-shirt--the T-shirt she'd been hell-bent 
to get him out of.
"See ya," Madison murmured.
"Pay that pup no mind," consoled Mike. "He just hasn't learned yet how to curb 
that youthful temper of his."
The look she lifted at Mike was...sad...sorry even. Why?
"Come breakfast tomorrow morning," Dalton advised, wiping the tears from his 
eyes, "you set down in front of him a plate of those coddled eggs he likes and 
he'll forget all about today."
She gave Dalton a sad smile. The lady was playing it forlorn, Walker decided, as 
though she was the wounded party. What a heart grabber. It duped Mike who 
offered her a glass of her fresh squeezed orange juice.
"I'm pouring," the professor finished.
That last pushed Walker beyond reason and he growled, "I think she's quite 
capable of serving herself!"
"I agree with you about my capabilities," she snapped back in a tone Walker had 
never heard her use before. "Perhaps you wouldn't be so compelled to keep 
pointing them out with such rancor if you'd lay off the caffeine!"
So, the sweet veneer cracks, observed Walker. Smugly he held up the pop can in 
his hand. "I'm drinking Pepsi."
"Which is full of caffeine."
Was that a sneer he saw on those angelic lips? Walker set aside the can, took up 
one of the tall glasses, and leveled, "Maybe I should try your squeezed by your 
very own little hands caffeine free juice."
"Please do," she returned.
"Please pour," he commanded.
Madison gulped, suddenly feeling as though she'd been lured into a trap. "Excuse 
me?"
"It's your job, to serve," Walker informed in an ominously low voice and Madison 
knew she'd been ambushed.
She glanced at Mike, Mike whom she'd always been able to count on for help. He 
glanced sheepishly away. Dalton muttered Walker's name, but said nothing more. 
When it came to a facedown between those two, she wasn't surprised Dalton's gaze 
sank to a spot just beyond his toes.
She looked at the man who cowered two others, looked into the cold black holes 
of eyes that threatened to drag into their hell any who dared defy. She wanted 
to curse Walker. She wanted to rail at him.
Instead, she climbed the steps past Dalton who couldn't or wouldn't look beyond 
his toes. She didn't stop until she reached the table beside where Walker sat.
He tipped his face away from her, giving her a cavalier profile. All this 
because of one faithless fiancé. Like he was the only one to know that betrayal.
She picked up the orange juice pitcher from the table beside Walker.
Her fiancé had ended their betrothal with a speech about her being strong and 
practical. As if those traits meant she should understand why he'd chosen the 
passionate arms of another...as though those traits meant she couldn't be hurt.
She lifted the pitcher above the glass Walker held, lifted it high and poured.
Walker leapt out of the fan backed rattan chair with a howl, orange juice 
shedding off his broad shoulders, ice cubes clattering down about his feet. He 
rounded on her, his orange pulp flocked hair slapping about his raging face. But 
it was Madison who spoke, her voice cracking with emotion.
"You act like you're the only one who's ever been hurt. Well, you're not!"
Madison ran through the cabin, got as far as the kitchen before she realized she 
still clutched the emptied pitcher. What had she intended to do, rinse the pulp 
from the pitcher? Practical Madison. Strong Madison.
At her wits end Madison.
She flung the pitcher into the sink and fled out the back door. Wolf popped to 
his feet in the path in front of her.
"I gave you all the scraps I had," she sniffed, fighting back the tears burning 
behind her eyes, tears she was determined not to shed.
Wolf cocked his head at her and whimpered. She had no room left inside her for 
even a dog-wolf hybrid's disappointment. She was full up. Had already been 
pushed beyond the breaking point. She'd proven that when she'd dumped that 
pitcher of orange juice over Walker's head.
She sank onto the edge of the stoop, hugged her legs up against her chest, and 
buried her face against her knees. In one impulsive act, she'd cost herself the 
one job that could lead her to the man who'd raped Laurel. Walker would fire 
her...send her away. He had to.
An ache as fierce as the one she'd suffered the night she'd found Laurel 
over-dosed on barbiturates burned through Madison, came a new ache. One fresh, 
with razor-sharp edges that cut into a place where she didn't even know she 
could yet feel- -a place to which her feelings had retreated the day her parents 
had died. An empty, howling place she'd avoided, first, by burying herself in 
scholastic endeavors and, secondly, by latching onto Laurel who knew all the 
ways to escape loneliness. Still, Madison refused to cry.
Then Wolf sidled up beside her on the stoop and propped his head on her 
shoulder, reminding her that she wasn't alone...not yet. She flung her arms 
around the hybrid's neck, pressed her face into his fur, and wept. She wept 
until her mouth went dry and her sides ached. She wept until Wolf lifted his 
head toward the screen door behind them...toward, she was certain, his master.
She let go of the dog, rubbed the heels of her hands across her cheeks and 
swiped angrily at tears that would not stop. She glanced over her shoulder. Sure 
enough, Walker stood beyond the screen, his wide, bronze shoulders bare and his 
raven mane rinsed free of the evidence of her outrage.
Why didn't he speak? Why didn't he just say the words she knew he must? The 
tension of the spring catch protested as he opened the door much as Madison's 
own coiled nerves pleaded for it to be over quickly. Still, he said nothing. He 
just stood at her shoulder, his denim-gloved thigh a whisper away from touching 
her until she could bear it no longer and she blurted, "I guess I'm fired."
CHAPTER SIX
He'd said, "No."
Madison stared into the water lapping at her feet. She stared into each erosive 
wave patiently peeling away the sand of the little cove as though any one stroke 
might uncover the answer to why Walker hadn't sent her packing.
She'd taken a long walk that day, a walk that took her down a well-worn path 
through the woods and past the secluded cove where she now pondered why Walker 
hadn't fired her. But, a week later, she had no better understanding of why he 
hadn't sent her packing, why he'd avoided her since, or why that last should 
even bother her. She should be glad that he'd finally checked his hostility 
toward her.
Unless it was because she was a sucker for the walking wounded. And, in part, 
she felt responsible for Walker's pain. But Walker's inability to move on with 
his life wasn't her fault.
She hoisted herself up onto the scaly trunk of a white pine that defiantly grew 
out over the water. With Trey's chest proving as bare as Dalton's, Mike was next 
in line as a suspect.
Had he been off stalking victims the night the rest of them had gone to Chick's? 
His bed had been empty when she'd helped Walker unload Trey. Then there was that 
surly side he'd shown Trey the morning she'd dunked the student. Not that a bout 
of ill humor translated into violence- -not for easy going Mike with his kind 
smile and open eyes.
She didn't want it to be him.
But rapists came in all kinds of packages, she reminded herself. Some of the 
most hideous crimes against women had been committed by men those women had 
trusted.
Meanwhile, there was only one man in the camp whose chest she hadn't seen. If 
Mike's chest bore the telltale mermaid tattoo, she had her man. If it didn't... 
Then what?
"One step at a time," she murmured into the fresh air churning up off the river.
First she had to get Mike to shed all the layers he generally wore. Even with 
the summer heating up, she had yet to see him without at least a vest, a shirt, 
and a tee.
Unlike Walker who wore either a tee or shirt but never both, chirped a Laurel- 
like voice from the treetops.
"Stop that," Madison scolded heavenward.
Walker watched Madison through the telephoto lens of his 35mm camera. He watched 
her as he had from the safety of the screen porch while she'd cried against 
Wolf's shoulder. Jordan had never shed a tear in front of him, not even when 
he'd caught her in her indiscretion. She'd called tears a game beneath her.
Not that he thought Madison's tears had been any game. He'd seen her struggle to 
hide them as she'd railed at him. He'd wounded her. It hadn't taken Mike's frown 
or Dalton's glower to tell him he'd gone too far. He'd heard the ache in her 
wobbly voice and seen it swimming behind the grass green contacts before she'd 
even fled the front porch. He hadn't intended to hurt anyone else. He'd just 
wanted to stop his own pain.
He lowered the camera from his eye and stared down from his hillside perch at 
the reclusive cove where he'd passed his thirtieth birthday with a fifth of 
bourbon. He'd come to it this past year more times than he cared to count, 
blindly seeking its softly slipping solitude to sooth him out of his fits of 
insanity and force upon him the reality of life ongoing.
And life had gone on while he holed up licking his wounds. It hadn't stopped. It 
hadn't changed. Only he had changed.
Walker frowned at the revelation...at the realization of how poorly he'd been 
treating the people around him. He frowned down on the young woman perched on 
the white pine swinging her legs like some carefree kid. He'd viewed her 
presence in his private domain as an invasion and attacked her for it.
But she couldn't hurt him. Not as long as he didn't let her draw him into her 
game. And Walker knew the pursuit game. He'd played it with great relish in his 
college and corporate years.
Her face angled at the sky, her legs went still. What had she seen out over the 
river? What popped open her lush lips?
The shadow of a six-foot wingspan swept over her, giving him his answer. He'd 
come with camera in hand to stake out a favorite fishing spot of the eagle. It'd 
been the first time in over a year that he'd even wanted to photograph anything.
Walker fit the camera's viewfinder to his eye, adjusted the focus of the 
telephoto lens, and began snapping away. But he wasn't shooting the eagle. He 
couldn't make himself turn the camera away from the woman watching the eagle 
soar. He couldn't stop pressing the shutter release button. Even when the 
auto-wind had advanced its final frame, he didn't lower the camera.
***
Walker stared over the rim of a Pepsi can at Madison, trying to see what he'd 
seen in her face the afternoon he'd filled a roll of film with images of her. 
But those pictures had been shot beneath the warming influence of sunlight. The 
face he studied now beneath the cold florescent light of Chick's Place reflected 
no innocent delight.
Which face was Madison Montgomery's true face?
He wanted it to be the one whose rapt attention to an eagle's flight had 
strummed an excitement in him he'd thought forever lost to him. But he couldn't 
forget how he'd allowed himself to be fooled by Jordan's feigned appreciation of 
all that impassioned him while in reality she was training out of him those 
delights, slowly killing what made his talent his own.
Though the hard evidence suggested the real Madison was the woman he'd captured 
on film in that unguarded moment in the cove, he couldn't ignore the calculation 
in the false green eyes now surveying the room full of men. And when she and 
Chick resumed their conversation, Walker couldn't help but be reminded that she 
pursued yet another man. Who her newest target was made Walker grit his teeth 
against the edge of his pop can.
Madison smiled over her vodkaless tonic at Chick. "So you don't think Mike 
stalks the wolf at night like Trey says?"
"Don't let that proper professorial front fool you." Chick grinned, the glint of 
his mouth as distracting as ever. "Mike likes his nookie."
Madison chuckled, though she felt anything but merry. She wanted the rapist to 
be one of the nameless faces in the barroom behind her, not Mike whose bunk was 
often unslept in. She wanted Chick or Trey or Dalton to be able to tell her he 
knew where Mike went the nights he disappeared from the dorm. She wanted to 
learn that Mike had a girlfriend with a bed big enough for two and a heart to 
match.
Instead, she'd gotten theories that seemed to tell more about the man espousing 
them than it did Mike. Like Dalton's. Unusually glum, the playboy had mumbled 
something about a man sometimes having to get off by himself to contemplate the 
err of his ways. Whatever errors marred Mike's life, Dalton hadn't 
elaborated...assuming he'd been speaking of the other man's failings. Something 
in her gut told her he wasn't. But whatever nettled Dalton wasn't her problem.
At least Trey had stayed true to form. He'd gone on about how devoted Mike was 
to his work.
"Eats, sleeps, and breathes wolves," the student had said with an envy that said 
he wished he was the one hunkered down in the woods each night awaiting the 
elusive animal. At least that had been Trey's theory about Mike's nocturnal 
absences.
Once more she scanned the roomful of men reflected in the mirror above the back 
bar. Maybe one of them could tell her something about Mike she didn't already 
know...or something about himself that would draw the suspicion away from Mike.
But it'd been a notebook caught up in the clothing that Laurel had clutched when 
her rapist had shoved her out of his car that linked the crime and the man. A 
notebook full of hand-printed notes about Wolf sightings, the sort of detailed 
notations a student might make...or a college professor.
"Are you sure he doesn't have a regular girlfriend?" she half asked, half 
demanded of Chick.
The sharp smack of an aluminum can against the bar jolted Madison. She found 
Walker glowering at her and Chick.
"The two of you are like a couple gossipy old ladies. Where and how Mike spends 
his private time is his business."
Chick winked at Madison and meandered off. Walker scraped his change up off the 
bar and shoved his way out the door into the night. The strawberry-blond barmaid 
skidding her drink tray onto the bar next to Madison added her own observations.
"Jordan hurt him real bad."
Madison gaped at Lacey, not sure how to respond.
"She hurt him so bad," the waitress hissed, "that he nearly drank himself into 
oblivion."
Madison glanced at the abandoned pop can, the fact that he never drank anything 
stronger registering with her for the first time. She frowned at Lacey. "What's 
that got to do with me?"
"He steered clear of this place on pick-up nights till you came along." Lacey 
stuck her face in Madison's face. "I ain't standin' around watchin' another of 
you high-minded bitches cut the legs out from under him. You got me?"
"But I'm not- -"
"Got me?" snarled Lacey, snatching up her tray and stepping away before Madison 
could say more.
***
Headlights strobed through the trees along the shadowed side of the garage as a 
vehicle turned off the main road. Walker recognized the neighbor's truck 
descending his driveway as he emptied oil into a drain barrel.
Too restless to sleep after leaving Chick's, he'd occupied himself with the 
impromptu oil change. Auto maintenance had been something his father had taught 
him and the garage a good place for boy to bond with man, a place where the son 
might mention something burdensome and the father's offhand comment could 
advise. Walker still missed those times with his father.
But the habit had remained. Whenever troubled, he busied his hands. Often times, 
he even found resolution. But not tonight, not over what to do about the way 
Madison Montgomery affected him.
The neighbor's Camaro slid to a halt in front of the garage. Walker hung back in 
the shadows alongside the building, watching as the passenger door opened and 
the dome light splashed on.
Trey tumbled out and staggered for the garage. Madison, however, lingered 
beneath the fuzzy light, letting the driver kiss her. Walker clenched his fists. 
What did he expect, good moral judgment to go along with that girl-next-door 
face?
Then, Walker noted with interest, she broke away. She hadn't let Tom Maki kiss 
her. And when Tom reached after her, she scooted out of the truck, giggling and 
shaking a finger at him. Okay, even drunk, she had some sense.
She shut the truck door and danced back from it, waving. As the vehicle 
disappeared back up the drive, though, her laughter faded and her stance 
steadied. She peered into the light spilling from the open garage, as though 
checking if anyone watched. Then she wiped the back of her hand across her lips.
***
Dalton's Bronco hummed along the blacktop with Walker at the wheel, the sharp 
edges of its headlights fading against the promise of a glorious sunrise. Walker 
wasn't admiring sunrises this morning, though. He watched his rear view mirror, 
watched the face of the one in direct line of it on the backbench seat.
"Scat?" Madison's nose wrinkled in the oval mirror. "Animal droppings? That's 
what I'm going to be looking for?"
"Specifically wolf scat," Dalton supplied from the front passenger seat.
"Or paw prints or hair," Trey sniggered from her left.
"Scent markings," Mike added from her right. "Most obvious would be scratchings 
on the ground."
The too green gaze slid sideways at Mike.
"You expect me to recognize wolf sign when I see it?" She puckered cutely at the 
professor and Walker wondered if he shouldn't have maneuvered Mike into the 
front passenger seat rather than Dalton.
"If you find something," informed Trey importantly, "I'll identify it for you."
"You're lucky if you know the difference between carnivore and herbivore 
droppings," snorted Dalton.
"Screw you," muttered Trey glumly. "At least my degree's in wildlife biology."
Ignoring Trey, Dalton leaned further into the opening between the bucket seats 
toward Madison and winked. "You just call me whenever you find something in need 
of identification."
Madison's smile stretched across the rectangle of the rear view mirror. Already, 
Walker regretted agreeing to her joining them in today's search.
"I think my best bet at identifying anything is to stick with Mike," she said, 
clearly having targeted him.
Walker frowned. Why Mike? Hell, his lifestyle was hardly attractive to any woman 
least of all a downstate bred, city girl. The man was married to his work.
Unless she was still playing the make-Dalton-jealous game. Maybe she was 
retaliating for him abandoning her again at Chick's and leaving her to hitch a 
ride home with the neighbor. Maybe she'd even taken the ride with Maki to make 
Dalton jealous. Trouble was, she'd strummed a jealous chord in the wrong man.
Walker scowled. But the image of her wiping away Maki's kiss made him 
reconsider. She'd rejected Maki's kiss.
As she had his.
But she hadn't wiped his away...as she had Maki's.
Hopefully, Walker licked his lips. But he tasted only the salt and flour dust of 
the ham and egg filled baking powder biscuits she'd made for their on-the-road 
breakfast. Their lingering taste on his tongue teased, made him want more. Was 
that her game, give a man enough of a taste to tantalize him?
She laughed. He looked in the mirror and found the green eyes studying Mike in a 
way that belied the humor of her mouth.
"Hey Walker," Trey shouted, "you missed the turn-off."
***
"She'll be working with me," Walker dictated before Madison could respond to 
Mike's, "Which of us you going with?"
"I thought I might go with Mike," she protested as Walker hauled her backpack 
out of the back of the Bronco.
"You thought wrong," he murmured much to Madison's shock, chagrin, and, oddly, 
relief.
She stood in the middle of the old logging road, watching the Bronco trundle off 
toward the next drop-off point. When Walker had agreed to her joining today's 
search, she'd thought only about the chance to get Mike alone. She hadn't 
anticipated that Walker could thwart that plan. Heck, she hadn't thought any of 
it out, hadn't thought what could happen if she had gone off alone with a 
rapist. That's why she was relieved.
She pivoted in the soft dirt. Walker was already stalking off into the evergreen 
forest, swinging his big backpack onto his back as he went. She shrugged on her 
smaller pack and hurried after him. The plan was to search a block of forest, 
each man starting from the furthest corner of the section Mike had marked off on 
the plat map and working toward the center. In that way, it was more than a hunt 
for wolf sign. It might also drive the animal across one of their paths.
Spook the wolf into moving. Spook the rapist into making a move. Hers was a 
dangerous plan. Then why had she thought to attempt it?
Because, try as she might, Madison didn't feel threatened by Mike. But Laurel 
hadn't been afraid of the rapist, either. She'd believe his distressed motorist 
ploy.
Madison padded after Walker, the cushion of pine needles beneath her feet 
silencing her passage and the canopy of the mature needle leaf forest above her 
head cathedral-like. If Mike was the rapist, if he'd attacked her in this kind 
of forest, no one would have heard her cries for help. She shivered and hurried 
after Walker.
"Keep behind me," he ordered when she caught up to him.
"You don't want me to help search?"
"You wouldn't know wolf scat if you stepped in it," he muttered without so much 
as a backward glance. "I don't want you messing up anything."
She wanted to ask him why he'd let her come along if he thought she wouldmess up 
things. But she reminded herself he was one against three. He'd probably been 
out-voted.
For two hours she trailed in Walker's wake, watching him squat here or there and 
brush at the needle-strewn floor with his fingertips, watching him poke and 
stroke and sniff and scan. Twice she asked him questions. Twice he'd given her 
the most cursory of answers. She asked no more.
She let the quiet of the woods lull her, let the hazy sunbeams filtering down 
through the lofty canopy enchant her. She'd known so many incensed months, so 
many sad years.
Held in check so many unshed tears.
She stopped and closed her eyes against the threat. Not here, not with Walker. 
He'd probably accuse her of not being able to handle the hike.
She drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the piney scent of the boreal 
forest, filling the void in her life with the scents and flavors of a lost 
youth. A gentle current of air wafted over her and the fluttery sound of wings 
tickled her ears. She opened her eyes to a flash of canary yellow. Beneath a 
near-by wintergreen bush she found the bright red skins and berry pulp the 
grosbeak had discarded in order to get at the seeds.
Toward a thin, descending warble, she lifted her face. A brown creeper flitted 
from the heights of one tree and began its upward spiraling search among the 
rough bark of the next for insects and their eggs.
A tiny "yank, yank" turned her about. She smiled at the red-breasted nuthatch 
hopping headfirst down another tree trunk, smiled because its jerky feeding 
habit was haphazard in contrast to the brown creeper's methodical 
climb...because the nuthatch reminded her of Laurel.
And the brown creeper reminded her of herself. Methodical and safe. That was 
her.
Then what was she doing here in the company of dangerous men acting more the 
haphazard nuthatch?
Because her methodical tending to Laurel hadn't prevented her best friend from 
killing herself any more than safe was synonymous with happy.
Walker finished the block he was working and turned to the next. He'd mentally 
cordoned off rows among the trees and broken those rows into blocks, essentially 
zigzagging his way through the pine forest. He was pleased with himself for 
effectively ignoring Madison. At least he had succeeded until now.
She was well back in the previous block, ahead of him now that he doubled-back. 
She was probably tired of carrying a pack and bored by the whole business. Good. 
Then she wouldn't wheedle future invitations.
He started inspecting the next block, determined to put her out of his mind. But 
when she crouched by a wintergreen bush, he caught himself wondering what the 
hell she thought she was finding?
Nothing, he was sure. He'd already scoured the area.
Walker searched on, annoyed that he'd given her any thought at all. She 
straightened and he glanced up at her. Her head tilted this way and that. He had 
to admit she didn't seem the least bothered by the pack on her back.
He shook his head and concentrated on the ground, trying to ignore the distance 
his survey closed between them. He looked for disturbances, scratchings that 
might indicate a recent scent marking...hopefully by a wolf. From the corner of 
his eye he spied a disturbance, Madison lifting her face toward a nuthatch.
The corner of her mouth twitched and he wanted to kiss away its tremble.
"I need a break," he barked, unaware he'd spoken aloud until Madison looked up 
at him.
As silently as he'd stole up on her, so too did the notion that Walker was part 
of why her life was no longer brown creeper predictable. Madison circled away 
from Walker, denial shrieking through her mind.
Life's unpredictability had boldly introduced itself to her the morning her 
parents didn't come home. It had reared its ugly head the afternoon her fiancé 
had broken their engagement and the night she'd found Laurel overdosed on their 
bathroom floor. Inconsistency panicked her. That's all there was to this notion 
about Walker. Right?
He shrugged out of his backpack, dropped to the ground, and leaned back against 
a tree. She eyed the long sprawl of his legs and admired the manly mold they 
gave his jeans.
That's when it struck her. Walker wasn't the unpredictable one, she was. As a 
man on the rebound, he was as predictable as they came. Even her sympathy for 
him was predictable. But being physically attracted to this feral, wounded man 
wasn't like her at all. She'd begun to act like the haphazard nuthatch.
That's why she had to keep her distance from Walker, had to protect herself.
Walker studied the way she perched on a stump, her shoulders hunched 
protectively as she nibbled on the sunflower seeds she'd taken from her pack. 
She had a knack for making him feel like an ogre for being hard on her.
Not that he picked on her out of meanness. He just wanted her to leave.
Yet she aroused his curiosity, when she smiled up at some scolding squirrel. She 
aroused something else in him when she raised a handful of seeds to the 
racketing rodent and the cotton of her shirt tightened across the subtle curve 
of one breast.
Just enough to fill the palm of his hand, compact and without waste, traveled 
the message along a route of nerves imprinted eons ago by the nature of his 
genetics. She rose and dumped the seeds onto the stump, the curve of her hip 
making him want to test that part of her too for the fit of his hand. Their eyes 
met and he feared she'd read his thought in his.
"I suppose you think me foolish for feeding a squirrel when he has a forest full 
of pine cones to gnaw on," she mumbled, blushing.
Blushing, but not for the reason he expected.
He shrugged as she folded down onto her knees just beyond his reach. "There's no 
shame in sharing your good fortune with another creature of nature, especially 
Brother Squirrel."
"Brothersquirrel?" she asked and sank onto the hip his hand coveted and peeked 
at him through heavy, sable lashes. He should remember the false colors those 
lashes shaded. Instead, he recalled the gentle way her hands had tended his 
mother's garden and the sweet melody of her voice calling chickadees. His mother 
had also fed squirrels.
And told him stories about them.
His compassionate mother.
His wise mother.
When he didn't answer her immediately, Madison wondered if Walker had mistaken 
her interest in the familial reference to an animal, if he thought she meant it 
as a slight against his heritage. Then something changed in his eyes. The angry 
wall slipped and shadows of less definable emotions flitted across their dark 
surface.
"There's a Chippewa legend that tells how Squirrel brought the four seasons to 
Earth," Walker murmured, his heavy timbered voice almost gentle.
Madison went still. She wasn't prepared to deal with a kinder, gentler Walker.
"In exchange for not killing him," he continued, "Squirrel told Chippewa man the 
secret of where to find warmth. Since Earth knew nothing but continual winter 
back then, the man eagerly agreed. That's how Chippewa man came to stomp a hole 
into Sky Land, which allowed Spring, Summer, and Autumn to pour down on the 
earth. That's why we should always be grateful to Squirrel."
"And share with him our bounty and never kill him," she concluded, thinking 
she'd gotten the moral of the story.
"When there is bounty to share," Walker leveled. "When there isn't, then we are 
grateful to Squirrel for sharing the nourishment of his flesh."
"That's...practical."
And hopefully neutral enough to keep him from sharing anything further with her. 
She didn't need any bonding experience with the rebounding Walker- -not now.
"That's the Chippewa way," he stated.
"Are you Chippewa?" she asked before she could stop herself, her curiosity about 
the man getting the better of her.
"My mother was," he said.
"Was?"
"She died two years ago in a car accident."
"I'm sorry," breathed Madison, wishing she'd kept her tongue still, wishing she 
hadn't learned this about Walker, wishing she was hardened enough not to 
sympathize. "You never get over sudden, senseless death."
"Who did you lose like that?" he asked in a voice soft as a winter-prime mink.
The words,tired of the light , flashed across the backs of Madison's eyes. But 
Laurel's death was too new, too fresh for her to share with anyone. She answered 
him with a half-truth.
"My parents were killed in an auto accident when I was ten."
"Both of them? When you were just a child?"
She nodded, regretting she'd told him as much as she had, regretting it even 
more when he spoke again.
"When I was seventeen, my father died of a heart attack. I had my mother's 
constant reminder that I wasn't alone. Who kept you from feeling alone?"
Madison's throat tightened. "My father's sister and her husband took me in."
"Took you in?" His voice rose an octave. "You make it sound like you were some 
sort of charity case."
Madison flinched. Did he fault her for insinuating her guardians' care was less 
than adequate? If he knew the truth...
"It's Chippewa custom to care for an orphan like she's your own, whether there's 
a blood tie or not."
Worse. He was now sympathizing. Taking pity on her- -this kinder, gentler 
Walker.
Please don't.
"I survived," she managed.
"How did you do that without growing up cynical?"
How, indeed? She had to give Walker an answer that would put an end to his 
probing...that would thwart this bridge he seemed intent on building between 
them.
"Maybe I didn't grow up without becoming cynical. Maybe I'm so cynical I don't 
believe for a minute you are letting this wolf study be run out of your home 
because Mike is a favorite professor of yours."
Walker was stunned. How did she know?
Or did she?
"I owe Mike," Walker ventured. "He helped me get a grant that got me through my 
second year of school."
"Did he?"
Damn her and her uptown girl attitudes.
"Surprised that some affirmative action plan didn't wine and dine me all the way 
to a degree?" he accused.
"I was just wondering- -"
"Wondering what talent a man of my sort has to merit the gift of a grant?"
"I wasn't- -"
"Art. The wildlife sort that shows up on duck stamps or framed on den walls. Not 
the sort of thing anurban girl would know about."
"I'm not- -"
"But you'd recognize graphic art and a graphic artist is what that grant turned 
me into."
Was she supposed to feel sorry for him or be in awe? "You sound more resentful 
than grateful."
"I shouldn't be," he snarled, all traces of gentleness long gone from his 
features.
Be careful what you wish for.
"That degree got me a job with a prominent advertising firm. That degree and a 
friendship well placed," he ranted on. "That short-lived career made me a city 
boy for a while. Or did one of my loose-lipped cohorts already tell you about 
that?"
Where was a pitcher of orange juice when a gal needed one?
"You have an overly high opinion of yourself, Mr. Armstrong," she retorted. "I'm 
really not at all interested in your background. Mike's the man I'd like to know 
about. The favorite professor, the animal biologist who brought three of his 
students together to study wolves. Is he as devoted to the woman in his life?"
The hinge of Walker's jaw popped. "There is no woman in Mike's life."
"Surely at some time there's been- -"
"Mike likes the solitary path."
"But he's so ni- -"
"Don't let that gentlemanliness of his fool you. He's as hard as nails when it 
comes to his work. If I'd let you go with him, he'd have run you ragged."
"I could have handled- -"
"I don't think so."
"Is that why you insisted I work with you," she snapped before he could 
interrupt her again. "You think you're easier to work for?"
"I knew the terrain I was working was the easiest of any of the sectors. Mike 
would have expected you to keep up wherever you worked."
"And you were worried about my being overcome by hard terrain?" she returned 
sarcastically. "How thoughtful of you."
"I wouldn't expect a downstate city girl to have the stamina."
"I've got news for you, Walker- -"
It wasn't Walker who interrupted her this time. A scream knifed through the 
forest, silencing Madison in mid-sentence and catapulting Walker to his feet.
Madison climbed after him, her face lifting in the same direction as his. 
"What's that?"
Walker didn't answer. He just swung his pack onto his back and charged off in 
the direction of the screams. Madison raced after him.
The even ground of the highland forest dipped. The pines thinned. The brush 
thickened and tore at her legs. The close to the surface water table turned the 
lowland beneath her feet into an ooze that sucked at the soles of her shoes.
Madison stumbled. It took several precious seconds to untangle her backpack from 
the brush. Walker cursed her for slowing him.
"You don't have to wait for me!" she muttered.
"And have you getting lost on top of whatever else has gone wrong?"
"I won't get lost."
"You're damned right you won't," he growled, as he grabbed her by the upper arm, 
and hauled her after himself.
The screams had given way to groans by the time they climbed out of the swamp. 
Mike writhed on the ground between them and the ridge of a creek bed from which 
rose a menacing hum.
"What the hell happened?" howled Walker, releasing Madison and sprinting the 
final yards.
"I fwell in a Gwad Damn gwound horwnets nets," Mike managed through swelling 
lips.
"Ground hornets," Dalton called, giving the angry swarm a wide berth.
"He's swelling fast," Walker murmured, pulling off Mike's pack and rolling him 
onto his back.
Trey came crashing through the brush upstream. "Jesus!"
"Anybody got sting stop or antihistamines on him?" asked Walker.
"In the first aid kit back at the Bronco," Dalton supplied.
"I'll get it," Trey called, sprinting off as Mike squirmed onto his side and 
ground his cheek into the loamy forest floor.
Dalton and Walker exchanged looks over Mike's agonizing form. "His eyes are 
nearly swollen shut," Dalton said in a lowered voice.
Madison understood the concern. Was Mike's throat going to be the next to close?
She wheeled about on her squishy feet and headed back into the swamp. When she 
returned, she carried a mound of black mud. She dropped to her knees beside Mike 
and began patting the ooze onto the bites on his neck. "How's that feel, Mike?"
"Cool," he croaked.
His pack having saved his back from the attack, she and Dalton concentrated on 
his face and neck. Just as her supply ran out, Walker appeared at her side with 
his big hands heaped with more mud.
"Strip off his shirt," she ordered and scooped the wet dirt from Walker's hands 
while Dalton wrestled Mike's vest and button front shirt off of him.
Madison tended the angrily welted flesh as Dalton peeled Mike's undershirt up 
Mike's torso. She spread the mixture across Mike's belly and up along his 
flanks. Then the T-shirt was gone, stripped over his head, and Madison spread 
nature's ointment above Mike's heart.
When he was covered, Madison rose shakily to her feet. "I need to wash my 
hands."
Walker said something, but she couldn't make out the words because her pulse 
throbbed in her ears. She didn't feel the brush tearing at her jeans, her senses 
too numbed. She stopped only when the searing surprise of frigid water soaked 
through her canvas tennies and touched her toes.
She staggered back from the creek, stooped and plunged her hands into the cold 
water. She hadn't wanted it to be Mike...and it wasn't. Not if the absence of 
that horrid tattoo was enough to vindicate him. But if none of the three had the 
tattoo...
"Madison!"
She jumped at the sound of the male voice close behind her and slipped on the 
mossy creek bank. Dalton caught her.
"Didn't you hear us?" His lips moved close to her ear. "The ground hornets' nest 
is near here."
"Oh," she expelled, glancing about, letting Dalton draw her back from the creek 
bed, letting his arms guide her up the bank. Walker stood on the bank above 
them, a dark and menacing tower of manhood.
"Covering Mike in mud was quick thinking," he growled as Dalton steered her 
past.
"Pretty good for a downstate girl, huh?" she bit back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pretty good for a downstate girl.
That's what she'd said with just enough indignation in her tone to squeeze the 
heart of any man looking into those tear glazed eyes of hers, judged Walker. 
Clearly Dalton had bought the act. As for himself, he'd witnessed the false 
green facade of those brimming eyes before.
They were false, weren't they?
Not in the moment she'd told him about her parents.
Not when she'd revealed the nature of her aunt's care.
Not when she'd told him she was sorry about his parents.
But she'd held something back. He'd seen that, too. But what?
Walker peered past the edge of the daily newspaper he'd spread between himself 
and Madison, who was fussing pillows about Mike and tucking him into the wood 
rocker. Could what she held back have to do with Mike?
The leather couch cushions creaked beneath Walker as he uncrossed and re- 
crossed his legs and the sheets of newspaper snapped against the force with 
which he turned its pages as he considered the possibility. She'd been quick to 
tend Mike with her mudpacks.
But that was the sort of thing anyone with the know-how would have done for 
someone in need.
She'd knelt on the floor of the Bronco all the way to the emergency room so Mike 
could stretch out on the seat, holding his hand and murmuring encouragement to 
him.
Again, normal behavior given the gravity of Mike's bites.
Still, Madison had insisted Mike recuperate the rest of the day in the cabin. 
She'd insisted that somebody keep an eye on Mike to make sure he had no further 
reactions. She had even suggested he sleep in the loft opposite hers where she 
could keep an eye on him through the night. Had her suggestion been made for her 
convenience- -a convenience that had little to do with care giving?
Walker scowled at the newsprint he couldn't seem to make his eyes focus on. 
Whatever Madison's motives were, he could at least credit Mike with the sense to 
convince her he'd be more comfortable in his own bed in the dormitory. Too bad 
Mike didn't have pride enough to deny Madison her pampering. Damn Mike!
No. Not Mike. Damn Madison. Mike's lifestyle precluded scheming bitches, at 
least the two-legged kind. Besides, this one had fooled a man as practiced as 
Dalton and another as betrayed as himself.
Walker winced with the memory of exchanging life histories with Madison in the 
forest that morning. Whatever had possessed him to open himself up to her?
He peered past the edge of the newspaper, watching Madison's fingers artfully 
thread a straw between Mike's swollen lips. Jordan's hands were well practiced 
in their ministrations too. Their maneuvers about a man, though, were definitely 
meant to seduce while Madison's...ministered. Strange, how those seemingly 
innocuous gestures could aggravate him to the same depths as had the acutely 
sensuous ones of that other woman. But then, Madison's fingers had slipped 
inside of Dalton's shirtfront that first night at Chick's. Those hands that now 
tended Mike had, mere days ago, intentionally pushed Trey into the river.
Calculating? Sexual? But, to what end? Her attention to Trey had disappeared as 
quickly as it had appeared. Her interest in Dalton had ebbed as completely as it 
had swelled. And he knew she hadn't slept with Dalton or any other man since 
coming here.
He knew because she slept every night under his roof. He knew because Lacey was 
ever ready to report the details of Madison's activities at Chick's, to provide 
the times when she left and the names of those she hitched rides with. Because 
he knew how long it took to drive from Chick's to the cabin. Because there were 
never any delays in those trips. And because there was always a third person in 
the car, a chaperon like when Maki drove her home and Trey was with them.
He also knew there was no one during the hours she was left alone at the cabin 
because there were never any strange tire tracks in the driveway.
Blast it! Why did he even bother noting such things?
Mike and Madison laughed together. It made a hollow noise in Walker's ears, as 
though he listened to them from the end of a long hallway rather than just 
beyond a few thin sheets of newsprint. It was a lonely sound, laughter you 
didn't share. Walker tossed aside the paper, pushed himself up off the couch, 
and stalked out of the room.
Madison flinched with each strike of Walker's boots as he crossed the front 
porch and dropped down the steps. She'd overreacted when he'd told her using mud 
was quick thinking. But she'd just reached the end of her suspect list. There'd 
been no tattoo on Mike's chest.
And then there'd been that conversation she and Walker had had in the woods, 
that heart-felt, bonding conversation. Bonding. Her and Walker. Impossible.
Or was it?
"Was he always like that?" she asked Mike as Walker strode past the broad window 
behind the overstuffed couch.
"He always goes off by himself to lick his wounds, if that's what you mean," 
Mike mumbled through swollen lips.
Madison knew which solitary spot in the woods along the river he used for 
refuge. She'd thought the path too convenient and the cove too foot worn to have 
been her discovery alone.
"He's done a lot of wound licking since Jordan," Mike added.
"Is she a local woman?"
Mike shook his head. "They met on the job."
"At the advertising firm?" she asked, remembering Walker's comment about a job 
that had made him a city boy for a while.
Mike gave her a curious look from beneath half-swollen eyelids. "He told you 
where he worked?"
Madison nodded, not knowing why she wanted to learn more about Walker, but she 
was helpless to stop herself.
Mike snorted. "Old man Adair wasn't happy to lose him."
"Dalton's father? As in AdairCor?"
"I thought you said he told you about his job."
"Not everything," she allowed.
"Walker doesn't like anybody talking about his business behind his back," Mike 
warned.
"He doesn't like anybody talking about anybody's business behind their back," 
she agreed and got a curious look from Mike.
"Walker still giving you a hard time?"
She shrugged and turned the subject to the reason she'd come into Walker's 
domain in the first place. Funny, searching her best friend's rapist now seemed 
a less risky pursuit than delving into the reason Walker acted as he did.
"Was it this hard to track your wolf last summer?" she asked.
"Not quite."
"Because there were more guys watching for him?"
"Because he was hanging around Swede's bitch."
Kind of like how Walker clung to his former fiancé's errs.
"They're a territorial creature," Mike explained.
Territorial. That was Walker all right. And he didn't want her in his. He'd made 
that clear. At least he had until this morning. Then he'd shared a childhood 
legend with her and shown compassion when he'd learned she'd been treated like a 
charity case by relatives.
"We could have collared him back then," Mike muttered, bringing her back to what 
she should be concentrating on. "But, when you're dealing with a protected 
species, there's federal regulations to follow. Slows things up. Meanwhile, the 
husky bitch got shot and the wolf moved on."
"Is that how Swede got involved, the government connection?" she probed, 
wondering if a man of the law could be low enough to force a woman to submit to 
him.
"Among others," Mike said.
"Others?" She was hopeful even though there being others meant her search just 
got harder. She liked Swede.
"Anybody who hangs out in the woods has an interest one way or another in wolf 
repopulation," Mike resounded. "We get sighting reports from all sorts of 
people."
"What kind of people?"
"Hunters, trappers, hikers. Guys that like to fish or take pictures...like 
Walker."
Madison wasn't prepared for how just the mention of his name shot a thrill 
through her.
***
One thing and one thing only Walker had figured out while balming his latest 
ailments in the cove where Madison had watched the Eagle. Madison Montgomery was 
going to be the woman to put an end to the ache Jordan had left in him.
Walker shifted on the stool at the end of Chick's bar nearest the door. Across 
the room, Madison leaned on the jukebox. She was watching someone. He couldn't 
figure out who though. Another fair-haired boy, no doubt. And for the hundredth 
time since he'd acknowledged his need, he vowed her body would know this darker 
man's touch no matter what her preference.
"Must be some view when a city boy like me can sneak up undetected on a country 
boy like you, Walker."
Walker gave Dalton a dark look. Dalton grinned and his gaze slid from Walker to 
Madison. "She does pose prettily, doesn't she?"
"What's the matter, Dalton, use up all the local girls already? Time to take on 
the resident-roll-in-reserve? I have to admit you surprise me...once again."
"How's that?" the paler man quipped.
"I'd have expected you to order up yourself one a bit more well endowed."
"Order myself up one?"
"A live-in," growled Walker, turning his full attention to the man with whom 
he'd womanized through most of his college and corporate years. "We could have 
gotten by without a camp cook. Yet that's what you convinced your daddy to allot 
additional funds for. I'm just surprised you didn't give the old man's personnel 
department a better description of what you wanted in a female form."
"What Iordered up was a cook for you. You could use a little meat on your 
bones."
"And a male cook wouldn't do?"
A sheepish grin played at one corner of Dalton's mouth. "Thought it wouldn't 
hurt to have a woman's touch around the cabin. Thought she might even ease you 
out of this down-on-all-womankind attitude phase."
"Yeah. Sure you ordered her up for me." Walker leaned forward, putting his face 
very close to Dalton's. "I know you, Dalton. You stack the deck in your favor 
whenever you can. It hasn't always worked. It's not going to work this time."
"Come on Walker- -" Dalton shifted uncomfortably. "You know it was always in 
fun."
"Always?"
"I thought it was," muttered Dalton.
"Then it should be fun this time," Walker crowed, leaning back on his elbows 
against the edge of the bar, exposing himself to the other man as would a wolf 
showing his submission...or total faith in his own dominance.
"What you got in mind?" Dalton asked.
"A little wager."
"Such as?"
"First one to get her into bed wins."
"And the prize?"
"Total ownership of that little investment project we started together."
Dalton blanched. "That's paying off pretty well these days."
"You can afford to lose it."
"But can you? My guess is, that's about all the income you have since leaving 
AdairCor."
"It was started with your money anyway."
"And your eye for resalable art," Dalton countered.
"Which I still have."
"But not the capitol to start over."
"Your concern for my economic future touches me," snapped Walker, ending the 
debate. "But I can't lose. Even if I don't get her between the sheets before you 
do, I still win because that's one less tie I have to you."
Dalton flinched.
"Deal?" demanded Walker.
"Deal," replied Dalton, glancing over Walker's shoulder. "But I think we're both 
about to lose."
Walker glanced in the direction Dalton nodded, to where Madison had sidled up to 
the bar alongside some blond guy sitting with his back to the bar. She mouthed a 
request at Chick.
"A drink for my friend," interpreted Dalton with an amusement that rankled 
Walker. "I think while you and I were over here making bets," Dalton concluded, 
"she was over there making her own plans for the rest of the night. Guess that 
finishes it for me."
"I've never known you to be a quitter," growled Walker.
"You know I'm not," Dalton tossed over his shoulder as he sauntered off. "I just 
know when to make a strategic retreat...leastwise until another night."
Walker scowled at the soda can between his fingers. There'd been a time when the 
anticipation of beating Dalton in a game of conquest had been fun. Now it seemed 
more like a need- -a necessity like breathing. How much of that was because 
Madison was the prize?
He slammed the can down on the bar. Chick glanced up from the glass of ice he'd 
just set on the lip of the bar opposite Walker- -Madison's glass.
"You're edgy tonight," he said.
Walker grunted. Chick snagged a bottle of tonic from behind the bar. Absently, 
Walker watched the bartender fill the glass.
"Aren't you forgetting something in that vodka and tonic?"
"Like what?" asked Chick.
"Like the vodka."
Chick grinned crookedly. "It's the way the lady likes 'em."
The reason Madison never had a hangover and could sober up so fast came to 
Walker like a kick in the stomach. It meant she knew exactly what she'd been 
doing when she'd flaunted herself at Dalton and wiped away Tom Maki's kiss...and 
when she'd rejected his own kiss attempt.
Walker winced. She wasn't supposed to be able to hurt him. She was supposed to 
be a faceless body that could release the pent up frustration in him.
He shoved back from the bar, intent on abandoning the game he'd thought to 
start. As he turned, though, he saw the face of the man for whom she'd bought a 
beer, the man who was pulling her into his arms onto the dance floor.
Jay Cross had just spread his fingers across Madison's lower back when she felt 
him stiffen. The first thing she noticed was the dark hand clamped on Jay's 
shoulder. The second was the field of denim beyond it. The third were the black 
eyes blazing down over Cross' shoulder at her. Cross handed her over to Walker 
without so much as considering her preference.
Without preamble, Walker caught Madison up in his arms. "You haven't the best 
taste in dance partners."
"At least I got to choose my previous one," she parried, truly irritated with 
Walker for interfering. She'd searched long and hard to learn Cross had a 
reputation that made him a prime candidate for her hunt.
"Still rejecting dark men, huh?" Walker murmured, a pained shadow skittering 
across his black eyes like a beaten puppy.
"That's not how it is...was," she sputtered, instantly contrite. "I told you, 
you surprised me. That's all."
A corner of Walker's mouth tugged upward and he drew her close. His hair veiled 
forward about their faces, shading back all but the boldest light and his voice 
draped her ears within their private cloister. "Are you telling me, if I hadn't 
surprised you I could have had that kiss?"
Seconds passed before what he said penetrated the turmoil of sensations his 
nearness evoked, before she realized music no longer played and she was still in 
his arms. Madison wedged her hands against his chest. "This isn't a good idea."
"It's only a dance," he persuaded in his heady, deep timbered voice. "Besides, 
they're playing my song."
The wrenching opening strains ofLove Hurts filled her ears. She blanched. He 
lifted her hands from his chest and flattened them over his shoulders. She could 
have escaped him before his arms once more encircled her. But the notion came to 
her slowly, like some drug had dulled her good sense.
Their bodies swayed together. His hands, low on her back, pressed her close. She 
felt his arousal and was shocked by his boldness- -shocked even more by her own 
thrill that she'd caused such a reaction in him. It was a heady sensation, 
powerful, intoxicating and she wanted it to last forever. Then, from the corner 
of her eye, she saw Cross peel his change from the bar and head for the exit.
Reality jolted through Madison. Her reality. Her purpose.
She pulled back from Walker, her eyes tracking Cross.
"He's dangerous, Maddie," Walker's resonant voice warned as though from a long 
distance away.
But it was enough to make her refocus on him. "What do you know about Jay 
Cross?"
And who gave you the right to call me what only my friends do?
"He's rough on his women."
Tell me something the newspaper archives at the library didn't reveal.
"I have to go," she blurted, shook off Walker's hold, and darted off after the 
blond man escaping from the tavern.
Damn her and her preference for lighter complected men, Walker silently cursed. 
And damn him for needing to stop her.
Walker charged out of Chick's after Madison and caught her at the edge of the 
porch before she could step into the parking lot after Cross. "Do you know 
anything about him, Maddie?"
"I know everything I need to know."
"He's a brutal man, Maddie. Brutal towards women!"
"Is he?" she asked too absently for him to believe she hadn't known, still too 
interested in the man climbing behind the wheel of a pick-up truck halfway 
across the lot.
"You know he is," growled Walker, remembering which news story had been on the 
screen of the micro film reader when he'd walked up behind her in the library 
the last time they'd gone to town. "Did you get as far as the court news where 
he was sentenced to jail time for beating up his girlfriend? He just finished 
that ten month sentence."
"Ten months?" A frown creased her brow. "Damn."
The coiled anger of a year sprang loose inside of Walker and he roared, "You 
like it rough, is that it?"
"You offering your own brand of rough, Walker?" She glanced pointedly at his 
hands on her arms.
He threw her back away from himself, disgust twisting through him. "I should 
just let you go after that creep and find out for yourself just how cruel a man 
can get."
"Yeah," he snapped, stepping back from her. "I should just let you go."
He turned and dropped down the trio of steps away from her, his voice trailing 
him. "I will. I am. I'm leaving you to your own damned destruction."
He took one step across the dirt drive, then wheeled round at her. "The hell I 
will!"
In two strides he was back on the porch pulling her into his arms, slicing a 
hand up the back of her neck, tipping her face up to his and closing his mouth 
over hers. She squirmed. Whether protest or desire he didn't know, didn't 
care...not just yet.
When the heels of her hands stopped pressing into his chest, when they flattened 
and rode up over his shoulders and her fingers tickled the curve of his neck, he 
knew she was his. He plunged his tongue between her parting lips. He reached as 
far as his hands could reach, cupped her heart shaped behind and pulled her 
against himself. He slid his hands up her sides, found her breasts and cupped 
them. Beneath his sweeping thumbs her nipples went rigid.
It wasn't exactly the way he'd planned it. Maybe that's why he checked himself 
when all he wanted to do was fill her with himself. Why he forced himself to 
remember that even more he wanted to beat her and Dalton at their own games.
Walker pried her back from himself, glorying in the reluctance of her lips to 
part from his. She was indeed his. He smiled and stepped back out of her reach, 
turned, and jauntily dropped down the steps. He paused in the gravel parking lot 
of Chick's and looked up where she teetered at porch edge, looking dazed. He 
felt smug, triumphant.
"Try and wipe away that kiss," he challenged.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Madison lay in her bed listening. Sunday morning was the one day of the week she 
was excused from making breakfast for the guys. The one morning she could sleep 
in. This was the first Sunday she had. Not that she'd had a choice. Sleep had 
eluded her until the wee hours of the morning.
She listened another five minutes to the empty silence of the cabin before 
climbing out of bed and stumbling down the stairs and into a hot shower. She 
circled beneath the pelting showerhead desperately wanting to clear her head, 
desperately needing to reason out what happened last night on the porch at 
Chick's between her and Walker.
She wasn't prepared for the completeness with which the memory came back to her. 
She wasn't prepared for the way it punched the breath from her...the way her 
body recalled every stroke of Walker's hands. He could have thrown her down 
across the bar porch, peeled away her clothes, and taken her there in full view 
of a tavern full of people and she wouldn't have cared. She'd wanted him. Still 
did. That frightened her beyond reason.
Madison twisted the shower knob to off and scrambled out of the tub. She wasted 
no time with towels. She just hugged the terry robe about herself, clutched up 
her clothes, and made a mad dash for the loft.
It had to have been the shower that had turned the memory vivid, she frantically 
reasoned from beside her safe bed. All that hot water cascading down over her, 
caressing her naked body.
The way she wished Walker's hands would again.
She groaned and sank face down into the jumbled sheets damp yet with the sweat 
of unfulfilled dreams. Heaven help her should she come face-to-face with Walker 
before any of this was settled in her head.
Dressed for the day, she slunk down the split log stairs and across the polished 
floorboards of the main room. Her empty stomach grumbled as she slipped through 
the kitchen, yet she didn't stop. She didn't dare take the time, or the chance.
Camouflaged behind the screen porch door she eyed the yard, the drive, and the 
garage. The overhead door was open, revealing both Walker's truck and Dalton's 
Bronco. The Bronco was up on jacks. Since Walker did the auto maintenance work, 
it was a good bet he was in there...even if she couldn't see him in the shadowed 
recesses of the building.
But the yard was empty and the path to the cove just around the corner of the 
cabin. She'd chance a run for it.
The screen door squawked as she shoved it out of the way. Pride prevented her 
from actually running, even as the door twang-banged shut behind her. But she 
beat feet in a speed walk toward the cabin's corner.
Almost there. Just a few more steps. She peered over her shoulder at the garage. 
No one had come out to look. No one to stop her. Escape just around the corner.
Walking into Walker was like hitting a brick wall. Madison stumbled back from 
the impact. He caught her by the upper arm and steadied her.
She glanced wildly from his hand on her arm to his face. He wore a crooked grin 
that made her heart race. Would he take another kiss from her? Would he demand 
more?
"Sorry," he crooned in a velvety voice that made her want to languish in its 
plushness...that made her want him to hang onto her forever.
He opened his hand and she bolted into the woods. She ran. She ran beyond the 
cove. She ran until she was breathless and her sides ached, until her heart 
pounded for reasons other than Walker Armstrong's touch.
She bent at the waist, braced her hands against her thighs, and gulped air. But 
she hadn't outdistanced Walker. The imprint of his hand still scorched her bare 
flesh beneath the sleeve of her T-shirt where he'd held her. She wanted Walker 
Armstrong and he wanted her. Why couldn't she just let it happen?
She groaned and circled in the path. She circled and circled in search of an 
answer to why she was afraid of letting Walker make love to her. Maybe in the 
cove, surrounded by its serenity, she could settle down...figure things out.
The cove where Walker had drank himself into oblivion.
God help her, she couldn't find a place here that didn't remind her of him. She 
stopped and raised her face heavenward. "Dear Laurel, what do I do about 
Walker?"
A breeze rustled through the leaves, a light, giggly sound.
"I know what you'd do," snorted Madison. "But I'm not that uninhibited, 
girlfriend."
But you were on the brink of being so beneath the urgings of Walker's hands, 
teased that familiar voice inside her head.
"He caught me off guard," Madison argued aloud. "I didn't expect to be kissed in 
the middle of an argument!"
Safe Maddie has never been anything in the midst of an argumentnagged the voice 
of reason.
Now she had two voices arguing with her and both of them were right. Madison 
scowled and stalked off down the path as if she could outdistance the truth.
And there was another truth she'd almost forgotten. Her gut instinct about Jay 
Cross had been right. He was brutal enough to rape...even if he hadn't been the 
man who'd robbed Laurel of her rights, her well-being, and the life she'd 
planned for herself. Lucky for him jail was as airtight an alibi as a man could 
get.
Her gut feelings about Mike, Dalton, and Trey had been right, too. Hadn't she 
pegged each one of them before she'd seen even one bare chest?
So, why couldn't she trust her gut feeling about Walker?
Because your gut has nothing to do with your feelings for Walker.
She didn't want to hear this. She should be deliberating what other wolf groupie 
could have raped Laurel. She should be checking out Swede...even if her gut told 
her the DNR officer wasn't her man, either.
She should be doing anything but obsessing about Walker. But her feelings for 
Walker weren't going away...not until she faced them.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Here goes. She couldn't 
let Walker Armstrong make love to her because, for him, it would not be an act 
of love; while, for her, it could be no less. That's why she avoided Walker this 
morning. That's why she had to keep avoiding him.
That's when she heard the growl.
Instinctively, she froze in her tracks and scanned the woods to both sides of 
the trail. She found him crouched in the brush between her and the river, his 
muzzle bloody.
"Wolf," she blurted and took one unthinking step toward him.
He bared his teeth. She halted. Wolf hybrids could be unpredictable. But all 
that blood. He had to be hurt.
She gazed into the gray masked eyes, willing Wolf to let her nearer, willing him 
to trust her. He ducked his head, took an uncertain sideward step, and whined a 
pitiable sound. Madison raised her hand, beseeching. The whine splintered into 
yips and he bolted across the trail in front of her.
Madison shot out of the woods, across the yard, past the corner of the cabin, 
and into the garage. "Wolf! He's hurt!"
Walker straightened from under the hood of the Bronco. "What?"
"Wolf," she gasped.
"What about Wolf?"
"In the woods," she panted. "Won't come. Hurt."
Mike had come up beside Walker. The two men exchanged confused glances. Madison 
didn't understand until Wolf lazily stretched his way in between the two men.
"I just saw him in the woods. He had blood on his muzzle."
Walker shook his head. "Not Wolf. He hasn't left my side all morning."
"But I wasn't more than fifteen feet from him." She let her voice trail off. 
Walker and Mike must think her mad.
"What exactly did you see?" Walker demanded, striding toward her with an urgency 
that made her take a step backwards. He caught her by the shoulders before she 
could take another.
She gaped up at him. He'd held her closer when they'd danced and tighter when 
they'd kissed her. Yet her skin tingled as much now as it had last night. How 
was she going to resist him for the duration of the summer if he kept touching 
her like this?
"Tell us what you saw," he commanded.
"I-I thought I saw Wolf."
"Wolf orthe wolf?"
"I don't know." She gulped, still struggling for breath.
"Take a couple deep breaths."
She obeyed and her lungs stopped screaming for air. But her heart still hammered 
against her ribs and not because she'd just run a few miles.
"Now tell me what you saw," Walker urged.
Madison wagged her head, wishing he'd release her, yet wishing he never would. 
"I told you. I thought I saw Wolf."
"Close your eyes."
Not with you holding me like this.
"Close your eyes and tell me what you see," he quietly commanded, his voice 
growing mellow.
"But- -"
"Close your eyes." His hands grew heavy on the crests of her shoulders and her 
eyelids sank with a will of their own.
"What do you see?" he crooned.
"A bloody muzzle," she responded.
"Forget the blood," he calmly ordered, his voice like a warm waterfall cascading 
down over her. "What else do you see?"
"Yellow eyes. Big curved fangs."
"How was he different from Wolf?"
"I-I don't know."
"See the yellow eyes. See his gray fur. See the forest around him."
"The river's behind him."
"Good," he murmured. "Now smell the pines."
She inhaled deeply, trusting in the lulling voice even though the scent 
permeating her senses was Skin-So-Soft.
"See him," the voice quietly guided.
"He's growling. But I think he's more afraid than me."
"Why? What's he doing?"
"He's cowering."
"How?"
"He ducks his head. He whines and yips."
"Then runs away?"
"Yes. Kind of. He moves in little spurts. Kind of scoots along. He doesn't want 
to leave."
"He didn't want to leave," she repeated, her eyes flashing open. "The blood on 
his muzzle, he wasn't hurt. He was eating."
Eyes one shade away from black stared down on her. They were closer to her than 
she remembered them being before she'd closed hers.
"See him," Walker's heady timbered voice prodded.
How can I when all I see is you?
"See him," Walker urged, his eyes locked on hers. "How is he like Wolf? How does 
he differ from him?"
"He's younger...I think," she managed, struggling against the lure of the man 
holding her with his hands and eyes.
"Why do you think that?"
Reflected in Walker's eyes, she saw an animal that hunted and howled alone. And 
she saw a second animal, this one gaunt and feral. "He's narrow. Like his chest 
hasn't dropped yet."
"Narrow or skinny," demanded Mike, jarring her from Walker's mesmerizing 
control.
"Narrow," she answered, suddenly aware how readily she would surrender body, 
mind, and soul to Walker should he ask. She focused on Mike the best she could 
given Walker's hands still weighted her shoulders. "His front legs are so close 
together, there doesn't seem to be room between them for a chest."
"Hot damn, he's back on our side of the river," Mike hooted as he dug his 
field-pack from the back of the Bronco.
"Wake Dalton and Trey," he ordered in Walker's direction. "And bring your camera 
equipment. Where should they meet us?" he demanded of Madison.
Walker's hands slid from her, releasing her to Mike. The air whispered coolly 
across the abandoned crests of her shoulders, making her want more from a man 
who would, in the end, leave her. This was why she must stay away from Walker.
***
Walker aimed the light meter at the imprint in the soft soil near the riverbank. 
"I need more light."
Madison pulled the brush back from the paw print, the quickness of her movement 
reminding Walker of the quickness with which she'd yielded when he'd asked her 
tosee the wolf. If he'd commanded it then, she'd have lifted her mouth to his. 
He knew that with a certainty he'd known few times in his life. He knew it 
because, last night on the bar porch, she'd surrendered to him...and because 
she'd been running away from him ever since.
He fit the viewfinder of the camera to his eye, partly to hide the smile 
threatening his lips. He liked that he bothered her. He might actually win that 
bet he made with Dalton.
A pang of guilt made him wince. Why should he feel guilty? She played the same 
game he had played in the past...he and Dalton...and Jordan.
He twisted the focus ring of the camera until the numbers on the ruler next to 
the paw print sharpened. He wanted Madison and, judging by her response to his 
kiss on the porch at Chick's, she wanted him, too.
He snapped a couple quick shots and glanced up at her. Never mind that the 
eyebrows he'd once likened to a hawk's wing now seemed more troubled than 
predatory. The only thing troubling her, he was sure, was that her hormones 
responded to a dark man when she thought she'd wanted only the fair-haired boys.
He rose to his feet. She started. The bush she'd been holding back escaped her 
hands and sprang up into her face. She blinked and rubbed at her eye.
"You okay?"
She nodded and rubbed more at her eye.
"You sure?" he asked, snapping the lens cover onto the lens.
"Sure."
"Then why are you squinting?" He let the camera dangle from the strap around his 
neck.
"I'm not - -"
"Let me see." He caught her chin between his forefinger and thumb and tipped her 
face upwards.
"It's okay," she protested.
"That eye is red and watering."
"I'll go back to the cabin and rinse it out."
"The cabin's miles away," he murmured, aware he stood so close to her that the 
camera slung against his chest bumped hers.
"Hold still," he commanded when she strained away.
She stared up at him in that same deer eyes-caught-in-the-headlights-of-a-car 
way she had when he'd earlier taken hold of her in the garage. Except now, one 
of those wide eyes squinted tearfully.
"Easy," he urged, spreading the lids of the injured eye apart with his 
forefinger and thumb. "I did this all the time for Jordan."
She went still and he realized it was the first time he'd spoken his ex-fiancé's 
name out loud without snarling.
"She wore contacts, too," he explained, testing his lack of reaction to his 
ex-fiancé, gauging his feelings about the soft brown eye fractured by splinters 
of gold peering up at him now. He'd guessed right about the color behind the 
contacts. He liked that he was right. He liked the confidence being right gave 
him.
"Look down," he instructed and searched where experience had taught him wayward 
lenses most frequently wandered.
He hooked the tissue thin wrinkle of green with the tip of his finger. He 
released her. She didn't move and he knew, if he lowered his mouth to hers this 
minute, she'd kiss him.
But Walker wanted more than a kiss. He wanted to possess her. He wanted her to 
find every other man wanting in comparison to him. He wanted her begging him for 
his love. But, with the rest of the crew liable to wander back at any minute, 
now was not the time to test her.
Pressing the green contact into the palm of her hand, he breathed, "I like the 
brown one better."
***
He liked the brown one better. He'd held her chin in an iron grip and probed her 
eye with a work hardened finger and all Madison could think about was, he liked 
her plain brown eyes.
Madison shoved the gearshift sticking up from the floorboards into low gear and 
rolled up to the intersection. She peered around the truck's oversized side 
mirror at the car ambling the highway toward her. She waited, the pair of brown 
eyes reflected in the chrome framed glass inviting her scrutiny. They seemed 
naked without their green contacts.
They were. Yet she'd left the lenses out after what he'd said. Had he guessed 
she left them out because of him? Did she want him to know that she had?
Damn right.
Madison dropped her forehead against the steering wheel. The lingering scent of 
Skin-So-Soft skimmed her nostrils, reminding her whose hands usually gripped the 
molded plastic.
Wasn't it enough that the measured cadence and modulated timbre of his voice had 
drawn from her the description of a wolf she didn't even know she'd seen? Hadn't 
he already too much command of her, that his simplest order had stilled her in a 
way no hands could while he probed the contact out of her eye? That the hardness 
of his body pressed against hers as they danced had kindled a fire in her? That 
his kiss incited a passion that nearly caused her to surrender to him on a 
public porch? Did even his left behind scent have to control her?
Maybe she wanted to experience what she'd only heard others talk about. Maybe 
she wanted to know what it was to be consumed by a man as hungry as Walker.
Hungry and rebounding, warned reason.
But he'd spoken the name of the woman he was rebounding from without emotion. 
That said something, didn't it?
A car horn blared behind her, and she snapped back to the present. Her feet 
worked the gas pedal and clutch. The truck lumbered out onto the empty highway.
She molded her hand over the thick plastic knob of the gearshift. It felt smooth 
beneath her palm. Not polished smooth, but comfortably worn to the shape of a 
person's hand. Her heart gave a lurch at the thought of whose grip it best fit.
She jammed the shifter through its gears, accelerating. She understood the 
comfort of things that fit together. There had been Brian. They'd met in 
college. They'd planned to marry and had grown comfortably together.
Or had they merely worn to each other's ways, each other's shapes? On Chick's 
porch, her and Walker had molded to each other like the interlocking pieces of a 
puzzle without the calibration of time. But there was nothing comfortable about 
Walker. Especially not the way his body pressed desire into hers.
Madison stomped on the brake pedal and skidded off the road, across the gravel 
parking lot, and to a halt in front of Chick's. She couldn't escape the truck 
fast enough- - Walker's truck with its scent and shape of him.
Enough, she silently commanded, striding the boards of the porch where he could 
have had her. No more of this insane attraction, she vowed, crossing the 
threshold into the store. It stops here, she affirmed, pacing to the rear of the 
room.
She stood there, staring at a box of rigatoni, willing away the sensations of 
Walker. Willing the return of reason. Willing control back into herself.
Her breathing evened out.
Life was too full of loss without inviting more.
Her breaths quieted.
Silly to risk security for fleeting gratification.
The pulse thrumming in her throat raced slightly.
An ambiguous loss for something only vaguely sampled. Less painful this way. 
Safer.
She glanced along the row of pasta, her mind almost settled. Something not in 
line with the horizontal lines of the shelves caught at the corner of her eye. A 
vertical form lacking straight angles. It moved and she jumped. "Oh. Chick."
The bar owner shifted his shoulder away from the doorjamb between bar and store 
where he'd been leaning. He grinned that glinting grin of his.
"I need noodles for tuna salad," she explained, turning her attention back to 
the shelf. "Those little macaroni rings." She bent at the waist and peered into 
the recesses of a lower shelf. "But I don't see any."
Chick stepped into the aisle behind her. "Everybody's making tuna salads these 
days."
"Elbow macaroni will do."
"Top shelf," Lacey snapped from behind them.
Madison straightened and caught the lethal glare the waitress slid from her to 
Chick.
"Beer man's here," Lacey growled. "We don't agree on the order and he wants to 
talk to theboss ."
"And you're always saying I'm good for nothing," clucked Chick, sauntering past 
Lacey into the bar.
Lacey's glower settled on Madison. Madison snatched two boxes of elbow macaroni 
off the shelf and headed toward the cash register in the front of the store.
"That'll be ninety-nine cents," Lacey said, stepping behind the counter.
"In town they're three for a buck."
"Then go buy them in town."
Briefly, Madison entertained cramming the pasta, box and all, up Lacey's nose. 
Being the reasonable woman she was, Madison simply dug a dollar out of her 
pant's pocket and tossed it down next to the macaroni.
Lacey took her time ringing up the sale. "Stay clear of Chick."
"Excuse me?"
"Chick. Keep away from him."
"First you warn me off of Walker. Now it's Chick. Anybody else you've got your 
sights on that I should know about?"
Lacey's snagged the dollar bill off the countertop. "Just steer clear of Chick 
or you'll be sorry."
"Is that a threat?"
"Take it however you want."
She'd take Lacey's warning however she wanted, all right. She'd take it right 
back to Walker and prove that Lacey didn't have dibs on all the men in the 
county.
***
Madison stormed into the cabin and flung the boxes of pasta onto the pine table. 
Walker turned from the refrigerator. She looked fetching in her sleeveless camp 
shirt with its tails tied up just above the waistband of her denim cutoffs. 
Fetching and tense. He smiled and raised a tall glass of fresh squeezed orange 
juice in her direction. "Too much caffeine?"
She wheeled on him, gold sparks leaping from her eyes. She was fired up about 
something. Good. So was he.
"You working with me today?" he asked, more than ready to end the cat-and-mouse 
game they'd been playing.
"Sure," she said and grabbed her pack off its hook behind the door. "I didn't 
want to make tuna salad any way."
Then she stalked out of the cabin without so much as checking to see if her 
water bottle was full. She was hot about something, as hot as pine knot in a 
fire about to pop. Walker drained his glass, snatched up his pack, and followed 
her into the woods.
Her bare legs set a brisk pace along the path ahead of him. He should have 
reminded her back at the cabin about mosquitoes and blackberry brush. But then 
she'd have changed into long pants and he'd be missing a most enjoyable show.
She angled off the trail toward one of the observation sights. She stepped 
behind a deadfall and lifted her face. "Are we up or down wind of him? I can't 
tell."
"We're where we're supposed to be," he answered, shrugging off his pack.
She dropped hers and dug out the Skin so Soft. For a moment, he watched her 
spread the oil down her legs, her long, lean legs. Her application was haphazard 
at best. The idea of finishing the job for her fired off a round of testosterone 
that would have dropped an elephant. He needed to touch her.
"You missed a spot," he said, taking the slippery bottle from her fingers and 
going down on one knee in front of her.
He stroked an oiled palm up the backside of her knee and her knee buckled. But 
she caught herself. He stroked his palm higher. She swayed. He stroked the 
inside of her thigh and she closed her fingers over his shoulder as though she 
needed to steady herself.
"You have to be thorough with this stuff," he said, keeping his voice low, 
suggestive. "No telling how resourceful the bugs in this neighborhood can be." 
He slipped the tips of his fingers beneath the frayed hem of her shorts.
Their eyes met, hers smoldering like golden embers. He tossed aside the bottle 
of oil, rose to his feet, and swept her into his arms.
Their lips locked and their tongues tangled in a hungry frenzy. She was 
everything she'd been the night of the kiss on Chick's porch. She was all his 
dreams had promised, and she was more. She was ravenously, passionately 
responsive.
They tumbled to the ground without breaking the kiss. He sliced open the front 
of her blouse. He scooped one taut mound from its lacy sling and closed his 
mouth over a straining nipple. He was eager. Too eager. Like some first-time 
teenager. But she was eager, too.
She tightened beneath the circling of his tongue. She gasped as he suckled hard. 
She pressed upward against the hand he slid between her legs.
Touch me, he silently urged. Touch me as I touch you.
But she only curled her fingers against the crests of his shoulders. He covered 
one of her hands with his and guided it down his chest and across his stomach. 
He pressed it home against his straining zipper and she went still beneath him.
His blood-starved brain was slow to register the change...too slow. She tore her 
hand out from under his and pushed him off of herself before he could react.
"I'm sorry!" she wailed, scrambling to her feet.
Stunned and confused, Walker started after her. But the stiffness in his groin 
stopped him. "What the hell's wrong?"
"I-I can't," she gulped, stuffing herself back into her bra and fumbling with 
the buttons of her blouse.
"Why not?" he barked and climbed stiffly to his feet. "You were as hot for it as 
I was!"
"My body responded. Just my body."
He cursed her womanly fickleness. He cursed her for playing a game that brought 
him to the brink of quenching his thirst. Most of all, he cursed her for denying 
him even as the blush of passion still stained her cheeks. Viciously he lashed 
out. "It's only your body I want!"
She flinched and hugged her arms across her stomach. The wounded party. The 
victim. What a convincing act.
"Damnable tease!" he snarled.
Her shoulders squared and the gold flecks in her eyes sparked. "And if I am, 
what then?" she asked through tight lips in a voice quavering oddly with 
outrage. "You going to take me? You going tomake me?"
CHAPTER NINE
Madison unclipped the last of Walker's T-shirts from the clothesline, folded it, 
and laid it on the pile already in the laundry basket. Her hand lingered on the 
sun-warmed fabric. But it was poor substitute for the heat of the man himself, a 
heat she'd never know again. She'd taken care of that.
Not that she'd meant to rebuff Walker as brutally as she had. Goaded by Lacey, 
Laurel, and her own libido, she'd been as caught up in the moment as he. But 
Walker seemed to evoke reactions from her that were best left alone, like anger.
And lust.
Madison winced, hefted the laundry basket, and headed for the cabin. She'd 
played a major role in this latest catastrophe and been labeled a tease for it, 
a title she hated but deserved.
She swung open the screen door and fled the open spaces, the sunshine, and the 
piney scent of the wide outdoors...of the place where she'd almost given herself 
body, heart, and soul to Walker Armstrong. Never mind that he'd been honest 
about wanting only her body. She needed more. That's why, when he'd pressed her 
hand down over the rigid evidence of what they were about to do, she'd balked.
If only he hadn't flown into a rage. She wouldn't have countered with words like 
"take" and "make"...when she already knew he wasn't a man who could do either.
She set the laundry basket down on the foot of Walker's bed...a bed whose sheets 
she found tangled every morning since she'd accused him of things he would never 
do. She smoothed her palm over the navy threads of Walker's T-shirt.
She could explain to him about her being a woman incapable of casual sex. But he 
wouldn't believe her...not as long as he thought her a tease...not as long as 
she was only a body to him. She simply had to accept the fact that she 
couldn'tfix Walker.
She gathered the stack of T-shirts from the basket. The stack was so big he must 
have gone through every shirt he owned. She opened a bureau drawer and bent to 
fill it with the undershirts. But something in the bottom of that almost empty 
drawer stopped her.
Barely half of the image was exposed above the lip of the photo-shop envelope. 
But enough of that one photo lay askew from the rest of the stack to reveal its 
subject, her.
She dropped the shirts on the bed and lifted out the packet of photographs. 
There were thirty-six of them and they were all of her. She recognized where 
they'd been taken. She could even figure when. But it was thewhy that circled in 
her head until she felt like a tightrope walker with vertigo.
Why did he take them?
Why did he keep them?
Why, if he cared nothing for her, did he hide them in his shirt drawer?
The slam-bang of the screen porch door alerted her; and she tossed the packet of 
photos back into the drawer and jammed the freshly washed T-shirts on top of it. 
By the time Walker filled the bedroom doorway, she had the laundry basket on her 
hip.
He strode past Madison into the room, flicked shut the shutters covering the 
window, and stripped off his T-shirt. She blinked at him with wide, guilt-rimmed 
eyes and fled. She should run, just like she had in the forest after she accused 
him of being capable oftaking a woman against her will. But not for the reason 
she'd accused him.
She should run because he still wanted to rage at her. He still wanted to break 
her in half.
He still wanted to know why she'd left him wallowing like some cow that wandered 
stupidly into the mire of a bog when she'd responded to him with wild abandon.
He'd almost demanded an explanation from her that day. But Mike had fired off 
his signal flare, announcing they had themselves a tranquilized wolf to examine 
and electronically collar, and she'd fled back to the cabin.
By the time he came out of the woods, she was already hiding in her loft 
bed...as if that would have stopped him...were he the kind of man she accused 
him of being. So, alone in his bed, he'd rehashed what had happened between them 
in the woods, his conclusion the same as he'd made in the heat of rejection. She 
was a tease.
And Teases were trouble. Teases enticed men and woe to any man teased beyond 
control.
He was done obsessing over Madison Montgomery.
These days, Madison generally left the cabin when Walker was in. Number one, to 
give him peace while he slept after a long shift of radio-tracking the wolf. 
And, number two, she should yet avoid him- -especially after finding those 
photos of her in the bottom of his shirt drawer. He was still wounded, maybe 
more dangerously than she'd realized.
But the very fact that she wounded him made her need to address the presence of 
those photos.
Unless the pictures weren't about her, but rather the art of photography. That's 
what she had to determine before she confronted Walker about the shots of her. 
That's why she sat cross-legged in the loft opposite hers surrounded by photos, 
sketchbooks, and paintings. She'd stumbled onto the cache under the eaves behind 
the spare bed during one of her cleaning frenzies. Then, she hadn't pried. Now, 
she studied the extensive talent of the man she'd wounded- -a man she could help 
before his self-destruction was carved in marble like Laurel's.
Walker couldn't sleep and he'd be damned before he'd admit it had anything to do 
with Madison. He was restless because of the odd work hours screwing up his 
internal clock. Or maybe it was the heat keeping him riled up. It was 
mid-summer. A tall, cold lemonade would cool him down.
He thought of Madison's slim fingers squeezing lemons and scowled. Water would 
do the trick just fine, he decided and catapulted himself from the tangled 
sheets and out his bedroom door. Too bad if the sight of him in jockey shorts 
disturbed a certain someone's sensitivities. He'd tell her she was lucky he'd 
taken to wearing the blasted things to bed since she moved in...or she might 
well have been seeing him buck- naked.
But she wasn't in the living room or the kitchen. Fine. He didn't need her 
stimulating him any more than he needed caffeine right now.
He gulped down two glasses of water and made it back to the living room before 
he spied Madison's back against the posts of the loft above the front porch. He 
could still avoid her. Just go back into his room and crawl under his rumpled 
sheets.
"Hell," he muttered and turned toward the stairway.
She heard the floorboard midway across the balcony connecting the two lofts 
creak and knew it was Walker before he even demanded, "What the hell do you 
think you're doing?"
"Invading your privacy." She glanced at the bare feet planted in front of her 
and scanned the naked legs to where they met the white briefs. She snorted, 
shook her head, and repeated, "Invading your privacy."
He hadn't expected blunt honesty, not from her. It made him feel like a jerk, 
standing here in front of her in his underwear, demanding answers to why his 
life's work littered the floor around her. But, dammit, shewas invading his 
privacy.
"Pack this stuff up and put it back where you found it," he growled.
"Sure," she said, "just as soon as you answer a few questions."
"I owe you no explanations."
"No, you don't," she allowed, raising sad, hazel eyes at him. "But you need to 
answer some questions for yourself."
"You think so, huh?" he challenged.
"Yeah."
"And why is that?"
She lifted a photo of his mother at him. "You have your mother's mouth, but you 
never use yours to smile."
"Haven't had anything to smile about lately," he returned, warily.
"I suppose not." She set the framed photo aside, dragged a large leather 
portfolio open across her lap, and began flipping through the vinyl-covered 
pages.
"You suppose right," he retorted, folding his arms across his naked chest- 
-feeling awkward about his state of undress while she flipped through his 
portfolio of sketches, prints, and photographs.
"The detailing in this is exquisite," she said, pausing on an acrylic of a hawk. 
"I can even see the rabbit he hunts reflected in his eyes."
"Not many people catch that detail at first glance."
The smile she raised at him was edged with apology. "I looked at it earlier."
He'd figured as much considering the portfolio had been unzipped before she'd 
pulled it across her lap. More honesty from Madison Montgomery. Would wonders 
never cease?
The hazel eyes shot with gold sharpened on him. "Why does a Georgia O'Keefe 
print hang on a wall where this belongs?"
Her question caught him like a kick to the solar plexus. Blunt curiosity or a 
set-up for another fall?
"Maybe O'Keefe's a favorite of mine," he managed to get out.
"Georgia O'Keefe's talent aside," Madison allowed, "she doesn't belong here."
"Too sophisticated for my rustic abode?" he snapped.
"Too barren."
He eyed her narrowly. What was she driving at?
"Those cactus plants on the windowsill downstairs don't belong here, either," 
she continued. "They won't flourish in these north woods, not the way someone 
bred and born here will."
He was beginning to wonder how much more honesty he could stand from Madison 
Montgomery.
"But you aren't thriving here, either, Walker."
Damn the woman.
"You not only aren't using your talent, you hide it- -same as you hide your 
family photos. Why, Walker?"
He snatched the portfolio from Madison's lap and flipped it open to a portrait 
of sleek, blond beauty. He waved the page in Madison's face.
"She's the reason. Jordan believed art to be no more than an investment and 
family photos sentimental drivel."
The golden-brown eyes studied the sketch a moment then looked up at him. "Is 
that what you believe, Walker?"
***
That's not what he believed.
With one hand, Walker swiped the cactus plants off the sill of the living room 
window and into the wastebasket he held in the other. He'd never asked himself 
why he hadn't rid his home of Jordan'stouches the day he'd caught her in another 
man's arms- -not until Madison had forced him think about it.
For her efforts, he'd ordered his housekeeper out of the loft and his personal 
life. Then he'd zipped up his portfolio and re-boxed his photos.
Then he'd unpacked them all again and thought about why he'd left them packed 
away this past year. His conclusion after a nostalgic trip through the family 
photo albums...guilt.
Never mind that grief over his mother's death had muddled his senses or that 
Jordan's advice that he "move on with life" was reasonable. But the fact 
remained; he'd let Jordan pack away his family. He'd let it happen and he'd been 
too ashamed and too into self-punishment to undo it after she was gone.
At least he had until Madison Montgomery had forced him to reevaluate what he 
believed. And what he believed, what he knew, was that his mother and father 
would have forgiven him his lapse. It was time he forgave himself.
Thanks to another woman who might well be a schemer.
But what was Madison's scheme?
Madison whose gentle hand had tended his mother's flower beds, whose sweet voice 
had called chickadees from flight, and whose pained eyes had begged him to face 
his demons.
Madison who'd flirted with a playboy, student, teacher, and dangerous man.
Madison who'd responded to his first kiss with a slap and his second with 
ardor...then rejected him.
Through the front window, he watched her help Dalton anchor the boat away from 
the dock. A storm had been predicted. Though no wind yet buffeted the towering 
peaks of the pines on the far bank of the river and no dark clouds offered a 
respite from the blazing haze of high summer. The still before the storm.
For the thousandth time that day, Walker wondered what Madison schemed...if she 
schemed at all?
***
Even after nightfall, the humidity remained high enough to make the hair curl at 
the nape of a Madison's neck and the shirt stick to her back. Or was it the fact 
that she and Walker were stuck together in a cabin that seemed too small for the 
both of them that had her edgy and hot? If only the impending storm would break. 
Then the humidity would break. Then the guys- -Walker could get back to wolf 
tracking.
And she could escape her loft...where the air was even stiller and closer in her 
bed beneath the eaves. Stripped to her panties and camisole, she watched the 
heat lightning flicker from the dormer windows across the rafters above her 
head. She should have minded her own business where Walker was concerned. He 
hadn't thanked her for making him take a good look at himself. Though she had 
noticed the cactus plants in the garbage, the photo of his parents on the desk 
in the corner of the living room, and that a poster-sized painting in Walker's 
style replaced the O'Keefe print on the wall.
Still, he wasn't her best friend. She owed him nothing.
Light shimmered across the ceiling like an accusation.
Okay, she owed him an explanation. But nothing like what she owed Laurel whom 
she'd once again failed- -not because she hadn't found the man who'd destroyed 
her life- -but because she, Madison Montgomery, wanted to be released from the 
hellish task she'd assigned herself. She wanted the freedom to laugh and live 
and love- -the freedom to give herself wholly to Walker.
The reflected light above her glowed briefly. What kind of answer was that?
The subtle kind that a suppressed psyche the likes of hers should be able to 
read.
But she wasn't so restrained any more, was she? Walker's drugging kiss had 
chased away her inhibitions and his hungry caresses had aroused an insatiable 
desire that still pulsed through her veins.
Hadn't Laurel always urged her to "let down her hair, live it up, have some 
fun?" So, why deny herself? Someone like her hunting a rapist was like tilting 
at windmills, right?
Light exploded through the loft and a deafening crack splintered the air. 
Madison jumped.
"Is that a yes or a no?" she asked ceiling ward.
As if in answer, the dormer windows swung inward on a windy gust and banged 
against the wall. She jumped out of bed and bolted onto the balcony. The skies 
had finally opened up and a fierce wind forced the rain through the screen and 
across the tiny cot beneath the window. By the time Madison battled the 
French-style windows closed and latched, her chemise was drenched and plastered 
to her body.
Plucking at the thin, sodden fabric, she turned and found Walker standing at the 
rail where it curved from loft to balcony, a bare shouldered silhouette backlit 
by the night- light below. A flash of lightening detailed every muscle-molded 
contour of his naked chest and belly- -exposed the unsnapped top of his 
obviously hastily donned jeans. A furry thatch climbed from that opening.
She stood there like some bra-less bimbo in a wet T-shirt contest eyeing his 
crotch, wanting to slide her hand across the flat of his stomach and into the 
opening of his jeans. Lust had stolen away her boyfriend. Lust had labeled 
Laurel and damaged her credibility.
For the sake of lust, Madison had been about to break the biggest promise she'd 
made to a friend who'd been more family to her than any living blood relative. 
And what passed between her and Walker could be no more than lust. He'd made 
that abundantly clear. She could not forsake Laurel for one night of lust...not 
even if that night was with Walker.
When he'd seen her stretched across the cot, latching the window, it had taken 
all the will power Walker possessed not to close his hands over her hips and 
pull her back against himself. It was worse when she turned around.
Drenched by the rain, her thin chemise clung to the dark areolas of her high-set 
breasts. He'd mapped their pebbly roughness with his lips- -could still taste 
her on his tongue.
Overhead, the rain drummed its primitive beat against the roof. On the narrow 
balcony, the ionized air mingled with the musk of two people who wanted each 
other.
Yet she dragged her arms across her chest, covering those enticing peaks. Why 
did she resist him?
Why did he hold back? Why did he turn away and retreat to his own room?
Take.Make.
What was he missing?
"I can't."
That's what she'd said in the woods just before she'd panicked.
CHAPTER TEN
She'd panicked. That's what he'd missed.
But what had panicked her?
Take. Make. I can't.
Her words played through his head all night.
And all night he replayed the sequence of events that led up to them.
The way she'd stormed into the kitchen when she returned from Chick's.
The golden sparks snapping from her eyes when he'd challenged her to join him in 
the woods.
The deep, throaty purrs she'd emitted as he'd stroked the insect repelling oil 
up her legs - - the urgency with which she met and returned his kisses.
The moment she'd gone still beneath him.
He'd pressed her hand down over his arousal and she'd panicked. Why?
I can't.
Because she was a virgin having second thoughts? Because she'd taken a vow of 
celibacy?
Make. Take.
Because something awful had happened to her the last time a man had made love to 
her?
He needed to know. And he wasn't finding out anything by mulling it over in his 
head.
***
Madison hauled the first armload of groceries from the truck into the kitchen. 
Nice as it would have been to have help, she was more grateful for Walker's 
absence. After last night, facing him could only be awkward...even if he didn't 
know how close she'd come to compromising herself for him.
At least she assumed he wasn't home. Wolf hadn't been in his usual place by the 
back stoop. Then again, Wolf sometimes went off on forays by himself.
She set the second load of bags down on the countertop next to the fridge and 
listened. The cabin was silent as a tomb.
Poor word choice, she thought, and began transferring the cold stuff from bag to 
fridge. Not until she headed for the bathroom with bathroom supplies did she 
realize how wrong she'd been about the emptiness of the cabin.
Walker sat at the head of the table, arms folded in front of him and his 
shoulders hunched. His eyes met hers as though he'd been waiting for her. She 
stutter-stepped to a halt.
"I-I didn't know you were here."
He slumped further over his arms and his eyes...For once his eyes weren't 
polished stones of anger or heavy lidded with lust. They were...sad.
Alarmed, she took a step toward him. "What's wrong?"
He glanced at the tabletop between them. Her eyes followed. Spread in front of 
him were a pamphlet, a pocket-sized notebook, a sketch, a scrap of white paper, 
and a manila envelope with pieces of tape at each corner where the envelope had 
been adhered to the underside of a drawer.
"Those are mine!"
"I know," Walker answered quietly, evenly.
"You had to have searched my room to find them."
"True."
"You had no right to go through my personal things!"
"No more than you had looking through mine."
She threw down the bathroom tissue and began snatching up the items that had 
been inside the envelope. "Is that what was this is, retaliation? You 
retaliating for me invading your privacy by invading mine?"
His fingers closed around her wrist, stilling her hand against the table. "I 
didn't do it out of retaliation, Maddie."
"Don't call me that," she said, her voice a rough whisper, her fingertips 
flexing against the scrap of paper on which had been penciled the words "I'm 
tired of the light."
"Why, Maddie? Because someone else who called you by that name hurt you?"
She looked Walker in the eye. "Because only my friends call me Maddie."
"And I'm not your friend, is that it?"
She jerked free of him, tears burning the backs of her eyes. "When have you ever 
acted like a friend to me?"
"I'm trying to be one now." He rapped his knuckles against the lined sheet of 
paper on which had been sketched the figure of a mermaid run through with a 
harpoon. "What's all this about?"
Madison's heart cried out for her to tell Walker about Laurel- -to share the 
burden with him. But her head argued that she didn't know him well enough to 
trust in any friendship he offered.
She shook her head and muttered, "I owe you no explanations."
"You owed me an explanation the minute you accused me of being able to force a 
woman."
She flinched as though he'd physically struck her. Walker wanted to take her in 
his arms and comfort her. But, right now, Madison Montgomery needed pushing and 
he'd push her as hard and as far as it took to get the truth out of her.
He tapped the rape survivor's pamphlet still on the table, drawing Madison's 
glance. The last remnants of color drained from her face.
"Are you a victim of rape?" he asked in a tight voice.
How did she answer him? I'm a victim by association- -by remorse? Neither would 
be a lie. But she didn't trust him to understand. She blinked and shook her 
head.
"You're a bad liar, Maddie."
She took a step backwards.
"Dammit, Maddie!" The legs of the chair scraped across the floor as he rose to 
his feet. "If you weren't raped, why do you have this pamphlet?"
She considered telling him it was research. But then he'd expect her to explain 
what she researched. So, she gave him the simplest truth.
"My best friend was raped."
He exhaled deeply. "I'm sorry about your friend."
She held her breath, hoping he'd ask no more but knowing he would. She'd left 
too much unanswered and his eyes had fixed on the scrap of paper she crushed in 
her fist against her chest.
"What does 'I'm tired of the light'mean?"he asked.
She sucked in a steadying breath before answering. "It was Laurel's explanation 
for overdosing on sleeping pills. It was her suicide note."
Moisture shimmered across the near-black eyes watching her and Walker's voice 
grew husky. "You the one who found her?"
She nodded, fighting back her own tears.
He came around the table toward her. She backed a step. He stopped. He settled 
one hip on the corner of the table and studied her a moment before skidding the 
lined paper with the sketch of the harpoon skewered mermaid on it around until 
it faced her. "And this?"
"The man who raped her had a tattoo like that."
He studied her a moment longer before contemplating the items beside his hip 
again. He thumbed the pages of the notebook that was the perfect size for a 
man's shirt-pocket and she held her breath. He would have read what was in that 
notebook.
"What does a notebook filled with notes about wolves have to do with your 
friend's rape?"
"The man who raped her had that in his car."
"It didn't happen downstate, did it?"
She shook her head.
"Here?"
"On a ski vacation."
"Am I a suspect?"
She almost smiled as she shook her head. "You're too big- -too dark."
"Which explains your fascination with fair-haired boys."
For a moment, he looked like he might laugh. Then he tapped the sketch on the 
table beside him and frowned. "Let me guess. That tattoo is on the rapist's 
chest?"
She nodded.
"That's why you were hell-bent on peeking inside Dalton shirt- -why you shoved 
Trey into the river and zoned out on us after spreading mud on Mike's chest."
She nodded, her mind on a question of her own. "Do you recognize the handwriting 
in the notebook?"
"Hard to say. The whole thing's printed."
"How about the tattoo? Have you seen that?"
"Hell, I haven't seen half the male chests around here bared. This isn't the 
Riviera."
"Cross was the perfect suspect. Too bad he was in jail all last winter."
"Unless he was out on work release."
She brightened. "I hadn't thought of that."
He straightened from the table edge. "My God, Maddie, that's why you went after 
Cross that night we were dancing." Faster than she could react, he was on his 
feet, crossed the room, and had her by the shoulders. "You're not hunting this 
guy, you're baiting him."
She focused on him, looked him in the eye. He was worried...for her. Wounded, 
wallowing in self-pity Walker Armstrong. Of their own free will, her fingers 
lifted toward his face, flexed at his chin- -that strong, square, stubborn chin. 
She stopped short of touching him.
"I'll do whatever it takes to expose that man."
"The hell you will."
"I'd like to see you try and stop me."
The radio receiver on the side table in the corner where the stairs curved 
toward the loft crackled to life and Dalton's voice blasted through the room. 
"Walker, get out here. Our lady wolf has arrived."
***
He cinched the seat belt across Madison's lap.
"I have groceries to put away- -supper to cook," she protested.
"Not until we settle this," he said and closed the passenger door of the truck.
He climbed into the driver's seat to her charge of, "There is nothing to settle, 
not between us."
He draped one arm over the steering wheel and the other along the back of the 
seat so that he faced her. "Wrong. We got a whole lot to settle. Whether you 
want to settle it here and now or on the way out to where they're releasing the 
female wolf is up to you."
"You forgot an option," she rumbled, the gold flecks in her eyes like flames. "I 
don't have to settle anything with you."
She reached for the door. He turned the ignition key, threw the truck into 
reverse, and popped the clutch. The truck arced backwards, throwing her against 
the restraint of the seat belt.
"Dammit, Walker," she howled as he shifted into first and the truck jumped up 
the driveway, "this is kidnapping."
"Wrong again," he muttered as the truck fishtailed onto the county trunk road. 
"This is protecting your cute little behind."
"I can protect my own behind, thank you."
"Sure you can. You're the Terminator, Dirty Harry, and Wonder Woman rolled into 
one."
"I know what I'm doing."
"That's why you chased after a known woman beater without so much as a hint to 
anyone what you were doing."
She folded her arms across her chest and slumped against the back of the seat.
"You're in over your head, Maddie."
"I know."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Because I owe it to Laurel."
"Why?"
"Because she was my best friend."
What he knew about best friends was that they weren't always as good as they 
seemed.
"There's got to be more to it than that. Friends, best or otherwise, aren't 
worth risking your life for."
"Then you never had a friendship like this."
He'd thought he did...once upon a time ago.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. "What about the police? Why aren't 
they involved?"
She shifted on the seat beside him, her chin taking on a defensive angle. "They 
said she came to them too late- -that without any physical evidence, they 
couldn't make a case."
"Why didn't she go to them right away?"
"She didn't think anybody would believe her."
"Why?"
He heard Madison's sharp intake of breath as she turned her face toward the side 
window. "Laurel liked to have a good time."
Translation, her friend's idea of a good time didn't quite put her the realm of 
a "good girl." And Maddie, self-proclaimed best friend to the party-girl?
"That afternoon in the woods when the both of us were primed to do the 
horizontal mambo," he began and her face swung around at him, their gazes 
locking, "did you pull back because you were afraid I'd get the wrong idea about 
you?"
The stain of a blush spread up her neck and into her cheeks. She shook her head. 
"That's not why I stopped."
He downshifted and steered the truck off the county road onto a two-rut lane. 
The grass growing between the ruts wuffled against the undercarriage and brush 
slapped the sides of the cab, warning him to proceed carefully. Not a bad piece 
of advice where Maddie was concerned, either. But she still needed a little 
pushing.
"If that's not the reason you pulled back and if you weren't raped, then why did 
you panic?"
"I didn't panic. I came to my senses."
"About what?"
What did she answer him? You turn me on more than any man ever has. You make me 
want to surrender myself body, heart, and soul. You scare the hell out of me. 
She settled for a half-truth- -something she was doing a lot with Walker.
"I'm not all that experienced."
"You're not, huh?"
Did she detect a tug of a smile at the near corner of Walker's mouth? But, was 
he amused because he doubted her or amused by her inexperience?
She fired back at him, "I'm not trying to make myself out as a virgin. I was 
engaged once."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Once?"
The temperature in her cheeks edged up another degree. He was making fun of her 
lack of experience. "I came to my senses. End of argument."
He rolled the truck to a halt behind a string of 4-wheel drive vehicles, turned 
off the ignition, and faced her. He was about to inform her that their argument 
was anything but over when Trey jerked opened the driver's door.
"She's a beaut, Walker. A real beaut."
He didn't shift his gaze from Madison. "I know."
"Come on, they're about to release her." The student darted off while Walker 
kept staring at Maddie.
"You better go," she said, her eyes way too determined. What they were 
determined about was what concerned him.
He eyed the keys he generally left in the ignition of the truck. He could take 
them with him. Or...
He popped the release on Madison's seat belt, snagged her by the wrist, and 
dragged her out of the truck after him.
"What are you going to do, Walker," she said as she stumbled along next to him 
toward the men clustered around the tailgate of a DNR truck, "shackle me to you 
until I give up my search or give in to you?"
"Not a bad idea," he returned through a grin.
"I'd like to see you try."
He glanced her way and glimpsed the apprehension behind the bluster. "Relax. I 
just want to make sure you don't miss a chance of a life-time."
She eyed him dubiously.
"How many people do you know who've ever seen a wolf in the flesh let alone 
touched one?" His grin stretched and he gave her his best Bogart impression. 
"Stick with me, sweetheart, and I'll introduce you to all sorts of new 
experiences."
She didn't doubt that he would. He'd already opened up a whole new realm of 
sensations for her.
Sensations she couldn't let distract her from hunting Laurel's rapist.
Sensations she couldn't let turn her into, at best, a transition woman, and, at 
worst, one-night stand.
The sea of men parted before Walker as he led her to the rear of the DNR truck. 
The female wolf lay on her side on the tailgate, her eyes glazed with the drug 
that immobilized her. Mike was checking her vitals and Swede attaching a radio 
collar.
"Go ahead, touch her," Walker commanded in his deep voice.
Her fingers itched to touch the dark fur of the wild animal on the tailgate 
before her. But reason warned that the animal could come out of its drug-induced 
lethargy. Or maybe one touch wouldn't be enough; maybe she'd want to touch the 
animal more, longer, deeper. She was thinking of Walker and she knew it. But the 
wolf was safer. The worst the wolf could do to her was bite.
Madison threaded her fingers into the she-wolf's mane much as she wished she 
could Walker's. The wolf blinked at her, the yellow, feral eyes pleading. 
Madison understood. The wolf was helpless in her sedated state- -completely at 
the will of human hands. She understood because she had been helpless to resist 
Walker's touch that one afternoon in the woods when she'd lain down with him. It 
had been her touching him that had broken the spell- -her touch that she'd been 
able to control.
Walker had expected awe from Madison. That was the reaction of most people who 
touched an untamed animal for the first time. But her sable eyebrows bunched 
toward the bridge of her nose and the corners of her mouth tugged downward. Did 
she frown because of the wolf or for another reason- -such as the unsettled 
issue of Madison Montgomery's resistance to him?
"Signal's operational," Trey called.
Madison swung her face toward the men crouched over the receiving unit, dropped 
her hand from the wolf, and backed away from the tailgate. He caught her by the 
upper arms as Swede scooped up the she-wolf. He pulled her back against his 
chest as Swede carried the wolf to the middle of the field. He brushed his lips 
against her hair as Swede laid the wolf on the ground and administered the 
antidote to the drug that had kept her immobilized during her trip from the 
rehab center.
Walker wondered what kept Maddie immobilized beneath his grip. Though she wasn't 
completely unmoving. His fingers mapped the tension telegraphing through her 
taut muscles.
"This is so strange to her," she murmured as though from far off. He didn't like 
the idea of Madison being away from him in either body or mind.
He stroked his thumbs over the crests of Madison's shoulders, needing to anchor 
her here with him. "She'll adapt."
"Will she?"
"What's not to love about our great north woods?" He tried to keep the 
uncertainty from his voice.
"A male wolf who doesn't want her."
"He'll want her."
"How can you be so certain?"
"There aren't exactly any other female wolves in the neighborhood competing for 
his affections."
"A glowing indictment for love."
"Sometimes love doesn't enter into it."
"And if she wants love?"
It hit Walker then that she wasn't talking about wolves, that maybe she never 
had been. In the middle of the field, the female wolf pulled herself up onto her 
feet. Cameras clicked and the auto-wind of advancing film whirred.
The she-wolf crouched, uncertain under the scrutiny- -under pressure...just like 
Maddie. She took a few unsteady steps, and then bounded out of the clearing. As 
badly as Walker wanted to seduce Maddie into relenting to him, he knew one 
truth.
He put his mouth close to Madison's ear, smelling her hair- -not for the last 
time he hoped- -and murmured, "Whatever happens, it's now up to her."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Walker slumped in the wood rocker glaring at Trey. At measured intervals, the 
grad- student tapped his finger against the slow-motion button of the TV/VCR 
remote control and the sequence of the she wolf bounding off into the woods 
inched frame by frame across the television screen. If it had just been the kid, 
Walker would have ordered him out the minute Madison had announced she was 
taking a shower.
But it wasn't just the kid. Dalton and Chick occupied opposite ends of the 
couch, Tom Maki leaned forward from the chair he'd dragged around from the 
dinner table, and a handful of others who'dwitnessed the wolf release took up 
various positions in front of the television. How many times could a man watch 
the same sixty second image- - dragged out one frame at a time no less? He'd 
reached his saturation point the minute Madison emerged from the bathroom 
bundled up in her terry cloth robe, her shower-fresh hair curling around her 
face, and wished them all a "goodnight."
The wooden runners of the rocker creaked beneath Walker's shifting weight. He 
wanted to run up the steps after Madison and strip away that nubby robe and 
crush her naked flesh to his. To hell with his vow that the next move was hers.
"Aren't you due out monitoring the radio, Dalton?" Walker asked, not even trying 
to hide his impatience.
"Mike's got Swede and the government guys with him for the night."
"They'll need relief. Better sleep while you can."
Trey lifted his finger from the remote control long enough to motion around the 
room. "We got reinforcements."
"There's only a few us experienced at reading radio signals," Walker argued.
"Won't take long for those with the know-how to teach those with the don't-know- 
how," Chick retorted.
"We'll still be spread pretty thin," Walker muttered.
"For Chrisakes, Walker," Trey snapped. "We're celebrating here. Give it a rest."
Dalton snickered. "I think getting rest is Walker's point."
Walker glowered, first at the pup who dared challenge him, then the man. The 
sidelong look Dalton gave back, however, suggested he understood more than 
Walker wanted him to.
Walker launched himself from the rocker. "I'm going to bed."
He slammed the bedroom door shut behind himself as Trey rewound the tape yet 
again. Then he paced the small space beside his bed, cursing guests who 
over-stayed their visits. How was he suppose to find out what Maddie's next move 
was going to be if the men didn't leave?
Damn but he wanted her stretched naked against him, arching for him as she had 
when they'd lain for the first time together in the woods. He wanted to taste 
her salty flavor, hear her purry delight, and inhale the musky scent of her 
mingled desire. He wanted her and he wanted her now.
Walker exploded from the bedroom and headed for the loft stairs.
Chick's, "What's up, Walker?" was enough to remind him that he and Madison 
weren't alone.
Walker veered for the bathroom and snapped, "I'm taking a shower." Under his 
breath, he added, "A cold one."
By the time Walker re-emerged, the great room was empty...at last. He eyed the 
steps where they curved away the wall between dinner table and bathroom door. So 
close. He could climb those stairs and be at the foot of her bed in a matter of 
seconds.
And then what? Talk? Have a nice little chat?
His fingers constricted around the clothes bunched in his fist. Yeah, sure, they 
were going to just chat. Never mind that he wore nothing but a towel.
Besides, he'd promised her the next move would be hers.
He looked up at the loft, which housed her bed and listened. No sounds drifted 
down between the posts. Swell, she'd gotten tired of waiting and fallen 
asleep...if she'd even intended to make the move he'd hoped she would.
He sighed, ambled out to the back porch where he tossed his soiled clothing onto 
the laundry pile, and headed for his bedroom. With one last, longing look up at 
the loft, he opened his bedroom door and stepped across the threshold. His room, 
though, was not empty.
Madison sat on the edge of his bed, her eyes huge in the low light of the 
bedside lamp. "They left just after you got in the shower."
He glanced at the terry cloth robe draped across the foot of his bed. He glanced 
up the length of a bare leg that ended enticingly beneath the high-cut edge of 
bikini panties. He glanced at the way she pulled her shoulders close, shy in her 
thin, little chemise.
"Y-you don't want me here," she said, starting to stand.
In two strides, he had her in his arms. "I don't want you anywhere but here."
Then he covered her mouth with his. Their tongues tangled. Their hands urgently 
sought the other, she running hers up his sides, he splaying his down her back.
"Maddie," he murmured over and over against her lips, across her cheek, and into 
her ear.
He pressed her down onto the bed beneath him and kissed the curve of her throat, 
her purr vibrating against his lips. He slid aside one strap of the camisole and 
kissed the slope of her shoulder. He was rewarded with a nibble on his ear.
He eased the camisole straps down her arms, his tongue tracing the descending 
path of the garment. For one tantalizing moment, the thin fabric snagged on the 
rigid peaks of her breasts. Then it gave and floated down across her stomach.
He closed his lips hungrily over one turgid nipple then the other while she 
writhed beneath his ministrations and arched against his own straining arousal. 
Eager to know all of her, he slid his fingers under the elastic waistband of her 
panties and earned himself a delightful groan.
He slipped the thin fabric off the gentle curve of a hip, down her legs, and off 
her feet. On his knees at her feet, he gaze the length of her.
"My God, you're beautiful."
She blinked at him, her mouth slack, and her fingers fidgeted shyly with an edge 
of the camisole pooled around her waist. He ran a hand up the inside of one leg. 
She trembled.
Desire or apprehension? He couldn't be sure which. He needed to be sure.
"Maddie," he breathed, his fingers poised on the brink of invading her most 
private of places. "Are you sure?"
"No," she whispered huskily, then tugged the towel from his waist, closed her 
hand about his swollen member, and guided him into the steamy vortex at the apex 
of her long, lithe legs.
***
Madison edged into consciousness, reluctant to release the comforting warmth of 
the body beneath the sprawl of her arm and leg. The gray of dawn invaded through 
the slats of the shutters on the bedroom window, and she didn't know if Walker 
expected her to be gone when he woke or not.
Just what was current bedroom etiquette?
She lifted her cheek from the pillow of Walker's wide shoulder and studied the 
planes of his face. They were softer in slumber.
Or were they relaxed because his body had been sated? He'd been so hungry. Had 
he even know which woman's body serviced him?
That settled it. She couldn't bear it if finding her here brought a frown to his 
mouth- - not when she wanted to run her tongue over the smooth pads of those 
lips and along their hard defining edges.
Madison eased her arm off his chest and her leg from his thigh. She raised 
herself up onto her hands and knees and carefully crawled from his side. She was 
almost to the foot of the bed when a hand clamped about her ankle.
"Where the hell you sneaking off to?" growled Walker.
She spun, the disheveled sheets tangling about her. "It-it's me Walker," she 
stammered. "Madison."
"I know who the hell it is," he snarled, wedging himself up onto his elbows 
without relaxing the death-grip he had on her ankle, condemnation etched into 
his darkened features.
Was this how Jordan had betrayed him? Was this how the unfaithful fiancé had 
taught him to distrust? The haunted depths of his eyes told her that he believed 
there was only one reason a woman would sneak from her lover's bed.
"I was just going back to my bed, Walker," she reasoned.
"Is that your usual style?" His voice rumbled from low in his chest and his 
untamed hair shuddered over his shoulders.
"I d-don't have a-a style. I-I just didn't know what was proper under 
circumstances like these."
"Proper?" His fingers flexed around her ankle. He squinted at her a moment. Then 
the hard line of his jaw eased, mischief glittered in the near-black eyes, and 
he whispered huskily, "I'll show you what'sproper the morning after."
He brought her ankle up to his mouth and touched hot lips to her air-cooled 
flesh.
"Oh," popped the surprise from her mouth.
He leaned forward and laid a wet track up the inside of her leg to her knee with 
his mouth. She gasped. He dragged her from her cocoon of sheets. She squealed. 
He nipped the inside of her thigh, his eyes gleaming lustily up at her.
Last night he'd looked at her with hunger in his eyes. Last night he'd lost 
himself in her. His pleasure had been hers. It had been all she'd needed. But 
this morning, the heavy-lidded eyes peering up at her said he needed more. This 
morning, he intended for the pleasure to be allhers .
His lips inched up her inner thigh. Her abdominal muscles constricted with 
desire and she abandoned herself to a world of sensations. The silky slip of his 
hair across her naked limb. His hot breath on her tender skin. The itch of her 
own need.
Then someone knocked on the bedroom door.
Like a hare with the hounds on her heels, Madison scrabbled for the sheet; while 
Walker, kneeling on the sheet, reared up between her legs like a woolly bear 
ready to fight for his prize.
"Walker," Dalton's voice lifted through the wood. "You up?"
On cue, the telltale member standing at full attention between Walker's legs 
bobbed. Struck by the absurd impulse to giggle, Madison slapped a hand over her 
mouth. Walker scowled at her, then the door.
"I'll be right out," he growled, shifting from between Madison's legs. "Stay 
there."
He tugged the sheet up over her and rolled off the bed. "Sorry. Duty calls."
Duty. The word struck a guilty chord in Madison and the urge to giggle deserted 
her. In the heat of lust, she'd forgotten the promise she'd made to Laurel.
She sat up, pulling the covers around her shoulders, and watched Walker zip 
himself into a pair of jeans. Even though she was probably no more to him than a 
transition woman- -a woman that a man on the rebound uses to get over the one 
he'd lost, she still wanted him.
She wanted him to hold her, caress her...kiss her. She wanted him to need her, 
own her, possess her. But most of all, she wanted Walker to love her.
And maybe he did, just a little. She could hope.
Walker stepped out of the bedroom and found Dalton lounging on the nearest arm 
of the sofa. Quickly Walker closed the bedroom door behind himself. Dalton's 
mouth angled one of his knowing grins and Walker's hackles went up.
"I don't suppose it occurred to you to make the coffee while you waited," he 
growled, motioning Dalton ahead himself toward the kitchen.
Dalton took his time straightening from the arm of the couch. "Neither you nor I 
drink the stuff." He gave the bedroom door a pointed glance. "We like our 
beverages sweeter."
It took all the control Walker had not to cram the smug words back down Dalton's 
throat. "Just get in the kitchen."
"Why?" Dalton asked with mock innocence.
"So you can make breakfast while I shower."
"Isn't that our little Madison's job?" Dalton's gaze slid upwards at the loft 
where the footboard of Madison's bed was barely visible. "Shall we wake her?"
"Since when can't we fry a couple eggs for ourselves?" Walker knew he sounded 
too urgent. But the challenge got Dalton away from the bedroom door and into the 
kitchen, even if he planted himself just across the threshold.
"Eggs," Walker barked, bumping hard past Dalton and to the refrigerator.
"And bacon?"
"Don't have the time," Walker grumbled, flinging a carton of eggs at the paler 
man.
Dalton caught the twelve pack against his chest. He lifted the lid and eyed the 
contents dubiously. "You want your eggs scrambled or scrambled?"
Walker flipped a stick of oleo at Dalton. Dalton caught it out of the air before 
it hit him and he grinned crookedly. "You're mighty testy this morning...for a 
man who's had himself a full eight hours of shut-eye."
Walker slung a loaf of bread down next to the toaster and glowered at Dalton.
"You did get your beauty sleep, didn't you, Walker?"
"Just cook the eggs and toast the bread."
"As soon as you answer me one thing," Dalton puckered back at him. "Last night, 
did you win our bet or not?"
Madison backed, unseen, away from the kitchen entrance, Dalton's words ringing 
in her ears. She'd intended to cook breakfast and maybe savor a few domestic 
moments with Walker before he headed out to track wolves.
Back in his bedroom, she closed the door behind herself and stared at the bed 
where they'd made love.
Correction, where they'd lusted.
She winced. He'd used her to win a bet.
Tears burned into the corners of her eyes. At least as a transition woman, she'd 
dared hope he might grow to love her. But now... No matter how badly she wanted 
Walker, she had more pride than to let him use her as a prize in a bet.
That is, if he even still wanted to use her. He'd already won the bet.
A tear trickled down her cheek. She swiped it away. Two things she knew for 
certain. The first, she'd contact the sheriff's office this afternoon and find 
out if Jay Cross or any other man they knew had a tattoo of a harpoon skewered 
mermaid on his chest.
And second, come bedtime, she would crawl into her own bed in the loft and stay 
there.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Bronco pounded over the washboard gravel road. But the hairs at the nape of 
Walker's neck didn't bristle because of the beating his body took from Dalton's 
driving. His hackles had come up the minute Dalton had reminded him of the bet 
he'd made. If Maddie had walked into the kitchen just then...
Damn Dalton and his big mouth.
And damn himself for making the blasted bet in the first place.
At least he'd shushed Dalton up before she heard. He had, hadn't he?
He wasn't so sure when he'd returned to his bedroom to dress after his shower 
and she was gone. Could she have heard them through the wall between the bedroom 
and kitchen?
He didn't think so, not with the stove and cabinets helping to insulate between 
the two rooms. Besides, he'd never been able to make out any more than the 
occasional word spoken in the kitchen when he'd been on the bedroom side of the 
wall.
So, if she hadn't heard, why hadn't she come down from her loft before they 
left? Why, when he'd called his goodbye up to her, had she answered with a 
faint, "Bye?"
He needed to go back. He needed to find out what was wrong. And something was 
definitely wrong. Every nerve ending in his body prickled with the fact. But 
before he could order Dalton to turn the Bronco around, Dalton put in his two 
cents worth.
"Our little Madison was pretty elusive this morning. Hardly the ardent lover the 
morning after. Maybe I over-estimated you. Maybe you didn't win our bet after 
all."
Or maybe he hadn't made last night as memorable for Maddie as she'd made it for 
him. Maybe what was wrong was that she'd been indifferent.
It was late afternoon before he could head back to the cabin to find out for 
certain. But when he got there, she was gone.
"Gone to make some phone calls," Trey told him before driving off in Dalton's 
Bronco.
Probably checking for the next bus out of town, Walker silently bemoaned.
While Dalton napped, Walker paced. When she still hadn't returned hours later, 
nightfall closed on Walker with a blackness that matched his mood. She had his 
truck. She had to come back. But she didn't have to come to him.
Then Swede swung by and picked up him and Dalton. The wolves were on the move. 
For a while, Walker tried to distract himself by tracking the blips off the 
female wolf's collar. But, when he found himself daydreaming about collaring 
Maddie, he handed the headset off to Swede.
What had kept her in town until after dark?
The walkie-talkie crackled to life. Dalton held it close to his ear, 
translating, "Mike's triangulated the bitch."
Dalton shined a flashlight on the map Walker unrolled and tapped the antennae of 
the walkie-talkie against a spot. "There."
Swede smiled. "I figured she was close. Her signal's strong."
As was Walker's sense that something was amiss with Maddie.
Swede changed frequencies and swept the tracking antennae slowly side to side. 
"And there's our boy, still on her trail."
Walker wished he were on Maddie's trail.
Dalton tested the air. "We're downwind of them, right?"
Testing the wind direction for himself, Swede confirmed, "Yup."
Walker had a sinking feeling that he was upwind of Maddie, that she knew exactly 
where he stood. Meanwhile, he was left wondering if she really had been slipping 
out of his bed because she didn't know what wasproper, or if she'd been sneaking 
out because she didn't want to be there when he woke up.
"How close do we dare get?" Dalton asked.
Walker eyed Dalton narrowly. He had better be talking about the wolves and not 
Maddie.
"Closer than we are now," Swede returned through a broad grin, then led them in 
the direction of the male wolf's signal.
Minutes later, the DNR officer stopped and pulled the headphones away from his 
ears and whispered, "Signal's so strong here, if I didn't know better, I'd think 
we were standing on top of him."
Walker held the headset to one ear, nodded, and returned in a low voice, "We 
are."
"Huh?" Dalton murmured incredulously.
Walker stripped off his backpack and motioned the others to likewise shed any 
equipment that might make noise. Then he slipped through the brush and shimmied 
onto the lip of a rocky outcrop that had been created by glaciers thousands of 
years before an inquisitive, ten-year old boy had discovered it.
When Swede and Dalton edged up on either side of him, Walker pointed into the 
moon-swathed clearing where the male wolf circled a spot, his nose low to the 
ground. The he-wolf paused long enough to raise his leg, give a couple spurts, 
and scratch the ground, sending tufts of grass and dirt flying. Then he padded 
to another spot and repeated the ritual.
"Mike mapped the female through here earlier today," Swede whispered.
The he-wolf continued reading the message the she-wolf had left with her scent 
markings and leaving his own atop hers. Walker wished he could read Maddie as 
clearly.
Or maybe he did. Maybe he'd been once again blinded by lo- -. He cut off the 
thought, refusing to even think the word. He refused to believe he could fall 
for another woman like Jordan.
But Maddie wasn't like Jordan. She valued his artistry for its beauty while 
Jordan valued it for its commercialism. She believed in family, tended 
flowerbeds, and called chickadees.
The he-wolf raised his nose and sniffed. Moonlight glistened off his flared 
nostrils. He circled and huffed. Then he dropped his head and raised his 
hackles.
Dalton nudged Walker in the ribs and pointed to the far end of the clearing. The 
she-wolf had arrived.
Maddie also used her sexuality, Walker reminded himself. She'd flirted with 
Dalton until she got a look inside his shirtfront. How far would she have gone 
with Jay Cross to see his chest? Never mind that she did what she did to expose 
a rapist. The fact was, she knew how to use her femininity to get what she 
wanted...as had Jordan.
A low rumbled vibrated in Walker's throat, an echo of the he-wolf's growl.
Nervously, the she-wolf edged into the field. Walker could almost see the 
warning prickle along her spine. His own tingled over Maddie.
But did the fine hairs at the nape of his neck stood on end because he wanted to 
possess her or because he'd left Maddie with an itch that had her looking 
elsewhere for satisfaction?
The she-wolf slunk along the near side of the clearing, tail tucked, head 
low...watchful.
Just as Maddie had appeared the day he first saw her in that dusty diner that 
doubled as a bus station. She'd seemed the timid waif...then.
The he-wolf growled and stepped stiff-legged out of the shadows. The she-wolf 
spun and bared her teeth.
A woman who hunted a rapist in his own lair wasn't timid.
Hackles at full attention, the he-wolf advanced on the she wolf. The she-wolf 
recoiled much as Maddie did around him. Even this morning when he'd caught her 
sneaking out of his bed...
The he-wolf circled the she-wolf, and then approached her from the rear. The 
she- wolf sank to her belly. But she didn't roll over, didn't show him her belly 
in abject submission.
Had Maddie ever truly submitted to him?
Did he want her to?
The he-wolf sniffed at the she-wolf. She flicked her ears against her skull. He 
edged along her side. She growled. He reared up, attempted to place his paws on 
her shoulders- -to show his dominance- -to claim her as his.
She wheeled from him, growling and snapping- -a true alpha bitch. But the 
he-wolf was also an alpha.
Snarls rent the air as the pair became a fury of moonlit fur. Snapping teeth 
accentuated the potential lethalness of the contest. But the clack of tooth 
against tooth also meant the aim of the fray was dominance and not damage.
When it was over, the she-wolf crouched and licked the he-wolf's under jaw. He 
had established for all the forest to see that she was his and his alone.
Beneath a full lover's moon, Walker Armstrong promised himself that the woman 
he'd chosen would know his dominance before daybreak.
***
The air in the loft stirred across Madison's bare arm, air heavy with humidity, 
and a disturbance where there should have been none. She sat bolt upright in her 
bed, drawing the sheet across her breasts.
The figure backlit at the foot of her bed by the light seeping up from the first 
floor was familiar. "Walker?"
"Were you expecting someone else?" His voice was chillingly low in the warm air.
And having been awakened abruptly disoriented her. Through a yawn, she muttered, 
"I wasn't expecting anybody."
A low rumble rose from him. "Where the hell were you all afternoon?"
She stopped rubbing the sleep from her eyes and squinted into the face shadowed 
by a veil of un-tethered hair. "I went to town."
"Alone?"
That chased off the last of her grogginess. "What's the matter, Walker, you bet 
on me with someone else besides Dalton?"
The silhouette at the foot of her bed changed, metamorphosed from hulking to 
harmless. "That's why you've been avoiding me today?"
The note of surprise in his voice momentarily threw her off guard. She actually 
was considering explaining how she'd driven to the sheriff's office because 
she'd gotten nowhere calling them, when he advanced on her, pulled her out of 
bed, swept her up in his arms, and swung her around. The man was delusional. 
He'd bet on her, growled at, and now danced her around the loft as though she'd 
just whispered the sweetest words he'd ever heard. She pounded on his shoulders.
Through his elation, Walker registered the blows of her slim fists. As swiftly 
as relief banished his suspicions, relief ebbed under the onus of remorse. He 
stopped wheeling them about the loft.
"Put me down," she demanded through clenched teeth.
Contrite, he settled her on her feet. But he kept her in the loose circle of his 
arms as he stated the obvious. "You heard Dalton this morning."
"Yeah." She made the word sound tough, but the sheen in her eyes told a 
different story.
"The bet was a mistake," he said.
"Damn right it was," she retorted, thumping the heels of her palms against his 
chest.
"I'd forgotten I even made it," he returned, still refusing to release her.
"How flattering." Her fingers curled, bunching the front of his T-shirt; and she 
glared up at him. "Care to share all the gruesome details with me?"
"Aah, Maddie," he breathed, suddenly aware how trite the bet had been. "It was a 
stupid bet made weeks ago."
"And that's supposed to excuse it?"
He shook his head. "I was a jerk...then."
"And you aren't now?" she fired back at him, the fire in her eyes burning off 
some of the tears.
He gave her a sheepish grin. "You hadn't yet brought out the better man in me."
"Have I yet?"
He tugged her closer. "I'd like to think so."
She cocked her chin at a defensive angle. "So, what did you win?"
It struck him then that the bet had less to do with her than it did with Dalton. 
But he wasn't ready to share that much with her. He wasn't sure enough of her, 
yet. He wasn't sure of himself.
He traced the shadows the loft railing cast across her arm, her shoulder, and 
her cheek. "I win nothing if it costs me you."
Hope twinged in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to 
relent to the strong fingers that raised goose bumps of pleasure across her 
skin. She wanted to sag against his big, hard body and lose herself in his heat- 
-wanted to be engulfed by his embrace and swallowed by his kisses. She almost 
nodded- -almost acquiesced. Then he added something to his argument.
"Please, Maddie, I need you."
Need. She knew what he needed. He needed a woman to help him get over the last 
one. He needed a transition woman.
"Maddie," he urged, "don't you believe me?"
She smiled wanly. "I believe you."
"And forgive me?"
"Now you're pushing your luck."
He laughed and drew her closer, his fingers doing their magic against the nape 
of her neck. She should swat his hands away and twist out of his hold. The best 
she could manage was indifference- -like a piece of flotsam being buffeted 
against the rocky bank of the river.
His thank yous rifled through her hair, a warm breeze, a welcoming breeze...a 
breeze as enticing as a tropical holiday.
A holiday. That's all this was. Come the end of summer, he'd drive her to the 
bus depot and ship her back to her downstate teaching job. A summer fling. Not 
even. Only a month remained...and her pride.
Her pride, tattered and battered as it was, could keep her from making a total 
fool of herself.
He brushed his lips across her temple.
She could yet preserve what little dignity she had left to her. Just refuse him.
He nibbled the lobe of her ear. She stifled a moan.
She had one amazing night to remember.
He nipped the slope of her shoulder and, reflexively, she tilted her head to one 
side, giving him greater access.
One night to relive for the rest of her life when she could have a month of 
nights.
He kissed the tip of her chin and her lips parted.
Pride goeth before the fall. And she was falling all right- -falling completely 
under Walker Armstrong's heady spell.
He brushed his lips across hers.
Then again, pride was one of the deadly sins.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She tilted her head and fit her lips to his.
"Aah, Maddie," he sighed against her mouth. "You won't be sorry."
Too late. She was already sorry. But, she didn't care. She wanted Walker and 
she'd have him for as long as he'd have her.
She tugged his T-shirt from the waistband of his jeans. Their lips parted just 
long enough for him to peel the shirt off over his head.
She spread her hands up his muscled chest. He moaned, cupped her buttocks in his 
palms, and pressed her against himself. He was hard and ready. She was eager.
His belt buckle came free in her hand and she edged the zipper down over the 
straining ridge of flesh beneath. The denim jeans scraped her thighs in their 
descent down his legs and settled into thick folds over their toes. She ran a 
finger beneath the elastic waistband of his jockeys. He groaned. She loved that 
she caused that throaty sound.
She shifted slightly to one side and slid her hand toward the hard, hot tower of 
flesh. But he caught her by her wrist, reluctantly parted his lips from hers, 
and murmured huskily, "You first tonight."
A thrill ran through her. She didn't fully comprehend the gift he offered. She 
knew only that he wanted to give, and that in itself was a gift for which she 
could love him.
He scooped her up in his arms; their eyes locked with promise in the half-light 
of the loft, and carried her to her bed where he laid her down. But he didn't 
join her on the mattress.
With deliberate slowness, he eased her panties down her legs. He slipped one 
foot free, then the other. He cradled her ankle in his palm and gave her a long, 
languorous look, before letting the panties slip from his fingertips. He nuzzled 
the ankle he cradled in his hand, promising between nibbles and nips to "finish 
what I started this morning."
The flash of memory made her suck in her breath. He laid a damp track up the 
inside of her leg with his mouth and the breath whooshed out of her. At the 
highest point, he paused, raised his head, and murmured in a thick voice, "For 
you, Maddie."
Then his hair slipped over her thighs and his hot breath filled her. She arched 
against the excruciating pleasure of Walker's wet mouth and hard tongue.
She threaded her fingers into his hair, torn between wanting to pull him away- - 
to make him stop the torture- -and holding him in place. When she thought she'd 
die if he didn't fill her, he rose and planted himself between her legs with one 
long, even stroke. With baited breath, she waited for him to draw back. She 
shifted her hips, urging. But he pinned her pelvis against the mattress beneath 
his.
Then he moved within her, a slow circular motion that sent a ripple through her, 
a ripple that repeated itself again and again like rings rippling across the 
glassy surface of the river from the talons of an eagle snagging a fish. She was 
caught in the grip of Walker's love making, his each rotation the heavy beat of 
a massive wing climbing her higher.
One sweeping stroke at a time, he lifted her from the mattress, out of the 
cabin, and above the treetops. He lifted her through thready clouds turned 
silver by moonlight. He lifted her until she was so high the moon eclipsed the 
earth.
He lifted her until she knew nothing but sensation, was nothing but sensation- 
-until every atom of her shattered in their frenzied collision, spinning 
dizzyingly through the universe. He lifted her with his strong, even beat until 
every fragment of her came slamming together again in the trough of her mattress 
beneath him and she cried out.
She would never be sorry.
***
Walker paused in the stand of Poplars skirting the rock outcrop where Madison 
sat holding the radio antennae in one hand while jotting notes with the other, 
her full lips pursed in concentration. He smiled at the idea of kissing those 
lips until they were swollen from his ardor. In the week since they'd made love 
in her loft bed, he'd done just that countless times. But it was their first two 
lovemaking sessions that told the tale of her surrender.
And she had twice surrendered to him- -the first time to his pleasure, the 
second to his need to pleasure her. She'd cried out to him that night beneath 
him in her loft bed. She'd cried out his name. Only one thing had marred the 
perfection of that night.
Snuggled together on the sagging mattress, the questions had returned to him. 
Why had she gone to town when their cupboards were full? Why had she stayed in 
town so late?
Her answers rang true. Yet they couldn't have been more disturbing to him than 
if she'd told him she'd gone to meet a lover. He didn't want to share her, 
especially not with a bad promise made to a dead friend. He wouldn't.
He strode up behind her and nudged her shoulder blades with his knees. She gave 
a little start, smiled up at him, and slipped the headphones from her ears.
"You find that raspberry patch you were bragging about?" she asked.
"Sure did." He grinned, plucked one red berry from his palm, and held it over 
her mouth. "Open wide."
She chuckled, tilted her head back, and obliged him. He considered another 
method of depositing the berries in her mouth, a more intimate approach. But 
they had all afternoon.
He dropped the berry between her lips. She bit down and screwed her face up.
"That is the sourest thing I've ever eaten."
Sour is what her hunting a rapist did to his stomach. He frowned. To cover, he 
popped a raspberry into his mouth, chewed, and shrugged. "So they're a little 
tart."
She shuddered. "That wasn't tart. That was sour."
He folded down on his knees beside her, popped a few more berries into his 
mouth, and reconsidered. "Nope. Not sour."
"Let me try another before you eat all the good ones," she said, eyeing the pile 
in his palm.
He considered offering to taste each one for her. Passing raspberries lip to lip 
would without a doubt lead to lovemaking. And he loved making love to her. He 
loved her shy explorations of his body. He loved her sounds of surprise as she 
discovered the delights of her own body.
He loved that what they did wasmake love , not have sex.
"Give me that one," she said. "The big, dark red one by your thumb."
He deposited the chosen berry on her lips. He let his finger and thumb linger 
against her lower lip, let them linger well after the tip of her tongue swiped 
the berry from between them. Their eyes met. Her cheeks flushed and he became 
aware of the rise and fall of her breasts.
"This one's not so bad," she whispered, her breath raspberry sweet.
He extracted the antennae from her hands, slid the headphones from around her 
neck, and laid the equipment aside.
"Walker, this is no way to monitor radio signals."
"Radio bleeps be damned," he murmured and he drew her across his lap.
"I'm trying to take notes here."
While she scrabbled for the notebook sliding from her lap, he snagged the pencil 
from her fingers with his teeth and flung it away.
"You're distracting me," she scolded playfully.
"Now you're getting the idea," he said, popped a couple berries into his mouth 
and covered her lips with his.
She murmured in surprise against his mouth as he passed the first berry to her- 
- ever the ardent student. Yet, something distracted him from the raspberry 
flavor of her mouth, the delightful purr from her throat, and the invitation of 
her heart-shaped behind grinding into his lap. And that something hung over them 
like a killer fog. In a heartbeat, all her innocent response could be stolen 
away- -her trust shattered. He could lose her and not just in body.
He dropped the remaining berries from his hand and fiercely hugged her, his lips 
moving across her cheek, over her ear, and against her hair. He couldn't lose 
her. He wouldn't!
"Promise me something," he whispered against her temple.
"If I can."
He didn't like the reservation her words suggested. He didn't like that she'd 
gone still in his arms. He wished he could take back his mood shattering words. 
But he'd already stopped himself too many times because of his body's desire. 
Roughly, he whispered, "Stop hunting the rapist."
She strained back from him. Their eyes met. "You know I can't and you know why."
He scowled down at her still cradled in his lap. "All I know is that you made a 
ridiculous promise to a dead woman."
"It's not ridiculous."
She started to climb out of his lap. He raised his knees, keeping her off 
balance, keeping her where he could hold her.
"It's loyalty to a friend," she insisted and folded her arms across her chest. 
At least she'd stopped struggling.
"No friend deserves that much loyalty."
The doe-brown eyes studied him. "Not even abest friend?"
"Given my track record in the area of a best friend, I'd rat the guy out in a 
minute."
Her expression softened and her sable brows dipped toward the bridge of her 
nose. "What did your best friend do to you to earn him such loathing?"
"What did your best friend ever do for you that you're willing to risk your life 
for her?" he fired back, evading her question.
"She was there when I needed her...always. She was the only family I had when 
the family I belonged to didn't care about me. She brought out the best in me."
"Dammit, Maddie, I want to bring out the best in you."
Madison wasn't sure that what Walker brought out in her was even good let alone 
rated best. But he brought something out in her- -something wild and wonderful- 
- something that made her feel free and alive.
His hands flexed over her hip and across her back, his big, strong, skillful 
hands; and there was trepidation in his voice. "Would your friend want what 
happened to her to happen to you?"
"Of course not."
"I don't either."
What argument could she launch against such logic, especially when a familiar 
whisper carried on a breeze through the poplars told her there was none. That 
whispered voice urged her to move on with her life, to live and be happy.
And she was happy in Walker's arms- -dizzyingly happy that he cared enough for 
her to be worried about her. She touched his furrowed brow, the crimped corners 
of his eyes, the drawn edges of his mouth.
"You present an iron-clad argument, Mr. Armstrong."
"Does that mean you'll stop hunting this guy?"
In her heart, she knew Laurel would forgive her. But could she forgive herself?
"Maddie, are you going to stop hunting?"
"I can't give up my search completely."
The creases at the outer corners of his eyes deepened and his lips parted. She 
stopped him before he could speak.
"But I will leave theactive hunt for Laurel's rapist to the local law 
enforcement agencies."
Walker felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his 
shoulders. He crushed Madison to his chest, murmuring, "Thank you, Maddie. Thank 
you."
"Is this a private party?" Chick asked from behind them.
For the second time that afternoon, Madison tried to scramble out of his arms. 
He was even less inclined to let her go this time than he was the first.
"What?" he snapped in Chick's direction.
"Mike sent me over to let you know the first of the vans is back at the cabin."
"Did it ever occur to either you or Mike to use the walkie-talkie to call us?"
Chick ambled over to the pile of discarded equipment and picked up the two-way 
radio. "Helps if you turn it on."
"Fine. You've told me. Now go away."
"Can't. Mike don't want Madison left by herself."
"She's not alone."
"She will be when you leave."
"And why would I leave?"
"The van got as far as the cabin and died."
Walker cursed.
"Tell your rich friend to lay out some cash on new one and you won't have to 
patch together junkers."
Walker scowled at Chick. Then he released Maddie, and let her climb out of his 
lap. Her cheeks were bright as raspberries. God, he wanted to stay and follow 
that blush down her throat.
He grimaced and chucked her under the chin. "Sorry, duty calls."
Then he was gone and Madison was left with Chick and his glinting grin.
"You know why the rich get richer, don't you?" Chick ventured, his eyes 
narrowed.
Madison shook her head, her cheeks still burning.
"Cause they don't spend it."
The more she kept Chick's company, the more she'd come to realize he had a 
cryptic view of things. This latest comment was enough to dispel any remnants of 
embarrassment at being caught in a compromising position.
"I see you and Walker are getting along better," he commented with a sly edge to 
his voice.
She didn't want to discuss what was going on between her and Walker with anyone 
let alone a cynic.
Chick sauntered over to the discarded monitoring equipment, toed the antennae, 
and gave her a sidelong look. "You know, our boy's not near as tough as he puts 
on."
Swell, now Chick as well as Lacey thought it necessary to warn her against 
hurting Walker.
"I know," she muttered and snagged her notebook off the ground.
"I wouldn't want to have to hold his hand through another year like the last 
one."
The year of getting over Jordan.
Madison searched for the pencil Walker had flung away.
"Damn near drank himself to death," Chick went on.
"So Lacey has informed me."
"I'm the guy who nursed him through his drunks and made sure he got home without 
killing himself."
Funny, she'd have pegged Walker for a solitary drinker.
She found the pencil, picked it up. Walker's teeth marks were still in the soft 
wood. There'd also been a time when she would have bet against Walker being the 
playful sort. Heck, she hadn't even expected him to be a gentle, loving lover. 
But he was. She still didn't know him as well as his friends did.
"I wouldn't stand idly by while another slut messed with Walker," Chick said.
She met Chick's narrowed gaze. She didn't like his language, but she understood 
his sentiment.
"I'd rip my own heart out before I'd hurt Walker."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Four hours later, Madison bounced on the bench seat of Chick's Chevy sedan as it 
sped over the washboard gravel road away from the observation sight. Air blasted 
from the floor vents. Pages of an old newspaper fluttered against her feet. Sand 
swirled up and battered her legs. She would have been more grateful if Chick 
were a little neater.
The Chevy fishtailed down the cabin drive and skidded to a halt behind Walker's 
truck. Not hindered by any encumbrance such as a seat belt, Chick was out of the 
car before Madison had even caught her breath and unbuckled herself.
She climbed out of the Chevy and slipped between the bumpers of the car and the 
truck, and her eye was caught by the sight in the yard behind the cabin did. The 
clotheslines were filled with fresh laundry. She hadn't washed any clothes 
before she and Walker headed out this morning.
She stepped into the garage where Walker's arm extended from under the hood of a 
tan panel truck. One look at the grease encrusted hand closing on the tool Chick 
handed him and Madison knew Walker hadn't hung out any batch of laundry.
Unless he'd done it before he'd started on the truck.
She sidled up to the far side of the van, folded her arms against the fender, 
and leaned in toward where Walker worked. "Who's the angel I should thank for 
doing the laundry?"
Walker grinned at her, his teeth brilliant amidst the grime spackling his ruddy 
skin. "That'd be Lacey."
Madison's world tilted, flopping her stomach over and throwing her heart against 
her rib cage. The muscles that pulled her lips into a smile froze. "You called 
Lacey?"
Walker shook his head and bent back to work. "She was here when I got back."
Chick shifted into view beyond Walker's shoulder. "Didn't I mention Lacey drove 
the van over here?"
"No, you didn't," Madison remarked through her fixed smile; and she laughed a 
tight, desperate laugh. "I'd have thought she had enough to do at the bar."
"We left Tom Maki taking care of business," Chick said.
Walker grunted as he loosened a spark plug. "Lacey's a hard worker. She probably 
had the place scrubbed and coolers stocked by mid-morning."
"Her old man had her stacking beer in them coolers almost before she could 
walk," Chick supplied. "Course, that was just grunt work."
Walker raised an eyebrow at Chick. "She runs that place better than you and you 
know it. Hell, if her pop had listened to her, he wouldn't have run the place 
into the ground."
"And I wouldn't have been able to buy-in," chirped Chick.
"You're lucky Lacey stuck around to keep you on your toes."
For a guy with as low an opinion of friendship as Walker claimed, he sure sang 
Lacey's praises. Maybe Lacey had been more than a friend to him.
"Excuse me," Madison said, her voice hollow in her ears. "I better get dinner 
started."
Once inside the cabin, though, she went straight for Walker's bedroom, the one 
place where she still felt secure with him. At least she did until she walked 
into the bedroom.
Lacey smoothed a clean sheet over the mattress of Walker's bed. All Madison 
could think was that Lacey had removed their love-tangled sheets from the bed. 
Humiliation knotted around the already volatile combination of emotions churning 
in her gut- -emotions Madison had never experienced until she'd become involved 
with Walker.
Her eyes met Lacey's. She offered the paler woman a brief smile. "Thanks for 
doing the laundry."
Lacey blinked; apparently surprised that Madison hadn't gone straight into eye- 
scratching, hair-pulling mode. But she recovered quickly.
"Seems you've been busy in other areas." The blond glanced pointedly at the bed 
between them.
"Thanks just the same," Madison provided, her blush deepening.
"I didn't do it for you."
"For Walker. Of course."
"You got it."
The blond snapped the top sheet open over the bed. Madison caught a corner and 
tucked it under the mattress.
Lacey glared at her. "I don't need your help."
Funny, Walker had claimed the same thing the day she'd confronted him with his 
stashed away family photos and art works...wounded by love Walker. The 
possibility that Lacey was also wounded by love tightened the knot in Madison's 
gut.
"You love him, don't you?" Madison managed to get out in a reasonably steady 
voice.
Lacey jammed a pillow into a pillowcase, her blue eyes icy-hot. "Walker? Yeah."
She flung the pillow onto the bed, clamped her hands over her hips, and squared 
her shoulders at Madison. "I fell in love with the guy the day he rescued me 
from a bunch of loud-mouthed, playground bullies. They were giving me a hard 
time because my old man was a drunk. I was in fourth grade. Walker was in sixth. 
A real knight in shining armor, he was."
No wonder Lacey was so protective of Walker. Lacey who'd been here for Walker 
before Jordan- -who was still here after Jordan- -who would remain here come 
summer's end when Walker sent transition woman Maddie back downstate. Nothing 
like a good dose of perspective to bring reality back into focus. And reality 
was she played a singular role in Walker's life. Her decision, make the most of 
that role for as long as he'd let her.
***
As Chick and Lacey drove off, Walker rolled himself back under the van. While he 
was grimy, he might as well check the brake and gas lines. But a pair of bare 
calves at the rear bumper caught his eye. Walker lay on the wheeled creeper, the 
wire-guarded extension light frozen in his grip, his concentration fixed on 
those marvelously turned limbs moving around the vehicle. They stopped beside 
where his legs protruded from under the van.
There was no voice. Just those legs and a pair of slim hands clamping onto his 
ankles. They pulled him out from under the van.
It was a sundress that bared those eternally long legs to him. A strapless job 
that shaped Madison's breasts and molded to her waist...whose hemline ended 
enticingly above the knees of the legs stepping over him and folding her down 
onto him.
"Sweet Jesus, Maddie, what are you doing?" he moaned as her pelvic settled 
astraddle his.
She just smiled the most seductive smile he'd ever seen grace her lips.
"I'm all greasy," he groaned. "I can't touch you."
"I'll do all the touching," she murmured in a husky voice; and he dropped the 
extension light, the clatter of its wire-guard against the cement underscoring 
the blood flying into his groin.
She pushed his T-shirt up under his arms. Her fingers tickled across his skin. 
She bowed her head close and brushed her lips across a nipple, teased him once 
more with another feather light stroke, then touched him with the tip of her 
tongue. He moaned.
"You're torturing me."
"Shall I stop?"
"Yes. No."
She laughed and rocked against him. If she kept that up, greasy hands or not, 
he'd grab her and finish what she started.
As though reading his mind, she shifted back and unzipped him. Reflexively, he 
curled toward her and bumped his head on the rocker panel of the van. She 
giggled, a girlish sound that sent the blood surging helter-skelter between 
swell and bump.
He felt cool air fan his flaming desire. He felt Madison shift above him and he 
clamped his elbows against her sides, holding her for a moment. Just long enough 
for him to ease the inferno so that it wouldn't explode upon contact with her 
volatile juices. Then he let go of her.
Bare skin impacted bare skin. No panties. His temptress had come to him 
prepared.
He wanted to laugh out loud for the brazenness of the formerly demure Madison 
Montgomery. He opted for rotating his hips and inciting a little gasp from her.
"This is my show," she breathily informed, and sat back on him, sheathing him to 
the hilt. A small, pained sound escaped her lips.
"Too deep?" he gritted through clenched teeth.
"A rock under my knee." She grimaced and shifted to swipe it away. He slipped a 
hand under her kneecap as she set it back down and urged the other one into his 
other palm.
Their eyes met. He smiled. "It's the least a gentleman can do, given the 
circumstances."
She rolled her hips, grinding the backs of his hands against the concrete floor, 
grinding her pelvis into his. Ecstasy overrode pain. Body won out over soul. He 
rose against her, urging the pleasure sounds from her. And he held back, wanting 
it to last forever, wanting to watch forever the changing hues of her with each 
heightening sensation, wanting to hear eternally the small sounds of pleasure 
slipping out between her parted lips. He wanted to die an old man wrapped in her 
body- -even if he wasn't yet brave enough to tell her.
***
Madison strode toward the cabin, another grocery shopping trip ticking off 
another week of summer. The long drive had given her plenty of time to debate 
the merits and pitfalls of telling Walker she'd fallen in love with him. After 
all, he might not want love. He might find her confession too demanding and end 
their affair.
But what if wounded-by-love Walker Armstrong waited for her say the words first? 
Even if he didn't love her, he cared about her or her hunting Laurel's rapist 
wouldn't bother him.
Or had that just been knight-in-shining-armor Walker looking out for another 
damsel in distress? That's what Lacey had called herself during their 
conversation over Walker's bed- -Lacey who'd never confessed to Walker that she 
loved him.
Madison wouldn't make the same mistake. She wouldn't go back to her teaching job 
downstate without telling Walker she loved him. Heaven help her if he didn't 
return her feelings.
The screen door banged shut behind her as she crossed the kitchen threshold. 
Dalton straightened from the open fridge, gnawing on a raw carrot.
"Need some help?" he asked.
"Sure."In more ways than you know.
He shut the fridge door and headed out to the truck. A minute later, he 
returned, arms laden with bags. Setting them on the table, he nosed around their 
contents.
"Hungry?" she inquired.
"Ravenous."
She hefted a couple gallons of milk onto the top shelf of the nearly empty 
refrigerator. "Pickin's are pretty slim."
"Not any more," he crooned, producing a thick sirloin from one of the bags. "How 
about cooking up a hunk of this for me?"
"Sure, just as soon as I put away the groceries."
He snatched the economy size package of spaghetti from her fingers and turned to 
the cupboard where they stored the dry goods, hooting, "Too hungry to wait. You 
cook, I'll unpack."
"Sounds like a deal to me," she chirped and dialed on the broiler in the oven to 
heat up while she prepared the steak.
When he let the glibness slip, Dalton's appealing boyishness was evident. He had 
his charm.
He held up a pair of cellophane wrapped roasts. "Fridge or freezer?"
"Fridge. I'll cook them up for tonight."
She opened the oven door and was sliding the broiler pan with Dalton's sirloin 
under the red-hot coils when the sound of glass shattering against linoleum made 
her jump. The side of her hand contacted with the hot metal frame of the oven. 
She yelped and let go of the pan, sending it clattering onto the open oven door.
Dalton bounded over the shards of glass and pooling pickle juice, grabbed her by 
the arm, and hauled her to the sink. "Cold water will stop the burning."
"It's really not that bad. I was more startled than burned."
He held her hand under the cool water running from the tap. "Better to be safe 
than sorry." He winked and she chuckled; and he added, "Don't want to lose our 
chief cook and bottle washer."
"Not before you've had a go at her, right, Dalton?"
Walker's voice boomed from the doorway between kitchen and porch. His boots 
crunched over the broken glass and the next thing Madison knew, Dalton was 
careening off the stove and a kitchen chair skittered across the floor.
Walker caught Dalton against the woodwork between the kitchen and great room. He 
grabbed a fistful of shirt and drove a fist across Dalton's jaw. Dalton spiraled 
into the great room and fell to the floor.
"Walker," Madison wailed, "he was just putting cold water on my burnt hand."
She chased Walker into the next room, holding her wounded hand up. "Look. See."
But he wasn't seeing, not any burn on her hand, anyway. He was bearing down on 
Dalton, reaching for him, hauling him back onto his feet, and drawing back for 
another punch.
She grabbed Walker's arm, her fingers desperately clutching the rock-hard limb 
coiled for another blow. His fist still made contact with Dalton, but it was a 
glancing blow that only knocked him off balance and back onto his behind.
"Get up you son-of-a-bitch," Walker snarled.
Incredibly, Dalton climbed to his feet. Incredibly, Walker waited until Dalton 
steadied himself and looked Walker square in the eye. Incredibly, the paler man 
didn't so much as raise an arm to ward off the bigger man's next blow.
Dalton crashed back against the front door and slid once more to the floor.
"Walker, please stop," Madison begged.
"Get up," Walker commanded Dalton as though she wasn't there.
"Stay down," Madison pleaded.
"I deserve it," Dalton grunted, pushing himself back up. "I've had this coming 
for a year."
"What are you talking about?"
"I was the man he caught with Jordan."
Madison gaped at Dalton, bracing himself for the next blow, then at Walker. 
"Dalton was the other man- -Dalton who you roomed with in college, who you 
worked with at AdairCor?"
The bunching muscles beneath Madison's hands went rigid and the rage that had 
turned Walker's eyes wild mutated into a pain so raw it staggered her.
"Dalton was your best friend," she croaked out, "Wasn't he?"
Walker shook her off, turned on his heel, and strode from the room, the cabin, 
and the real truth of how he was betrayed. It hadn't been the Jordan who'd hurt 
him so deeply. It had been the betrayal of a best friend.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Walker broke through the brush at trail's edge, stormed across the sandy strip 
of the cove, and slammed his palms against the massive white pine where Maddie 
had once sat watching the eagle. Again and again, he struck the tree. He struck 
it until pieces of scaly bark splintered beneath his blows, until his fists 
turned the fragments to pulp. And still, he couldn't get the picture of Dalton's 
arms around Maddie out of his mind.
Worse, the image kept changing, shifting until he didn't know which was real and 
which was a figment of his suspicious imagination. Maddie had insisted Dalton 
only held her burnt hand under water. But he couldn't stop hearing her laughter. 
He couldn't stop seeing their heads bowed close together.
He couldn't stop tasting the bile of betrayal in his throat.
He struck the tree once more. Dalton wasn't supposed to be able to hurt him like 
this. Their friendship had died the day he found his supposed best friend and 
intended bride laying naked together on the sand of this very cove.
Walker closed his eyes. He'd spent a year coming to this place, staring at the 
spot where he'd found them, trying to drink away the image. It struck him now 
why he hadn't been able to blot away that image with countless fifths of 
bourbon. While waves had washed the imprint of Dalton's and Jordan's bodies from 
the sand, no force of nature or act of self-destruction could ever erase the 
memory of a best friend's betrayal.
Behind him, his name was spoken on the soft tones of a voice that had become all 
too familiar to him this summer- -a voice he'd come to crave. Even now with 
images of possible betrayal floating behind his eyes, he wanted to hear her say 
his name again. His silence was rewarded.
"Walker," she repeated, closer this time, her tone tentative.
Uncertainty or guilt?
"What?" he snapped without facing her.
"I'm sorry."
He wheeled at her, roaring, "Sorry? Why are you sorry?"
She stopped on the very spot where Dalton and Jordan had betrayed him, her eyes 
huge. "I'm sorry that you were hurt. I'm sorry that an innocent act brought all 
the pain back to you."
"Innocent act? Was it?"
She winced and her voice grew as thin as a thread. "I'd burned myself. Dalton 
was holding my hand under cold water. That's all."
"That's all?" He snorted. "You don't know Dalton."
"I know he hurt you."
"You do, huh?" Walker fired back, narrowing his eyes so she wouldn't see his 
pain.
She took a step toward him, her foot leaving its own impression in the water 
soaked sand where his betrayers had lain. He didn't want Madison to be part of 
all that. But the minute she'd allowed Dalton to put his arms around her, she'd 
opened the old wound.
"I also know helet you punish him with your fists," she said in her small, 
quavering voice.
Involuntarily, his hands tightened at his sides.
"And I understand why he refused to defend himself," she continued.
A faint pain emanated from his knuckles- -a pain rage had kept him from 
feeling...until now.
"I know what it is to fail a friend," she murmured, close enough now that she 
had to tilt her chin up in order to maintain eye contact, close enough that he 
could see the tears shimmering in her doe-brown eyes. Something about those 
tears annoyed him.
"Comparing what Dalton did to you not finding your friend's rapist is 
laughable," he growled.
"It's not failing to find the man who raped Laurel that eats at me, Walker. It's 
that I failed to keep her from committing suicide. That is my guilt."
For an instant, compassion sliced through the rage and hurt. He almost took her 
in his arms and pulled her close. But then he remembered whose guilt she was 
trying to get him to understand.
"If you think Dalton sleeping with the woman I'd planned to marry is the same as 
you not watching over your friend twenty-four hours a day to keep her from 
killing herself, you've got a bigger problem than guilt."
"The point isn'twhat either of us are guilty of, but that we bothfeel guilt." 
She touched the back of his hand, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. 
"Dalton's guilt is eating him up. That's why he wouldn't fight back."
He understood now what troubled him about her tears.
He shook her hand off his. "You have an inordinate amount of compassion for the 
man you claim has hurt me."
"Because, just as his guilt is eating him up, your anger toward him is tearing 
you apart."
He turned away. "You don't know anything about me or Dalton."
"I know Dalton would have let you beat him to death if that's what it took to 
purge you of rage."
"Bull."
"He'd give his life to undo the pain he's caused you." She laid her hand gently 
on his shoulder. "I know because I'd have given my life to save Laurel."
Walker stared into the river- -into the swift-moving current. 
Everything...everybody around him seemed to be moving while he was still back at 
that fateful day on this beach finding Dalton...
"Not all friendships are that strong," he growled.
"You're right. Very few friendships are as close as the one Laurel and I 
shared...and you and Dalton."
"You don't know what kind of friendship Dalton and I had."
"I know what you have now."
"Which is no friendship of any kind."
He wanted her understanding him, not Dalton. He wanted that worse than breath.
He snorted. "That's some bond you and Dalton have."
"It's not about Dalton and me. It's about you and Dalton."
Damn her for being able to reach inside his heart. Damn her for the tears 
brimming along the lower rims of her eyes.
Damn her most of all if she did all this for Dalton.
"Don't you see, Walker? The anger is eating you up."
"You find your fiancé and best friend naked together, then you tell me what I 
should feel!"
"So feel and get over it," she countered, one tear slipping down her cheek.
"You don't get over that kind of betrayal."
"No? What do you feel for Jordan right now?"
"I don't feel anything for her."
"Because you're over your anger toward her."
He flinched as though she'd taken a swing at him.
"But you're not over your anger with Dalton. And you know why, Walker? It's 
because his betrayal was worse. He was your friend. He meant more to you than 
any woman." Her voice caught and she finished in a whisper, "Maybe he still 
does."
She struck too close to the truth and he brandished his fists in the air. "Then 
maybe I should take him up on his offer. Maybe I should hammer on him until all 
my anger is gone."
Tears were streaming down both her cheeks now. She caught his fists between 
hers.
"The only man you'll ever kill with your rage is yourself."
"Why do you care?" he snarled, knowing why he wanted her to care but afraid her 
motive was guilt or pity or worse.
She hugged his fists to her chest, hugged them so tight his knuckles ached...and 
his heart.
"I care," she said, her voice tight, pained, "because I love you."
He'd waited weeks for her to say those words. And now that she had, he should be 
able to say them back to her. But the image of her laughing in Dalton's arms 
caused a lump to form in his throat. She was wrong about nothing hurting worse 
than the betrayal of a best friend. She could hurt him more deeply than Dalton 
ever had because he loved her. That's why he couldn't say the words he longed to 
speak.
***
Walker's fingers tighten around her hand as they approached the cabin. Madison 
wanted to feel the reassurance in that grip. But the best she could muster was 
apprehension.
He'd taken her in his arms back at the cove and they'd held one another. But he 
hadn't returned her words of love.
Silly of her to have hoped...just because she'd learned it hadn't been the 
lover's betrayal that had cut him to the quick but that of the best friend. She 
understood. She knew the strength of friendship. And he'd made it clear, back in 
the cove when he didn't return her words of love, that friendship meant more to 
him than the love of a transition woman. She could do no more than help him 
heal.
She followed him through the screen porch and into the kitchen where Dalton 
slumped at the kitchen table, a package of frozen corn pressed to his jaw. Chick 
was there, too, backside braced against the edge of the sink and arms folded 
over his chest. Walker's chin swung toward Chick.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Came by to pick up Dalton. We're monitoring together today."
"You and Maddie do it."
"But I want to stay here...with you," she protested.
"I need to talk to Dalton."
"But- -"
"Alone." He released her, nodded toward the door. "Go wait in Chick's car."
She wanted to argue. But the three sets of eyes focused on her told her she was 
not welcome here among Walker and his friends, at least not right now. 
Reluctantly she left the cabin. Several minutes passed before Chick followed. 
Apparently Walker wanting to talk to Dalton alone didn't apply as strongly to 
Chick as it had her. But then, Chick was a friend.
"Are they okay?" she asked as Chick climbed into the driver's seat.
"What do you think?"
"I think they need a mediator."
She reached for the door handle. Chick reached across her and punched the door 
lock. She glared at him. "I want to help them."
"You've helped enough for one day," he said and cranked the engine over.
Maybe Chick was right. A transition woman had no place in a quarrel between best 
friends.
But after an hour in a sun-baked van, listening to the blips of two wolves 
hunkered down for the afternoon, Chick's snores as he dozed, and her own 
thoughts as she replayed every blow Walker had struck Dalton, she reconsidered. 
Walker needed her.
He needed her loyalty. He needed her understanding.
He needed her love.
But how, with little more than a week left to the summer, did she get Walker to 
give her a chance to prove all she could be to him?
She eyed Chick, sprawled in the second of the two lawn chairs in the cargo bay 
of the van, his eyes shut. But he wasn't snoring. Maybe if she explained to 
Chick what her feelings were for Walker, he would help her figure out what to 
do.
"I wouldn't do anything to hurt Walker," she ventured.
"Rather rip your heart out, so you said," Chick murmured without opening his 
eyes.
"I mean it. I love him."
Chick opened one eye and gave her a dubious look.
"Dalton did tell you what happened, didn't he?" she asked.
"His version."
"I'd burned my hand- -"
"- -And he was cooling it under water when Walker walked in and got all 
territorial over you. Yada yada yada."
If only it was about her.
"The fight had nothing to do with me. It was about Dalton and what happened 
between him and Jordan. You know about that, won't you?"
"I been Walker's pal since grade school. You figure it out."
Contrite, she nodded. Of course he'd have confided in his oldest friend. Lacey, 
too, who had already warned her not to hurt Walker.
She drew a breath. "Okay, as his friend, I want you to know that I love Walker 
and I want to be more to him than a summer affair."
Chick opened both eyes now. "I think you best chalk this up to just that, an 
affair."
She wanted to snap back at Chick that she couldn't, that she loved Walker too 
much not to fight for him. But she also understood about friends watching out 
for friends.
"I understand why you're protective of Walker."
"Good, then you understand why I'm telling you to leave next week like you're 
supposed to."
"But I love him."
"And you expect his friends to help some broad who's been wagging her behind 
around anything with balls trap him?"
She blanched. "I know what me hanging out at the bar pretending to be drunk 
looked like. But it wasn't what it seemed."
"I know," Chick said, standing and stretching. "Walker told me all about it."
"Walker told you?"
Chick circled away from her. "Seems he had a real bad need to defend you."
Defend her or explain himself?
"Yup, Walker wanted us to know what a swell gal you are," Chick chirped, peeling 
his shirt off, turning- -facing her.
She should have been pleased that Walker had defended her. But the fact that 
explaining himself to a friend meant more to Walker than keeping her confidence 
evidenced all the more the importance of his friends over her.
He was telling her that Walker truly had been defending her. But Chick's words 
swam on the edge of her comprehension...in the windowless space in the rear of 
the van as her eyes fixed on the center of Chick's fish-belly white chest- -on 
the blue lines of a tattooed mermaid with a harpoon skewered through her.
The bleep, bleeps of the radio signals emanating from the receiving unit grew 
sluggish- -elongated in the airless space. Madison was surprised when the lawn 
chair she'd been sitting in clattered across the floor behind her- -surprised to 
find herself standing.
Chick fanned his fingers across the horrible tattoo. "Your friend couldn't stop 
staring at this little beauty, either." He grinned, his metal-capped canines 
glinting. "Had ourselves a real good time, we did."
"You're the man who raped Laurel."
His grin grew crooked. "She didn't fight."
"She told you no."
"You girls always play that game."
"Laurel wasn't playing any game."
The corners of Chick's mouth twitched. "She wagged her ski-bunny tail through 
half a dozen bars that night."
"You followed her?"
"And gave her what she asked for."
"When Walker finds out you're the guy with the tattoo- -"
"What makes you think he doesn't already know?"
"He'd have told me."
"Would he?"
She wanted to believe Walker wouldn't keep something like this from her. She 
wanted to believe Walker was a man who would defend any woman against any man 
who threatened violence.
She wanted to believe that he wouldn't have sent her alone into the woods with a 
man capable of rape.
But Chick was his friend, the man who'd nursed him through blinding drunks and 
killer hangovers...so Chick claimed.
"I'll find out when I tell him about you, won't I?" she challenged.
Chick stepped between her and the van's sliding side-door, his grin widening. 
"You won't tell him."
Her pulse drummed in her ears. "Why not?"
"Because he won't thank any slut for calling one of his friends a rapist."
She might be a slut by Chick Thorson's standards. But Chick was a rapist by 
hers...and she was alone with him in a van in the woods.
She spun for the rear doors, threw herself against them. But the door handles 
flipped impotently beneath her hands without disengaging the latches.
"They're locked," Chick said, his laughter muffled by the blood pulsing through 
her ears.
She charged the sliding door, elbowing Chick aside, and tumbled from the van 
into a rock-hard chest of human flesh.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Madison staggered back from the impact. Walker caught her by the shoulders.
"You look as though you've just seen a ghost," he said.
She stared up at him, willing herself to tell him she had. But the words 
wouldn't come out.
Then Chick appeared in the open doorway of the van, his T-shirt back on. "Got 
herself all worked up over you being alone with Dalton."
Walker frowned down at her. "You thought I was back at the cabin pounding on 
him?"
How did she tell him anything when he readily accepted Chick's word?
"I don't beat up on people."
No, he didn't. He just beat up on himself.
"If you don't believe me, ask Dalton yourself."
Dalton stepped up alongside Walker. "See, doll," he said, spreading his arms, 
"no new bruises."
But it was Walker she studied- -the creases worrying the outer corners of his 
eyes and the way his eyebrows pulled concern across his features that she 
mapped. Would telling him about Chick deepen those lines? Would telling him 
bring a dubious slant to his eyebrows? She needed time to think.
"The heat got to me," she finally said. "That's all."
***
That wasn't all there was to it. The thought kept circling through Walker's mind 
as he maneuvered the truck through the woods toward the main road. Well, if she 
wasn't talking, he would.
"Dalton and I met early in our junior year of college. I happened across him one 
night just as a couple jock types were about to gang-up on him because he'd 
dated one of their girls."
The doe-brown eyes lifted at him, big and round. He thought he knew why she 
looked at him with such anguish.
"Just my size made them think twice. I didn't even have to make a fist. Honest."
"I know you wouldn't hurt anyone without a good reason," she said in a small 
voice.
He wasn't so sure she did know that.
"The next time mine and Dalton's paths crossed, I was the one in trouble. I 
didn't know it, but the rich-boy fraternity that had invited me to join them 
only wanted me for hazing night entertainment. Their plan involved getting the 
Indian drunk, painting him up like a warrior, and dumping him off on main 
street. Dalton saved me from that humiliation."
He glanced at Madison. Tears swam in the doe-brown eyes raised at him.
"Dammit, Maddie, I didn't tell you that story to get your sympathy. I just 
wanted you to know how Dalton and I wound up as friends."
She nodded, blinked, and turned her face away. He downshifted.
"You should know that we weren't the nicest of guys, either. We thought of 
ourselves as hotshot studs and developed ourselves a rather friendly 
competition."
"Until Jordan."
He braked to a halt where the logging road intersected the county road and 
sighed. "Until Jordan."
"Did either of you ever think about her feelings as you used her as a pawn in 
your game of conquest?"
If not for the sharp edge to Madison's voice, if not for the fact that her best 
friend had been raped, he might have laughed.
"Jordan was never anybody's pawn. More likely, Dalton and I were hers." He faced 
Madison, looked into her wounded eyes. "She was a woman with a mission- -a 
mission that didn't include living in the boondocks of Michigan's Upper 
Peninsula. Even before I found them together, I knew she wasn't going to marry 
me."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. We were all players back then. Some of us more ruthless than others."
"Dalton?"
Walker slumped back in his seat and stared out the windshield for a moment, then 
shook his head. "Dalton was never ruthless?just careless."
He turned a sad smile on Maddie. "Guess you were right about friends. Loyalty is 
everything."
The tears were back swimming in her eyes. "Can you forgive him?Dalton?"
"Already have."
The corners of her eyes filled with tears. Funny, he'd have thought she would be 
pleased.
"Maddie."
She looked up at him with her big, sad eyes.
"I've been a fool and not just for taking so long to forgive Dalton. I've been a 
fool for not telling you that I love you."
Madison felt as though the air had been sucked from the cab of the truck. She'd 
wanted his love and she'd gotten it. Now what?
"Stay," he said leaning across the seat towards her. "Stay here with me."
I want to, but...
"There are things to be considered," she said.
"Such as?"
Such as, will you still love me when you learn what I know?
"I have an apartment, a teaching job downstate."
He cupped her chin in his palm and tilted her face up toward his. "Do you love 
that apartment and job that much?"
"I-I just have some things to think about."
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear. When I said I wanted you to stay, I meant as 
my wife. You want that, too, don't you?"
If only it were as easy as what she wanted.
"There's something I have to settle first."
***
The gravel in front of Chick's Last Chance crunched beneath Madison's feet. 
Chick had nailed it. She couldn't expose him without hurting Walker, especially 
now that Walker had confessed he loved her.
But she couldn't let Chick get away with rape, either. She had get Chick to turn 
himself in.
She stepped up onto the long porch that accommodated the two front doors of the 
business, the wood creaking beneath her feet like the scaffold of a gallows.
Just inside the bar, she paused in the shadowy clamminess that contrasted the 
warm sunlight she'd just left. The place had none of the gaiety of the Saturday 
night socializing; none of the camaraderie of the afternoon hamburger stops the 
crew often made, none of the safety of Lacey's presence. Madison had planned it 
this way- - planned to face the devil alone.
But Chick wasn't there, either, she realized as her eyes adjusted to the 
dimness. The door to the storeroom at the far end of the bar stood open. She 
strode toward it, the unwashed floor sucking at the bottoms of her feet. An 
omen?
She stopped in front of the open storeroom door and called, "Chick?"
Her voice sounded small against the vast space of the empty room, feeble against 
the insidious force of the man she came to confront. She'd made a mistake. She 
could have said what she needed to say to Chick in this back corner without 
being overheard while a room full of people looked on.
She took a step backwards. She turned. Chick Thorson stood between her and the 
front door...between her and escape.
"You wanted me?" he asked with sickening calm, grinning his damnable grin.
"You know better," she leveled, concealing her fear behind a steady voice.
"Do I?"
He stepped toward her, closing the distance between them. She fought the urge to 
retreat. Rape was about power, she reminded herself. Rape and power, scuffed the 
words beneath the soles of his shoes with each unhurried step he took. Rape. 
Power. Rape. Power.
He stopped in front of her, just beyond her reach, and stared at her through 
emotionless pupils that filled the slits of his eyes. She raised her chin at 
him.
"You have twenty-four hours to turn yourself in to the police before I tell 
Walker you're the man with the tattoo."
Chick laughed and took another step forward. Reflexively, she retreated. When 
the thick edge of the storeroom door nicked her shoulder blade she realized it 
was more than a tactical error.
There was little light in this deepest corner of the tavern to reflect off 
Chick's metal- capped canines. Yet, like silver bullets, the menace of his smile 
shot through her heart. He wanted all out war. She saw that now- -trapped 
between Chick and a darkened storeroom.
Madison's muscles coiled. Fight or flight? She readied herself for whichever 
option provided itself first. The opportunity came sooner than she expected and 
in a form she'd never have expected.
"Get away from her!" Lacey shouted from the far end of the bar, her voice like 
the trumpet charge of a Calvary.
The barmaid appeared at Chick's shoulder, her eyes meeting Madison's. "Get 
out...while you can."
For once, Madison didn't question the barmaid's motives. She bolted from between 
Chick and the storeroom door. Ran like a coward from the gore of battle. She 
scrambled into Dalton's Bronco and fumbled with the keys.
She didn't deserve Walker's love. She didn't even deserve his respect, not when 
she ran like the proverbial coward while the man who destroyed Laurel's life 
once again escaped retribution.
Once again escaped retribution.Once again.
How many times had Chick already escape retribution? How many more times would 
he?
Madison stared through the windshield at Lacey's powder blue sedan. Lacey was 
still inside the bar with that animal- -Lacey who'd told her to get out while 
she could.
Lacey knew what Chick was.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Madison scrubbed the washcloth up and down her arm, rubbed until her skin 
burned. Even though Chick hadn't touched her, she felt dirty- -and not entirely 
because of the confrontation in the bar.
She'd driven down the road, parked on the shoulder, and waited for Lacey to re- 
emerge from Chick's. When she did, Madison had intercepted her...then coaxed the 
confession from her. Like Laurel, Lacey had been victimized by Chick. She 
continued to be victimized by him by the fact of their business partnership. And 
like Laurel, she hadn't reported the crime either, because, in Lacey's own 
words, "Who'd believe a barmaid?"
Madison shivered in spite of the steamy water cascading down her body. Chick 
Thorson had to be exposed and stopped and not just to vindicate Laurel ...even 
if it cost her Walker.
Even if it hurt him.
She folded her arms around herself, trying to recapture the sensation of 
Walker's arms, while the pounding spray washed her tears down the drain. And 
when there were no more tears to shed, she exited the shower, bundled herself up 
in her terry cloth robe, and wrapped a towel around her wet head. She would dry 
herself off, dress, and go out to the monitoring site and tell Walker 
everything.
Steam lightly fogged her path out of bathroom. Was that the refrigerator door 
she heard close? Funny, she thought Mike and Dalton had left just after she'd 
returned. They were calling the grad-students accepted into the wolf 
repopulation program...from Chick's. She shivered at the mere thought of that 
man.
She was halfway to the kitchen when he stepped into the opening between kitchen 
and great room. Madison's bare feet skidded to a halt on the hardwood floor.
"I got hungry waiting," Chick said and popped a chunk of ham into his mouth.
***
"You're breaking up on me. Over." Walker released the talk button on the walkie- 
talkie and listened. What he got was mostly static and a few unintelligible 
syllables from Trey. He scowled and whacked the apparatus with the heel of his 
hand. He'd rather be running his hands down Madison's curves.
And he could have been, had she come out to the site with him. But she'd begged 
off, claiming she had some business to take care of. He hoped her business would 
settle whatever had her on edge since the blowup between him and Dalton. Nothing 
he'd said had gotten her to relax or open up.
He listened to the walkie-talkie. The static faded and died. Guess he'd have to 
drive out and get a fresh battery...from the cabin...where Madison was. Maybe a 
dead battery wasn't so annoying after all.
***
"Get out," Madison ordered with every fiber of her being.
"Not until we finish what you started back at the bar."
"I didn't start anything and you know it."
Chick stepped forward. Madison stepped backwards, not a frightened retreat this 
time. Strategical. She had two means of escape behind her. The front door or the 
bathroom with its lock. She made a move for the closer of the two, the bathroom. 
He grabbed for her, got hold of the towel wrapped around her head. It came away 
in his hand, but it was enough to throw her off balance, enough to enable him to 
shove the bathroom door shut in front of her.
Madison spun for the front door. He cut her off again, cornering her where the 
stairway crooked out from the wall with its closely set posts. She couldn't get 
away. But she could fight.
Raising her hands palms up, she gestured him forward. "Okay. Come on and give me 
somereal evidence to bring to the police."
***
Walker's knuckles whitened on the plastic steering wheel, the sun high overhead 
glaring through the windshield into his eyes as he sped down the highway toward 
the county turn-off to the cabin. He'd stopped by the second monitoring site to 
check on Trey and let him know he was heading back to the cabin. Everything had 
been fine until Trey remarked about Dalton sleeping in.
...Back at the dorm...across the driveway from the cabin where Madison had 
chosen to spend her day. Maybe the two of them weren't as innocent as they'd 
claimed.
Walker grit his teeth and wheeled around the corner just before Chick's and the 
turn-off to the cabin. Dalton's Bronco was parked in front of the bar next to 
Swede's DNR truck.
Walker's foot eased on the gas pedal. Why was he still looking for Jordan's 
betraying ways in Madison when Maddie hadn't a false bone in her body?
Because Madison was keeping something from him.
...Something she was struggling to resolve.
He neared the turn-off to the cabin and flipped on his left-turn signal. A car 
was coming at him in the other lane. He waited for the other car to pass. He 
thought about how she hadn't wanted to come with him out to the monitoring site 
today- -how she'd withdrawn from him since yesterday...even though she insisted 
she believed him when he said things were settled between him and Dalton. But, 
if she wasn't deceiving him and she believed him and Dalton had reconciled, what 
troubled her?
Whatever it was, she'd asked for time alone to reconcile it. Maybe he should 
turn into Chick's and buy a new battery for the walkie-talkie at the 
store...leave Madison to herself for a while.
***
Chick charged. Madison struck him in the chest with the heels of her hands. He 
staggered back. She bolted for the kitchen. But he caught her by the arm and 
flung her back into the corner of the staircase.
She impacted the wall and the breath went out of her. She was at his mercy now, 
and Chick Thorson was a man without mercy. She'd have all the evidence she 
needed to take to the police by the time he was done with her.
...And become not only a woman who caused Walker to lose another friend, but a 
woman tainted by rape.
Unless her ears weren't playing tricks on her. She'd swear she heard the spring 
catch on the screen porch door twang. But nobody opened and closed that door 
that carefully- -that quietly.
Even when a giant of blue chambray and denim stepped into the archway between 
the kitchen and great-room, she didn't trust her eyes. Not until Chick stepped 
back from her, did she dare believe that Walker wasn't a figment of her 
oxygen-starved brain.
"I didn't want to have to get rough with her, Buddy," Chick said. "But she 
wouldn't leave me alone. She just kept coming at me. I only meant to shove her 
away."
Madison gulped air. "T-tell him...to take off...his shirt."
"I don't have to see his chest," Walker said in the same voice he'd used when 
she'd sat in the chair at the foot of the dinner table her first night here and 
he'd said it didn't matter.
Did that mean he didn't need to see Chick's chest because he already knew about 
the tattoo on it, or- -.
"You son-of-bitch." Walker's oath rumbled off the logs. "You let me tell you 
about that tattoo, then you used it against her."
The next thing she knew, he had Chick by the throat and Dalton and Mike had 
charged into the room and were dragging the two of them apart.
"Help him boys," Chick choked out. "He's been blind-sided by another slut. He 
popped Dalton yesterday because of her. Isn't that right, Dalton?"
"Walker punched me out because ofmy history of screwing up," Dalton countered. 
"What'syour problem, Chick?"
"Me," Lacey said, entering from the front porch. "I'm just sorry we got here 
before Walker wrung his scrawny neck."
"That's rich," Chick snorted out. "Like anybody'll believe a bar whore."
"I've never known Lacey to lie," Walker said.
"And we can see what a good judge of women's character you are," Chick shot 
back, giving a nod in Madison's direction.
"I'd believe Lacey," Dalton provided.
"Ditto for me," Mike added.
"And if that's not word enough," Swede added, stepping in behind Lacey. "I just 
got off my truck radio with the sheriff. He's got a six month old unsolved rape 
case on file, complete with physical samples all properly tested and a victim 
who wants to put away the guy who attacked her."
"What makes you think that has anything to do with me?"
"When Lacey realized you didn't show up at either of the wolf study sites, she 
figured you went after Madison and told me everything, including about your 
tattoo. Sounds like a dead ringer for the one described in that police report. 
Sheriff's on his way."
Madison slumped against the wall. The man responsible for Laurel's destruction 
had been exposed. She'd avenged Laurel. Completed her mission. She should be 
exalting.
But exposing Chick didn't bring Laurel back.
And Walker...
He took her by the arm, towed her into his bedroom, and closed the door behind 
them. Facing her, he demanded, "How long have you known Chick was the rapist?"
He looked so angry that all she could think was how, in the past he had covered 
his hurt with anger...how that anger had erupted against Dalton...how he'd used 
anger to isolate himself this past year. She didn't want him to be that alone 
ever again.
Yet, here she was...another woman creating another rift between him and another 
friend. To top it off, he wanted details. She drew a steadying breath and 
answered him.
"Since yesterday afternoon."
He closed his eyes. She wasn't surprised that he couldn't stand sight of her.
She wanted to weep. She wanted to beg his forgiveness.
She wanted never to have intruded on his life.
"When I sent you out to the monitoring site with him," he said in so ragged a 
voice that she realized what she'd read as anger was guilt...and she knew how 
damaging guilt could be.
"It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "You didn't know. You couldn't!"
He opened his eyes- -eyes pained beneath a deeply furrowed brow. "Did he- -"
"No."
Walker let out a breath and the tension visibly deflated from his shoulders. 
"Thank God for that."
But then he captured her by her shoulders, held her a little too tightly. "But 
why didn't you tell me?"
"I was coming out to the site to tell you when he showed up. Of course, you have 
only my word for that."
He stared at her, his eyebrows drawn together above the bridge of his nose, his 
eyes pulled down at their outer corners. "Your word is good enough for me, 
Maddie."
She searched the planes and angles of his face for any hint of doubt. "Is 
it...for sure?"
"Absolutely." A ghost of a smile played across his mouth.
"But how?"
He drew her into his arms. "Because I trust my heart."
"But- -"
He brushed his lips across hers, silencing her, captivating her, and murmuring, 
"My heart never once steered me wrong where you were concerned."
"You could have fooled me," she rebutted breathlessly against his insistent 
mouth.
His lips pulled across hers as he smiled. "That's because I didn't always listen 
to my heart."
She eased back in his embrace and looked up into the dark eyes gazing back at 
her- -eyes warmer and softer than she'd ever seen them. He had changed...truly 
changed.
"Heart?" she questioned, baffled. "Is that all there is to it?"
He laughed in that deep, low tone that stirred her to the core. "For once, my 
love, don't reason. Don't rationalize. Just listen to your heart."
And she did.
The End



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