Steve couldnt help but notice that her quiet competence around him was a direct contrast to her behavior around the other men. Hed always had a gift with wild crittersanimals instinctively trusted him. But women were a distinctly different species. The lady didnt need any great perceptive skills to realize that the other men treated him like a pariah. For most women, that would be a steer-clear clue that he was a man to be avoided, and with his height and size, the last instinct he usually aroused in females was security. Yet she treated him as if shed instantly labeled him safe, no one who was going to cause her trouble. Although that was certainly true, it made her behavior around the other guys downright bewildering.
He wolfed down a bite of pie, watching Fred Claire try to cop another feel. A bowl of peanuts skittered when Mary Ellen jerked back.
Steve forced his attention on the pie. Samsons specialty was apple pie; the apples were heavy on the nutmeg and cinnamon, not too much sugar, the crust as flaky as his own mothers. Delicious. No reason at all for a lump to lodge in his throat. There was nothing going on at that far corner table by the door that he needed to think or worry about.
He wasnt bosom buddies with Fredor anyone else in Eagle Fallsbut those particular people were regulars at the bar. Hed seen them often enough to have their measure. Freds brush cut was clipped shorter than a marines; he favored dressing in army fatigues, playing weekend war games, flashing a lot of weapons and coaxing anyone whod listen into talking about his conspiracy theories. Maybe he wasnt the average Joe, but basically he was harmless, a lot of big talk but no action.
A raucous snicker of masculine laughter echoed across the room.
Steve didnt lift his head. She wasnt really in trouble. There wasnt anything tricky or difficult about handling Fred. Either a smile or a scolding would have put himor any of the boysin their place. By taking their teasing so seriously, it was the same as begging for more. Any woman who had an older brother or chose to work around men would surely know that. The boys had had too much beer. They were feeling their hormones. Nobody was going to ignore her if she kept rising to the bait.
He was on the last bite of pie when she whisked over and slipped the bill under his plate. Shed bitten her bottom lip a bruised red. The look around her eyes was pinched and drawn. Still, her magnolia drawl had a winsome shyness. Ill be back if yall need change, she said.
Shed already moved on before Steve had the chance to dig into his back pocket for his wallet. Change was no problem. He smacked the bills on the table, more than enough to include a walloping tipwhich shed earned. That easily, he told himself, she was completely off his mind. All his attention was focused on getting home. Already he could picture the double bed in his trailer, slipping between the sheets buck naked, burrowing into the warmth of a down comforter. Nothing was quieter than a night in the north woods, and the hot meal had pushed him over an edge. He was dizzy-tired, gut-tired, darn near mean-tired.
He could have sworn he wasnt still watching her. Yet when he reached back for his parka, his eyes seemed to be peeled across the room, because he saw the exact moment when Fred hooked an arm around her waist.
She wasnt carrying a tray that time, but she wasnt expecting the pass, either. She landed with an awkward plop in Fred Claires lap. Fred said somethingundoubtedly some kind of vulgar compliment, because it made the other men guffaw. She was trying to scramble off him. Fred was trying to keep her pinned.
Steve muttered an exasperated Hell under his breath and lurched to his feet. He didnt need this. He had troubles of his own, and getting along with the good old boys in town was integral to resolving those troubles. But dammit, her face wasnt flushed this time. It was stark white. Even from yards away, he could see her expression wasnt just flustered or embarrassed, but downright, outright scared.
He stalked over, his step so quiet that no one even realized he was thereuntil he reached over and plucked the lady off Freds lap.
Hey, Fred objected.
It took a second to steady her. For that instant his hands were on her waist, he felt the supple warmth of her body and caught the vague drift of a subtle, feminine scent. His libido stirred, with a punch of sexual awareness that hed never expectedbut it didnt last long.
Hey! Fred snarled again, nearly tipping the table when he jerked out of his chair.
Steve had no time to release an aggrieved masculine sigh. No question, when a man asked for trouble, he got it. Fred had been drinking for how many hours? His leathery face had a beer flush and the adrenaline of rage was flashing in his eyes. Steve grasped him by the shirt collar, quick. Im going to worry about you driving home after all that drinking, he said calmly. Wouldnt you say that a good friend would help you sober up?
Chairs scraped across the plank floor. As if a bomb had dropped, there was suddenly no sound in the room except for the blare of the Lions announcer on the boob tube. No one attempted to get in the way as Steve propelled Fred toward the door. There was no reason for anyone to object. It was the best entertainment anyone had enjoyed that nightshort of watching one small woman get picked on.
The wind had finally died, but the air was colder than a witchs heart when Steve yanked open the door. The icy air slammed straight into his lungs. It was dark out, but the fresh foot of snow had the sharp, bright gleam of sequins. He released Freds collar, bent down, scooped up a handful of snow and washed Freds face with it. His intuition was correct. The method helped Fred sober up right quick. The other man threw a punch. He got his face washed a second time for that asinine move.
Where I come from, a man doesnt pick on someone smaller than him. Only bullies do that, and I never met a bully yet who wasnt a coward. Now, you got that message, or you want to discuss it a little while longer?
Apparently Fred was in the mood for an in-depth discussion, although the subject of bullies never came up again. He let loose a string of four-letter words, including extensive commentary about Steves mother, her preference for combat boots and the shaky sexual preferences of his father. He didnt throw another punch, though.
Look, youre drunk, Steve said quietly. Damn stupid to fight when youre drunk. When you sober up, if youre still looking for a fight, you come pick on me. Ill take you on, if thats what you really want. Just leave the lady alone, you hear me?
Fred seemed to feel that comment required another wordy dissertation on his character, values and manhoodor lack thereof. It took an enormous amount of wind and hot air before he ran out of insults. Steve listened patiently the whole time. The Japanese had always understood that once a man lost face, he became an enemy. No man forgot being humiliated. Steve let him get the last word in for the same reason he hadnt leveled the little hothead in front of his cronies inside. He wasnt looking to make an enemy out of Fred Claireor anyone else in Eagle Falls. He just wanted Ms. Blue Eyes left alone.
Once Freds windup insults ran down, Steve waited, studying his face. The begging-to-fight fire was dying in his eyes, the adrenaline settling back down. Fred was just plain cold, shivering violently in his shirtsleeves, snow dripping from his face and down his neck. A few minutes in subzero temperatures had a way of equalizing everything, even challenged male egos and bad tempers. Fred was no longer having fun.
Once Freds windup insults ran down, Steve waited, studying his face. The begging-to-fight fire was dying in his eyes, the adrenaline settling back down. Fred was just plain cold, shivering violently in his shirtsleeves, snow dripping from his face and down his neck. A few minutes in subzero temperatures had a way of equalizing everything, even challenged male egos and bad tempers. Fred was no longer having fun.
Steve took one last look at his face. And walked away.
* * *
Men. Since the only thing Mary Ellen wanted to avoid was that particular half of the human species, it seemed the height of irony that shed landed in a nest of the vipers. Of course, her specialty was screwing up. She never made small mistakes. Her forte had always been the big, classic, mortifyingly embarrassing-type boners.
She stuffed her hair under a stocking cap and grabbed her ski poles. Inhaling a lungful of crisp clean air, she reassured herself that moving here had been the best thing that ever happened to her. True, shed misjudged the population of men. Equally true, shed failed to consider the teensy problem of money. In her wildest nightmare shed never anticipated having to work in a bar, but thered simply been no other job around.
Still, her shift at Samsons didnt start until four in the afternoon. Her day was free until then. All her day hours were free.
She pushed off, her cross-country skis forging a fresh track in the new snow. Wonders surrounded her. Raised in the South, shed never dreamed of snow like this. The rolling pine woods were deep, peaceful, quiet. Where sunlight shot down, the new snow laid on the emerald branches like a white satin glaze. A scarlet cardinal caught her eye. A soft-furred bunny scampered across her path.
She didnt know where she was going. Didnt care. She hadnt misjudged how soul renewing this isolated area would be. There were endless acres of woods and wilderness to explore. Her rented cabin was an idyllic retreat for a woman planning to live as a hermit-monkess. There was no family around for her to disappoint. No town looking over her shoulder, waiting for her next I-told-you-so screwup. And although the Freds and the Georges and the Ben McCreries were giving her fits at the bar, during the day she didnt have to even see a human being with a Y chromosome unless she wanted to. And there was positively no man appealing enough to tempt her aggravatingly impulsive heart.
An image of a giant with searing blue eyes drifted through her mind.
She let the image linger, simply because there was no harm, no possible temptation involved. She remembered the strangers overwhelming height, the impact of his startling eyes. She remembered thinking that he was an incredible hunk, and for the same reason feeling a rare sensation of being safe. Hunks never preyed on her. Her looks were too ordinary.
And for once, her first judgment of a man had been accurate. The whole time she waited on him, hed been kind and quiet, but thered been no teasing or come-ons. He just wasnt the kind of man who would ever be interested in her. Looking at him was like indulging in window-shopping at a candy store when the door was locked. There was no threat of her suckering into those dangerous calories. His face was square cut, strong boned, ruggedly handsome; there was character in the etched lines around his eyes and mouth. She wasnt likely to forget it.
Nor had she forgotten the way hed suddenly gotten up and hustled Fred Claire outside. At the time, it barely registered that he was rescuing her. Hed moved like a hunter, swift and sure, hauling Fred outside faster than anyone knew what was happening. Hed never said anything, never came back in. Mary Ellen still didnt know what hed done, but when Mr. Jerk returned to his table, hed been as polite as a Catholic schoolboy and hed pointedly ignored her for the last three nights now.
She owed that giant big time.
Hed get his thanksif she ever saw him againbut right now she had other things on her mind. Her skis hissed through the new-fallen snow. She was still new to the sport, still prone to an occasional clumsy tumble, but getting better. As she worked up a rhythm, the crisp air pinkened her cheeks and stung her eyes.
Every day she trekked farther and explored new directions. Shed been so crushed when she first moved here. Occasionally she still thought about Johnny. Occasionally she still woke up in a cold sweat, reliving the nightmare of a bride in a white dress, standing in the church for a Christmas Eve wedding, the guests all there, the whole town waiting for a groom who never showed.
That humiliating memory still made her cringe, but shed slowly realized that that singular rejection wasnt the real source of her hurt. It was being wrong, one too many times. It was feeling, once too often, the stone weight of being unloved and unlovable. Johnny had turned out to be a turkey, but Johnny wasnt the real problem. Her self-respect was in more crumpled pieces than a broken cookie.
That cookie refused to instantly glue back togetherbut she was working on it.
When she brushed against a pine branch, snow shivered down in a shower of fluffy crystals, making her chuckle. It wasnt so hard, being happy. It wasnt so impossible, to laugh again. Being alive was riches enough, and she was discovering more riches every day.
She poled to the crest of a hill, and then, bending her knees, sailed down to the belly of a small valley. At the bottom she stopped, breathless and exhilarated, and yanked off a glove to check the compass in her pocket. Northeast. If she kept going in that direction, eventually shed hit Lake Superior. Even if the landscape was totally unfamiliar, she had her bearings, wasnt afraid of being lost. She zipped the compass back into her jacket pocket again, and was just refitting her glove when she saw the animal.
Fear never occurred to her in that first instant. He looked like a dog. A Siberian-husky type. He had a long snout and pointy ears, and mesmerizingly liquid black eyes staring right at her. His luxuriously thick pelt was almost as stark white as the snow. Her eyes softened. Lord, he was gorgeous, and standing motionless from a knoll thirty feet from her, as regal and silent as a statue.
Hey, boy, she said softly. Are you lost?
Her tone was as gentle as a whispershed fallen in love on sightbut his response to her was distinctly different. At the first sound of her voice, he bared huge pointed teeth and snarled, his growl so ferocious that her throat closed.
It wasnt a dog. She knew it in a pulsebeat. No husky was that big; no tame animal made wild, feral sounds like that. It had to be a wolf.
Every muscle in her body clenched up and locked. She couldnt swallow. Adrenaline shot through her veins in an ice-cold rush.
The wolf paced another five feet closer, snapping threatening growls the whole time. It wasnt hard to get the message. He didnt like her. Shed have been thrilled to turn tail and run, only damned if she wasnt too scared to move. She heard another snarl and whipped her head around.
Another one. Lord. Another twono, three. At least three of them. The others were multicolored, their pelts ranging from dark charcoal to streaky gray. None of them were as huge as the white wolf, but the few pounds difference was hardly reassuring. She sensed as well as saw that she was being circled. They were moving. Pacing slowly in the snow, ducking in and behind trees, but keeping her in sight.
Shed have wet her pants if she had time.
There was no time. Panic sealed her throat. She had a flash memory of the afternoon shed idiotically considered suicide. Shed never meant it. Shed just been so angry with herselfbeing stood up at her wedding had been a last straw in a long history of humiliating, embarrassing screwups. But geesh. At her most stupid, shed never really wanted to die. And for sure she didnt want to die all alone, torn to shreds in the middle of the north woods by a pack of wolves.