The Shadows Of Christmas Past Part 3

Maia huddled inside Cole's jacket, closing her eyes, trying to calm her pounding heart. The owl had shrieked a warning to her, risked its life to caution her to go back. She glanced at Cole's face, the lines etched deeply there. The owl had flooded her mind with quick, flas.h.i.+ng images of violence. It happened so fast, Maia hadn't gotten a clear glimpse of the animal's projection. Only the ominous warning. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to sort out what the bird was striving to communicate.

Darkness. Horses moving. Men. Flashes of lights that could have been rifle fire. None of it made sense.

"That's never happened to me before," Cole said. "Maybe it was confused by the storm. Owls see and hear so well, I imagine accidents would rarely happen."

"He was in hunting mode."

Her voice was so low, Cole barely heard her. He flicked a quick glance her way. She looked pale, her eyes clouded with fear.

"I'm a good driver, Maia. I'll get us there."

She didn't answer. Cole sighed. She was doing him a favor, coming out to the ranch in the middle of what was rapidly becoming a mean blizzard. He should have been more polite. She'd probably worked all day, and she had a long, cold night ahead of her, trying to save the horse for Jase.

"I shouldn't have said that about buying you." Cole glanced at her. It was always so easy with women.

He looked at them, they fell into his arms. They had s.e.x, they went home, and he didn't think about them again. That was how it was supposed to work, but Maia seemed to blow his carefully constructed barricades all to h.e.l.l.

For a moment he thought she wouldn't respond. She didn't turn her head to look at him, but stared out the window at the flurry of snowflakes. "Why did you?"

"You get under my skin, and I don't like it," he answered truthfully. "I've never met a woman like you."

"You've met a million women like me. It's just that none of them ever stood up to you before." Her voice was low and half-m.u.f.fled by his thick jacket, but it found its way into his body, past his skin and muscle to his very bones.

She turned back toward him, and his breath left his lungs in a rush. He wasn't used to anyone having that kind of effect on him, and it shook his usual calm. He kept his expression carefully blank, his warning system shrieking at him that he was in trouble. "You're an interesting woman. Anyone else would have jumped on the fact that I admitted you get to me, but not you. You have to be different."

"It wouldn't serve any purpose to discuss it. I'm not going to sleep with you. I don't do one-night stands.

I'm not at all into casual s.e.x." She managed a small smile. "But I'll admit you're a terrible temptation."

He glanced at her, felt the wheels slide in a particularly heavy drift of snow, catch, and propel them forward. She flung out her hand to grab the dashboard, but she didn't tell him to slow down.

"I always get what I want, Maia." He said it with complete confidence. He didn't know if it was her cool refusal, the warmth in her small smile, or the stark intensity of his desire for her, but he was determined she wouldn't elude him. Even when he knew he was risking more than he should.

"Well, want something else. I don't have a lot of energy to put into fighting with you. You're the kind of man who normally sets my teeth on edge."

"And that would be why?"

"You're arrogant, bossy, too rich for your own good. s.e.xy as h.e.l.l, but you know it, so you don't even bother to be polite. There are a lot of willing women out there, Steele, go after one of them. I told you, straight up, I'm not a one-night-stand kind of woman. That should be enough for you."

"It should be, shouldn't it?" His gaze slid sideways toward her for a brief moment. Her hands were twisted together to keep them from trembling. The vehicle slid several times, but he kept it on the road.

"I'm a good driver, Maia," he reiterated. "Relax. I won't let anything happen to you."

She tensed again, pus.h.i.+ng back into the seat and bracing one hand on the dashboard. He tapped the brakes, slowing the Land Cruiser just as several deer leapt in front of them. The snow nearly coated them, giving them a ghostly appearance, eyes s.h.i.+ning, tails flicking in alarm. Cole swerved again, barely missing the high embankment. The deer were gone as silently as they appeared. Maia's breath was audible in the close confines of the car.

"I don't know what the h.e.l.l is going on tonight. Usually the deer are bedded down and under cover during a storm."

Maia huddled inside the jacket. The images were more vivid this time, but still jumbled. Fists pounding into flesh. Blood on the gra.s.s. On the rocks. Her mouth was too dry to speak. She could feel a bead of sweat trickling down the valley between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but she s.h.i.+vered with cold... with fear.

Cole slowed the Land Cruiser, anxiety creeping into him. "Maia, are you all right?" He couldn't really take his eyes from the road, just small glances at her, but she was definitely frightened. "I know it looks bad out here, but I know the road. This is a good rig. The drifts are so high on the embankments, we can't possibly get lost, even with the road covered. You must be used to animals rus.h.i.+ng out in front of the truck with all the driving you do." What he wanted to do was stop the truck and pull her into his arms.

Maia felt suffocated by the snowy white world enclosing them. "Maybe we should turn around." The panic in her voice made her wince.

"We're closer to the ranch than to town. I can't leave Jase out there alone, not with a wounded horse. I hope he listened to me and got Al to help him. By now, the ranch hands will have gone home to avoid getting caught in this blizzard." He reached out to comfort her, but she shrank away from him, and he gripped the steering wheel, angry at himself for the gesture. "Is that what you really want? To turn around?"

Maia made an effort to pull herself together. What could she say in her defense? That animals were warning her away from the ranch? He'd have her thrown in a padded cell. "No, of course not. I take it that this horse is very special to Jase."

"He won't admit it, but yes," Cole answered. "If it's at all possible, save the horse for him. The cost doesn't matter. And if you could make Jase a part of it in some way, maybe have him a.s.sist you in treating the bay and caring for it afterward, that would be great."

There was something elusive there. Maia heard it, but couldn't grasp it. "Have you always been close to Jase?"

"We met when I was given guardians.h.i.+p over him. We had different mothers, and I didn't know he existed until I was contacted by the private investigators the lawyers hired to find me."

"How could you not know you had a brother?"

Cole shrugged. "I checked out of that life a long time ago. When the lawyers told me about Jase, I was shocked." He frowned. "The snow's really coming down. I left Jase out there with Al, my foreman, to watch over him."

"Weren't you afraid you'd get caught in town?"

"I knew the storm was coming, but I thought I had a couple of more hours before it really hit. I'd never allow Jase to spend the night alone there, so one way or another, I would have gotten back to the ranch."

Maia heard the note of honesty, of absolute determination in his voice, and she believed him. Cole was such a deceptive mixture. He'd come to the bar hunting for s.e.x. He made no apologies for it and cared little what others thought of him. He exuded complete confidence, even a coldness, yet there were terrible shadows in his eyes. And there was Jase. He barely knew the teenager, yet he looked out for him with a fierce protectiveness she would never have credited him with having. She believed Cole would have tried to walk back to the ranch rather than leave the boy alone with just the foreman. Things didn't add up.

"Do you have children of your own?" she asked.

"What do you think?"

"I think you'd never let anyone get that close to you. You must have been terrified when you were named guardian to this boy. Why did you say you'd do it?"

"What is it they all say? So I can murder him and get all the money instead of sharing it with a kid."

"You don't even change expression when you hand out your nonsense. Don't worry, Steele, I don't want to know your deep dark secrets."

"You think I have secrets? I thought my life was an open book. Haven't the gossips given you the scoop on me?" The snow was nearly blinding him as he maneuvered the road. At the rate it was coming down, he wasn't certain they would make it to the ranch before the road became impa.s.sable. Even if he could call Al to bring out the snowplow, he wasn't all that certain it would do any good. They were no longer in front of the storm but in the thick of it.

"Don't you have secrets? Doesn't everyone?" Maia wanted to keep talking. She would have chosen to sit it out rather than continue driving. It was becoming difficult to see more than a foot in front of the truck.

"Even you, Doc? Do you have secrets as well? You're always laughing and seem so carefree, yet you move from place to place, no home, nothing permanent in your life. No boyfriend who'll get upset when you move on."

"Who said I don't have a boyfriend? And I usually fill in for the same vets, so I make a lot of friends along the way."

"You don't have a boyfriend, or you wouldn't have let me get away with putting my hands on you while we were dancing. You aren't that kind of woman."

Shocked, she turned toward him, but he was staring out the window into the driving snow. "A compliment. Who would have thought?" Maia burrowed deeper into his jacket. The inside of the car was warm enough, but his jacket gave her a sense of security. She could smell his scent, masculine and outdoorsy, the spice of his aftershave. He drove with the same confidence he did everything, and it helped ease her anxiety a bit, but they seemed to be enfolded in a white, silent world. She wished he'd play music just to keep her nerves from jangling. She had nothing else to hang on to but their conversation. And he wasn't comfortable with making small talk.

"Why don't you have your own practice?" Cole asked, flicking a quick glance her way.

Maia stiffened. Her eyes held a wariness that hadn't been there before.

"Maia, it was an idle question to keep the conversation going. You don't have to answer. I detest people prying into my private life."

He heard her swift, indrawn breath, and saw her turn toward the pa.s.senger-side window. Cole was ready instantly for trouble, peering through the winds.h.i.+eld to try to see what might be coming at him beyond the heavy shroud of snow. He spotted dark shapes running alongside them, slipping in and out of his field of vision. "What the h.e.l.l is that?"

"Wolves."

He didn't dare take his eyes off the road to look at her. Cole concentrated on driving, alert for the moment the wolves would run out in front of the Land Cruiser. He didn't doubt it was wolves. Jase and he owned several thousand acres, and their ranch backed up to the national forest where wolves had been relocated.

"The wolves have always stayed away from my ranch and well back into the forest. What's bringing them out?" He glanced at her. Somehow she knew. "You've known the animals were there each time before we saw them, before they jumped out in front of us."

"How could I?"

He didn't listen to the words so much as her voice. It was strained and trembling. She was lying to him.

She knew, but he couldn't figure out how. "I don't know, but you reacted, bracing yourself."

"I must have seen them."

A mournful howl rose, sending a s.h.i.+ver down Maia's spine. A second, then a third wolf joined in. A chorus followed them, long, drawn-out notes of warning. She bit down on her knuckles to keep her teeth from chattering.

"What are they doing?" Cole asked. "Why are they running alongside the truck in hunting mode? And the owl, it was coming in as if hunting, head back, talons extended, coming right at me." Even to him, it sounded completely ridiculous. Had he not been trapped in the middle of a snowstorm, he wouldn't have ever said such a bizarre thing, yet it felt right, not strange.

"I have a certain affinity with animals," Maia admitted. She sent up a silent prayer that he wouldn't ask what it meant. She didn't know what it meant. "Stop! Don't hit it." She flung out her hand to brace herself on the dashboard as he fought the Land Cruiser to a halt without even seeing what was in the road.

Before he could stop her, Maia was out of the vehicle, dragging a bag with her, disappearing into the swirling white flakes. Cole slammed his fist against the steering wheel, pulled a gun from where it was holstered in concealment on his calf, and checked the load before he shoved open his own door.

The snow swirled around him immediately, engulfing him in a white, silent world and as fast s.h.i.+fted with the wind to allow him glimpses of the animals and Maia. He heard the chuffing of the wolves as they surrounded the vehicle. Maia crooned to something in the distance. He began to move toward her, watching the wild creatures warily. Immediately the chuffing turned to warning growls. He froze, trying to peer through the heavy fall of snow. The wind blasted through the canyon, and he saw her crouched over something on the ground.

"Maia? I didn't hit it, did I?"

"No, it was injured earlier. I'll just be a minute. Get back in the Cruiser. The wolves are getting agitated."

"I'll stay here and watch your back."

She hissed her displeasure. Actually hissed. He heard it. "I can't protect you while I'm working. Get in the car and wait for me." It was a definite order.

The wind blew a blanket of snow between them again, and when it lifted, he could see the darker shapes slinking around them. He stayed where he was, afraid of disturbing the precarious balance Maia seemed to have. The next blast of chilling wind revealed her straightening and backing away from the shape on the ground, clutching her bag in her hand. She walked quickly toward the Cruiser as the wolf jumped to its feet, shook itself, and hurried off.

The moment he slid in beside her, her gaze went to the gun in his hand. "Good grief. I thought you couldn't carry a gun once you'd been in jail."

"Ranchers need guns." He shoved it back into his leg holster and glared at her. "The next time you decide to take a stroll with a bunch of wolves in a blizzard, let me know ahead of time." He wanted to shake her although she was already s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably and covered in white and that instantly made him feel protective of her.

"I'll do that." She didn't sound as tough as she would have liked with her teeth chattering. "Is that heater putting out any heat?"

"Yes, you should warm up again in a minute." He was cautious as he began maneuvering along the road, alert for any more animals. "Are you going to explain what just happened?"

Maia pushed the alarming warnings out of her mind and shook her head. "I don't think there is an explanation. Do you want to tell me how you get away with carrying a gun?"

"I hide it."

"I'm not buying that. You wouldn't risk losing Jase over it. You're not even on parole are you? Is all the gossip untrue? Have you ever been in prison?"

He sighed. "Maia, I have a job. I'm good at what I do, and I'm good because I don't answer questions.

Most people I just tell to go to h.e.l.l, or look at them and they shut up. Why don't you believe what everyone else wants to believe and make it easy on me?"

She leaned back against the seat, for the first time relaxing. "Because it's all made up, and I prefer to hear the real story. What kind of job do you have?"

Exasperated, he glared at her. "It isn't going to happen."

She thought it was progress that he didn't tell her to go to h.e.l.l.

chapter 4.

"I'm going to pull your rig into the barn. You'll need all your equipment, right?" Cole asked.

Maia nodded as she climbed into the backseat. "Keep looking straight ahead while I change into my scrubs. I don't have a lot of clothes with me and I don't want to get everything filthy."

"I do have a was.h.i.+ng machine."

"Since I only have what I'm wearing and my scrubs, I'm not taking any chances," she said.

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She was shocked to see humor creeping into his eyes. It wasn't much, and it faded fast, but it was there. "I managed to keep this thing on the road through animals running out in front of me and a blizzard, but now you're asking just a little too much. I'm not exactly a saint."

Maia wiggled out of her jeans and dragged her familiar soft cotton, drawstring pants over her hips. "You will get us into an accident if you don't watch what you're doing." She tossed her s.h.i.+rt aside and pulled her loose top over her head, showing the minimum amount of skin. "And I'll bet no one has ever accused you of being a saint." She whistled as Cole honked the horn in front of a large building. "Nice setup."

The doors swung open to allow him to drive inside. The barn was huge and very clean, obviously used as a hospital for the animals on the ranch when needed.

Jase Steele waited anxiously as they parked the Cruiser in the huge barn. Maia saw his face, puffy and swollen from shedding tears he thought no one would see. The boy was unable to hide his relief as Cole unfolded his large frame from the Land Cruiser. "It's bad, Cole," he greeted.

"Let the vet take a look, Jase," Cole advised. For one moment he thought about hugging the kid, but he couldn't quite find a way to do it. Instead, he handed the teenager one of the packs. "We'll need your help."

"I would have put the horse down, Mr. Steele," Al Benton said, "but the boy refused to let me."

"Were you able to tell how this happened?" Cole asked, choosing his words carefully.

Al scowled. "Someone had to have run him into the fence, Mr. Steele. His rump had a couple of welts on it."

"Who was around?"

"All the hands were already gone when Jase called me."

Cole let his breath out slowly. Al hadn't been with Jase. That didn't sit well with him. Doubt tickled at his brain, even though he didn't want to think the boy could have done such a thing. It made him feel like a monster even to entertain such a notion. He ticked suspects off in his mind. Al, the ranch hands, Jase.