“Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?”
Piper’s heartbeat hammered against her rib cage. There was just something about looking into the eyes of a wolf at close range, something thrilling that brought about an instinctual response. Breathtaking. Primal.
The animal stood less than a foot away, one hundred forty pounds of sinuous muscle, gleaming white teeth and ebony fur. A timber wolf, with penetrating eyes the color of Klondike gold.
He took a step closer.
Breathe. Just breathe.
The wolf blinked once, twice, three times. Then, without breaking eye contact, he rose up onto his powerful back legs, planted his front paws on her shoulders and licked the side of her face.
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? Tra la la la la.
“Big and bad, my foot.” Piper gave the wolf a generous rub behind his ears. “You’re a marshmallow, Koko.”
Koko showered her with more wolf kisses, heedless of the fact that it took every ounce of Piper’s strength not to shrink beneath the weight of his massive frame. At only a year old, Koko was still very much a pup and seemingly unaware of his size. And his power. Not to mention the intimidation factor that came with being a wolf.
Stature, strength and piercing gaze notwithstanding, he didn’t frighten Piper. She couldn’t remember a time when any of the wolves did. Years ago, perhaps. Before she’d ever had the idea to start the sanctuary. Before the first rescue.
Before.
“Piper! We’ve got a visitor.” Caleb White, the one and only paid employee that she could afford, stood outside Koko’s enclosure, eyeing their interaction with curiosity. Koko swiveled his massive head in the teenager’s direction and dropped back down to all fours. “I think it’s him.”
Him.
Piper didn’t need to ask whom Caleb meant. There was only one him whose arrival she’d been anticipating, only one him who mattered at the moment. “I’ll be right there. Give Mr. Hale some hot cocoa while he waits, okay? With marshmallows.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Caleb’s feet crunched through the snow as he followed the trail back in the direction of the tiny log cabin that doubled as the visitors’ center and Piper’s living quarters. For now, at least.
Once she got the sanctuary certified by the National Nature Conservatory and secured one of their coveted grants, all that would change. She’d have the funding she needed to make this place everything she dreamed it could be. And the first step in making that happen was to get the support of her new home, Aurora, Alaska.
That’s where Ethan Hale, a journalist for the Yukon Reporter newspaper, came in. Or so she hoped.
She fastened the double gates of Koko’s enclosure and gave the wolf a final wave. “Wish me luck.”
Koko loped to the fence and poked his slender muzzle through the chain link. Piper felt the wolf’s gaze on her back for the duration of her walk to the visitors’ center. Of all the animals she’d rescued—from the turtles she’d gathered from the middle of the Colorado streets and carried to safety at the side of the road when she was a little girl, to the wolves she’d driven hundreds of miles to pick up and bring back to the sanctuary—Koko was her favorite. He was special. He’d needed rescue, perhaps more than the rest. He remembered where he’d come from.
Wolves never forgot. Neither did she.
When she reached the log cabin, she brushed the snow and straw from Koko’s paws off the shoulders of her parka and sent up one last silent prayer. Please, God. We need this. Then she pushed open the door, prepared to greet Ethan Hale with her warmest, most welcoming smile.
He stood inside the cozy cabin, clad in a brandy-colored parka with a fur-trimmed hood, frowning into his cocoa. Piper felt like frowning herself at the sight of that fur. It looked an awful lot like coyote. Or possibly even wolf, which was too revolting to even consider.
But this was Alaska, not a fashion runway. Things were different this close to the Arctic Circle. She knew that. Still...
She averted her eyes from the parka’s hood. “Good morning. You must be Mr. Hale.”
He looked up and pinned her with an impassive stare from the most luminous set of eyes she’d ever seen. They were a mysterious, fathomless gray, set off by lashes as black as raven wings. It was rather like looking into the eyes of a wolf. Not just any wolf, but an alpha.
Cool. Confident. Intense.
She blinked, and felt fluttery all of a sudden, as if she’d swallowed a jarful of the Arctic white butterflies that sometimes drifted on Alaska’s purple twilight breeze.
That was odd. Odd and more than a little bit unsettling. She’d never reacted to a man on first sight in such a way before. Certainly not in the months since Stephen.
Her heart gave a little clench. Now was not the time to examine such things. And this man in particular should not be giving her butterflies. First off, there was the matter of the suspect fur-trimmed hood. Secondly, he was here to be wooed by the wolves. Not her.
“You’re Ms. Quinn, I take it?” he asked flatly. Clearly he was in no mood to be wooed. By anyone.
“Call me Piper. Please.” She smiled and waited for him to reciprocate. He didn’t. “So, um, thank you so much for coming. I’m thrilled that the paper has agreed to run a story on the work we do here at the Aurora Wolf and Wildlife Sanctuary.”
He said nothing, just kept appraising her with those enigmatic eyes of his. The mug in his hand was piled high with an almost comical tower of marshmallows. They’d begun to melt, drip over the rim and onto Ethan Hale’s massive hand. Good old Caleb. The boy was such a sweetheart. He even picked flowers from the grounds on occasion and brought them to her. The vase of violet bell-shaped blossoms resting in the center of her kitchen table was just such a bouquet.
She reached for a napkin, handed it to the reporter and tried to imagine him picking flowers for someone. Not likely. “Sorry. I think my helper may have gone a little overboard with the marshmallows.”
“Thanks.” He traded her the mug for the napkin and dabbed at the sticky mess. “Your helper? Singular? You have no other employees?”
“No, just the one.” Why did she feel the need to apologize? Again. This time, for her lack of help. “For now. Although the youth program at Aurora Community Church has been a real help since I’ve moved in. They spent an entire Saturday here last week putting up the fences.”
“High school students? You plan on staffing this place with minors?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notepad and wrote something down.
Piper couldn’t bring herself to look and see what that something was. “A larger staff is one of the improvements I plan to make once we’ve been accredited by the National Nature Conservatory.”
He lifted a dubious brow. “Your facility has been open for only five days, and you already meet the standards for an NNC grant?”
She’d expected to have to explain what exactly the NNC was and the types of monetary aid they provided for ecological programs that qualified, but it appeared Mr. Hale had already done his homework.
Good, she told herself. Maybe this means he understands how important this is. He gets it.
“Not yet.” She cleared her throat. “These things take time. I’m still putting together the necessary paperwork. But applying for certification is my immediate goal,