Under Her Skin(13)
Author: Jeaniene Frost

"Forever, probably."

"Why now?"

She stepped into her jeans. "Aunt Letty’s getting older, there’s an opening for a science teacher at the high school, and I need a place to run."

His eyebrows drew together. "Are you in trouble?"

"Not a place to run to. A place to run. The city isn’t good for that."

His frown remained, but he only nodded. Emma pulled on a sweater as Letty came back into the kitchen, bundled in her coat and knitted cap. Daisy, the yellow Labrador who’d been Letty’s companion for as long as Emma could remember, had ventured downstairs and now sat at Letty’s heel. The dog’s body was taut, shaking. That was another reason Emma had left. But she’d since learned that, with time, a dog would get over its instinctive fear of her. It just took a lot of dog biscuits.

Letty’s steely gaze landed on Emma’s face. Emma shook her head.

An aging aunt, a job, a place to run. All true. And Nathan was another reason—but she couldn’t tell him that until after she showed him the rest.

* * *

The snow let up just before dawn. Nathan walked the highway shoulder, sweeping his flashlight over the ground, hoping for even a foot of tire track that hadn’t been filled in. Emma had helped narrow down the type of vehicle, but a matching tread would go further in court.

Two hundred yards from her Jeep, he gave up. Turning back, he saw Osborne standing beside the deputy vehicle, lifting his hand. Nathan waved him on. There was nothing left here. He’d have the Jeep towed into town, and the snow and the plows would erase the rest.

Then he’d spend a good portion of the morning bucking through the logging roads that turned off the main highway between here and Pine Bluffs, searching for the route Emma’s attacker had used. Cold, boring work, which would give him too much time to spend in his head. This meant he’d probably spend a good portion of the morning obsessing over Emma.

And wishing that he was with her in his old bedroom, in that old double bed heaped high with blankets, instead of trudging through the freezing backwoods.

He glanced into her Jeep as he passed it. An inch of white snow covered the driver’s seat, and the black powder from the fingerprinting kit dusted the door handles.

Not much hope there, either. Emma had been certain her assailant had been wearing leather gloves.

Yet she’d still managed to bite through the gloves hard enough that his blood had splashed all over her. Terror lent her strength.

A hot ball of anger settled in his gut. Nathan looked away from the Jeep, staring blindly into the tree line. They were going to get the bastard this time. If the son of a bitch knew what was good for him, he’d walk into the sheriff’s office now and turn himself in.

But Nathan hoped to God that when the time came, the bastard resisted arrest.

Of course, they had to identify him first. With a sigh, he banged his fist against the roof of the Jeep, turned back to his vehicle. And froze.

A wolf lay in front of his Blazer, like a dog stretched out before a fire, but twice the size of any dog Nathan had ever seen. He’d seen a wolf this large before, however; he’d killed a wolf this large after it had attacked Emma on a hiking trail.

But this wolf wasn’t snarling, hackles raised and fangs bared. Its thick, dark fur lay flat over its back; its head was raised, amber eyes watching him steadily, pointed ears pricked forward.

He rested his hand on his weapon, but didn’t draw it. Not yet. He edged to the side, began making a wide arc that would take him to his vehicle without directly approaching the wolf. He stopped when the wolf cocked its head, rose to its feet and trotted toward the Jeep.

It sniffed at the snow by the flat tire, then began to work its way back. Scenting the blood, Nathan assumed. The tension began to leave his shoulders, and he watched as it began to dig through the small drift that had piled beside the rear tire.

Then it turned, looked at him, and sat. When Nathan only stared back, the wolf made a chuffing sound, pushed its long nose back into the drift, and nudged.

Something small and black rolled out of the drift, leaving—Nathan realized with a strange, swooping sensation in his stomach—specks of pink ice in its wake.

The wolf backed up a few yards, then sat again.

Slowly, Nathan approached the Jeep. He kept his gaze on the wolf, then dared a glance at the object on the ground.

His stomach did another swoop, and for a second he thought his head was going to go with it. He crouched, sitting on his heels, waiting for the light-headedness to pass.

It was a thumb, still inside the leather of the glove.

He had a fingerprint. Holy shit. Disbelieving, he took off his hat, pushed his hand through his hair. He looked up at the wolf.

"What the hell are you?"

Its mouth stretched into what Nathan would have sworn was a grin. For an instant, he remembered Emma in Miss Letty’s kitchen, joking about becoming a werewolf.

God. Was he actually entertaining the idea that this wolf was a human? That it was Emma?

He was obviously lacking sleep or caffeine. Shaking the ridiculous thought from his head, Nathan stood. The wolf trotted past him, its shoulder brushing his leg.

He watched it break into a lope down the highway, and turned back to the thumb on the ground. He could think about the wolf later. Now, he had a job to do.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Nathan slammed on his brakes when the wolf appeared on the highway shoulder. The Blazer fishtailed before the chains caught and gave him traction. It took a long time for his heart to stop pounding.

He climbed out of the truck, pointed at the wolf. "Do you know how dumb that was?"

Probably not any less dumb than talking to an animal. And definitely not as stupid as feeling chastised when it gave him a look, then trotted a few yards up the highway.

To a logging road. It sniffed at the snow, moved farther off the highway, then looked back at Nathan expectantly.

"You’re kidding me," he said.

The wolf shook its head. Answering him.

And there went reality. Nathan trudged forward. "No jury is going to buy this story."

* * *

Emma was still half-asleep when she heard Nathan come home. She turned, buried her face in her pillow, and listened to Letty ask him about the investigation, the status of the Jeep, and whether he preferred rolls or biscuits with the beef stew she was making. Then she sent him from the kitchen with an instruction to wake the princess who’d slept the day away.

The princess thought she deserved all the sleep she’d had. Emma had run more than thirty miles that morning. After she’d left Nathan by the highway, she’d searched through a quarter of the town, trying to track down the murderer by scent.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t found any sign of him.