Lone Wolf (2 page)

She retrieved a tensor bandage from her bag and wound it around the eagle’s feet. Then she wrapped the raptor securely in the soft blanket and pinned the blanket closed. “That will stabilize the wing a bit,” she murmured.

Her long, curly auburn hair had fallen over her shoulder while she worked, and it lay on top of Leif’s arm where he held Aquila’s neck. Their faces were only inches apart, her forehead almost touching the rim of his cowboy hat, and she wondered if she could detect a slight increase in the pace of his breathing.

She swung her hair back over her shoulder in a swoop. “Sorry. I should have tied my crazy hair back. I just need to cut it all off.”

Leif blinked. “Don’t do that. You have gorgeous hair.” Then he paused. “I mean, it’s none of my business. You can do that if you want. Short-haired women are hot too, but it’s very nice hair.”

She blushed while she added a few more pins to the swaddling. Had Leif been implying that she was hot? The warmth in her groin had expanded as she’d worked, and now she was feeling more than a little slippery.

When she was finished pinning the blanket, Aquila looked like a baby, save for the spray of feathers that emerged from the bottom of the white material.

“Okay,” she said, rising to her feet. “Now we have to figure out how to transport him, and I have to call Barry to see what he thinks in terms of where to take him. Do you have an old cat carrier, or even a box around?”

Leif scooped up the bound eagle in his arms and stood too, towering over her in the stall. She glanced down at his cowboy boots and wondered if the old saying about foot size was true.
That is not focusing, Delany
, her brain informed her.

“I have a chicken carrier,” he said, striding back down the row of stalls while Delany collected her vet kit.

Back out in the sunlight, with Aquila safely ensconced in a small carry case, Delany called Barry. Buddy frolicked exuberantly with the bigger dogs as if he was one of the gang.

“Is it compound?” the old man’s gruff voice enquired.

“I don’t know. It needs an x-ray.”

She heard Barry sigh. “It’s not our gig, Delany. We could end up hurting the bird. The closest raptor center is in Bozeman. Can Leif take it there? He’ll have to call ahead and tell them he’s coming.”

Bozeman. That was at least four hours away. Delany glanced over at the tall rancher who stood by her car. Would he really want to drive that far to save an eagle? She and Barry had a full day of surgeries scheduled for tomorrow. She didn’t want to be driving all night.

She hung up the phone and tried to form her teeth into her best smile.

“Barry wants to know if you’d be willing to take Aquila to Bozeman,” she said, expecting him to decline.

Leif cocked his head and hooked his fingers into his belt buckles. “Sure,” he said after a few seconds. “Do you want to come with me? Buddy can stay here. I have a couple of ranch hands who live in the bunkhouse. They’re out in the fields right now, but they’ll be back before too long.”

Delany furrowed her brow. Was he asking her to go on a road trip with him? “It’s going to take eight hours,” she said.

Leif cracked a roguish grin, sending a flutter of excitement through her pussy. “I have a helicopter. As the crow flies, it’ll take us three hours, round trip. We can be back before bedtime.”

Delany glanced up at him. There was something almost predatory about the way he said bedtime, like she was Red Riding Hood and had ventured out too far in the woods alone.

A shiver of something—desire, anticipation, fear?—slipped down her spine.

Leif watched Delany’s sexy-as-hell full lips pucker as she tried to process what he was saying. He’d expected old Barry to show up and cart the eagle away. This curvy little vet was a bonus, and all of his instincts were on overdrive just inhaling her. The way his cock was responding to being anywhere near her, he’d almost think that she was his mate or something.

But he didn’t believe in that. That mate for life thing was for his parents’ generation. It was for the Leif he was before Afghanistan. Before he became a lone wolf. He would stick with his freewheeling devil-may-care lifestyle on the ranch that involved lots of local vixens who thought maybe a wolf shifter could be broken, or were happy enough for a single roll in the hay with a lover of his repute.

He intended to bed Delany too. Perhaps even tonight. But something about her was sending him a little off balance. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was nerves. But he didn’t believe in those either. He let out the slow grin that never failed to captivate the women of Raven Ridge.

Her eyebrows lowered and she grabbed a piece of that gorgeous red hair and twisted it around her finger. Leif imagined her hair spread out around her on the pillow while he fucked her. His shaft twitched in his jeans. At this rate, he’d have a hard time making it to Bozeman. He wanted her now.

“I don’t know. I think Barry expects me back at the clinic. It’s only my second week, and I don’t know about Buddy. He might run off.”

“Come on. You can’t desert me and Aquila,” he said. “We can put Buddy inside the house. Have you ever seen Montana by helicopter? Raven Ridge is stunning from above. And Barry likes me. He’s a distant relative. My mother’s second cousin or something like that. He’ll understand. And one of my best friends Sam is the one buying the clinic anyway.”

She brightened a bit. “Oh you know Sam? I haven’t met him yet.”

“He’s a great guy,” Leif said, edging a closer to Delany and finding his own heart beating a little uncomfortably faster than he’d expected.

“Well my parents told me never to take rides with strangers,” she said. “And this qualifies as an awfully long ride.”

“Do you always take your parents’ advice?” he said.

She cracked an impish grin back at him. “Only when I think they’re right.”

He slid easily into charm mode, and into lies, or at least omissions. “All right. What do you want to know? My life is an open book. Ask me anything you want. Then I won’t be a stranger. My name is Leif William Peirce. I was born here in Raven Ridge. My parents were ranchers, and now I’m a rancher. I spent ten years in the military as pilot, and did two tours in Afghanistan. I like horses, dogs, helicopters, drinking beer, and skiing, and my favorite color is red. And if you can’t think of anything to ask, you could call Barry. He can vouch for me.”

“Pajamas or underwear?” she shot back.

He grinned. He had her now. He was sure of it. “I sleep in the nude.”

“Of course you do,” she said, but a faint flush had crept up her freckled cheeks. “Favorite novel? That’s if you have one,” she added tartly. “And it can’t be one you read in school.”

Leif staggered a bit, pretending to be wounded. “
The Call of the Wild
, and
Ender’s Game
, for your information, Madam Vet, who seems to think cowboys don’t read.”

“That’s Doctor Vet to you,” she replied. “All right. I’m coming.” She reached into her Subaru to pull out her purse and slung that and her veterinary bag over her shoulder. “Lead on Mr. Cowboy Pilot.”

After she gave Aquila a shot of pain reliever, they put Buddy in the house. Her concern for her little dog was cute. He noticed her covertly looking around the neat-as-a-pin country kitchen.

“Old habits die hard,” he said when she arched her brow and touched one of the tea towels that had been folded with precision and hung over the stove handle.

“This is a really nice place,” she said. “You cook a lot?”

He shrugged. “A fair bit. When you’re single and you have to eat, you have to cook.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. Leif was a little startled by the degree of elation he experienced at her announcement that she was single. He imagined her in his kitchen, drinking a glass of wine while the steam rose from a pot and the warmth of the kitchen colored her cheeks rosy. Then he imagined showing her his walk-in shower and his bed.

He realized he’d been staring at her for the last few seconds, but she’d been returning his gaze with little trepidation. Something in his heart leapt a bit. He still didn’t believe in that love-at-first-sight-mate shit, but he had to admit, he was far more interested in Delany than he’d ever been in any of the women he’d taken into his arms for the past fifteen years.

But they had an injured eagle waiting on the porch, so instead of pulling her to him and laying a kiss on her lush lips like he wanted to do, he gestured to the door and followed her back out into the afternoon sun.

“So you have me at an advantage,” he said. “You know my details, and I know nothing about you.”

“Not much to tell,” she said. “I grew up in White Peaks. Went to veterinary college at Montana State.”

“I love White Peaks. Sam and I were skiing there this winter with another buddy. Are you a skier?”

Delany made a noncommittal sound. “I love the mountains too, but I wanted to see what big sky country was like on the plains.”

“Hence Raven Ridge?”

“Hence Raven Ridge.”

“Any hobbies, siblings, skeletons in your closet?” It was dangerous, asking about skeletons… but he was feeling suddenly, and strangely, bold and lighthearted.

“I ride horses and read. I have two sisters and I’m the youngest, and there’s no way I’m sharing my skeletons with you.”

“I promise you I’m a great and sympathetic listener.”

She snorted and he was tempted to touch that hair of hers. But it was way too soon for that.

Delany gave a satisfying gasp when they rounded the corner of the barn and she saw his R44 Raven II helicopter. He decided he wanted to hear that gasp again, perhaps when she saw him naked, preferably while she was naked too.

His shaft was already at half-mast when he helped her up into the cockpit and seeing her pert ass in front of his face didn’t help matters. He might need an icy shower before they got anywhere near Bozeman.

He climbed into the other seat in the cockpit and busied himself with prepping the helicopter for take off.

“I should probably call ahead to the raptor center while we’re on the ground,” Delany said. He nodded and she pulled out her phone. He heard her talking while he ran through his safety checks and started the rotors.

She pressed end and set the phone on her lap. Leif handed her a headset and she put it on.

They were just lifting off when a text flashed up on her phone from Barry Williston. Delany snatched her phone up before he could read it. Maybe Barry had changed his mind about bringing the eagle to the clinic. Leif hurriedly let the chopper rise into the air.

He wanted to spend this time with Delany.

<
Just so you know, Leif is a known ladies man around town. Whatever you do, don’t go out with him.
> read Barry’s text.

Delany glanced over at Leif. She knew Barry’s text was probably meant to be funny, in the older veterinarian’s gruff sort of fatherly way. But as she glanced over at Leif’s broad chest, bursting at the seams of his plaid shirt, as he guided the helicopter into the air, disappointment washed over her. She’d already somehow in her mind moved into that sumptuous farmhouse with the cozy kitchen, picturing herself in fuzzy pajamas, her hair a tumble of wild curls, and Leif half-naked and smiling that panty-melting grin at her every morning… after some literal panty-melting sex.

<
Is he safe to ride in a helicopter with?
> she texted back.

<
On that front, he couldn’t be safer.
> Barry responded.

Delany’s chagrin soon turned to awe as White Raven Ranch, and then the grasslands she’d driven over that morning, appeared before her. The Great Plains of Montana. They were part of the reason she’d moved to Raven Ridge.

“Why is your ranch called White Raven?” she asked Leif through the headset.

He gave her a wicked smile and veered the helicopter sharply to the left as they gained more altitude.

“Because I have a portion of the igneous rock outcrop on my property for which Raven Ridge got its name. But mine has something special...”

“You mean a white raven?”

“How’d you guess?”

Delany rolled her eyes at him. “That’s super cool, really? They’re so rare.”

“I know. I can show you some day if you’re into hiking.”

Leif left off there and Delany just absorbed the passing landscape. Pastureland dotted with cows extended out below them, and far off to the east, a surge of red-brown cows moved across the plain, followed by two men on horseback with more white and black dogs.

“That’s Andy and Ryan down there,” Leif said.

“How many dogs do you have?” Delany said.

“Only three of my own. Those ones belong to Andy and Ryan.”

“How many head of of cattle do you have?”

“1200.”

Any reply that Delany might have had was cut off by their arrival at Raven Ridge, the giant black escarpment that ran nearly fifty miles through the heart of this part of the plains. It shone a brilliant obsidian in the afternoon sun. She’d seen it in the distance many times from her new apartment in town, but from the air it was shockingly beautiful. They came almost upon it, then suddenly lifted to soar over the dark cliffs.

Leif’s voice came over her headset and he pointed at an area of the rock. “The ravens all roost in this section at night. You can see them all flying here in a group just before dark. A conspiracy apparently. That’s what they call a group of ravens. The white raven is one of them.”

Delany nodded, absorbing the panorama.

“There’s a trail that starts on my property and goes all the way up to the top of the ridge. If you want to see the white raven, we could hike it some time at dusk. We’d have to ride to the base of course, but you said you like horseback riding. It’s pretty amazing to watch the ravens arrive. There are thousands of them.”

Barry’s words came rushing back to Delany with a jolt. She’d been so consumed with the view that she’d forgotten about the text. Yet Leif seemed awfully tentative in his invitation for a ladies’ man.