Page 27 of Salvation

“No, I mean… I didn’t see what chased it away. Was that Todd?” The more she thought about it, the more she was sure it couldn’t have been him. It felt like him, somehow, but hadn’t she seen a powerful, furry animal streak past on four feet?

“It was Todd,” Sarah said in a strangely certain voice.

Anna halted in her tracks. “We have to go help him. We can’t leave him alone.”

Sarah looked back. The woods had gone eerily quiet. No growls, no roars. Not even a bird call. It was as if the whole forest was holding its breath, wondering if the danger had passed.

“Believe me, he’ll be okay. We should get out of here, though.”

“But—”

Sarah pulled her downhill at a more careful trot. “I’m still new to all this, but I think we’d better get home.”

New to all what? Anna looked at her cousin. Sarah knew all about wilderness and animals and safety in the woods. She’d grown up with the Rockies as her backyard. Maybe Sarah meant she was new to rabid creatures attacking her out of nowhere? Well, that was a first for Anna, too.

“Are you sure Todd will be okay?” she asked. Her heart pumped madly, and every nerve in her body was on high alert.

Sarah reassured her all the way back to the trailhead parking lot, where they waited by the car. They scanned the edge of the woods, ready to jump into the car at the first sign of danger. A torturously slow twenty minutes ticked by before the lengthening shadows flickered, and Todd stepped out of the woods.

His hands were dirty, as if he’d been scrambling on all fours, and a leaf stuck out of his hair. His jeans and shirt, however, were unmarred. Not a drop of sweat, not a thread torn loose.

“Todd.” Anna held her breath, looking at him.

His eyes traveled up and down her body just the way hers studied him, checking for injuries. He was the one who’d gone after a wolf, for goodness sake!

“Did you see the wolf?” she couldn’t help asking.

Todd didn’t always hear everything, she knew, but his silence seemed deliberate this time.

Finally, he nodded as if satisfied that she was all right and exchanged a long, worried look with Sarah. The kind of look that had been bugging Anna all week because it made her feel like she was the one who couldn’t hear.

“It was a wolf, wasn’t it?” she asked.

Todd nodded slowly, looking right into her eyes. “Yeah, it was a wolf, all right.”

“What did it do when it saw you?”

He cracked into the first cocky grin she’d ever seen on his modest face.

“He ran. Believe me, he ran.”

Chapter Seven

Todd stretched his feet out as far as they would go under the dash of Soren’s truck. Miles of highway stretched out before them, and although it was late afternoon, he could feel the temperature rise with every foot of their gradual descent.

“In town, we’re up at five thousand feet,” Soren said. “The ranch is down at four thousand, but it’s still bearable there. It’s when you drop way down to Phoenix that things really heat up.”

Todd watched Soren talk, trying to match the motion of his lips to the words his cousin shot into his mind. It didn’t seem like he’d get his hearing back anytime soon, so he might as well figure out lip-reading, just in case. That, or he could just hang around bears for the rest of his life. Bears and Anna, because everything she said, he heard.

Because she’s my mate.His bear nodded, all matter-of-fact.

If only it were that simple.

Soren stuck a finger out over the steering wheel. “There it is. Twin Moon Ranch.”

Todd caught a glimpse of a few rooftops way, way out in the middle of nowhere off the west side of the road. One second, he saw them, and the next, they were gone. Which, he supposed, suited the wolf pack perfectly. All shifters were secretive, keeping a low profile from prying human eyes. Soren and his unusual little bear-wolf clan were among the few who lived right in the middle of a town.

Todd closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, thinking of home. He could see what Soren liked about Arizona, but dang, there was only one home for him. Montana.

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