Charmed By The Wolf

Chapter 2

“Penelope?” Cassie stared at her curiously. “Are you all right?”

“Um, yeah.”

Tristan was no longer in the office, but Penelope’s body still registered his heat next to her.

“Sorry, I’m a bit distracted.”

“Tristan has that effect on women.” Cassie laughed softly.

“Not on you?”

“I’m very happily married and Tristan, well, he’s family.” Cassie waved to a chair in front of a simple but solid wooden desk.

Penelope took her seat, swallowing her question as to Tristan’s marital status. She hadn’t seen a ring, but these days lack of one didn’t necessarily indicate the man was unattached, and asking her new boss personal questions about a stranger seemed unwise.

Casually, Penelope glanced out the glass interior window of Cassie’s office and glimpsed Tristan nearing a side corridor. He turned, his gaze locking on hers. A current passed through her body, warm and exhilarating. He tipped his head and disappeared down the hall.

Several seconds passed before she breathed again.

“Please don’t get your hopes up.”

Penelope snapped her attention back to Cassie. “Excuse me?”

“Tristan is a great guy but a huge flirt. I don’t want you to be hurt or misled.”

“I assure you, my heart is quite safe from his charms.” She wasn’t foolish enough to invest serious hope in a man out of her league.

“Good.” Cassie withdrew several forms from her desk drawer and fastened them to a clipboard. “As we discussed on the phone, the resort is experimenting with new programs this summer. Originally, we planned to hire you as an assistant to the children’s arts-and-craft teacher. However—” An apprehensive grimace replaced Cassie’s smile.

“You’ve decided not to hire me?” Penelope swallowed her disappointment.

“Oh, we want you to work for us.” A loose curl bounced free from the silver clip in Cassie’s hair. “But we do have a slight change. The instructor you were going to assist left unexpectedly. Instead of assisting, you’re now in charge of the program.”

Excitement and fear wrestled in the pit of Penelope’s stomach. “Um, what do you mean by in charge?”

“You will plan the daily activities and teach the workshops.”

“I’m not an art teacher, per se.”

“According to your résumé, you are an elementary school teacher, and in our phone interview you mentioned that you are an artist.”

“I said I like to paint.” Having never shown her work to anyone, Penelope wasn’t sure she could claim to be an artist. “I may not have the right skill set, since I’ve never taught an art class.”

“I have faith in you,” Cassie said. “We aren’t asking you to turn these kids into prodigies. Simply help them have fun creating handmade souvenirs.”

“Is there a curriculum?”

“Here’s what Linda had planned.” Cassie handed Penelope a three-ring binder.

She flipped through the pages of activities, supplies needed and the link information to online how-to videos.

“The hours are the same, seven-thirty to noon, Monday through Friday. And, instead of a suite inside the resort, we can offer you a cabin on the property. I thought you might like the extra space and solitude to paint in your spare time.”

“I like how you think.”

“Is that a yes?” Cassie rested her folded hands on her desk.

“Yes.”

“Fantastic!” Cassie picked up the clipboard. “I need your signature on these forms, then I’ll show you the activities room.”

Penelope reviewed the documents and signed in the appropriate places. Handing the clipboard back, she knocked over the silver frame on Cassie’s desk. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She picked up the picture of a striking black wolf. “This is a great picture. Do you know the photographer who took it?”

“I did.” Cassie reached for the framed photo and smiled lovingly at the picture before placing it back on her desk. “The Walker’s Run Cooperative, of which the resort is a subsidiary, runs a wolf sanctuary. That’s my husband’s wolf in the picture.”

“Your husband owns a wolf?”

“No one owns the wolves. Brice is his wolf’s handler. Co-op members are tasked with safeguarding the health and well-being of individual wolves.”

“Is his wolf tame or did you use a telephoto lens?”

“The Co-op wolves aren’t tame, but they aren’t dangerous, either. Unless you threaten their families.”

“Could I go into the sanctuary to take some pictures? I’d love to expand my portfolio to include wildlife.” So what if she didn’t exactly have a professional portfolio. Never even considered one, since showing her work to anyone had been something she hadn’t dared.

Only learning to paint after her parents’ deaths, Penelope had received art therapy as part of her own recovery. She fell in love with turning swipes of color into pictures and dreamed of being a professional artist. But Penelope’s aunt and uncle had convinced her of the impossibility of such a foolish notion when she was without a modicum of talent.

“For the safety of the wolf pack, only Co-op members are allowed access.”

“How does someone become a member?”

“One is either born into the Co-op or marries into it.”

“That exclusive, huh?”

Cassie offered a sympathetic smile. “There are great scenic views in the area and your cabin is up the mountain near a river. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of inspiration.” She flipped through the signed papers. “Everything looks good, but I’ll need a copy of your identification.”

As Cassie turned away to scan Penelope’s driver’s license and social security card on the printer behind her desk, Penelope used her phone to capture a snapshot of the wolf photo. If she couldn’t get into the sanctuary to photograph the animals herself, at least she could use the one in Cassie’s picture for inspiration.

“I heard Tristan call you Nel. Would you prefer that on your name tag?”

“Sure.” Why not? It would be easier for the kids to say and remember.

“Welcome to the Walker’s Run Resort family, Nel.” Cassie returned the identification cards to Penelope. “I hope your time with us will be memorable.”

Considering that, in her first few hours in the area, she’d met a naked man with the face and body of a Greek god, Walker’s Run already had the memorable part down pat.

* * *

“I wanted to be the first to tell you.” Behind the large mahogany desk, Gavin Walker leaned back in his leather chair and stroked the short-cropped white beard framing the unhappy curl of his mouth. His dark brows, a contrast to his snow-white hair, frowned.

Tristan’s stomach instinctively clenched and the feel-good high the encounter with Nel had given him plummeted.

“Jaxen’s release from Woelfesguarde is being finalized this week. I’m granting your father’s petition for Jaxen’s reinstatement into the pack.” Gavin paused, as if expecting Tristan to respond.

At the moment, it wasn’t possible. Tristan’s brain was emulating a train wreck. With the jumble of thoughts and emotions crashing and exploding in his head, coherent words weren’t possible.

Jaxen Pyke was a criminally minded, narcissistic bully. He was also Tristan’s blood-kin. A cousin. The only one on his father’s side. Both Tristan and the majority of the Walker’s Run pack had heaved a good-riddance sigh when Jaxen was eventually booted from the pack. The time on his own apparently hadn’t fostered any remorse or a need for reconciliation, because Jax eventually took up with a rogue pack and continued his merry criminal path. Until three years ago when an assault charge landed him in Woelfesguarde, a wolfan-owned-and-operated penitentiary.

“Do you understand?” Gavin continued. “Jaxen is coming home.”

“When?” The single word sounded clipped and tight and full of hostility to Tristan’s ears. No doubt the Alpha heard it, as well.

“Saturday.” Gavin’s calculating gaze seemed to target every twitch Tristan’s jaw made as he ground his teeth. “I am allowing him to reenter the territory, but he’ll need to earn back his place in the pack.”

“Does Aunt Ruby know?” Tristan rubbed the furrow between brows. Of course she didn’t know. Ruby’s first call would’ve been to Tristan. His ears would still be ringing from the tongue-lashing she served every time something happened concerning Jaxen.

Gavin affirmed with a shake of his head. “I wanted to tell you before Cooter and I pay her a visit this afternoon. I’ve asked your father meet us there.”

The Alpha and the pack’s chief sentinel delivering the news would leave Tristan with one less worry on his mind. He eased into his next breath, thankful he’d have time to psych himself up before dealing with Jaxen’s arrival.

“If that’s all.” Tristan stood.

“There’s something else.” Gavin leaned forward, rested his arms on the desk and steepled his fingers.

There always is.

Tristan remained standing. “Yes?”

“Considering Jaxen’s history, he’ll need someone to help keep him out of trouble.”

“I agree.” Wholeheartedly and without reservation.

“Notify me immediately if he inches one paw out of line.”

“Wait—” Tristan stepped forward. “You’re putting me in charge of Jaxen?”

“You’re the most logical choice.”

“Like hell I am.”

“You’re a sentinel and his blood-kin.” Gavin’s stony expression usually meant the matter was settled.

“If Jaxen screws up, it’s on him. I don’t want to be in the same position I was last time.”

Fifteen years ago, Jaxen’s fate with the Walker’s Run had rested on Tristan’s shoulders. The truth led to banishment, a lie to freedom.

Tristan had chosen the truth over family. Neither his father nor his aunt had forgiven him.

“I’m hoping your influence will keep him from backsliding.”

“You have no idea what you’re asking of me,” Tristan forced out.

“For god’s sake, Tristan. You’re both adults now. You need to let go of that grudge.”

A searing-white flash momentarily blanked Tristan’s vision. What he harbored was a hell of a lot more than a little grudge.

“Everyone makes mistakes, especially young people.” Gavin walked around the desk and laid a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “Be the better man. Help Jaxen because it’s the right thing to do.”

“For whom?”

“For you and your family.”

Family?

Disgust slithered into the pit of Tristan’s stomach.

His family was the epitome of dysfunction. His parents could barely stand to be in the same room with each other and they had little or no regard for him—the product of an accidental mate-claiming. Ruby only barely tolerated him and Jaxen, whom Tristan had once hero-worshipped, had left him to die.

“I’m not asking you to police him.” Gavin leaned against his desk, his hands folded against the silver buckle on the belt fastened around the waist of his jeans. “Be his friend again. Let him know he can count on you.”

Good ole dependable Tristan.

How that character trait had come to him was beyond his understanding. No one else in his family had been plagued with it.

The alarm on his watch beeped. “Gotta go.”

Wearing an expression indicative of an Alpha who expects his orders to be carried out, Gavin tipped his head.

Tristan walked out of the office, quietly closing the door with a greater appreciation for the Alpha’s son’s door-slamming habit. Instead of externalizing his anger or frustration like Brice, Tristan always internalized. Mostly he tried to ignore those feelings. His family was too loose with their tempers. He hated their arguments and outright fights. As soon as he was old enough to live on his own, he’d moved out.

Over the years, he’d learned the only way to deal with his family was individually and briefly. Jaxen’s homecoming would definitely upset the rhythm Tristan had established.

Walking down the long corridor from Gavin’s office toward the lobby, Tristan’s steps grew heavier. His current schedule barely allowed time for sleep. How would he manage squeezing in “befriending” his long-lost cousin, whom Tristan would rather have stayed lost?

A wolfan could only handle so much and Tristan had been stretched beyond his maximum limits for far too long.

God, I need some fresh air.

His fingers closed around the cold brass handle to yank open the large, heavy wooden door to exit the resort. A newly familiar feminine scent rushed his senses.

“Hey, Tristan!”

He turned to his left.

“I’m officially a resort staff member now.” Penelope’s lightly tinted lips parted with a soft smile. “And Cassie arranged for me to stay in a cabin up the road. I’ll have plenty of room to paint.”

“That’s great, Nel.” He stepped into her, his hand resting against her hip as he moved them away from the entry doors opening toward them.

A genuine smile broadened his mouth. Genuine because he could feel it all the way to his gut, tingling with a warm, fuzzy, effervescent sensation that dispelled the heavy shroud that had cloaked him a few minutes ago.

“Umm.” Her voice was a mere puff of soft breath. Her curious gaze caressed every angle of his face, her pupils growing larger with every beat of his heart.

The wolf in him sighed. There was no other way to describe the rush of contentment that raced up his spine and down his chest, then settled in his groin.

Tristan had the sudden, uncharacteristic urge to spend the day with her, learning her laugh, her mannerisms, her likes and dislikes.

Damn! He’d been working too many long hours and sleeping too few for those unbalanced thoughts to surface.

“It was nice meeting you, Nel.”

He dashed outside, sucking in lungfuls of fresh air before her scent imprinted on and permanently rewired his brain.

Chapter 3

“You’re not on duty today.” Carl Locke sucked his teeth, his hard gaze fastened on Tristan.

“There’s something I want to discuss with you.” Tense, Tristan sat in one of the two wooden chairs positioned in front of the sheriff’s paper-laden desk and waited.

Elected sheriff less than two years ago, Locke was a hard man to work for. Mostly because he held a grudge against the Co-op’s influence on the town. An outsider and new to the area, Locke viewed everything the Co-op did with suspicion. He felt the previous sheriff, who had known the truth about the Co-op, had been too lax in his duties. Gavin’s stubbornness and refusal to clue in the new sheriff to the Co-op’s purpose only compounded the problem.

Since Tristan was a member, Locke scrutinized his every action, his every decision, and the constant conflict had turned a job Tristan loved into a nauseating chore.

Last year, after a fiasco involving his friend Rafe Wyatt and Sheriff Locke, Tristan had quit the department. Gavin had been furious. Tristan’s position as a deputy afforded him some flexibility in running interference between the pack and human law enforcement. Gavin didn’t want to lose that advantage.

Locke, surprisingly, neither accepted nor rejected the resignation. Instead, he placed Tristan on leave for two weeks. A vacation, of sorts, to give him time to decompress and carefully consider his decision.

With nowhere to go and no one to go with him if he did, Tristan had stayed with his mother at her condo in Atlanta. The visit didn’t suddenly forge a mother–son bond, but it had provided the chance for Tristan to reassess...everything.

Including Gavin. His decision to cage Rafe in wolfan form, to display him like a circus animal in front of the sheriff to prove that the Walker’s Run wolves were docile had almost cost Rafe his life and came damn close to exposing the pack and the existence of Wahyas, worldwide.

Gavin had never apologized, never admitted he’d made a bad choice. He stuck by the affirmation that he’d done what was necessary to protect the pack.

So what the hell was he thinking now?

Didn’t he realize that allowing Jaxen to waltz right back into the territory was a disaster waiting to happen?

“Spit it out,” Locke barked.

“Sir?”

“You look like you’re chewing your words, trying to find the right ones. Is this about the Co-op?” Irritation flickered in Locke’s squinted gaze. He shoved aside the paperwork in front of him. “Whatever you got to say, just spit it out. I ain’t got all day.”

“Jaxen Pyke,” Tristan began, as if giving an ordinary report. “He’s got a long list of minor offenses as a juvenile. He left Maico about fifteen years ago.” Actually, Gavin had banished Jaxen because of his involvement in a liquor store robbery where a human was severely injured. “Hooked up with less than desirable associates who helped him graduate to more serious violations. Including assault, for which he spent the last three years in Woelfesguarde.”

“Isn’t that the fancy private facility in the Northwest?”

Tristan nodded. Human law enforcement believed the compound to be an elite, but highly effective rehabilitation center. In truth, it was a state-of-the-art wolfan correctional facility, situated in the harshest undeveloped region of Montana. With only the barest necessities provided, Woelfesguarde was no country-club prison. One either survived it or didn’t. “Pyke’s release is being processed. He’s coming home. I expect him to be here sometime Saturday night.”

Locke leaned back and crossed his arms over his stomach. “Is he Co-op?”

Technically, no. According to Gavin, Jaxen had to earn his way back into the pack.

Whatever the hell that means.

“Jaxen is family.” Tristan tasted the bile creeping into his mouth.

“When it comes to enforcing the law, I don’t give special considerations to anyone. Not to the Co-op, not to my deputies’ families.”

“Good!” Tristan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Someone besides myself needs to understand how dangerous he is.”

“An assault conviction is enough to convince me.”

“Maybe not. When you get his records—” as Tristan knew Locke would “—you’ll find most of his convictions are nonviolent misdemeanors. The only violent charge, the assault, stems from a bar fight. He claimed self-defense, but took a plea rather than face a trial.”

The Woelfesenat, a secret, international wolf council and the ultimate ruling authority on wolfan matters, would’ve never allowed Jaxen’s case to go to court. If convicted, he would’ve been incarcerated in a human prison. Long-term confinement for a Wahya, especially during a full moon without access to a sex partner, posed an unacceptable risk of the wolfan eventually losing control of his Wahyarian, the primitive beast that lurked within every Wahya.

The Woelfesenat would’ve had Jaxen put down if Adam Foster, Alpha of the Peachtree pack and an internationally renowned lawyer, had failed to negotiate an alternative. Instead of a trial and subsequent conviction, Jaxen was sentenced to serve thirty-six months at Woelfesguarde.

“What do you know that isn’t in the official record?”

Bitterness coated Tristan’s tongue and he fought the urge to hurl. “Remember our first meeting after you were sworn in? You asked if I had any impediments that could affect my job performance, and I told you it wouldn’t affect my duties, but that I have a blind side.”

“Yeah. When you were a kid, you slipped off a rock outcropping and cracked open your head.” Locke tapped his pen on his desk. “What’s that got to do with Pyke?”

“I didn’t slip, Sheriff. I was pushed.”

* * *

Fingers cramped and achy, Penelope returned her pencils to the holder and shook out her hands.

After settling into the cabin yesterday, she’d planned out about two weeks’ worth of activities for the children’s workshops, which left her wide-open for a three-day weekend before starting her new job.

This morning, she’d taken a leisurely drive around Maico to orient herself with the town and bought a few groceries from the market. She’d also stopped by the automotive shop Tristan had recommended. Short-handed due to a virus going around, the owner had scheduled her car service for next week. If Nel had dropped Tristan’s name, she might’ve gotten the oil change and battery check today, but would’ve had to wait all day. Since the car seemed to be running fine, she opted to come back next week.

This afternoon, she’d immersed herself in art. Usually, she made quick sketches of a scene she wanted to paint.

This one had taken several hours, but she was incorporating several disconnected elements. Before picking up a paintbrush, she wanted to make sure the image in her mind would actually make sense on canvas. To check the accuracy of the two focal subjects, she picked up her phone and swiped between the snapshot of the black wolf she’d taken in Cassie’s office yesterday and the photo she’d taken today of Cassie sitting on the floor in a small nook off the main lobby, playing with her daughter.

Precocious and quite verbal for child a few weeks shy of her first birthday, Brenna had noticed Penelope watching them and immediately determined that Penelope would be her new best friend. At the toddler’s insistence and Cassie’s invitation, Penelope had joined them in the dining hall rather than eating lunch alone.

Old habits were difficult to change, and putting herself out there to meet new people was harder than she’d imagined. Cassie tried to help, introducing her to staff members and the townsfolk who stopped by the resort restaurant.

Left to her own devices, Penelope preferred to hole up in the cabin to paint, curl up with a book or sit on the back porch drinking hot coffee and wishing for a doughnut like the one Tristan had devoured as he rushed into the resort while she was there with Cassie and Brenna. Dressed in slouchy black shorts, a black T-shirt and a dark gray skullcap despite summer temperatures, he’d flashed her a quick smile and a wink before disappearing down the corridor to Gavin Walker’s office. The high from his attention had lingered all day.