Free Indigo Blue by Catherine Anderson Page B

innocent, but not that innocent. Women had an instinct about things like this and, no matter how young, always seemed to know when a man had things on his mind that he shouldn’t.
    He spotted Lobo moving in the brush and decided the less said the better. Eloquent, he wasn’t. If he started in on an apology, he’d probably fumble it and only make things worse.
    “A pet wolf?” he asked in a deliberately light tone. “Don’t tell me. I suppose you’ve got half the creatures in the forest trailing around after you.”
    She peered out at him from under the hat brim, her stance uncertain. Jake half expected her to bolt, and he wouldn’t have blamed her.
    “No, just Lobo. I feed a few wild creatures. The deer, of course. They’re always beggars. Then there’s an old cougar who’s lost most of his teeth and a family of raccoons. They’ll come up to eat from my hand, but they don’t usually follow me.”
    “A cougar with no teeth. I take it his claws don’t count?”
    “He isn’t a stupid cougar, Mr. Rand. If he hurt me, there wouldn’t be anyone to feed him every day.”
    “And the raccoons? What’s your pact with them? The ones I’ve seen have all been vicious.”
    “You probably frightened them. Anything can turn vicious if you scare it.”
    A girl, for instance? Jake laughed softly and shook his head. “I’ve never seen a wolf that large or with his coloration. “
    “He’s from the Yukon.”
    Jake digested that. “How’d you come to own him?”
    “I don’t. We’re just friends. You can’t own a wolf—not really. They do the choosing. Wild things are like that, especially wolves.” She moved a little farther away and glanced toward the brush where the wolf had disappeared. “An old miner from up north came through this way about three years back. When he moved on, Lobo chose to stay. We’ve been friends ever since.”
    So wild things were like that, were they? Jake shoved his hands into his pants pockets, hoping she’d feel a little less threatened. He’d lost it for a second. He admitted it. But did she have to act as if he had sprouted horns?
    An apology was called for. There was no getting around it. He just hoped he got the words out right. “I’m sorry I grabbed you like that.”
    “That’s all right. He took you by surprise.”
    So had she. “I’m afraid I gave you a scare.” God, how he detested that damned hat. “If I did, I apologize.”
    “There’s no need. You only meant to protect me.”
    She needed protection, all right. From him. He managed another laugh. “The truth? I thought we were going to be wolf dinner. I pictured a whole slew of the monsters—a pack of them, and every one hungry. It scared the hell out of me.”
    He thought he glimpsed a smile on her mouth. So far, so good. She didn’t look poised to run now.
    “He would never attack a man—unless of course he thought someone was hurting me.”
    A veiled threat? Jake knew he had no choice but to accept that. If she felt better by warning him off with her wolf, so be it. “I’ll remember to mind my manners then.” Would he ever. From here on out, he wouldn’t so much as touch her. Glancing toward the sky, he added, “We’d better head on down. It’ll be dark soon.”
    She didn’t need any encouragement. Jake had to step smart to keep up with her.
     
    The simplicity of the Wolfs’ home life fascinated Jake. After a brief visit with Hunter, he did the evening chores. When those were done, he relaxed before the fire on a crudely fashioned stool and sipped a mug of steaming coffee while he waited for Loretta to finish preparing supper. Behind him, he could hear Indigo splashing in her bathwater, her only privacy a water closet Hunter had built in one corner of the kitchen. It amounted to little more than a privacy screen, enclosed to surround the tub and sink, without a ceiling, the walls about as high as his chin. She carried on a sporadic conversation with her mother. A woman from Portland