Breaking Free: A Colorado High Country Crossover Novel by Pamela Clare (well read books .TXT) 📗

No sooner had they finished their coffee than the sheriff’s deputy arrived.

Deputy Julia Marcs introduced herself to Jason. “It’s a pleasure to meet a Shadow Wolf. You sure impressed Sheriff Pella yesterday.”

“I was happy to help.”

While Deputy Marcs went over the day’s plan of action with Jack and Nate, Jason geared up, setting out his Glock, holster, and two extra loaded magazines. As a Shadow Wolf, he carried an M4 rifle in the field, so it felt strange to be armed only with his pistol.

“You brought a gun?” Winona came up behind him.

“I usually carry concealed. Drug runners sometimes target Wolves and their families. I haven’t had it on me since I arrived in Scarlet, but I always have a firearm. Does that bother you?”

“I’d rather have the gun in your hands than someone else’s.”

“Fair enough.” He racked the slide on the pistol and holstered it.

They climbed into the cab of Jack’s truck, Jason and Winona in the back, Nate riding shotgun, Jack at the wheel, and drove to the pasture where Jason had found the four-wheeler tracks, Deputy Marcs following in her sheriff’s vehicle.

Jack turned the truck’s radio to a weather station. “They’re saying that a cold front will move down from Wyoming this evening, bringing snow to the high country. We’ll need to keep our eyes on the weather. I don’t want to get benighted in the middle of a winter storm.”

“It’s good we’re doing this today then.” Jason met Jack’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “A snowfall could destroy the sign.”

“I think you might be right, Win.”

“Of course I am,” Winona teased. “About what?”

“The wolf sign disappears here. My guess? The animal rode with the poacher in the four-wheeler.”

Nate turned to Winona. “Could a wolf do that?”

“Shota did. I never took him four-wheeling, but he rode in my vehicle at least once a week when Chaska and I took him out for trail runs.”

They set off again, Jason following the four-wheeler’s tracks. While Winona could see those plainly enough—the wheels had torn through the duff to the mud beneath—she would never have noticed the minute details that were obvious to Jason. A bit of gray thread from a wool sweater caught on a pine branch. A log overturned by tires, its sun-bleached side now facing the ground. The mud pushed up onto a slab of rock by one of the vehicle’s tires.

“When it’s pushed up on this side of an obstacle, it means the four-wheeler was heading that way—toward the ranch. He used this route both to get on and off your property.”

“Damn, you’re good.” Deputy Marcs was clearly impressed. “That’s Newton’s third law of physics right there.”

Winona understood now. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A vehicle heading that way would push the mud this way.”

Jason grinned. “Exactly.”

Oh, that smile.

She felt it from her ovaries to the tips of her toes.

She’d noticed a change in him since last night. Something about him seemed gentler. He was still every bit the intense, serious Shadow Wolf she’d met a few days ago, but his attitude toward her seemed … softer, warmer.

You’re imagining things.

She hadn’t imagined the way he’d made her feel last night—protected, safe, sheltered. She hadn’t imagined the hard feel of his body either, or that scent that was uniquely his, a mix of musk, sage, and spice. She’d soaked it all up, and it had left her longing for more.

He stopped, knelt. “Scat.”

Winona went to examine it. “Coyote. It’s shiny and too small to be wolf scat.”

Deputy Marcs knelt beside her. “Do they teach you how to identify animal poop in vet school?”

Winona laughed. “There weren’t any courses on that particular subject when I was in school, but when you take care of animals, you learn pretty quickly.”

They moved onward, the tracks leading them steadily uphill, through a glade of willows and aspens that had been badly gnawed.

She stopped, ran her fingers over the scarred bark of a stunted aspen. “It looks like you have a lot of elk up here.”

“We do.” Jack drew his water bottle out of his pack, screwed off the top. “They move back and forth between our property and National Forest land. They’ve taken out some of our aspen stands entirely.”

“When they reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone, they witnessed a trophic cascade.” When this drew blank looks, she explained. “The wolves created an ecological shift. They fed on the ungulates—elk and deer—and reduced their populations. The remains left by the wolves fed other species and put nitrogen into the forest soil. The lower population of elk meant that aspen and willow glades could thrive, and that helped the beaver bounce back because they eat willows. The increased number of beaver dams helped aquatic species to thrive. The ecosystem began to heal itself.”

Nate adjusted one of the straps on his backpack. “Mother Nature knows what she’s doing. I would welcome wolves on our land—provided we got compensation for our livestock losses.”

They stopped at noon to hydrate and eat the bagged lunches Jack had made for them—roast beef sandwiches, celery and carrot sticks, apples, and homemade brownies.

Jack drew out his sandwich. “Mountain air makes a person hungry.”

While they ate, Deputy Marcs peppered Jason with questions. How old had he been when he’d first learned to cut sign? What had made him want to work with the Shadow Wolves? Would he be willing to come back and do a training for the Forest County Sheriff’s Department?

As Winona ate, she couldn’t help but feel the peace that came with being in the wild. The landscape here was so vast that it seemed to swallow up everything but the present moment. Up here, there was only now.

She breathed it in, closed her eyes, let her senses go.

The wind in the trees. The staccato chirp of a downy woodpecker. The angry chatter of a squirrel. The scent of pines and fresh, clean air.

When she opened her eyes again, she found Jason watching her.

She met his gaze, felt a stab of longing, looked