Mountain Wolf's Courage (Daddy Wolves 0f The Wild Series Book 4) Read online

  Marley reached out and put her hand over Sarah’s. “I’m sorry to hear that; it must be hard, but it sounds to me like Serendipity is exactly where you need to be.”

  Sarah felt a wave of comfort wash over her, and she was glad that she’d told Marley about her magic. She hadn’t meant to confide in her, especially since she’d tried to use a spell on her, but she felt a connection with the woman she hadn’t felt in a long time, and for the first time, she began to question Rachelle’s story.

  Chapter Four

  ***Trevor***

  Trevor looked behind him at Gabe, who was sitting on the back of the wagon, his feet dangling over the edge, and couldn’t help but smile. As surprised as they’d both been when Jake informed them that the only way to Serendipity was on a horse or a wagon, Gabe had adapted to the situation better than he had. He was grinning from ear to ear, his eyes sweeping the landscape around them, and every once in a while, he’d point something out excitedly to Trevor.

  But then he remembered what he was there to do, and some of the enjoyment evaporated. Pushing the negative thoughts from his mind, he concentrated instead on the beauty of the land around him, letting it soothe his guilty conscious. If Jake noticed that he was anxious, he didn’t let on, driving the team of horses in silence.

  As the wagon bounced along the narrow track, he wondered how he’d get away from Serendipity when the time came, but Jake answered his question for him. “You two will have to learn to ride or at least drive a wagon if you’re going to be here all summer,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Gabe.

  Gabe grinned at him. “I’ve never ridden a horse before.”

  “Well, we’ll fix that little problem right away. Drew and Jordan will be more than happy to give you some lessons,” he said. Then he looked over at Trevor. “There’s some beautiful country up here, but the only way to see it is on a horse.”

  He tried to look more confident than he felt. “If Gabe’s in, so am I,” he said, grinning at his son.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes more, then Jake said, “We’re almost there, just over that next ridge.”

  Trevor looked to where he was pointing, but all he could see was the hill they were climbing. When they were nearly to the top, Jake pulled the horses to a halt at a fork in the road, but he wasn’t sure why. One direction led up the hill, the other seemed to dead-end at a huge drop off into a canyon, and the choice seemed obvious to him.

  “I just thought I’d let the horses rest for a second before we start into the valley,” he said, looking around him. “You can get out and take a look around if you want, but don’t get too close to the edge; that cliff likes to crumble away when you step on it.”

  Gabe jumped down, so Trevor did the same, and together they approached the edge of the cliff, but as they stood there, the air around them began to crackle with electricity. Trevor grabbed Gabe’s arm and pulled him back from the cliff, suddenly alarmed by what he was feeling, but then to his shock, the cliff disappeared, and a road appeared.

  “Wow, that was cool,” Gabe said, taking a few steps forward.

  Trevor pulled him back, then looked over at his shoulder at Jake. “What...” he tried to ask but wasn’t sure what he was asking.

  Jake grinned at him. “You just passed the last test to get into Serendipity,” he said. “Come on; let’s get going. I’ll explain on the way.”

  He got back into the wagon, his heart still hammering in his chest, the feeling of electricity still in the air. As soon as they moved forward and started down into the valley, the feeling disappeared, leaving him a little stunned. Richard had said that there was magic at Serendipity, but he’d never really believed him, not deep down, but now there was no choice but to believe.

  Looking over at Jake, who was still smiling, he said, “Was that magic?”

  Jake nodded. “A little spell my wife cooked up to keep people out of our little haven,” he said. “The spell’s been around for a long time; she just ramped it up a bit so that anyone with bad intentions or evil in their soul can’t see the road.”

  Trevor could only stare at him, wondering how he’d gotten through since he’d been sent to take the magic from the valley. “Has it ever been wrong?”

  Jake shook his head. “Not that I know of, a few people have tried to force their way through, and it wasn’t pretty.”

  Trevor couldn’t help but look over his shoulder at the road behind them, which looked perfectly normal from this side. “What would have happened if I hadn’t seen the road?”

  “I don’t know; we’ve never had that happened before either,” Jake said. “Marley’s pretty good at choosing the right people for Serendipity.”

  He couldn’t help but think that Marley and her spell had been wrong and felt a stab of guilt again. “Well, I’m glad to be here,” he said, wishing he was there to be part of the camp.

  Just then, they came out of the trees as the road led them down into the valley, and he got his first look at Serendipity. The valley wasn’t more than a few miles across; ringed with trees, it was crisscrossed with paths and a hive of activity even that late in the afternoon. His eyes roamed over the scene, finally coming to rest on the big building in the center of the valley with a huge fire ring in front of it, and he knew it had to be the lodge Richard had talked about.

  It was covered in vines and moss, looked almost like it had grown there with the rest of the forest. Looking at the building, he became sure that whatever it was he was looking for, he’d find it in that building. He was hoping that Jake would stop there, but he drove past, and as tempted as he was to ask to stop, he didn’t, sensing that it might make him look suspicious.

  ***Sarah***

  Sarah shut the door of her cabin, reached down to lock it, then realized that there wasn’t a lock and smiled. The day had been full of surprises, and she was exhausted: first her meeting with Marley and her unexpected moment of total honesty with a stranger. Then there’d been that awkward moment when she’d told Marley that she had eight full-sized paintings in the back of her car, followed by the bumpy ride up the mountain.

  She still wasn’t exactly sure what had happened at the fork in the road when what had at first looked like a huge canyon suddenly became the road into Serendipity. The gasp that had come out of her had made Marley smile, but she hadn’t said a word about it, so Sarah had just sat there stunned until the camp came into view and she forgot about it.

  They’d arrived just in time for dinner, and after a barrage of new names and faces, she had been more than ready to go to her cabin for the night. She was a bit worried about the paintings, but Marley had promised that they’d be unloaded and left for her in the art barn.

  “Don’t let the name fool you; it may look like a barn from the outside, but wait until you see it,” Marley had said when she saw the look on Sarah’s face.

  Wishing that she weren’t so tired, that she had enough energy to explore, she headed for the bedroom. Tomorrow would come soon enough, she decided, throwing herself onto the bed, which was surprisingly comfortable. Staring up at the ceiling, she wondered what it would feel like if she were here just to be a camp counselor, not to solve a mystery, not to look for a dead friend’s spirit.

  She and Marley had talked a lot over lunch about what her role at the camp would be, and she’d found herself excited. But now that excitement had faded with the memory of what she was really there to do; she wished she’d never agreed to come. Painting wasn’t the only thing she could do; she could find another way to support herself, she thought, then discarded the idea. Painting was all she knew.

  Thinking back to what it felt like when she got her first glimpse of the valley, she suddenly had the urge to capture what she’d seen, an urge she hadn’t felt in weeks. It was a thrilling feeling, and one she’d missed more than she’d realized, so even as tired as she was, she rose from the bed to find her sketchbook.

  She curled up in the chair by the empty fireplace, clicked on the lamp, and lost herse
lf in her art. Several hours later, she emerged from her fog, a new drawing of Serendipity in her hands, and a burgeoning sense of having come home filling her. The new drawing seemed to buzz in her hands as she looked at it; the lodge in the very center seemed to leap off the page, and suddenly she was standing in the darkness.

  Her heart pounding in her chest, she stood frozen in the murky blackness, her labored breathing the only sound in the room. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she realized that she was in a big room and that it wasn’t as dark as she’d thought. Moonlight spilled in through huge windows that filled one wall, giving her a perfect view of the forest outside. She sensed that she was in the room alone, that the sound of her breathing was the only sound of life but turned to look behind her just in case.

  What she saw took her breath away and made her stumble back a few steps, then freeze again. The room was far larger than she imagined, but that wasn’t what froze her in place: the paintings on the wall mesmerized her. She could feel the power of the images almost instantly and backed a few more steps away as the images seemed to dance and frolic on the wall.

  Closing her eyes, sure it was only a trick of the moonlight, she took several deep breaths, then opened them again. But nothing had changed: the paintings were alive, acting out their stories as she watched, flooding her with feelings and emotions she knew weren’t hers. Taking gasping breaths as her body began to go into overload, she said a protective spell, then sank to her knees as the world went dark.

  When she opened her eyes a few seconds later, she was back in her cabin, sitting in the chair, her body covered in sweat. Jumping up from the chair, she ran to the door and threw it open, stepped out onto the porch, and looked down the valley at the lodge sitting dark and quiet. Even from that far away, she could see the big windows that looked out onto the forest and shivered when she realized she’d just been there.

  Sinking into one of the lounge chairs on the deck, she wondered where the magic had come from to transport her across the valley. It couldn’t have been her magic; all it had ever been good for was communicating with the spirits or raising the dead if they were willing. Except for the most basic of spells, she was helpless in the world of magic, and not nearly strong enough for a locomotion spell.

  Sighing because the answer wasn’t a simple one, she closed her eyes and let the cool mountain air soothe her to sleep. Her dreams were full of the images she’d seen in the lodge, but they did nothing but calm her as she slept. She woke only once during the night when a blanket was softly spread over her, and warmth spread deliciously through her, but when she opened her eyes, no one was there.

  Chapter Five

  ***Trevor***

  Trevor stood at the back door of the lodge waiting for Jake to meet him. He should have been thinking about what was behind the doors, but that wasn’t where his mind had wandered. He was thinking the night before and the pale beauty he’d come upon as he’d been running in his wolf form through the woods around camp.

  Too keyed-up to sleep after a long day of alternately being excited about the job he’d been given and the guilt of knowing he had another purpose there, he been unable to sleep. Gabe had been out as soon as his head hit the pillow, and he knew that nothing would wake him, so he’d slipped outside and shifted.

  Almost instantly, a feeling of freedom washed over him as his senses heightened and his strength grew. Lifting his nose to the sky, he inhaled a huge lungful of the cool mountain air, then let it out in a whoosh and took off into the trees. He ran in a circle around the valley, dodging trees and jumping streams in a single leap, the forest coming alive before his eyes. Soon his legs began to burn, and his breathing became labored, and he slowed to a slow lope and then to a walk.

  He ambled through the dark forest, letting the night soothe him until he began to feel the sweet relief of total exhaustion and turned around to head back to the cabin. But as he walked, he picked up a scent so alluring, he couldn’t stop himself from following it through the trees. It led him back toward camp and up to a little cabin nestled in the trees, and although he knew that he should turn back, he couldn’t stop himself from going straight to the source of the scent.

  When he saw the woman asleep on the lounge chair, her blonde hair spread across the back of the seat, her long black eyelashes touching pale cheeks, he shifted back to his human form. Heart pounding in his chest, he stared at her as desire raced through him, making his groin tighten and little thrills of anticipation rocket through him. Visions of leaning down and kissing her flashing into his mind, and he almost bent down, but then she shifted in her sleep, and he froze.

  She curled up into a ball and hugged her knees to her chest, and he knew that at any moment she was going to wake up, so he grabbed a blanket off the stack by the door and spread it over her. When she sighed, and let out a little moan of pleasure, he had to step back from her, the urge to kiss her almost overwhelming.

  He’d backed off the porch then, feeling like he’d done something wrong, and gone home, only to dream about her all night. Now, he couldn’t keep her from popping into his mind even when he had much more important things to think about, like finding what Richard had sent him for and saving his son.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Jake said, bringing him out of his thoughts.

  “Oh, that’s okay. I thought I’d spend more time down at the barn with Gabe, but he practically shoved me out the door,” he said.

  “Well, then let’s get to work. Those boxes of old newspaper could be anywhere in the basement. We’ve got to get it cleaned up one of these days,” Jake said, opening the door and leading him inside.

  The door led to a long hallway full of open doors that he assumed were offices, and beyond that, a grand room opened up. “Have you seen the murals yet?” Jake asked.

  Trevor shook his head. “No, Gabe was too tired last night.”

  “Do you want to see them now?” Jake offered.

  “No, I think I’ll wait for Gabe,” he said, shrugging off the offer.

  Jake looked a little surprised but shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, then down we go,” he said, opening a door that led to a staircase.

  It took most of the morning to locate and extricate the boxes of old camp newspapers from the basement of the lodge. They were both filthy and hungry when they were finished, but Trevor found himself brimming with excitement, anxious to sort through the treasures they’d found. He was already planning the first edition of the paper and hoping that Jake had been right when he’d said that the campers would take it seriously.

  They’d carried the boxes out to a wagon and loaded them up before he realized that he didn’t know where he was supposed to work. Jake jumped up into the wagon. “Come on, I saved the best part for last,” he said.

  When they rolled up in front of a barn, Trevor couldn’t help the look he gave Jake. “You want me to work in a barn?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” Jake said, jumping down. “The art studio is in the bottom half of the barn, and the newspaper office is in the loft. You have your own separate set of stairs around back.”

  Trevor followed him up the stairs and through a door into the most fantastic sight he’d ever seen. A full newspaper office had been set up in the loft of the barn, complete with new computers, an array of cameras and other equipment, and best of all, an old printing press tucked into the corner.

  “You got a printing press?” he asked, walking over to it and running his hands over the antique.

  “No, that’s the original press that was used to make all of those papers we just found,” Jake said.

  The journalist in Trevor suddenly came awake; a boyhood dream was staring him in the face, and he wasn’t sure what to say. “You’re kidding,” he said, knowing that Jake wasn’t.

  “Nope, it survived all those years wrapped up in the barn down below us; that’s why we decided to use this barn for the newspaper,” Jake said, leaning against the door jam and crossing his arms over his chest. “Why did you give up journalism
all those years ago?”

  “My ex-wife didn’t like the hours I had to work,” he answered honestly. “But I think it was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  ***Sarah***

  Sarah woke with the morning sun shining in her face and realized that she’d slept on the deck all night. When she sat up, the blanket that had been keeping warm fell to her waist, and a vague memory of someone putting it on her floated into her brain. It was a little frightening to think that someone had been there when she’d been asleep, but then she looked down into the valley, and a sense of well-being flooded her.

  Feeling surprisingly rested, she folded the blanket, promising herself she’d never sleep outside again, then went inside to make coffee. When she got inside, she saw that her sketchbook was still lying on the floor, but she left it where it was, afraid of what might happen if she touched it. For a second, she wondered if it had all been a dream, but discarded the idea, knowing that she’d been awake.

  She still had hours until she was supposed to meet Marley since the sun had woken her at dawn, so she deiced to get unpacked and see if she could make the little cabin feel more like home. A few hours later, she was unpacked and sitting down to a huge breakfast thanks to the kind person who’d stocked her little kitchen with enough food that she wouldn’t have to go to the dining hall if she didn’t want to.

  It was nice to eat alone, and she realized just how difficult it had been to be out in public for the last few days, so different from her normal solitary life. But what surprised her most was that the spirits had left her alone; not once on her journey had she seen or heard one, almost as if something was protecting her from them. It probably wouldn’t last, the black magic that infected her was too strong to stay quiet for long, but for now, she’d enjoy the peace.

  She finished eating, feeling almost weightless without the spirits, cleaned up the little kitchen, then decided it wasn’t too early to leave. Marley would probably be late, but that was fine with her; she’d been so tired and overwhelmed the night before she hadn’t had time to really look around. Glancing around the cabin as she left, she saw the sketchbook on the floor and hesitated. She rarely went anywhere without it, but still couldn’t bring herself to touch it.