Page 10 of Burning Secrets

“What?” Crew shrugged. “You got hit on the head. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I got on the back of an ATV with you, didn’t I?”

“My point exactly.” But he grinned.

Shoot, he was cute. “So, how is it that you appeared from nowhere to save my life?”

Parker came back with the pitcher, two cups, straws. He popped his paper off with a hit on the table. “I have land nearby. I was, um…looking for trouble.”

“Like wolves?” She stirred her lemonade.

“Or pretty, slightly bossy women.”

She sat back. “Oh no. You are a stalker.”

He held up a hand. “Never said I found one.”

She smiled.

He did too. It lit up his entire face, added depth to his eyes, a sort of infectious humor to his countenance, and right then, she stopped hurting, just a little.

At the very least, he was playing with fire.

Any one of the Sons of Revolution showed up in town, and he’d be made. And with him, JoJo. Because Crew knew—absolutely knew in his gut—that the mysterious “poison” that had killed Brutus had to be the necrotoxin.

He’d eaten the dead salmon, and it had somehow affected his nervous system.

The thought nearly threw off Crew’s appetite, but he’d do anything for pizza, so he finished a couple pieces, eyed a third.

Nope.

Because if he finished it off, the night might end. And he liked her laugh. Her eyes. And maybe he simply hadn’t seen a beautiful woman for a while—count, a year—but JoJo could stop his heart with her smile.

And there was the little problem of not leaving town until he talked with Rio. Crew had sent him a text when he’d arrived intown, but so far, no answer. At least, not when he surreptitiously glanced at his phone now and again.

C’mon, Rio. “So, you followed Dr. Samson all the way to Alaska from Montana?”

“She’s been doing revolutionary work with the wolves. Did you know that usually, in a pack, only the alpha male and alpha female mate? The rest of the pack are there for protection and food. But they all work together.”

Across the deck, the singer had started a new song—a country ballad. Something romantic. Sheesh, his brain was stuck.

“They also have incredible stamina. They can travel twenty miles for food. And their howl—it helps bring back lost wolves and even establish territory.”

“And scares anyone sleeping out in the bush.”

She took a sip. “That too. I remember the first time I heard a wolf howl. I was out with my dad—maybe about seven or eight years old. We were camping in Yellowstone, and a wolf howled. So mournful. Made the hairs on my neck stand on end.”

“Yellowstone. Never been there.”

“I grew up in the area. My parents were wildlife biologists studying the wolf population. The wolves were a real problem in Montana, especially with the ranchers, so they landed on the endangered species list for a while. My parents tracked them enough to watch them repopulate. They were taken off the list in 2014.” She looked away then, something playing on her face. She sighed.

He frowned. “What was that?”

She looked back, her mouth open. “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about…well, a dog I had.”

“A dog—wait, a wolf dog?”

“Actually, yes. Two generations south of a purebred. Her name was Dakota. She was killed in 2014, mistaken for a wolf.”

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