Blaze (Blaze #1) (11 page)

“It’s actually deputy. Your mother didn’t
tell you?”

I’d asked my mother to stop telling me
things about Sam after his father died. Moving on and starting over
goes a lot smoother without constant reminders of the connections
you’d severed and left behind. I couldn’t tell him that I chose to
forget him.

“She did. I must have… forgotten.”

His smile falters for a moment.
Brilliant, Kate. Just brilliant.

“Ah. So, is this all you have?” He points at
my purse and the carry-on suitcase I’d been pulling behind me.

I nod. “Yes, why?”

“I’m guessing she didn’t tell you I’d be
picking you up. Or did
you
forget that, too?”

“Oh, she definitely failed to mention
that.”

And I’m sure I know why.
I have to
stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“She told me about your flight from
Anchorage being delayed and the temperature dropped pretty low last
night. You know how tricky these roads can be when there’s ice. I
thought it might be best if I made the trip.”

This doesn’t surprise me at all. He may look
different, but Sam is clearly still the thoughtful young man who
took me to junior prom.

“Right.” I slip the phone inside my purse
and step back so Sam can take the handle of my luggage.

I follow him to the automatic doors, which
slide open the moment we step on the sensors. A gust of cold air
slaps me in the face and I lose my breath. My eyes are watering
when I take a step back, causing the doors to close again.

“Now, you should have known better than
that.” Sam’s tone is scolding, but he’s grinning as he nods at my
sweater and jeans.

“Here. Take this.” He shrugs out of his
brown leather jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. His
button-down shirt is tucked into dark jeans. A silver badge is
clipped to a belt loop on his waist and a gun sits in a holster on
his hip. I’m too busy trying to imagine Sammy Bowman holding a gun
to realize I’ve slipped my arms into his jacket and we’re walking
again.

A black SUV with a Cold Ridge Police decal
on the passenger door is parked at the curb. Once inside, Sam
starts the engine and turns a few dials. Within moments there’s
warm air flowing through the vents and the leather cushion of my
seat starts to heat up as well.

“Fancy,” I say, snapping my seatbelt into
place.

“Oh, stop,” he answers, putting the car into
gear.

We spend the first few minutes of the drive
in silence broken by the occasional squawk from the police radio
mounted on the dashboard. Only the mountains in the distance feel
like home. Everything else has changed. Gas stations and strip
malls have all been upgraded to include gourmet coffee shops and
big retail stores.

“No way is that the same movie theater we
used to sneak in to see R-rated movies.” I’m pointing at a new
multiplex off the highway. Sam glances at me before turning his
attention back to the road.

“That’s not that new, Katy. When was the
last time you came home?”

“I haven’t since I left,” I mumble.

“Your mom tells me you got a big promotion.
What do you do?” He sounds upbeat and I imagine he thinks he’s
changing the subject to a positive one.

I stare out the window in front of me.

“It wasn’t anything like I thought it was
going to be.”

“What wasn’t?” he asks as he takes the
hospital exit off the highway.

“Everything. It’s all about what people want
from you. And they only say and do the things they think you need
to hear in order to give it to them. And that’s fine. It’s not like
I thought the whole world worked like Cold Ridge. It just would
have been nice to know that before going in. You know?” Two tears
escape and I’m too exhausted to wipe them away. “Anyway, that’s
what I did, I guess. Told people what they needed to hear to get
what I wanted.”

“Katy, look at me.”

We’re parked at the entrance to the hospital
and Sam shifts to face me. I turn towards him without lifting my
head from the headrest. He wipes away the tears from my cheek with
his thumb.

“Everything is going to be okay. I promise.
You’re home now.” He speaks with a confidence I’ve never noticed
before. Then I remember the last time we were together and I’m too
embarrassed to do anything more than nod.

Sam reaches into the pocket of his jacket,
which I’m still wearing. He pulls out his cell phone and swipes at
the screen before handing it to me. “Put your number in there.”

I’m in his contacts, but the phone number is
my mother’s house phone and the email address is one I haven’t used
since college. I quickly tap in my cell phone number and save it
before handing over the phone.

“Do you need anything in your suitcase in
the next few hours?” he asks and I shake my head no. “I’ll take it
with me to the station. I’ll call you in a little while and take
you home when you’re ready. You staying at your mom’s?”

I nod again, afraid to speak because I can
feel the tears gathering. This is what happens whenever someone
shows me kindness, and I definitely don’t feel like I deserve
Sam’s. He gets out of the car and by the time I’ve unbuckled my
seatbelt, he’s holding my door open. I take his offered hand.

We’re definitely not in San Fran anymore,
Toto.

Sam drops me off out the front door of the
hospital.

“Stay strong, Katy girl,” is the last thing
he says to me before he pulls away, leaving me all on my own.

But I don’t know how to do that. I’ve been
through so much already; I’ve lost Gabriel, I’ve put my job in
jeopardy, I don’t even know if I want to go back to San Francisco.
Everything’s such a mess, and now… now I have to see Matt.

I can feel my feet getting heavier inside my
shoes as I drag myself towards the sliding front doors of the
hospital. I don’t want to face what’s coming.

I see my mom standing in the foyer, a paper
cup of coffee in her hands. She takes a sip and looks around, and
then she sees me. Her face breaks into a smile so big it almost
breaks my heart. She looks tired, but her whole face lights up when
she sees me.

Suddenly I’m hugging her, feeling her arms
around me, and I just want to bury my face in her big purple
jacket.

She pulls back and eyes me suspiciously.

“Katy,” she says, “you’ve lost weight. Are
you eating enough?”

I can’t help it, but a giggle bursts out of
me. After everything that’s happened, after my whole trip dragging
my ass here, the first thing my mom can think of is whether I’ve
been living on junk food.

“Yeah, Mom,” I say. “Don’t worry. How are
you? How’s Matt?”

She squeezes my hand.

“He wants to see you,” she says.

She leads me through the sterile corridors
of the hospital. Some of the nurses give her a sympathetic smile
when they see her.
She must be a regular here,
I think, with
a heavy, guilty feeling building up in my chest.
I should have
come back sooner. I should never have wasted my time in Gabriel
Call’s bed. This is what matters. This is what’s important.

Mom puts her hand on a room door.

“Are you ready?” she asks me softly.

I’m not. I’ll never be ready. But I nod,
anyway, and Mom opens the door.

“Katy!” Matt roars, and my jaw drops.

“Hey, little brother,” I manage to stammer
out.

He’s sitting up in bed, and he looks better
than I’ve seen him in months. His skin is warm and pink, and he’s
put a heap of weight back on. A balding doctor in a white coat is
standing by the bed, ticking something off a chart, and he looks up
and smiles warmly at me.

“This must be the famous Katy,” the doctor
says, and puts a hand on my dad’s shoulder. “I’ve been hearing all
about you from Matt, Katy.”

I can’t believe my eyes. Dad looks so
healthy, and Mom claps her hands together.

“It’s a miracle,” she says. “I wanted it to
be a surprise. We got the news as you were flying in – there’s a
new round of chemotherapy we’re trying… and it looks like it’s
working.”

Tears are burning behind my eyes as I turn
to Mom.

“What? How is this possible? Last time they
said –“

“I know,” she interrupts, “but it’s all
because of this new treatment. And the man who made it possible…
Gosh, he’s such an angel. We never could have afforded a specialist
like Dr. Ward on our own.”

Mom wraps her arms around me, and stares
into my eyes.

“Katy… everything’s been paid for,
everything’s been taken care of. All by this man, this incredible
man. Tell me, how do you know Gabriel Call?”

My stomach
twists even tighter as the wolf growls at me again. It’s a low,
dangerous sound, full of hunger and rage. All the strength has gone
from my body, and my throat closes too tightly for me to call out
for help.

The wolf
itself is shaggy and its coat is ragged, mottled gray and black.
It’s so lean that I can see its ribs clearly through its hide. I
can see the spittle dripping from its jaws. Its yellow eyes are
locked on mine and its tail is down low. When it growls its top lip
lifts like a sneer, giving me a view I don’t want of its jagged,
rotting teeth.

It moves
closer, slowly, deliberately, and even with terror gripping me, I
manage to match its movements, taking tiny, petrified steps
backwards. I can hear the crisp snow crunching beneath my feet but
I don’t dare take my eyes off the wolf. The moment I do, it will
spring, I know. That jaw will close around my throat.

My heart is
pounding in my chest so loud I wonder that no one can hear it and
come running.

I let out a
gasp when I bump into something behind me; something hard and
unyielding. There’s an awful pulling at my head when I try to move,
and I realize the rough winter bark of the huge oak tree behind me,
the one I was just walking next to, has caught some of my long
black hair.

The wolf
growls one more time, softly. It doesn’t like me moving.

I don’t want to die
.

The
realization catches me almost by surprise. It’s a tiny voice
cutting through the fog of panic I’m floundering in, and it pours a
tiny trickle of strength back through my body.

I don’t want
to die.

Moving slowly,
so slowly, I bend my knees and move down closer to the ground. The
wolf is silent, and that’s almost scarier than its growl. There’s a
dead branch, slick with ice, by my foot, and I want to hiss at the
cold as I wrap my hand around it. I straighten back up, not daring
to move faster than a snail’s pace, begging inside the wolf won’t
come for me before I can get back on my feet.

I let out a
long, unsteady breath. The wolf is settling back on its haunches,
ready to spring. Suddenly, I’m calm. My one hope is to get in one
good blow when it comes for me. Maybe then it will seek easier
prey.

If it knocks me over, I’m dead.

In that
instant I’m distracted, and sensing it, the wolf springs. I’m not
ready, and I desperately try to cover my face, forgetting all my
ideas of hitting it with the branch.

Fool! Fool!
I
shriek inside, and I open my mouth to scream, finally, as the wolf
leaps towards me, slavering, its hot breath almost on me, its teeth
coming straight for my neck and –

“Back!” a
voice shouts, and suddenly a man is there, battering the wolf aside
with his steel shield. The force of his blow slams the wolf to the
ground and it howls in pain and outrage, clumsily thrashing and
rolling to its feet. Snow covers its fur now, and it looks
pitiful.

Cold steel
shines in my rescuer’s hand, gleaming in the hard winter light,
like the sun reflecting off the packed snow.

“Come on!” he
yells, and stamps a boot into the ground. The wolf shoots one
terrified glance at him and bolts back into the safety of the
trees, disappearing into the endless elms, its paws churning up the
snow behind it.

My breath
comes like a hurricane, and I slump back down against the tree,
landing on the hard ground with a bump. The blood is hammering in
my ears.

I stare
at him, seeing him properly for the first time, and all I can think
is,
this is
the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life.

Now the wolf
is gone, I can see he’s wearing some kind of uniform. A long,
forest-green coat, a white shirt, and black breeches. The uniform
clings to his lean, muscular frame, and I can how broad his
shoulders and chest are under his coat. His heavy black boots
flatten the snow as he walks closer to me, his eyes searching the
woods for any further threats.

His hair is
blonde, cut longer than fashionable. A day’s worth of stubble
shades his jaw, reaching up to the high, sharp lines of his
cheekbones. He stands head and shoulders and then some again above
me – or he would, if I was standing.

But it’s his
eyes that catch me. They’re the deep green of the spring forest,
and they sparkle with fierce life.

He stands over
me, and concern furrows his brow.

“Can you
stand?” he asks, and he reaches out one hand to me. When I take it,
hesitating, I feel the warmth and strength of his grip. He lifts me
easily to my feet.

I stare at
him. I can’t think of a single thing to say. He raises an
eyebrow.

“Wolf got your
tongue?” he asks.

I blink, and
find my words.

“I… I have to
thank you,” I say. “You saved my life.”

With an easy
move, he sheathes his sword. It hangs easily by his side, like he’s
used to drawing it at a moment’s notice.