The Cynic and the Wolf by Julie Steimle (ebook voice reader TXT) 📕

nose. And there was a smear of blood under his nose—probably from a nose bleed. His eyes had a tired, sunken look, like he had hardly slept. Judging from his appearance, he most likely had nightmares too, one strong enough to make him tear apart his pillow in his sleep. A downy feather was stuck in his hair.

Rubbing his bleary eyes, Rick staggered into the room with deep yawns. "Morning."

"Oh for pity's sake," Mrs. Gruber said to the staff before she could turn respond to the drowsy newcomer. "I was the one who left the kitchen window open. There was a bad smell in the kitchen last night and I needed to air it out." Then Mrs. Gruber's eyes rested on Rick. She gasped. Immediately she grabbed a damp rag from the sink and hopped over to him, wiping his face like a mother with a two-year-old.

Bad smell? Audry didn't remember any bad smell last night. The entire kitchen smelled nice, of cocoa and cinnamon, even long after the samovar had been put away. Had Mrs. Gruber been down after she had left the second time? Because there wasn't even an inkling of any smell now.

"Woah! Mrs. Gruber. What the—" Rick squirmed, backing away until the cook grabbed his ear and hissed something into it that Audry could not pick up. He pulled back, paling. Then he seized the rag himself and wiped his face off hard, all around his mouth and where the blood was on his nose. "Is it all off?"

Mrs. Gruber whispered back. He hissed to her even quieter, sneaking looks at all of them. Audry picked up only tiny pieces of the conversation. Rick could not find something last night. At least not something good enough for whatever. That last part was unintelligible. He did, however, thank Mrs. Gruber for leaving out the chickens, which was odd. Audry was half tempted to say that the chickens kept getting killed, and ask why he was thanking her—but she decided against it. There was something else going on that she clearly was not invited to know about—one of a billionaire's secrets, she figured.

After a few more whispers, Mrs. Gruber directed Rick to Audry.

Taken aback, Audry watched Rick's expression distort from embarrassment into something extremely peculiar. Deep gratitude. Turning, he walked toward her, reaching out as if he would hug her.

"Woah!" Audry, set a hand to his chest, keeping him at arm's length. She was surprised to find his chest was rock hard under her touch. He actually had muscle. Pulling her hand back and blushing, she said, "What are you doing? I've got a boyfriend."

Pulling back, Rick's cheeks colored, but his contriteness remained. "I'm sorry. It's just, what you did last night… seriously. Thank you. Thank you so much for notifying the rangers about the hunters. It means the world to me. Really."

Blinking at him, Audry stared. A deep assurance returned to her as she realized that she had been right about him. He did care about the wildlife. He had been genuine. But what startled her at this moment was how passionate he truly was about saving the animals.

"It's what I do," Audry said, shrugging, yet also unable to hide a deeply satisfied blush. "I work to preserve animal life."

Nodding, Rick beamed at her, entirely pleased. "Of course."

Admittedly, that smile almost made her swoon. She had to think of Harlin to get him out of her head.

"You know," Audry hinted with a smile, "The best way you can thank me is to go vegan."

Laughing, Rick shook his head. "Nice try… but I can never go vegan."

He then walked over to the opposite stool and sat himself down.

She hadn't expected him to, and it disturbed her a little how spot on her dream of his voice had been, saying those same words. But Audry decided not to leave the kitchen after all. She realized that she could not hold everybody to the same standard that she lived by, and she had to be tolerant of others' quirks. After all, wolves ate meat, and Rick seemed so stinking wolfish sometimes. Besides, she wanted to know what he knew about the hunters.

"What were they after?" Audry murmured, digging back into her vegan omelet. "I mean, night hunting makes no sense. Besides, the deer population is not huge, and most of the other animals are hibernating."

Rick and Mrs. Gruber shared a knowing look. Audry found that strange and was about to ask what they knew, but Mrs. Gruber immediately went back to cooking without a word of input. Rick leaned across the table to her and said, "The hunters were most likely after the wolf."

Drawing in a breath, Audry was surprised. "The wolf? Are you kidding me?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

"But the wolf doesn't actually live around here," she said. "I've only seen it two times the entire time I have come to this area—and just these past two days. There is no permanent wolf den. How could they possibly know that wolf would be here now?"

"They most likely tracked it," Rick replied as if it were obvious.

Audry stared at him. "Tracked it? One wolf?"

Rick nodded then shrugged. "Some people just hate wolves."

Thinking on that, she knew Rick was right. Some people demonized the wolf. It was a dangerous predator, to be sure. But so was the mountain lion. In fact, mountain lions were more dangerous than wolves. But out of all the predators wolves and coyotes seemed to be the most maligned by the press and ranchers. Yet Rick seemed to know something about this particular wolf and that was… interesting.

As she thought about that, Audry realized that the Deacons weren't so much animal preservationists as wolf preservationists. She had heard that rumor once, but had never had it confirmed. Maybe the family had tagged and released wolves into the wild, tracking them for their safety. She supposed that now was her chance to find out for sure. Yet as Mrs. Gruber set a plate of sausages and eggs in front of Rick to eat, Audry held her tongue, watching him dig in. Again, she got the impression of a wolfish man. Today wasn't the first time she had gotten that impression either. Back in Paris he had acted like a wolf hunted. Even at the convention she noticed something feral about him. It was what made him attractive, she decided. And perhaps that explained her wolf dream the night before.

Lifting his eyes from his breakfast plate, Rick chewed to the side and asked, "Hey. I heard you were observing a rabbit warren in the area. Are there a lot of rabbits in it?"

Mrs. Gruber swatted him with the spatula.

Ducking away from her, Rick lifted his hands. "What?"

The woman shot Audry sidelong looks, but not for her as much as to warn him of something about her. "The hunters were near the rabbit warren last night."

"Oh?" Rick lifted his eyebrows. "And where was that?"

Mrs. Gruber swatted him again with the spatula.

Audry stared, watching Rick back away and fend off the kitchen utensil with his arm, laughing. This was his mischievous side, or at least a glimmer of it. He looked more exasperated with Mrs. Gruber, though.

"I am sure they were trying to lure in the wolf," Mrs. Gruber snapped like a chiding mother.

Huffing, Rick rolled his eyes and went back to eating his breakfast.

Audry rose. The smell of the cooked meat was getting to her. And she was mostly done with breakfast anyway. With a nod to Mrs. Gruber, she said, "Thanks for omelet. I need to go collect the sim cards I couldn't get last night."

Rising with her, Rick said like a schoolboy eager to help, "I can get someone to take you out on a snowmobile, if you want."

Chuckling, especially at how almost puppy-like he was, Audry shook her head, blushing. "Thanks, but no thanks. I usually ski out. A snowmobile would ruin the animal tracks I want to photograph."

Nodding, Rick sighed and waved her away, sitting down. "Alright…"

 

Audry quickly went back upstairs, washed, got dressed and dried her hair before going out again. Rick wasn't in the kitchen when she pulled on her winter things at the door, which was fine. She honestly didn't really want too much interaction with the owner of the place anyway. It is her final full day to gather data and she wanted to keep an unbiased mind.

She went out.

Once on skis, Audry carefully went over her route, going through her routine of photographing animal tracks, of which she saw a fair number of wolf tracks leading up to the lodge. Of course it was the wolf that had killed the chicken. She saw all those prints when she had stepped out of the house. Funny thing was, the wolf tracks leading from the lodge seemed older than the ones going to it. They were covered in more snow. As she went out further where the hunters had been, she could see snow shoes and regular boot prints following after the wolf tracks.

Rick had been right. They were hunting the wolf.

But why?

It stared in the face of logic. Why hunt a singular wolf, and on reserved land? Audry guessed they did it at night to keep from being seen by the rangers. But really, those were lousy hunting conditions—even with a full moon to illuminate the snow. It made no sense.

 After skiing to every station in the lower part of the ski area, exchanging the full cards for fresh ones, she made her way up the hill toward the places around the cabins where raccoons and squirrels frequented to steal from open windows and to take left-out food.

"…to ski. We've got at least today and then his friends from New York come tomorrow." A male voice came from the cabin above. The door had opened and people were walking out onto the porch.

"What do you think they are like?" Audry heard a young woman say.

"I don't know, but Rick says they aren't the kind of people you can mess around with," said a guy.

Audry recognized their voices. They were Rick's friends from Brown University. If she wasn't in the middle of changing a sim card. She would have skied out of there.

"He has some really weird friends," another guy said.

Audry paused, listening in.

"I know," said a girl. "But a lot of them are super talented.

"You mean the Witchdoctor?" one of guys said.

Witchdoctor? Audry leaned against the support under the porch, listening more intently.

"Who is the witchdoctor?" one of the girls asked.

"Great soccer player. About one of the best," that guy said. "They call him the witchdoctor because what he can do on the field looks like magic."

Oh. A nickname.

"And he carries around shrunken heads." another guy laughed.

Audry stared up at them, not believing what she was hearing.

"They're not real," one of the girls protested.

"But that's freaky."

"What about his best friend? Is he coming on this trip?"

"He is hot," a girl said.

"And he has a girlfriend," another girl reminded.

"I think Andrew will not be coming. It will only be his friends from Gulinger Private Academy who will be showing up. His friends from his hometown won't be."

"Ah… too bad. I wanted to meet the witchdoctor," one of the guys said. "He's going to go pro one day. I've seen him play."

"One of his Gulinger friends is a cop—"

"Going to be a cop. He's not quite done yet with training."

"No, he has another friend in NYPD. In homicide. His dad is in homicide."

"Is he coming?"

"Why? Are you planning on killing somebody?"

They all laughed.

Audry was about to leave then when she overheard them all cheering, "Rick!"

"Good morning!" Rick's voice carried cheerfully. "I see you all survived last night."

They laughed and shared a mix of snarky remarks and questions, asking if he knew about the hunters coming onto the lot… as apparently he had predicted it.

"Nasty people follow me everywhere," Rick merely said.

"Are you saying they were hunting you?" one of his friends asked.

Shrugging offhandedly, Rick replied, "Sure. Why not?"

They didn't take that seriously though. They