"Not even the slick attorney for the Carolina Club?"

"Especially not Keith Gaviston."

"What reason did you give him for not selling to the club?"

A volatile mix of fury, suspicion, pain, and guilt roiled in his dark eyes. Randi did her best to focus on the pain and guilt. Britt and her mother had assumed the huge responsibility of watching over the pack. So much so that Britt had been willing to take his personal finances to the brink of collapse to protect the wolves.

While his accusation sliced down the center of her heart, she tried her damnedest to consider it was his guilt lashing out, his belief that he'd failed to protect the pack. She wanted to believe that when he no longer had the grime of death and loss on his hands he would realize that she would never break such a precious confidence. She wanted to believe that in the calm of the aftermath he would trust her.

The logical side of her mind kicked in. Could she really expect so much from someone with whom she'd grown close in only a week? Couples could spend a lifetime together and be shocked by a secret or an unforgivable action. A week meant nothing.

A heavy weight lowered on her chest, making it difficult to speak.

"I told Gaviston that the club's and my goals for the property didn't line up."

"And he just packed up and left. No attempts at persuasion?"

"Of course he tried. He would be a lousy attorney if he hadn't."

"Might you have told him about the wolves to make him back off?"

"I didn't need to," she said between clenched teeth. "I have worked in a bar for most of my adult life. Some have been full of randy, aggressive boy-men. Some full of successful, charm-you-out-of-your-underwear gentlemen. I've had many good-looking guys try to persuade me into their beds, dinner, weekend getaway, or simply to hand over my number. But those surface elements don't tempt me. They never have."

When his hard stare remained intact, the last of Randi's hope fled on an uneven heartbeat. "Britt, I can see that you don't believe me. And I can't think of anything else to say that will change your mind." She turned away. "Make sure you see a doctor when you're done here."

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Give me a minute and I'll walk you out."

"No need." She kept moving, not daring to turn back. "I'll find my way out."

"How will you get home?"

She pulled her phone from her back pocket, amazed it hadn't shattered into a million pieces on her mad flight down the mountain. Waving it in the air, she said, "I'll call someone to pick me up."

"Like hell you will."

Randi angled around him, refusing to touch him or even brush against him. As mad as she was, she might break another one of his ribs. Damned man. She'd been honest and where had it gotten her? He didn't even believe her.

"Randi," he said, "I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No, you're not." She whirled around to face him. "You've all but called me a liar. I c-can't"-she pulled in a choking breath-"be with you right now."

"At least let me take you home." He stepped closer, gentling his voice. "Please."

Against her will, her body responded to the tender concern in that one little word. The fight went out of her, and she nodded.

Without another word, he guided her out of the woods and drove her home. He rolled to a stop outside her bungalow. Neither of them moved. Neither spoke. They both understood that the moment she stepped out of his truck would be the end of their short-lived relationship. Sadness clutched her throat and wouldn't let go.

She grabbed the shoulder strap of her rucksack, preparing to leave. "I'm deeply sorry about Mellow. But I promise you, I didn't reveal your secret. I could never have done that to them-or you."

The walk to her front porch seemed to take hours. The closer she got, the blurrier the red door panels got. By sheer force of will, she waited until the door closed behind her before she let the tough girl act fall away.

How had she allowed herself to get so wrapped up into Britt Steele in such a short amount of time? It defied logic. Defied the evolution of every other relationship she'd ever had. Everything about him appealed to one sense or another. His quiet watchfulness, his understated humor, his friendship with her mom, his care of the wolves, his love of his family. He did nothing by half measure. When he committed to something or someone, he poured everything into the connection.

Pushing away from the door, she moved to the front window, expecting to see an empty road. But Britt's truck still idled at the curbside as if he was afraid to cut the final thread holding them together. The sight made mincemeat of her knees. She grasped the back of an armchair to steady herself.

Should she go to him and try to talk some sense into his thick Steele skull? Or did he need time to process everything that had happened? Would she come out on the winning side? Would he realize she could never betray his trust?

Questions soared through her mind with blinding speed, making her dizzy. "To hell with this." If she didn't try to make him see reason one more time, she wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or the next night. She marched to the door and threw it open only to watch Old Blue ease away from the curb.

Randi closed her eyes and melted back into her house. She dropped her rucksack onto the floor and began peeling away her clothes. Stepping into the shower, she endured the cold spray of solitude and, later, the scalding rush of heartbreak.

24.

Britt picked his way around construction debris at the building site of the training center. Pieces of metal and wood and chunks of masonry littered the outside yard, giving it a post-hurricane appearance.

Pushing open the front door, he was glad to see the disorganized chaos outside did not extend inside. From the looks of it, the contractors had wrapped up their work on the interior today, as promised.

"Reid!"

After he'd left Randi's place, he'd driven around for over an hour. His mind had seethed with other possibilities of how the wolves had been discovered. He'd even called Jonah and Deke to see if they'd discussed the wolves with anyone. Thank goodness he'd asked them over the phone rather than in person. Neither were too happy with him at the moment.

He didn't believe in coincidences, yet he'd seen the truth in Randi's eyes when she said she hadn't divulged the den's location. But people accidentally revealed secrets all the time. It was near impossible to be aware of every word said, especially in times of high stress or when rushed. Mouths spewed shit every day. Marriage counselors would be out of work, otherwise.

On his third pass of the construction site, he'd spotted Reid's F-150 and another possibility had occurred to him. The more he'd considered the idea, the more likely it seemed. In many ways, Reid would be the guy you'd want at your side. Once he committed, he was like a damned leech. He either had to be cut off or burned off.

But other times, Reid had the mentality of a twelve-year-old. No common sense-or, if he did, he ignored it.

"Reid!" Britt stomped his way into the cavernous gym. No sign of the pain in the ass. "Reid, I need to talk to you!"

Britt gritted his teeth and searched for his brother, room by room. He found him on the back patio, sitting in a bag chair with a longneck dangling from his fingers. The image was so not Reid that all he could do was stare.

"I knew I should have pulled my truck around back," Reid said without turning around.

"Did you hear me calling your name?"

"Brynne probably heard you downtown. From inside her damned shop." He took a drink. "What'd I do now?"

In the back of Britt's turmoil-drugged mind, he noticed something was off with Reid. But Britt's own issues elbowed their way to the fore. "Have you been war-gaming on the north side of the conservation area?"

"I haven't been war-gaming on any side of the conservation area."

"Have you been hunting?"

"Not since the last time the four of us went out."

"Did you give your friends permission to hunt the conservation area?"

Reid set down his beer and gave Britt his full, unwavering attention. "Are you out of your flippin' mind? What's this all about?"

"Answer the question first."

"Fuck off."

It was the exact wrong thing to say to Britt in his current mental state. From one breath to the next, the two of them squared off face-to-face. Britt stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Reid, though his little brother knew how to kill a man in a hundred different ways.

"Answer the question," Britt demanded.

"Tell me what's going on first. If I'm going to be accused of something, I want to know why."

He knew to his core that Evie hadn't divulged the pack's existence and his quick phone calls to Jonah and Deke told him they weren't the culprits. Now that someone had found the wolves, he didn't know what to do about it. Did he relocate them? Did he let things play out? Did he hire security to keep an eye on the den?

Letting more people in on his secret that was becoming less of a secret made every cell in his body rebel. He stared down his brother, wanting to believe Reid had nothing to do with Mellow's death, even indirectly.

Something flickered in his brother's eyes. "Does this have anything to do with what you and Evie've been whispering about for months?" Reid caught his surprise. "It is. So you have a secret you'll share with a twenty-something college student but not me? A Green Beret? " Reid shook his head and sat back down. "Freaking priceless."

When put that way, his reluctance to tell Reid about the wolves seemed ridiculous. Yet outside his military experience, Reid had proven time and again that stupidity really did run in the Steele gene pool. Out of all his siblings, Reid was the one he'd never managed to connect with. They were oil and water-responsible vs irresponsible, introvert vs extrovert, beer vs whisky.

"What did I ever do to you to make you not trust me?" Reid asked.

"I trust you."

"You sure got a funny way of showing it, bro."

Maybe he'd put too much weight on their differences. Maybe he should have been looking for common ground rather than all the ways they differed. His brother might be an ass, but he was an honorable ass.

"Look," Britt speared his fingers through his hair, "you're not the only one I've kept in the dark about my project. Evie's the only one in the family I've told. Partly because she's the only one who has ever had an interest in what I do and partly because my former partner and I decided to keep the in-the-know circle small."

"Former partner?"

"Barbara Shepherd, a passionate wildlife conservationist and my mentor while she was alive."

"Randi's mom?"

"Yes. Randi learned about the project after her mother's death. That's how quiet we kept it."

"So the secret project is in the woods, on conservation area property."

"And on Randi's." Britt eased down on the top step of the patio, careful of his injured rib, and rested his back against the cedar column bracing the pergola above. "A little over year ago, I came across a den of red wolves."

"Wolves in North Carolina?"

"They were reintroduced to the state back in the late eighties, along the coast. Later, the federal government tried to establish a cell in the Smokies."

"I'll be damned."

"When the program out here collapsed, about thirty wolves were never located. The feds believed that they either died from starvation or bred themselves out with the local coyotes."

"Until you found your merry rogue band."

"They're purebloods." Britt shook his head, still amazed at their resiliency. "Somehow they've managed to resist coyote temptation all these years. It's an amazing discovery."

He peered up at his brother, expecting to find boredom etched over every plane of his face. Instead, he found genuine interest. So much so, Reid had leaned forward in his chair while Britt spoke. The sledgehammer lifted from his chest.

"You and Barbara Shepherd have been monitoring the den ever since?"

"Yes." Britt smiled. "The pack had pups this spring."

Reid's lips quirked upward. "Congratulations, Papa."

"Funny."

His brother's expression sobered. "How do I factor into all of this?"

"Randi and I found one of the juveniles dead this afternoon. Shot."

"You think I killed one of the wolves?

"Not on purpose. But I wondered if you and your friends were out horsing around. Maybe one of them thought they were targeting a coyote."

"No way. Not me. Not my friends. They know better than to go near the conservation area."

"I didn't think so, but I had to ask." He released a frustrated sigh. "For over a year, the wolves have lived in peace and now one is dead due to human interference."

"You said that you and Randi found the dead wolf. Who else knows about the den?"

"Me, Randi, Evie, Jonah, Deke, and now you. Barbara Shepherd, of course, but she's gone."

"Jonah?"

"Only yesterday. He's buying the Shepherd property."

"Damn, you've been busy."

"You have no idea."

"I don't know Randi well. Could she have blown the den's location?"