Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven 1)

“You’re not thinking right. We’re going to go our separate ways now, but we’re taking the bag. You need to talk to someone, get some help. I can ask around—”

“For a friend, right,” he said. “You’d be asking for a friend.”

Lydia put her hand on his shoulder. “Because you are one. Rick, you don’t know me. You’re not in love with me. If you have feelings, they’re based on a fantasy.”

Oh, God, she thought as she glanced at Daniel. Words of advice she should take herself.

And how could she not have noticed Rick’s obsession? Then again, he had always seemed so professional and intense about his own job. In fact, whenever she had been around, he’d usually been irritated.

Then again, unrequited love could do that …

“You don’t know the real me,” she repeated.

“Yeah, well, you don’t know me, either,” he shot back. “And there are a lot of things a smart person like you can extrapolate in life, but you can never see into the heart of another. Not really. Not unless they speak of it themselves. So call Eastwind, or don’t call him. Get me the number of a therapist because that’ll be so helpful. Forget this ever happened. I don’t really care anymore. Just do not presume to know what I’m going through right now, okay? I don’t blame you for not wanting me, but I’m not going to be misrepresented.”

As he glared at her, she thought about what he’d come here to do.

“Fine.” She put her hands on her hips. “Then how about this. Hurting people is not the way to get any woman’s attention.”

“You hate that hotel.”

“But not the innocent construction workers who are working here. You’d injure people who are just earning their living. That’s unforgivable on all levels.”

Rick shook his head. Then looked away. After a tense silence, he said, “Your wolf has come around, by the way. His levels are fine. I took him off life support at midnight and watched him for three hours. I also fed him and he drank. He’s making a full recovery. I would say he can be released in another twenty-four hours.”

“That’s what we have to focus on. And we’ll let the law handle the rest. Okay?”

As Rick didn’t respond, she found herself willing him to agree. To renounce his sick plan to pay her some kind of tribute, to get her attention … to earn her love.

“Please,” she begged. “Let’s just let the law handle everything with the hotel.”

“That was not how you felt the other morning.”

“Well, it’s how I feel now.”

After a long moment, Rick’s head turned toward her. “I’m fucking exhausted. I haven’t slept for days. I’m going to go back to my house and take a shower. I’ll be waiting for Eastwind there. I know you’re going to call him because you always do the right thing. It’s one of your very best qualities. You always do the right thing.”

“Rick …”

As he stared at her, his voice broke. “Promise me you’ll do the right thing. I can’t fake any of this anymore.”

Without waiting for a response, the man turned away and started walking. Lydia had a thought that he had no idea where he was going. Maybe that was right, maybe that was wrong.

“Come on,” Daniel said. “Let’s go back the way we came.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the cut in the chain-links. Then she picked up the bolt cutters.

Daniel held the bag open as she put them inside. She was the one who pulled the zippers closed.

As they made their way back to his bike, Lydia was silent until just before they reached the trailhead.

“I need to go talk to Rick,” she said.

“I’ll destroy all this. Don’t worry.”

“I have to see what’s inside properly.”

Daniel set the duffel down and opened things up. As she turned her phone’s flashlight on and shined it in, nothing had changed. The bundle of pipes, and the wires, and the cell phone were right where they’d been.

“This is a bomb, right? Are we safe?”

“Yeah, but I unplugged the wires from the detonator.” Daniel jogged the bag. “Hear that rattle? There are nails in those pipes. He didn’t intend to hurt people, Lydia. He wanted to kill them.”

Daniel didn’t need to ask where they were going next. When Lydia called the sheriff and had to leave a message, it was no shocker that she told him to drive to the man’s own house. Conveniently, Eastwind lived on a farm only four minutes away, and when they came up to the street it was on, the fact that the gravel drive was marked with an “Eastwind Lane” sign made it clear the sheriff and his ancestors had been on the property for a long time.

The home turned out to be a 1930s-era, two-story job, the white siding and shiny black accents well-kept to the point of being suburban. Back behind the house, there was a barn and a fenced-in meadow, but no animals were anywhere around.