Lone Wolfe Protector by Kaylie Newell Read Free Book Online Page B

check? And then I’ll go. I promise.”
    They considered each other for a long moment. Koda could think of a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t venture into those woods, and just one why he should. And she was standing there now, freezing, bleeding, and looking stubbornly tenacious. For some reason that touched some deep, primal part of himself. He admired that tenacity. As incredibly maddening as it was.
    “All right,” he said. “Crap. All right. I’ll go take a look. But you’re going to sit in the truck where it’s safe, got it?”
    “Got it.”
    A smiled bloomed across her face, transforming it into something reserved for magazine pages and movie screens. His chest tightened. If she’d asked him to run to the equator and back, he’d do it, or gladly die trying.
    He opened the door and she climbed in, her feet slipping on the icy running board. He reached out to steady her and grabbed her hip. His face warmed. He’d meant to take her elbow.
    She shrugged his coat off. “You’ll probably want this back.”
    He took it, aware that she’d only been wearing it for a few minutes and it still smelled incredible. “Stay right here, understand?”
    “Yes.”
    He leaned across and retrieved his rifle from the backseat, brushing her arm in the process. She caught his eye, and it was as if she pulled away from him.
    “I’ll be right back.”
    She flinched, and again he wondered how hard she’d hit her head.
    “You sure you’re okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    He let his gaze drop to her lips, where she kept wetting them with her tongue. She was scared. That much was obvious. What he couldn’t understand was why it was having such a powerful effect on him. Again, he had the urge to take her away from here. From whatever was causing that panicked look in her eyes. But she wanted him to take a look. And for some reason, he couldn’t seem to tell her no. So he would. And then he could get her back to the Inn, where she’d at least be warm again.
    Nodding, he closed the door and turned toward the tree line, which was only a few yards away. The spaces between the frosty pines were dark and gaping. Sinister. He swallowed. He’d grown up here, born and raised. When you were a Tututni Indian, you were expected to be comfortable with the forest. At one with it, in the daylight as well as night. And mostly, he was.
    But honestly, the woods around here were spooky as shit.
    He looked over his shoulder and saw Maggie peering out the window, her face a pale moon behind the foggy glass. She wiggled her fingers at him, and he waved back, suddenly feeling ridiculous. He was a Deep Water County sheriff’s deputy. He’d seen murderers, rapists, rabid wild animals, car accidents, train wrecks, and one helicopter crash. He could certainly handle going in there to find one injured dog.
    Clenching his jaw, he clicked on his flashlight. Holding it in one hand and his rifle in the other, he walked down the slight embankment, careful not to slip and fall on his ass. He could almost feel the weight of Maggie’s stare on his back. It wasn’t like he was trying to impress this girl. That was stupid. However, he would like to keep from shooting himself in the balls in front of her. That’d be nice.
    He stepped inside the woods following the strong blue beam of the flashlight. It didn’t cut through the fog, so much as illuminate it. The forest floor was damp and spongy underneath Koda’s boots, and moisture dripped from the trees around him. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted, and chills rose up the back of his neck.
    “Here, puppy, puppy…”
    The woods smelled wet. The scent of pine mingled with that of moist bark and moss. Koda looked around, sweeping the beam of the flashlight back and forth. The owl hooted again.
    “Here, puppy.”
    Off to his right, a twig snapped.
    “Dog?”
    Silence. Even the owl didn’t answer this time, and the goose bumps that had risen on Koda’s neck, now crept onto his scalp. He took a step