A Forest So Deadly (Pioneer Falls Book 2) Read online

  As I pulled up near the house, I noticed a green SUV parked near Cooper’s work pickup. It looked a lot like Rick Bowman’s. Why he’d be there hassling Cooper, I had no idea. As far as I knew, the last time the two had seen each other was at the Devil’s Nook trailhead, where Rick was leveling his rifle at my father.

  Feeling on edge, I parked and got out of the truck, careful not to slam the door. Still, canines barked from the kennels in the big barn behind the house, punctuated by an occasional howl that sounded more like wolf than dog. No one answered knocks on the door, so I rounded the corner of the house.

  Rick leaned against the barn door stubbing out a cigarette on the bottom of his boot. His olive bomber jacket over gray pants gave him a military look, but he wasn’t a government agent. He told everyone in town he was a forest ecologist working for private interests, but that was probably a cover. His mission was to exterminate any wolf he found. That alone made me hate him, but he’d also been horrible to his son, Alex, who used to be my friend, before all of this curse stuff came to light.

  I was amazed that Cooper had allowed Rick on the property. I ducked behind a rusting tractor, listening.

  “Your father made his choices,” Bowman said. “You’re your own man. You have a chance to do the right thing.”

  “I hear you,” Cooper said. “I’ll look into that wolf sanctuary you mentioned.”

  Sanctuary? I was tempted to poke my head around the corner to see Cooper’s expression. Surely he couldn’t be considering anything Rick said when it came to the wolf-dogs.

  “It’s the best option. They’d take all these critters and you know they’d be confined securely,” Rick said, his voice smooth. I could almost imagine his smarmy grin. “That’s what your father would want. Keep those innocent pups safe, right?”

  “Is there a safer place than the kennels on my own property?”

  “You wouldn’t want to take the chance that you’d accidentally harbored something other than a hybrid. You understand,” Rick replied, his voice silky, polished. “We need all the dangerous wolves out in the open so we can find the one that killed your father.”

  My gut tightened. Clearly, Rick was still obsessed with killing all of our kind in town and now he was playing on Cooper’s recent loss. I’d heard enough. I sneaked back out from behind the tractor and then retraced my steps around the corner of the house. I grabbed the pie from the truck and then slammed the truck door as if I’d just arrived. “Cooper!” I yelled. “Are you here?”

  Rick strutted from around the side of the house, giving me a cold stare. As he climbed into his SUV, I resisted the urge to flip him off. I kept walking to meet Cooper, who was still around back.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” Cooper asked, glancing in the direction that Bowman had gone, probably realizing I’d seen him. The sharp angles of his jaw and his strong nose, coupled with disheveled light brown hair that would have been at home on a surfer, were enough to give Cooper a handsome ruggedness. That afternoon, his work jeans were dirty and the plaid shirt was worn and oversized, like it might have come from his father’s closet. There was a defeated look in his eyes, deeper than I’d seen the day before.

  I wanted to reach out to him, to wrap him in a hug, but his body language said stay away. I’d ignored that signal at the funeral, but after seeing him with Bowman, I kept a little distance. I gave him a tentative smile and said, “I told you I was going to come help you sort things out.”

  “And I told you I didn’t want help,” he said, setting a toolbox into a metal shed. “You shouldn’t have come.” Cooper climbed the back steps of the house, dusting his hands on his jeans. Washing his hands of us, maybe.

  “Hey, I come bearing apple pie.” I followed him up the stairs and through the door. “And to see if you’re okay. You’re not answering my texts.”

  Inside, a wood stove warmed the living room. The scents of bleach and furniture polish filled the air, remnants of Cooper’s cleaning frenzy. Bookshelves lined one rustic planked wall, and the other was adorned with mostly empty gun racks. Classic country music drifted from the radio. All the furniture was beat-up or out of date. Ivan probably had spent most of his income from his work as a mechanic to care for the animals.

  “You don’t observe social cues very well, do you?” Cooper said, throwing me a glance as he cleaned his hands in the kitchen sink.

  “Observing and acknowledging are two different things.” I set the plate of pie on the vintage dinette table in the kitchen and took a seat on one of the vinyl chairs. There was no way I was leaving.

  Cooper filled a kettle with water, and then put it on the burner. “What is it with you Turners?”

  “I told you I wasn’t going to leave you. You’re stuck with me as a friend.”

  “You did threaten that.” Cooper showed me a half-smile. That was something, I thought. Making a joke, at least.

  “I was by the cemetery. You moved out of the caretaker’s quarters.”

  He nodded and then moved to the cabinet. “Didn’t have much at that shack. Don’t have much, period. Sold a lot of stuff when I enlisted. Anyway. I’m still getting used to this place. My father never was one for tea, unfortunately.”

  “Didn’t strike me as a tea guy, no.”

  I’d seen Ivan a handful of times at school functions, back when Cooper had been a few grades ahead of me. Ivan had been a loving father, proud of his son, who’d turned out for baseball and captained the debate team. But Ivan’s strange reputation in town had been a hindrance. Though he was good looking, Cooper’d never been a popular guy at school—having an eccentric father who raised wolf-dogs would do that to a kid. Now that I understood Ivan’s connection to werewolves, the peculiarities seemed pretty logical. They’d been hiding their own secret—breeding hybrids was a perfect cover for a Protector.

  “Looks like our choices are mandarin orange black tea or something called vanilla bliss. Sounds disgusting.” Cooper set the packages on the counter.

  “I think you’ve made the choice for us,” I said, with a small laugh.

  “Mandarin orange it is.” Cooper dropped tea bags into mugs, and then leaned back against the farmhouse sink. “You came all this way to bring me pie?”

  “Yep. It’s apple. Fawn made it,” I said. “Hey, I only saw a few dogs out back.”

  He nodded. “Most ran off. The ones that are here seem sad. Like they know my father’s gone. Animals sense those kinds of things.” Cooper’s gaze settled on my eyes. “He was their alpha. Pack behavior…whatever.” The kettle whistled, releasing Cooper from his thoughts. He poured the water into the mugs and then carried them to the table, setting one in front of me. “I know you saw Bowman. He only came to pay his respects.”

  I swallowed hard, surprised that he’d brought it up. “Never seemed like the respectful type. You know, all that pointing a gun at my dad stuff. And come to think of it, you had a rifle pointed at him not too long ago.”

  “Relax.” Cooper gave me a sharp look and then dunked his tea bag in and out of his mug. “I nearly kicked him off the property. But some of the stuff he says makes sense.”

  “Except he’s a killer.”

  “So are wolves!” Cooper’s voice was so emphatic, it rattled me and I spilled some of my hot tea. “Oh, damn, sorry.” He jumped up and grabbed a towel for me.

  I dabbed at the splash on my sleeve. I moved both of our mugs back farther on the table. “It’s okay.”

  Cooper sunk into his chair, tears gathering in his eyes. “No, it’s not. Nothing is okay.” He set his elbows on the table and placed his head in his hands. I reached over and curled an arm around his shaking shoulders. After a moment, he lifted his head and wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. He gave me an embarrassed glance so I dropped my arm.

  “Mandarin orange actually smells good.” I scooped the tea bags from our mugs and set them on a saucer.

  “Almost forgot.” Cooper fetched a big mason jar from the cabinet, along with a honey dripper. “From Dad’s
hives.” His hands shook as he attempted to open the jar.

  “Here, let me.” I finished unscrewing the lid and then drizzled some into both mugs.

  “Don’t know if I’ll keep the hives going, but the world sure needs more bees. You see it all the time in the news,” he said, a catch in his voice. “Don’t know if I can keep up most of Dad’s things.”

  I tried not to read too much into Cooper’s comment. “You don’t have to decide about anything right now. It’s gonna take time.”

  Cooper rubbed his eyes with his sleeve again. “All those days in the dusty hills overseas with people firing on us, I had home to think of,” he said. “This little corner of the world, with my nutty dad and his dogs. It’s like…what do you do when the only person you had is gone? What is left?”

  I inhaled deeply, trying to stem my own emotions. “Cooper. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I know you are.” He straightened, seeming to remember where he was, what was happening around him. Steam drifted from the mug as he sipped his tea. “I want to kill them for what they took from me.”

  “Kill Ezra?”

  “You saw firsthand what they did to my dad. You know better than anyone how vicious those werewolves are.” Cooper set his mug down. “It was horrible what they did to him. Worse than injuries I saw in the field.”

  A chill whispered over my skin. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you can’t kill wolves.”

  “I don’t want to kill all wolves. Just one particular pack.”

  “That’s not you. You don’t have to do that.”

  His eyes flashed with fury. “I want to do that.”

  “I don’t think your dad was big on revenge. He wouldn’t want you to hurt any wolf.”

  Cooper narrowed his eyes. “There’s a difference between revenge and justice,” he said, his hands gripping the edge of his chair.

  “Cooper… Doesn’t the friendship of our families mean anything to you?”

  “It does, but friendship can’t bring him back.”

  “And revenge can?”

  “I’m not saying that.” Cooper’s voice broke and he dropped his gaze to the table. “I just—I don’t know what to do without him.”

  I took a sip of tea, just to give Cooper a break from the intensity. After a minute, I asked, “Is there any other family that can come stay with you? I don’t feel good about you being alone out here.”

  Cooper shrugged and gazed down at the table. “My sister didn’t even come to the funeral. She’s in Chicago with her husband and kids. She’s the one that sent the flower wreath for the service.”

  “What can I do?”

  Cooper raised his head. “You have to be okay with me killing that pack. That’s what you can do for me.”

  “We don’t know what drove them to hurt your father. Or if it even was them for sure. Who knows that for sure?”

  “Come on. Ezra’s pack was eliminating your protection—starting with your father, then moving to mine. That way, it’d be easier to get to force you into their pack,” he said, his gaze unwavering. “They need numbers. They need mates.”

  I shuddered. He wasn’t wrong about the pack, about how they’d been sniffing around us as my sisters came of age, how they wanted territory.

  “So if it hadn’t been for me and my sisters, then he’d still be alive,” I said slowly.

  “Lily,” Cooper said, shaking his head. “Don’t start putting words in my mouth.”

  “You blame us. Well, that makes sense. I gotta get going.” I bit the inside of my cheek, holding back my frustration as I walked to the front door and let myself out. I’d return for the pie plate later, when I was calmer. When Cooper was back to normal—though I didn’t know when, if ever, that would be.

  As I backed out of the driveway, I noticed him in the doorway. Could read the pain on his face, even from a distance. It’d never been my intention to make things worse. Seeing Cooper, so hurt, so broken, made my chest feel tight, my hands shake.

  Of course he wanted to fix the blame—he was angry. But the idea that it had been our fault was unbearable. What was I supposed to do with guilt like that, when there was no easy way to make things right? It wasn’t like I could bring Ivan back.

  I brushed tears from my cheeks as I drove back across the bridge into town. I couldn’t risk losing Cooper, a friend and Protector in a town where we couldn’t trust any other human with the truth.

  Chapter Three

  “Lily, right? Are we distracting you?” Ms. Wilson tapped me on the shoulder during fifth period the next day. “You seem to be in your own world.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I glanced up to see the white board, where the class had been brainstorming article ideas for the first issue of the school paper. I’d been thinking about Cooper, about Morgan, about our future in Pioneer Falls.

  Ms. Wilson seemed to notice my spiral notebook page was a mess of swirls and other doodles. Beneath her cat-eyed glasses, her eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t say anything. She stepped back to the front of the room, taking with her a scent of a light floral perfume and something that reminded me of the way a house smells when it’s been shut up for a long time. I’d heard she’d rented a historic home near the town square, and the scent kind of backed that up.

  “Okay, everyone. I need your ideas. What have we missed?” Ready with a green marker in hand, Ms. Wilson faced the class again. Her gray pumps matched the gray belt that cinched the black dress she wore. An oxblood cardigan rested on the back of her chair. She’d made a splash already at the school, bringing a sense of formality with her. I could’ve sworn more of the male teachers seemed to be wearing ties this year.

  I missed our old teacher, Mr. Collins, who’d retired at the end of last year. He’d helped me with my college application, written me a recommendation highlighting my work on the school paper, and taught me most of what I knew about journalism. But I was willing to give Ms. Wilson the benefit of the doubt.

  The board was covered with a few topics, including a profile of new teachers—which I’d already been completed—a lunchroom menu preview, sports coverage, and other regular columns.

  “We’ve yet to choose features,” Ms. Wilson said. “Since we’re only putting out an issue every few weeks, we can go deep on these.”

  My friend Alicia Jones raised her hand. “Harvest Festival is less than two weeks away. We should have some features surrounding that.” She leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen against her notebook. Alicia was new to the class, but I was glad she’d signed up. We’d drifted apart over the last year or so, but we’d been really close once. Ironically, the search for my dad had brought us together, since her father was our family lawyer.

  “Great. I’d love to learn more about that myself.” Ms. Wilson wrote notes on the board as people piggybacked on Alicia’s idea.

  Seeming satisfied her suggestion had weight, Alicia smiled, her brown eyes gleaming in the hazy light of the classroom. This time of day, the tall windows of the old building let in shafts of sunlight filtered through the maple leaves outside. The school had been remodeled a decade ago, but still had classic bones. I liked that about Pioneer Falls High, that it blended the old with the new.

  “Anything else?” Ms. Wilson asked, glancing up at the clock, which showed we had about ten minutes left in class.

  I wanted things to move on too. I had one more class and then I could speed home to get ready for the family dinner with Morgan. I was nervous about him meeting Dad. Maggie’d been supportive when I told her why I needed the night off from the coffee shop. She’d been more flexible on my work hours since her cousin had started filling in. And now, with the idea of college just an idea, I wasn’t so focused on trying to earn money with my part-time job to help with expenses. At this point, I didn’t know if I’d ever leave Pioneer Falls.

  “We’ve got a lot more real estate to fill, including securing all the ads from local businesses and a few fun facts,” Ms. Wilson said. “Anything else we’re missing?”<
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  “We’re missing real local news,” Tom Lindstrom said from the back of the room. He’d worked on the newspaper with me for the last couple of years, but I’d never thought of him as a friend. His family owned the hardware store in town and one of the nicer houses on the edge of Town Square Park. Tom, with his swoop of dark hair and his button-down shirts and khaki pants, always had a serious edge. Sometimes he came into the coffee shop on his way to help his father in his shop, but he never was anything more than cordial to me.

  “Okay, tell me more,” Ms. Wilson said, writing a new header on the board.

  “Well, there was that animal attack. Someone could cover that.”

  I froze, thinking about how Cooper would feel if information about that was published, even if it was just in a school newspaper. And I didn’t want anyone digging into that. Digging into wolves.

  Ms. Wilson’s marker paused in mid-letter. “I’m not sure that’s on brand for our paper.”

  “On brand?” Tom challenged. “In a small town with no community paper, I think anything’s game.”

  A frustrated look crossed her face. “Anything is most certainly not game. We’ll stick to positive community stories and things directly to do with our school.”

  “It just seems that—”

  “That story’s been covered in regional papers. We don’t need to spend time on it.” Ms. Wilson capped her marker and smiled.

  Tom lowered his raised hand, swallowing whatever he was going to say next. I exhaled with relief. Ms. Wilson had no idea how grateful I was she’d shut Tom down.

  “Now, another matter at hand,” Ms. Wilson said, picking up a paper from her desk. “Mr. Collins had some suggestions for who might serve as editor this year. But instead of my appointing staff positions blindly, I’d like you to apply. Send me a few clips of your best work, a resume if you have one. If you need help, please see me.”