Lone Wolfe Protector by Kaylie Newell

forward, his boots sinking into the soggy forest floor. “Where are you, boy?”
    Some Tututni. Spooked by a poor animal with a broken leg. But even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t the dog that had him spooked.
    “Pup?” Koda’s finger hugged the rifle trigger. “Come on.”
    Snap. Another twig broke, this time closer.
    An icy drop of condensation landed on the back of his neck. Koda stared into the darkness where the sound had come from, forcing himself to hold still.
    Something was there with him. He was sure of it now.
    The legend . It was the one thought that crouched at the edge of his mind, always there, always stalking his subconscious. Some crazy urban legend about Wolfe Creek that had somehow managed to survive all these years. He knew better, of course. But sometimes despite that, it got the best of him.
    “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said, sweeping the flashlight to the left. Then to the right, the barrel of his rifle, a rigid iron finger pointing at the unknown.
    And then, from somewhere deep in the belly of the mountain night, was a low rumble. He froze. It was a warning. Instinctually he knew that, just like he knew if he took another step, he might not be fast enough to shoot whatever it was in the cover of those trees and shrubs. A cougar maybe? A bear? It sure as hell wasn’t any fucking dog.
    Koda swallowed and lowered his head.
    “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’m going to back up now.”
    Cradling the rifle in his arm, he took a cautious step backward.
    Silence.
    “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    The owl called again, but farther away this time. He took another step backward, aware of the sweat trickling between his shoulder blades. It was starting to itch, and a hot pressure mounted at his temples.
    “There we go.” Another step. Then another. After a minute, the sweet sound of a car passing on the freeway signaled he was finally out the way he’d come.
    He stood at the tree line, staring into the darkness, and lowered the flashlight to his side.
    “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

Chapter Seven
    They drove back to the Inn with the fog lifting a little. There were even a few patches above where tiny glittering stars punctured the black-velvet sky.
    Maggie’s head hurt. Actually, that was an understatement. It throbbed with an intensity that made it hard to form a coherent thought.
    She snuck a look in Koda’s direction. The darkness inside the sheriff’s vehicle made it hard to see his expression. He stared straight ahead, his messy black hair sticking straight up where it hadn’t before. Apparently she wasn’t the only one whose coif was affected by the relentless damp around here. In spite of herself, she laughed.
    He looked over. “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    “What is it?”
    “Nothing. It’s just…” She pointed at this head. “Your hair.”
    Craning his neck, he looked in the rearview mirror and smiled. They were passing underneath a streetlamp, and his face was illuminated for a moment. Dimples, smooth olive skin, straight white teeth, expressive crinkles at the corners of his eyes. For a painful second, Maggie’s heart stopped. He was that handsome. That exotic-looking, with his high cheekbones and wide mouth. And she could see the resemblance again, between him and his brother. It wasn’t surprising that Candi had fallen for one of the Wolfe brothers in high school. At seventeen, Maggie would have been a goner, too.
    He reached up and ruffled his hair. “It’s the mist. It does this.”
    “I get it.”
    “Some days I don’t even comb it. There’s no point.”
    “I’ve only been here a few days and I’m starting to think I should invest in a hat. I look like Medusa—” He turned, and she touched her curls self-consciously— “…Snakes. You know.”
    “No.” He held her gaze a little longer than someone driving a car probably should have. “I like your hair.”
    When it came to Maggie’s hair, she knew better. But his voice, which had