He willed his mind off Naomi and focused on his calculations, managing to get nowhere before the sound of wolf nails clickety-clicking on the wood floor in the hallway broke his concentration.
Shota scratched and whined at the door.
Not wanting to replace the dooragain, he set his calculator and pencil down.
It was pack time.
Winona had taught him that every interaction with Shota required Chaska to maintain his dominance and to see things from Shota’s point of view—a wolf’s point of view. They couldn’t risk Shota challenging them for leadership of their little pack. Even though Shota had been neutered as a pup and had been hand raised by Winona, he was still a wolf with all the predatory drives and physical strength of his wild relatives.
Chaska got his head in the game, then opened the door and stepped out, shutting the door behind him.
Shota fell onto his side, showed his belly, his tail thumping on the floor, acknowledging Chaska’s status as alpha male.
Chaska bent down, rubbed Shota’s belly, tugged at his ears, grabbed his muzzle, rough-housing with him. “Where are your toys?”
Shota jumped up, dashed into the living room, and grabbed his new rubber chicken from his toy box. He shook the chicken in his jaws, unleashing a cacophony of high-pitched squeaks, making Winona and Naomi laugh.
Chaska found the women in the living room, his sister on the floor holding a battered length of knotted rope, Naomi in the reclining chair, her injured leg propped up, her crutches leaning against the wall. Nothing had passed between him and Naomi, and yet he could feel the pull of her from across the room.
What was wrong with him?
“What do you feed a wolf?” Naomi asked.
Winona stood. “I’ll show you.”
The moment Winona walked to the freezer, Shota lost all interest in his rubber chicken. He pranced and whined while she got his supper ready.
“I mix his food myself. It’s mostly raw or frozen venison and elk that we buy from the butcher or get from road kill. I mix it with kibble for vitamins, bones for minerals, and vegetables for—”
Chaska’s Team pager went off. He pulled it from the pocket of his jeans, scrolled through the message.
CLIMBER STUCK ON CENOTAPH SPIRE
He almost felt relieved. He needed to get out of here.
Achill shivereddown Naomi’s spine. Someone was in trouble, their life in danger, just as hers had been.
“Is it serious?” Winona asked her brother.
“Someone’s in trouble on Cenotaph Spire,” Chaska called back to his sister as he disappeared down the hallway, his footsteps sounding on the stairs a moment later.
Naomi glanced out the window, saw that the sun had begun to set. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
It had been dark as pitch when she’d fallen into that ravine, Arlie and Clem shouting for her, chasing her.
Winona dropped a large chunk of frozen red meat mixed with kibble and carrots into a steel bowl and set it out for Shota, who lay down and began to gnaw. “The Team gets called out all hours of the day and night. You wouldn’t believe the trouble people get themselves into. Some college kids once hauled a keg of beer up to the top of the First Flatiron and got—”
“Where are my Team T-shirts?” Chaska reappeared wearing only a pair of black athletic pants, his upper body gloriously bare.
“Maybe they’re in the dryer where you left them last night,” Winona offered, a teasing tone to her voice.
As he strode through the room, Naomi couldn’t help but stare at the shifting slabs and ridges of muscle—his strong arms, that six-pack, those pecs, and …
Scars.
Pinched bits of flesh marred his skin of his hairless chest in an almost symmetrical pattern, three scars on each side. Were they scars from chicken pox or some other kind of sickness? No, they were too big for that, too regular.
Chaska hurried through the kitchen toward the back of the house, leaving Naomi to stare after him. When he returned, he’d pulled a familiar yellow T-shirt over his head. He headed toward the front door. “If all goes well, I should be back in a couple of hours.”