Chaska Belcourt hikedup the trail with his sister, Winona, the sun just up, the air fresh and cool after a night rain. Ahead of them, Shota loped down the trail, stopping every so often to sniff something before taking off again. The wolf had a large enclosure—almost a square mile—but he got restless if he didn’t get out to run at least once a week. In his heart, Shota would always be wild.
The only place they could let him run free was on National Forest land. No, it wasn’t strictly legal to run a wolf off leash here, but there were significantly fewer people. Folks had a tendency to freak out when they saw a big, gray wolf running toward them down the trail. Fewer people meant a lower probability of confrontations.
“Are you going to do it?” Winona asked.
“Do what?”
“Ask Nicole out.”
Not that again.
“I like Nicole. She’s a good climber. She’s smart. She’s—”
“She’s pretty—and she really likes you.” Winona said that last part as if it were impossible to believe.
“She’s on the Team, Win. You know how I feel about that.”
“Don’t dip your pen in the company inkwell, I know. Okay, but you don’t work together. Youvolunteertogether. Lots of people meet that way.”
Chaska had been a primary member of the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team for a little more than four years now. Though the Team was an all-volunteer organization, he and everyone else took the work seriously. Lives were at stake. “I won’t risk getting distracted or bringing personal baggage with me on rescues.”
“Oh, come on. I don’t believe for a moment that you or Nicole are so unprofessional as to let your relationship get in the way during a rescue.”
“We don’t have a relationship.” He aimed to keep it that way. “Besides, she’s not my type.”
“A gorgeous climber who wants to tear your clothes off isn’t your type?” Win looked up at him. “Is this because she’swasicu?”
“You know me better than that.” It’s true that Chaska had always imagined himself settling down with a woman who shared his heritage and way of life, but that didn’t mean he’d turn away from loving a woman because she was white. “Why are you still going on about this?”
“You’re thirty-three. When our parents were your age, they—”
“Were already divorced, and Mom was drinking.”
Their mother had killed herself with alcohol as surely as if she’d put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Winona was quiet—for a moment. “I just don’t want you to be alone.”
He reached over, tousled her dark hair. “IwishI were alone, but I have a pesky little sister who thinks she’s my granny and acts like a matchmaker.”
Win laughed. “Someone has to watch out for you.”
He supposed that was true. They were far from family, far fromOglala Lakota Oyate, far from Pine Ridge. Then again, he and Win had looked out for each other ever since they were small children. When he’d left the reservation to study mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder, he’d known she would follow. Now he worked on propulsion and launch systems for satellites for an aerospace engineering firm, and she was a wildlife vet with her own clinic.
Life was good.
As for having a woman, yeah, that would be nice, especially at night. There were times when he was lonely, and there many nights when his sex drive left him feeling like he might explode. But sex was a bad reason to rush into a relationship. As far as he knew, no Lakota man had ever found his half-side—his perfect, matching female half—by going wherever his dick led him.
“Don’t you want to be with someone?”
Of course, he did, but he didn’t want to end up divorced like their parents.
“I’ll wait till the right woman comes along. Creator can feel free to put her in my path anytime.”
Ahead of them on the trail, Shota stopped. He raised his head, seemed to sniff the wind, then gave a strange howl. His ears went back, and he took off, running off the trail and disappearing among the trees.
Damn.
Chaska ran, following the animal through the forest, Winona’s voice following him as she ran, calling for him, asking him to stop.