Eyes Like a Wolf Read online

  “Richard,” I said, shaking my head. “I…I don't know what you're talking about. And frankly, you're beginning to scare me a little bit.”

  “I'm sorry.” He looked abashed. “That wasn't my intention. I was just…trying to jog your memory.”

  “Well,” I said briskly, “we'll have lots of time to talk about the past. But for right now, I think it's time to settle down for the night. I'm beat, and I bet you are, too.”

  He looked suddenly weary beyond words. “You're right, Rache, I could really use some sleep.”

  “Let's see,” I said, looking around to see where I could put him. “I think the best thing would be if you took the bedroom, and I can sleep on the couch.”

  “No way,” he said instantly. “I'm not going to kick you out of your own bedroom. I'll take the couch.”

  “You can't,” I protested, looking at the short, lumpy love seat. “You're much too tall—you won't fit. Look, I have an idea. Come with me.” I led him through the tiny but functional kitchen and into my bedroom, which was located at the back of the house.

  He stopped in the doorway again, lifting his head and sniffing as he had when he entered the house earlier. “Charles hasn't been in here,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Well…no,” I said. It was hard enough to keep my amorous fiancé in line when he wasn't in view of an inviting bed, so I made sure to stay out of the bedroom whenever he came over.

  Richard looked vastly relived. “Well, that's good anyway,” he said. “I'm sorry—you were saying you had an idea?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I decided to pass over his odd statements. We were both tired, and it was late. “I know it's here somewhere,” I muttered, going to my small walk-in closet and beginning to dig.

  “What are you looking for?” Richard squeezed in beside me to help.

  “I have this…oof…rollaway cot,” I said, shifting things out of the way to get to the back of the closet. “I used it that last month when Mom was so sick. I moved her into the house with me and we had a hospice nurse…Here it is.” I dragged at the heavy old iron cot, trying to budge it past the shoes and suitcases that littered the bottom of my closet.

  “Let me.” Richard reached past me. Grasping the iron frame of the cot with one hand, he lifted it easily out of the closet.

  “Wow.” I sat back on my heels, staring at him. “I guess I forgot, but you were always strong as a kid, too, weren't you?” I was a little afraid he might start quoting from the “teachings” again, but he didn't.

  “I guess so. Where do you want this?” He patted the iron cot, which looked like a fat gray metal sandwich turned on its side.

  “Well, I don't really have a guest room,” I said. “But, I thought if you don't mind roughing it a little, we could set it up in the Florida room.”

  “The what?”

  “It's what the real estate agents call a sun room down here,” I explained. “Basically it's a closed-in back porch with lots of windows. I don't really use mine for much of anything, and it's not air-conditioned but seeing that it's a cool night…” I shrugged.

  “It sounds great.” Richard lifted the cot one-handed again, like someone carrying an oversized suitcase. “Where is it?”

  “Right through there.” I nodded at the sliding glass doors at one end of my bedroom that led out to the porch. The Florida room was located off of the living room in most houses, but whoever had designed my little bungalow had obviously decided to flout convention.

  “Great.” Richard led the way onto the small porch and unfolded the cot. “This is perfect for tonight,” he said. “And if you want, I can go back to the hotel tomorrow.”

  “No, no,” I said hastily. “You can go back, but only to get your things.”

  “Okay, if you're sure.” He sighed and sat down on the cot, which was already made up with sheets and a thin blanket. “I'll take a cab tomorrow to pick up my suitcases and get my rental car. But look, the minute you want me out, just say so. I didn't come here to disrupt your life.”

  “You're not,” I protested. “I want you here, Richard. Really.”

  He smiled tiredly. “Good, I want to be here. Look, it's been kind of a long night. Do you mind if I take a shower?”

  “Not at all. The bathroom's through there.” I pointed through my bedroom to the open door of my bathroom. “Towels on the rack, everything else in the shower. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” He disappeared into the bathroom, and after a minute I heard the shower running.

  I got into a comfortable sleep shirt and climbed into bed. My room was dark, lit by the diffused light from the full moon behind the curtains and the soft yellow glow coming from under the bathroom door. Despite the dim light, I could see every detail of the room clearly—I've always had excellent night vision. When I was younger I had thought it was because I was special—that I was Amon-kai, as Richard had called it.

  I remembered now how my father had made up that story about us being able to see in the dark, probably as a way to explain our slanting pale green eyes and make us feel better for being different from the rest of the kids. I didn't know where Richard was getting all this stuff about the “teachings”—maybe he'd gotten some weird ideas from my father before he'd died. Or maybe it was a fantasy that he had built into a personal reality while he was in all those foster homes over the years. I knew from experience that kids can make themselves believe almost anything to lessen the pain of a bad situation.

  Just thinking of Richard spending so much of his younger life being moved from home to home made me both hurt and angry. My mother had been a hard woman, difficult to get along with in many ways, but I had never suspected her of being so deliberately cruel as to refuse to take her adopted son back when my father died.

  Mom had been dead almost three years now. I thought about it as I stared at the shadowy corners of my ceiling. This coming Friday it would be three years exactly. And with her dying breath she had warned me never to see my brother again. I hadn't told Richard that because I was pretty sure he'd had enough pain and rejection from our mother to last him a lifetime.

  I flipped my pillow to the cool side and rolled over in bed restlessly. Why had my mother been so set against Richard and me ever seeing each other again? Why had she taken me away and spent most of the rest of her life running, moving us from place to place, and covering our tracks to keep my adopted brother or my father from ever finding us?

  My musings were interrupted when Richard emerged from the bathroom in a puff of steam. A towel was draped around his lean hips, and stray drops of water beaded on his muscular torso. His arms, I noticed, were also heavily muscled, as though he worked out on a regular basis, and his skin was still the same natural dark tan it had always been. His dark hair was damp and rumpled as though he'd been drying it with a towel, and he carried his bundle of clothes under one arm. I wondered if he planned on sleeping in the nude and hoped that my nosy elderly neighbors didn't decide to come next-door and have a look at the night-blooming jasmine bushes around my Florida room as they sometimes did. They would certainly be getting an eyeful if they came tonight.

  For a moment he stood at the foot of my bed, outlined faintly by the dim light from the full moon outside. I felt like he was studying me, waiting for something. My heart pounded, but I didn't know why. He was a man now—not the boy I'd grown up with, the boy I had trusted and loved above everyone else in my young life. Had I been wrong to rely on that trust and invite him into my home?

  “Good night, Rachel.” His voice was deep and gentle, carrying well in the dark room.

  “Good night, Richard,” I said.

  It was a long time before I got to sleep and then I had the dream…

  Chapter Five

  The boy with wolf's eyes stared at me, a look of hope and longing on his dark face. We stood in a broad sandy field, and behind him a gray-green river flowed sluggishly. White birds with long necks stalked along its banks, hunting for frogs. Heat shimmered in the dist