Annie slumped back in her seat, blowing out a relieved breath before killing the engine and taking in her surroundings. Beyond the gate was a large clearing, ringed in firs. The lake rippled like pink satin in the light of the setting sun, and on the shore closest to her, a grove of slender trees, alders, if she was guessing right from this distance, pressed close to a small wooden building with a rust-colored roof and a sagging dock jutting out over the water. The boathouse.
Annie climbed out of the Jeep, slamming the door loudly enough to give the man somewhere behind the gate ample warning that she was here, but the boathouse was dark, and the clearing empty, except for a dinged-up forest-green Ford Ranger, parked at an angle beneath the trees.
Annie cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hello?”
Her shout echoed across the clearing and faded out into the open air above the lake. Only the wind answered, stirring the alders, setting their leaves murmuring.
Annie opened the door of the Jeep and leaned inside, pressing her palm down on the horn and holding it there for five full seconds, the sound blaring across the clearing and reverberating around the foothills like a phantom bugle.
That ought to do it.
For a minute, no one emerged, then a shadow moved in the grove of trees behind the boathouse. Someone was coming out of the woods.
Annie straightened the collar of her uniform and took her professional stance behind the gate: feet slightly apart, shoulders squared and hands clasped at her waist, firearm on full display in its holster.
A man stepped through the trees and into the clearing, his face angled toward the ground, white T-shirt bronzed in the golden light.
Annie’s mouth popped open in surprise.
He was young. Very young. She had somehow imagined the “loner in the boathouse,” as she’d come to think of him, to be in his forties or fifties, but this man was younger than she was; mid-twenties at the most, and built like a jaguar, lean and muscled in the taut, springy way suggestive of power.
Annie’s mouth stayed open as he crossed the clearing with the sure gait of an athlete. His hands were in his pockets, and closer up, she saw that his shirt and face were dirty, his jeans torn across the thigh. He looked like he had stepped straight out of an ad for some edgy new brand of denim, the exact opposite of the scruffy and cantankerous middle-aged men she was used to dealing with on the job. Still, given the circumstances—and the small fortune he had spent onNO TRESPASSINGsigns—she wasn’t about to let his appearance disarm her.
“Can I help you?” he asked as he approached, eyes on the ground. Annie bristled at his tone. She’d heard it before, countless times, the four words that were spoken as a question but sounded more like a threat.
You better have a good reason for being hereis what he meant, and both of them knew it.
Annie lifted her chin. “You live here?” she said by way of introduction.
He gave a single nod.
“I’m Annie Heston”—she extended her hand through the gate—“the new game warden in town.”
Still, he did not look up. A shadow of hesitance crossed his face, but he slowly withdrew his hand from his pocket and took hers, shaking it without offering his name in return.
Annie glanced down. His fingers were filthy, caked with dirt, the nails black and soiled as though he had spent the better part of the day digging in the earth. When she looked up again, eyebrows raised, he quickly dropped the handshake.
“I’m here because there’s a cougar in the area,” she said, resisting the urge to wipe her hand on her pants. “We’ve had a couple of sightings from folks farther north who lost pets. It’s an active male. Big one. We’d like to get it tagged, but so far, we haven’t been able to track it down.”
The collectiveweshe spoke of was just her, but the more authority she could squeeze into her little spiel, the better. He nodded along slightly as she talked, but his gaze roved. He looked at the ground, at the Jeep, and, finally, at the Ruger on her hip.
“Now, my best guess”—Annie nodded over his shoulder in the general direction of the mountain—“is that he came down from Lewis Ridge a day or two ago, and I think he has a den just southeast of your lake here.”
For the first time, he lifted his eyes to meet hers directly. “The cougar wouldn’t happen to belong to Ronnie Boyd down the road, would it?”
Annie’s reply stuck in her throat.
His eyes were older than he was. Much older. Apple green with warm brown around the pupils, and just the suggestion of blue flecking the iris, but it was not their color that was so jarring. In that young, lineless face, the eyes were an utter contrast. They wore the same pained look she’d seen in her father’s eyes during the dark and desperate months after her mother died. The same look she’d seen in her own eyes in the rearview mirror on the drive up here. They were the eyes of a man who knew with certainty that his best days were behind him.
“No, sir,” she said when she found her voice again, “it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
He blinked, as though thesirhad caught him off guard, and when he spoke again, it was with a casualness that sounded forced.
“Right.” He nodded. “Of course not. It’s just… he had this maned wolf…” The nod turned into a headshake. “It’s not important.”
Annie gazed at him curiously, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. When he said nothing else, she nodded past him toward the lake.
“Anyway, I was able to track the cougar from the ridge down to the south side of the lake there, but it sure would be a whole lot easier if I could get in and out by way of the road. I know it’s an inconvenience to have someone coming and going on your land, but the sooner I get him tagged, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.”
