Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(32)

In that brief nocturnal moment, she was his. He prayed she was alive and well, that his dream of her was a manifestation of the real Alicia Greiston, and he wondered if it represented a need to make everything real between them again. He vowed to find her and keep her safe, no matter how long that took.

Tomorrow, he was searching for her again.

Chapter 8

For seven weeks, Jake had visited Alicia in her dreams while she was kept on the run, sure Mario’s men were searching for her. But her dreams were so real, as if Jake was coming to her in the middle of the night and overwhelming her with deeply pleasurable emotions as she ravished him back.

She couldn’t put it off any longer. Having remained human for a whole week without one inkling of an urge to shape-shift, the second time she’d had such a shift-free week, Alicia had made up her mind. She’d finally tracked down Mario Constantino and Danny Massaro once more, and foregoing her bounty hunter’s fee, she had called the police and told them where to find the bail-skippers. Tackling them alone would be too dangerous. And with the shape-shifting problems she was having, her situation was even more precarious.

With her life turned upside down by this strange being that she’d become, nothing mattered but trying to get her untenable condition under control. Although she thought maybe the condition had gone away since she hadn’t had another episode of changing into the wolf for a whole glorious week, twice now. She hoped that maybe it truly was some weird virus that had finally run its course. Still, the worry lurked in her bones that at any moment she might once again become a wolf through no choice of her own.

But she had to take care of one more thing before she disappeared for good.

She drove to Breckenridge, intending to go to the art gallery to see if anyone could give her information on where Jake lived or just send word to him to let him know she was all right. She couldn’t see him any further. Not now that she was whatever she was. She had to vanish from Colorado altogether. Yet the dreams wouldn’t allow her to let him go.

Nursing a cold cup of brewed tea that had been hot at first, she sat in the restaurant across the street from the art gallery, waiting until a tourist busload of visitors filed out of the gallery, her thoughts centered on Jake’s first kiss at this very table after he had rescued her from one of Mario’s men. Gentle and unassuming, his kiss had sparked a desire for him that she couldn’t have quashed even if she’d wanted to. She thought back on ice skating with him, making love with him in the woods. She’d never been so adventurous or uninhibited with a man. Nor enjoyed being with one as much as she had with him.

Her nighttime dreams of Jake had made her believe she was being punished for running away without a word and not telling him she was all right. She was safe, at least as safe as she could be, with this wolf business that plagued her now… and Mario’s men tailing her from time to time. At least that’s who she thought had been following her. Although having found “bugs” on her car four times in the early days while she tried to track down Mario, she thought maybe someone else was on her trail.

But Mario had said Jake would be dead if he continued to tag along with her, and she knew that hadn’t been idle bullying. Mario’s kind didn’t make pointless threats. Hopefully, he was behind bars again. She’d had the notion that she might get in touch with Jake after Mario and Danny were again incarcerated, but that didn’t matter now. Not with what she’d become.

She clutched her teacup tighter, then released it and sighed. With nerves steeled, she paid for her tea, left the restaurant, and headed across the street to the gallery before the shop closed for the evening. Chimes rang when she opened the door and stepped inside.

A woman in a flouncy floral skirt and pink shell was talking to a man wearing a ponytail and dressed in black as if he was a goth. The man’s chin rested on his fist while he nodded and stared at a blob of orange splashed against a sea of purple. Alicia raised her brows. If only she could get thousands of dollars for “artwork” like that while staying hidden at home. She hadn’t attempted any more bounty hunting, what with the unpredictability of her new condition. She wasn’t sure how she was going to earn a living in the future.

Another woman dressed in a business suit was speaking to a small group of what looked to be college students and a slightly older woman who might have been their art teacher.

A suited man was busy talking to a woman who seemed more intrigued by him than the painting they were standing in front of.

Alicia frowned. She needed to question the staff pronto and return to her hotel room, then leave the area forever. That made her sad as she thought about how she wouldn’t be able to visit her mother where she’d died any longer, although she’d made one last trip there before she’d stopped at the restaurant.

The art gallery staff continued to court those they had been speaking to when she’d arrived. Not being able to question them about Jake, she searched for the paintings he had done. A group of paintings of naked women caught her eye, and she smiled a little, thinking of her conversation with him about painting his old girlfriends in the nude and the sexy smile he’d given in return. But the name signed at the bottom wasn’t Jake Silver.

She checked on landscapes next, mostly featuring the Rockies, but none of them had his signature either. Lots more blob pictures were featured all over the place, not his unless he was too embarrassed to sign what he painted and used a different name to disguise his own.