Alaskan Sanctuary. Teri Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ a napkin, handed it to the reporter and tried to imagine him picking flowers for someone. Not likely. “Sorry. I think my helper may have gone a little overboard with the marshmallows.”

      “Thanks.” He traded her the mug for the napkin and dabbed at the sticky mess. “Your helper? Singular? You have no other employees?”

      “No, just the one.” Why did she feel the need to apologize? Again. This time, for her lack of help. “For now. Although the youth program at Aurora Community Church has been a real help since I’ve moved in. They spent an entire Saturday here last week putting up the fences.”

      “High school students? You plan on staffing this place with minors?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notepad and wrote something down.

      Piper couldn’t bring herself to look and see what that something was. “A larger staff is one of the improvements I plan to make once we’ve been accredited by the National Nature Conservatory.”

      He lifted a dubious brow. “Your facility has been open for only five days, and you already meet the standards for an NNC grant?”

      She’d expected to have to explain what exactly the NNC was and the types of monetary aid they provided for ecological programs that qualified, but it appeared Mr. Hale had already done his homework.

      Good, she told herself. Maybe this means he understands how important this is. He gets it.

      “Not yet.” She cleared her throat. “These things take time. I’m still putting together the necessary paperwork. But applying for certification is my immediate goal, because once we have NNC approval, we can provide care for animals on the endangered list.”

      He crossed his arms. She’d just confessed her dearest wish, and he didn’t look the least bit impressed. “So you intend to bring more species into the area.”

      “I hope so.”

      He glanced out a frost-covered window toward the enclosures. “Will these additional animals be dangerous predators, as well?”

      Dangerous predators?

      Maybe he didn’t get it, after all.

      “While wolves are indeed predators, I wouldn’t be so quick to call them dangerous. Particularly rescued wolves living in captivity.” Her hands were shaking. She forced a smile. “Unless you’re a bunny rabbit.”

      “Or a child.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, and suddenly it seemed as though the most dangerous predator in Alaska was Ethan Hale himself.

      How was this interview going so horribly wrong when he’d yet to set eyes on a single one of the animals?

      Yes! That was the answer. He simply needed to see the wolves for himself, then he would realize they weren’t the ravenous, bloodthirsty monsters that he was apparently imagining.

      “Why don’t I give you a tour of the sanctuary? I think that will put to rest any worries you might have.” At least she hoped it would. At the rate things were going, she wasn’t quite sure.

      He walked wordlessly out the door and into the snow. Piper took a deep breath and followed. The crisp morning air swirled with snowflakes as she led him down the path toward the wolf enclosures, their footsteps muffled by a blanket of pine needles. When she paused at the first metal gate and turned to look at Ethan Hale, snow had already begun to frost the tips of his dark eyelashes. He looked less angry out here, beneath the snow-covered blue boughs of the hemlock trees. As if he belonged here, in Alaska’s white, wild outdoors.

      She wished he were less handsome. Disliking him would have been easier, and so far, he hadn’t given her much reason to like him.

      She looked away and focused instead on the white wolf peering at them from behind the chipped gray bark of an aspen tree. “This is Tundra. She’s an Arctic wolf, and it looks as though she’s decided to play hard to get.”

      He squinted into the wind. “I don’t see anything.”

      “She’s behind the tree. Look for the pair of copper eyes blinking back at you.”

      “There she is. Her white coat is quite striking in the snow.” A hint of a smile creased his rugged face and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

      Those annoying butterflies began to dance again. Piper assured herself they’d reappeared only because she’d succeeded in drawing a smile from him, if just for a fleeting moment.

      “She’s a beauty.” Piper reached into her pocket for a chunk of dried meat. “Here, toss this over the fence.”

      He eyed her open palm for a second before reaching for the treat with fingertips that felt unexpectedly warm in the frosty air.

      “Go ahead. Give it a good throw.”

      He did, and Tundra charged out from behind the aspen tree in a flurry of kicked-up snow and powder-white fur. She leaped a foot off the ground, a flying snow angel, and caught the treat midair.

      “Impressive,” he said.

      “Would you believe that until three months ago, she’d never been outdoors? A pair of college kids in Canada got her as a pup from an illegal breeder and decided to keep her as a pet—” Piper paused “—in the bathtub of their dorm.”

      Ethan Hale’s brows rose. “The bathtub?”

      “The bathtub. They fed her mainly pizza and leftovers from the dorm cafeteria. They thought it was cute. Then she grew into an adolescent wolf.” Piper watched Tundra make a sweeping circle around the perimeter of her enclosure. Piper could have stood in the same spot all day, watching this wolf run. Free at last. “Tundra has no idea how to live in nature like a real wolf. She’d never survive on her own. But wolves are wild animals and aren’t meant to be pets, either. Wild is wild. This place is her last resort.”

      “How’d she get here?” he asked.

      “I drove to Edmonton and picked her up.”

      The corner of Ethan’s lips quirked up. It was only a half smile this time, but she’d take what she could get. “You drove to the middle of Canada to rescue a wolf from a dorm bathroom?”

      Piper shrugged. “How else was she going to get here?”

      He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. “I suppose you have a point.”

      “Come on, I’ll show you the others.”

      As they walked from one enclosure to the next, she gave him a brief history of each wolf—its age, type, where it had come from and the circumstances that had led to its rescue. She explained that so far, the sanctuary was home to two wolf species—the Arctic and the Timber. Once the rescue center was accredited, she planned to provide sanctuary for the Mexican Gray wolf, as it was in serious danger of extinction. There were only seventy-five of them left in the wild.

      If this sad fact tugged on Ethan Hale’s heartstrings in any way, he gave no indication. Piper was beginning to wonder if he even had a heart.

      But she’d saved the best for last—Koko. He pranced right up to the fence to greet them, ears pricked forward, ebony СКАЧАТЬ