Read Online Spirit of the Wolf by Vonna Harper - Free Book Online Page A

someone ancient and tied to the land, a primitive and trusting human being who believed everything the shaman said about mystical forces such as the sun and moon gods. They ruled Native American life by rewarding righteous behavior and punishing those who didn’t follow The Way .
    She’d never told anyone what she’d found that day.
    Shaken by memories of the eerie time she’d spent in the cave, she scrambled to her feet. Enough with getting hung up with what she didn’t understand and hadn’t shared with anyone. Action time had arrived.
    Still fighting the hold the cave exerted over her whenever she thought about it, she headed toward the horse pasture. She’d lifted her hand to shield her eyes and was looking for the quarter horse gelding when she heard an approaching vehicle.
    Ramming her hands into her back jeans’ pockets, she waited. Told herself it wasn’t Matt and even if it was, she didn’t want to see him.
    Today Matt had on a Western shirt with pearl snaps that hugged his torso before disappearing into old, faded jeans. In deference to the heat—or maybe because he wanted to test her resolve—the shirt was open at the throat down to the fourth button. Dark, curling chest hair challenged her not to touch it. He’d rolled up the sleeves to just above his elbows. Damn those hard-as-hell forearms.
    He held up a flash drive. “You wanted to see the pictures I took.”
    Something about his tone said she’d regret this, but what was she going to do, chicken out when she already knew what she was going to see?
    “You could have e-mailed them to me,” she said.
    “No, I couldn’t. Do you have time?”
    She’d make time. She just hoped she could keep her emotional equilibrium about her. Matt had parked his pickup next to hers in such as way that she’d have to do a lot of maneuvering in order to move her rig. Deliberate?
    “I see you called Fish and Wildlife,” she said over her shoulder as she led the way to her house.
    “And the police. Also some of my neighbors.”
    “I know.” She laughed. “The rumor mill’s on overload today. Did any of the authorities say you shouldn’t have touched anything, give them a chance to look at the carcass?”
    “Sheriff Wilton started to but stopped when I e-mailed him the pictures.”
    Which he hadn’t done when it came to her. Feeling a tension she didn’t want to acknowledge, she opened the front door and stepped inside. In some ways, her place and Matt’s were clones. Both had been built in the 1950s with sitting porches, small living rooms, and kitchens at the rear. Her house’s former owners had done a pretty good job of keeping up the house; the outbuildings and pastures hadn’t much concerned them. In contrast, Santo and Addie had spread their attention equally throughout the property and had built a wing consisting of a bedroom, bath, and office for Matt. She envied him his modern sleeping/work quarters.
    Careful not to look in the direction of the bedroom where she and Matt had sometimes torn at each other on her double bed, she went to the desk and filing cabinets she’d set up in a second bedroom. Her laptop was open on the desk.
    “Good-sized screen,” Matt said, and sat in the office chair.
    As he plugged the flash drive into the USB port, she contemplated planting her butt on the table next to the laptop; however, not only would it be hard to see the monitor from that angle, but also she wasn’t ready to commit to getting that close to him.
    For the first time since their relationship began, he hadn’t touched or tried to touch her. In fact, he barely seemed aware of her, as if watching things load was the only thing on his mind. His fingers looked too big for their task, but she knew what they were capable of. The things he could make her feel.
    Opting for standing behind him and slightly to the side, she looked over his shoulder as the first picture appeared. Even without the sounds and smells that had been part of yesterday, the