He handed over the paperwork and put himself back to work. The familiar rhythm of it warmed stiff muscles and tugged as much against the duct tape as it did against his healing side. For long moments, he let go of his thoughts, giving over to the muted conversation of familiar teamwork, the occasional grunt of effort, Faith’s giggles in the background when she lost her grip on a bale and it went pinwheeling off into the yard. When the truck sat empty and swept, the driver pulled away to leave them to the stacking...and eventually that was done, too, and Holly stood beside Lannie looking flushed but relaxed, mismatched gloves tucked away in a back pocket.
Her song trickled through to him, complex and self-confident and, at the moment, devoid of the resentful edge.
“Three hours,” Faith said. “Not our best time, but decent.”
“Thanks to Holly,” said Javi, his eye already gone worshipful when it turned to Holly.
“Yeah,” Faith said, older and wiser by not very many years, her back propped against the towering stack of hay and out of the sun. “You don’t wanna go there. Just say thanks again.”
“Right,” Javi said, blushing beneath the olive tones of his skin. “Thanks, Miss Holly.”
Holly seemed bemused to find herself back in a conversation—and a normal one, at that. “I was glad for it,” she said. “I needed to get the travel kinks out.” She brushed hay from her shirt and reaching for the neckerchief Javi had given her shortly after his arrival—a hesitant offering, gratefully received, and now full of enough hay to have proven its worth.
“Oh, no,” Javi said, backing away a step just in case. “You keep it. You’ll need one of those around here.”
Holly’s smile made Lannie straighten. Once again he found himself pushing back the wolf, the little growl in his mind that said mine.
Maybe so. But too strong or too fast with this one, and he’d lose her altogether. If it had been easier than this, Brevis wouldn’t have brought her so precipitously to his doorstep.
“Drink something,” he told Faith and Javi—and Holly, for that matter. “Bottled water in the fridge.”
“Cool,” said Faith. “Hey, Javi, I got some power powder to try in it. It’ll turn your mouth blue.”
“No, no,” Javi said, following her anyway. “Mi madre would whip my behind if I come home with a blue mouth.”
“She would not.” Faith’s words floated back over her shoulder as she rounded the corner of the barn overflow, and Lannie knew that Javi’s mouth didn’t stand a chance. So did Holly, to judge by the amusement lighting her expression—though that faded when she looked his way.
“You, too,” he said. “Especially you.”
She dusted at the hay on her legs. “And then?” When he only looked at her, she said, “Then what? We’re going to Cloudview, I know. But I’m here for a reason. Do we have team-building games to play, or do I have homework, or are you going to put me on a shelf while you do other things?” Before he’d had time to truly consider that, she added, “One thing they should have warned you—I like to keep busy.”
“I can arrange for another load of hay,” Lannie said, deceptively mild.
“Sure,” she said, just as evenly.
“What’s next specifically,” he told her, “is that we dust the hay out of our hair and get something to drink. Then I’d like to take a few moments to sniff around the well house—you can come or not, as you please.”
He wasn’t sure if sniffing around qualified as busy or boring, and in truth he wasn’t sure he wanted her along. He’d just as soon take the wolf for this particular task, and he didn’t think she was ready for that yet. When it came to that, he didn’t think he was ready for it. Not to ride the edge of the most primal part of himself while she was nearby.
“And then Cloudview,” she said. “I know. But after that. I don’t get the sense that you have any sort of plan when it comes to me.”
Lannie stood taller in a stretch, rotating one shoulder slightly. “I tend to play it by ear.”
“Awesome,” Holly said flatly. She pushed away from the hay bales. “Since we have such a good plan, we might as well get to it.” She headed for the front of the overflow area—a tall, three-sided pole structure—and turned in the direction of the store, striding across the ground like she owned it.
Lannie watched the languid roll of her hips and wanted to follow. The wolf watched the casual strength in her and growled, chafing, wanting to follow.
Lannie made them both wait, and settle, and swallow back the wanting. Only then did he allow his feet to move, strangely distant from the earth and from the new pack song he already ached to call his own.
* * *
Holly avoided a flat, shrunken prickly pear, her thighs aching from the distinctly uphill hike. Lannie Stewart moved with assurance, familiar with the terrain and taking his own strength for granted. When he stopped and checked back for her, she knew for certain it was only for her sake, and not because he found himself winded.
But Holly was glad to suck in air. She was fit—she was damned fit—but she’d already helped unload twenty tons of hay and she was fit at sea level.
He nodded up ahead, and she belatedly saw the upper half and roof of a wood structure that looked more like a community pit toilet than any official well house, clearly placed just beyond the crest of this slope. “I’d like to take a look around before we add more footprints to the area.”
“You want me to stay here.” She realized it with surprise. Some part of her had enjoyed these silent moments of climbing the hillside together, no matter the effort, or the fact that she hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place. Still didn’t want to be here.
But that didn’t mean her best option wasn’t to wait this situation out, going through Sentinel hoops until she could walk away.
Lannie eyed her as if he was trying to read her thoughts from her face, and nodded. “Only a few moments. Catch your breath, look around. There’s more going on in this forest than you think.”
She wouldn’t have called it a forest at all. But she only nodded, plucking a final stray piece of hay from her shirt, and he hiked on without her.
She watched until he moved out of sight, hidden by a trick of terrain and brush, and then sat herself down to look around. Low, flat cactus here...bushy treelike things dotted along the hill and set on gravelly, sandy soil. Sparse clumps of bunchgrass offered barely a hint of green, and the occasional long-needled pine towered over all.
“Forest,” she snorted. But she wrapped her arms around her knees and tipped her face to the sun, realizing for the first time the true impact of its heat. A quick relocation to the shade of a spicy cedar brought out goose bumps, and she finally put herself half in, half out, and rested her forehead on her knees.
Maybe she shouldn’t have. Maybe she should have kept moving. The quiet gave her space to recognize a strange, small edge of unease running through the center of her—a ripple of vertigo, and an escalation of what she’d experienced on arrival. She put her hand to the ground, eyes still closed, absorbing the textured feel of the cedar sheddings—tiny dry twigs, gritty soil, the angular hump of an exposed root. The connection steadied her in some way, but her sense of unease failed to fade.
Lannie had been right. She needed more water. Something to trail her fingers in, something to fiddle with.
Then again, it was nothing that going home wouldn’t fix. A reasonable altitude, a reasonable humidity and a sun that didn’t feel so close. Anyone would feel disoriented.
Song intruded, humming into her thoughts with such an insidious ease that she startled when she finally recognized it there,