She passed over the incomprehensible part about Shadow, though he clearly knew the wolf’s name. “You’ve lost your memory,” she stated.
He nodded. “Who, why, how long…”
Wonderful. Memory loss might explain a great deal, but it made him no less unpredictable. She considered the weather outside—there’d been sun, so it would be cold but relatively easy to travel in. One way or another this man needed help she couldn’t give him, help she could only find in town. She wanted no more to do with him than was absolutely necessary.
With slow, cautious steps she left the door and circled around him toward the kitchen.
“I’ve got clothes you can wear,” she said. “Sweats. They might not fit too well—they belonged to my grandfather—but they’ll keep you warm. And there’s food in the kitchen.”
She kept up a steady, soothing stream of one-sided conversation as she raided the closet for her grandfather’s old sweats, realizing too late that she’d had her back to the wild man for a full two or three minutes. She turned around. He was watching her, and she had another full frontal glimpse of his beautifully formed body before she tossed the clothes at him in angry confusion.
He let the clothes fall at his feet and simply stared at them.
Deliberately she turned her back and strode into the kitchen, propping the rifle against the kitchen table. The venison she’d gotten out for Shadow was still taking up space in the small refrigerator. Fiercely ignoring her worry over the wolf, she put the chunk of thawed meat on the table and began to rummage through her cupboards.
She came up with a box of crackers and a can of soup. Some faint sound made her look toward the table; a tense moment passed before she realized that the venison was gone.
The rifle, however, was where she had left it. She grabbed it and stepped into the hall.
Her wild man was sitting on the rug before the stove, still buck naked, tearing at the raw venison with strong white teeth.
Alex covered her mouth. If he’d been truly starving in the wilderness somewhere, she’d have thought little of his eating raw meat. But along with all his other peculiarities…
She looked past him to the door. In town she could go for the sheriff or possibly the doctor—someone who could take the man in for care and questioning. Alex hugged the rifle against her side and walked into the living room. Amber eyes flicked up at her and down again. She made her way to the door, maneuvering her hand behind her back to unlock it.
“No.”
The word was a resonant, rumbling growl. Alex let her hand slide from the doorknob and turned.
The venison lay abandoned on the floor. The man stood drawn up to his full, imposing height, every muscle tensed and quivering.
“No… leave,” the man ordered. There was no mistaking the command in his deep voice; his gaze fixed on hers with almost tangible force.
“I need to get firewood,” she said calmly. She jerked a nod toward the stove. “It’s out in the shed. I won’t be gone long.”
He took a single, ominous step, eyes narrowed. “With you,” he said.
She didn’t have much choice. It seemed he regarded her as a hostage after all. “You’ll freeze out there.”
For the first time he displayed all his teeth in an expression that passed for a grin but didn’t seem to be one. “With you,” he repeated.
Alex shrugged with feigned indifference and opened the door. Bitter wind, hardly touched by the noon sun, swirled past her. The man was right at her heels; he didn’t so much as flinch, though his skin broke out in gooseflesh. She could feel the radiant heat from his body, burning through the heavy flannel shirt at her back.
Just as she’d told him, she went for the woodpile, though her attention was entirely on his movements behind her. She could hear the subtle crunch of his bare feet sinking into the snow. At one point he paused, turning his gaze toward the forest; she was ready for that moment of inattention.