Staring after her, Joey shrugged and leaned back into the chair. Mrs O’Brien clearly didn’t like wolves, but this one hadn’t done Joey any harm. In any case, she had more important things on her mind at the moment. A hot meal and a hot bath could do wonders at the end of a long and somewhat unsettling day; there were still a few of the benefits of civilization to be had here in the wilds of the north, and for that she was profoundly grateful.
But, she reminded herself, she’d learned an important lesson today. Face-to-face with a powerful timber wolf, she’d managed to keep her head. If nothing else, it proved she could do what she’d set out to do—she’d just have to be a little more careful from now on. If the wilderness had seduced her into forgetting her natural caution, she’d be sure not to let it happen again. Things were going to go her way. With the proper planning life was a lot less likely to deal nasty and unexpected blows. This had just been a reminder.
Mrs O’Brien broke into her reverie with the concrete distraction of a hot home-cooked dinner. Joey started into the generous meal with enthusiasm. She was just finishing the last bit of bread and home-made jam when the local doctor, Allan Collier, emerged from the hallway.
“As I said, Martha, don’t worry about Harry. Just give him a couple more days in bed, and he’ll be good as new.”
Joey politely turned her attention to the business of stacking her plates as the doctor spent several minutes reassuring Mrs O’Brien that her husband’s condition was not serious. She dropped off her dishes in the kitchen, and when she returned, Collier was alone in the common room, consulting a small appointment book with a pencil clenched in his teeth.
The doctor was a man of middle years, a little younger than Mrs O’Brien, with a face still bearing the traces of a handsome youth. His eyes were generously marked with laugh lines, but there was a sadness about him that Joey had seen from the first, the day she’d been introduced to him by the O’Briens. Dr Collier was the town’s only doctor and one of the few serving the surrounding region, and so was a valued local figure, Joey had also seen immediately why he was also well-liked. In many ways he reminded her of her own father.
“Hello, Doctor,” she said, leaning against the serving counter that ran between the dining area and the kitchen. Collier blinked, the pencil dropping from his mouth. He caught it in midfall and smiled at her warmly.
“Good evening, Miss Randall. Nice to see you again.” Closing the notebook with a snap, he tucked it into the black bag resting on the counter. “How are your plans progressing?”
“A little slower than I’d like,” Joey admitted. Collier cocked his head with an inquiring look that invited trust; he gestured her over to a cluster of chairs near the fireplace.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he murmured as they settled into a pair of mismatched armchairs. His gentle fingers stroked the worn leather of the doctor’s bag in his lap. “Martha tells me you had a little encounter with a wolf today.” He raised his arched brows and looked her over significantly. “Obviously it wasn’t a fatal one, for all of Martha’s dire pronouncements.”
His conspiratorial smile seemed to release the last of Joey’s remaining tension, she chuckled in spite of herself. “I guess I was a little careless,” she admitted. “I always thought that wild animals were shy.”
“Most of them are,” Collier said. There was an odd, distant note to his voice. “Though there are times…” He fell silent, his gaze turning inward, and when it became clear he was drifting in his own thoughts, Joey leaned forward to interrupt.
“Then that wasn’t normal behavior, was it?” she asked softly. Collier’s attention came back to her with a snap. “The way the wolf seemed to want me to come back to town—brought me almost all the way to the lodge.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. There was sudden tautness in the long fingers that closed about the handles of his black bag. “It’s hard to predict the ways of Nature, even when you’ve lived with it all your life,” he answered at last. Joey sensed evasion, though she could not have explained the feeling. Like Mrs O’Brien’s peculiar reaction.