Her anger had grown into an inferno on the forty-five minute drive back. No longer was she in oh-woe-is-me mode. She was in punch-everything mode. Ian had lied about so much, then she’d been choked, threatened, and felt up by a fucking werewolf, and now her rage was infinite.
Pursing her lips over the urge to curse him out immediately, she grabbed the knife and the note and stomped toward him. Miki bounced around her legs and yipped a puppy greeting.
Ian had a lantern hung from a peg over the porch stairs, so she could see just fine when his eyes narrowed on her knife. Then he lowered his gaze back to the half-plucked duck in his hands and went back to ripping feathers from the breast. He had a small pile of the water fowl beside him and a bucket for the feathers a couple stairs below, between his knees. Their first major fight and what did she do? Weep and chug whiskey. Of course Ian had gone and done something productive, such as hunt down a couple week’s worth of meals. Pissed at the world, she kicked a cloud of dirt into the air and started jacking up the water pump handle.
“Who did you stab?” he asked conversationally.
“A werewolf.”
The sound of plucking stopped, but she didn’t look at him. Instead, she washed the blade off and contemplated which question, out of the billion rattling around in her brain, she would ask him first.
“No, you know what. I’m not going to ask questions right now. Why don’t you just tell me everything so I don’t have to decipher your infinite mysteries, Ian?”
“Okay. Why don’t you come sit beside me?”
“I feel like standing.” So I don’t punch you in the face.
Nodding, Ian reached behind him and handed her a large, brown envelope. “This was waiting for me at my den on Afognak when I woke up from hibernation this past spring.”
“What is it?” she asked, moving closer to take it from his hand. When she did, there was a bloody thumbprint from where he’d held it.
Ian went back to plucking. “It’s a kill order for Cole McCall. I’m not just a bear shifter, Elyse. I’m what shifters call an enforcer. All bears take that title because we’re the biggest of the predator shifters. My brothers have taken jobs like this, too.”
“Are you paid to assassinate people?”
Ian huffed and lifted his narrow gaze to her. “Do you really think so low of me?”
“I don’t know what to think, Ian.”
“No, I don’t get paid, and it’s not called assassinating. It’s called ‘putting them down.’”
“Like animals.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they are animals.”
“Cole was a little crazy, but he wasn’t—”
“He was. You don’t need me shit-talking your ex though, Elyse. I can see how little you trust me. That folder contains most of your answers.”
Elyse stomped up the stairs, then dragged a rocking chair loudly across the porch to the ring of soft, glowing light. Then she pulled out the stack of paperwork from the envelope and read silently, her heart breaking with every word. It was a history on Cole—a list of all the things he’d done to call attention to himself. Some of them she’d known, but the last several pages made her sick to her stomach. There were photos of two trappers who had been attacked by a wolf. One had survived and one had not, and whoever had put together the file for Cole had included the after pictures. It was the next two pictures that drew a horrified gasp from her lips. One was a posed school picture of a little girl. Dark hair and dark eyes. Alaska Native perhaps. She had a snaggle-toothed smile. The photograph that followed was of the little girl in a hospital bed.
Elyse had read about this wolf attack in the newspaper. Her doctors thought the girl would make it for a while, but she hadn’t.
“Cole did this?” Her voice was no better than a wisp of air.
Ian nodded his head and set the naked bird down beside him, then picked up the next to pluck. “The McCalls all go crazy. It’s in their blood. Most of them are smart enough to recognize their expiration date and not involve a mate, but Cole, for whatever reason, felt like taking you down with him at the end.”
“Was this all that was in the file?”
Ian shook his head, his back to her as his body jerked with every rip of the feathers. “There was one last thing.” Leaning to the side, he reached in his back pocket and pulled out a folded photograph.
When she opened it, she found herself staring at the camera with a hollow look. Someone had photographed her from the woods near the garden. She almost didn’t recognize herself, as skinny as she was. Dark circles hung from under her eyes, and her lips were chapped. This picture had been taken right after she’d kicked Cole out of the house. Her lip was still split.
“Why was this in your pocket?”
“Because I fell in love with you from that picture. I carry it everywhere.” When he cast her a glance over his shoulder, his eyes pooled with such deep vulnerability. “It can’t touch the real thing, seeing you in person, but I like the feeling that you’re always close. My bear chose you before I even met you.”
“So you being here isn’t some way to get rid of your guilt over killing Cole?”