Susan snorted. “You wouldn’t know a hot wolf if he knocked you down and licked you all over.” Susan smiled. “Now that gives me some interesting ideas. Let’s see.” She lifted her phone off the table.
Pepper wondered what she was up to.
“He said his name was Eric Silver, and he’s a park ranger.” Susan pulled up an Internet browser. “Yep, here he is. Giving a lecture to a group of senior citizens. With his dark hair and eyes, his height, and that gorgeous smile, he looks like every woman’s fantasy.” She sighed dreamily. “And,” she said in a pointed way, “he’s all smiles with the gray-haired women and men, so he wasn’t putting on a show just for you.”
“He wasn’t putting on a show for me. He wanted me to do what he said. If he’d wanted to put a show on for me, he wouldn’t have suggested taking you to Silver Town.”
“He’s clearly an alpha wolf, not a beta. And he’s a park ranger, so he knows something about taking care of people in the park who are injured.” Then Susan frowned. “Ohmigod, you don’t think he’s the wolf Waldron attacked, do you?”
“Yeah, he was. Though I’m surprised Eric returned to our campsite as a wolf.”
“See? He’s interested in you. Or, well, maybe he ditched his clothes somewhere nearby and was watching us as a wolf. Although”—Susan elongated the word, putting her phone over her heart and looking up at the ceiling—“in my fantasy of him, he would be thinking only of me and not you.”
Pepper laughed.
“Did you bite Waldron?” Susan asked. “Richard said you took off after him and you smelled of blood when you returned. Not your blood. I was in the car by then and missed out on all the action.”
“Waldron was chasing him, though I didn’t see any sign of the wolf. Waldron had bitten him, and I had to do something to get Waldron’s attention. He was definitely in hunting mode and determined to catch hold of his prey.”
“And kill him?” Susan sounded horrified.
“If he could have gotten hold of him, I’d say that was a good bet.” That brought back memories of the alpha who had killed her mate—though her mate had been a beta—and Pepper shuddered.
Susan closed her gaping mouth. Then she set her empty glass on the table. “So, where did you bite Waldron?”
“His tail, the first part of him I reached. I didn’t bite too hard, but I still drew some blood.”
“Was he pissed off at you?”
“We had a wolf-to-wolf confrontation. Yeah, he was pissed, but I wasn’t backing down either, and if he wanted me to look at his courting favorably, he had to mind me.”
“Oh, wow, I bet that nearly killed him.” Susan shook her head, taking another chip from the bowl and biting into it.
“Yeah, he didn’t like it. If we’d been mated wolves, I’m certain he would have growled and snapped at me to back off.”
“You’re not going to, are you? Consider courting him?”
“No way. Look how aggressive as he is toward another male wolf who hadn’t provoked him in any way. We aren’t even courting.”
“Agreed. But now, Eric? He’s my kind of guy.”
Pepper waved a potato chip at her. “You should have given him your number.”
“I would have, but I was a wolf. I wish he’d given me his business card.”
“He might have. But you were a wolf.”
“I should have shifted and given him a big smile and a big thank-you for his help.”
Pepper laughed. “You would have been way too shy to do that.”
“Yeah. I keep telling myself I need to overcome that. I couldn’t believe Waldron was watching our pack tonight. Well, and that he tore into the other wolf. He’s becoming a real stalker.”
Pepper refilled their wineglasses. “He thinks he’s protecting his ‘property.’ But I won’t be his mate no matter what.”
“Richard said Eric growled and snapped back at Waldron. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to him. Besides you. I wish I’d been there.” Susan sighed.
“Eric is a real alpha wolf. I was surprised he didn’t stay and fight Waldron to the end.” But Pepper was glad for it. She wouldn’t have wanted to see Eric hurt further since he’d already been wounded. Even now, she wondered if he was okay.
She didn’t want to call and check on him though.
She let out her breath on a frustrated sigh.
She hadn’t expected to have any trouble on their camping trip into the national forest. She was a forester and used to working with groups on forest management. Many of her pack members worked in some forestry job or another. Susan supervised their own forest nursery and Christmas tree farm. Some of the pack members worked there or on other tree farms and some worked on other forestry projects, such as tree removal. But they hadn’t been to this forest together as a pack in the last five years or so. It had been a vacation, and before Susan injured herself, they’d been having a blast.