The Mountain's Shadow

like she’d been polished just before being left outside.

“What did you find, Joanie?” Ron came over.

I stuffed the charm in my pocket. “Nothing.” I knew this was a message from my grandfather, and I didn’t want to talk about it until I could figure out what it meant.

“Still nothing.” Leo’s scowl reminded me of my grandfather’s. “Happy now?”

“Yes, thank you. I have a much better idea of what happened.”

I guess.

Lonna returned just before we sat down to dinner. While Gabriel cooked, I asked the guys about anything they could remember about Charles Landover and if he’d ever mentioned a family curse or his research on it. They repeated conversations, and we analyzed them until nothing made sense anymore. I had the feeling there was something they weren’t telling me, but I couldn’t tease it out of them.

A timid knock on the front door broke our concentration. There was Lonna, and I didn’t need to have a werewolf’s nose to tell what she’d been up to.

“Sir Peter’s peter strikes again,” Ron said. “I guess he won’t be making any more babies with Marguerite tonight.”

Lonna shot a scared look into the den and raced up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Don’t be too long,” I called up after her. “Dinner’s about ready.”

“I’m not hungry.” I could hear tears in her voice. What the hell could she be crying about? Had they already broken up? I’d tried to warn her about the perils of messing with a married man.

“Suit yourself.” With a shrug, I walked back into the formal dining room, which could also be reached through the front hall. It had a view through French doors of the mountain vista, and I took a deep breath and basked in the twilight scenery. Green waves of mountains faded to purple in the distance and broke under a pink and orange sky. I took another breath, slowly, in through the nose and out through my mouth and tried to block the memory of Lonna in the cafe with Peter. Involved with a married man. Had she not paid attention at all? At the end of the day, they always go back to their wives and tots and leave you in the cold.

“Is everything all right, Madam?” Gabriel carried a silver tureen redolent with the smells of savory herbs, onions, garlic and red wine into the room. He put it on the table, which was set with fine cream-colored porcelain plates on burgundy table linens.

“Rabbit stew.” He gestured to the tureen. “It’s one of your grandfather’s recipes.”

“I’m fine, I guess.” I tried to calm my roiling emotions, which bubbled like the stew. I had to admit some of the conflict was from the unfulfilled sexual tension bursting between me and the werewolf men. Something about them was so primal and untamed, and the fact they hated it made it even more alluring. I didn’t even think I’d be able to feel those impulses since Robert had broken my heart.

Gabriel opened his mouth, then shook his head and went back into the kitchen.

I turned back to the mountain vista and tried to imagine standing there with a husband or lover. Maybe that was it—jealousy. All Lonna needed was a glance, and any man was hers. I could risk career, sanity, everything, and it was never enough. I’m sure Kyra had the same talent, but at least Lonna wasn’t a bitch about it. I couldn’t help but frown at the thought of her making my mistake of getting involved with a married man.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply again. This line of thought wasn’t getting me anywhere. In the scientific world, solving a puzzle might take years, but at least it had a solution somewhere that could be found by breaking the problem into little manageable bits. In the world of emotions and people, things were never simple.

“Full moon tonight,” commented Gabriel as he returned and poured the wine. I jumped and opened my eyes. The sky had darkened, and the first few stars—planets, I guess—shone forth.

“I guess the boys will have to run.” I had known that for some reason, but my memory wouldn’t tell me why it was important beyond the significance to the werewolves.

“They already have.”

“Oh.” A pang of disappointment stabbed my chest. “I’ll see if Lonna wants to join us.”

The upstairs hallway was dark, but the light in Andy’s—I mean Lonna’s—room was on, the door cracked.

“Knock knock,” I called.

“Come in.”

Steam from Lonna’s recent shower made the air feel warm and moist, and I smelled the citrus-coconut scent of her shampoo. I walked through the room to the bathroom door, which was ajar. She stood by the sink and toweled off her long, luxurious dark brown hair.

“The guys—Ron and Leo—left.”

“Good. I can come down to eat.”

“Why didn’t you want to before?”

“New people. I’ve had enough of strange men today.”

I raised my eyebrows but resisted the retort that came to mind. Instead I asked, “Was Peter able to give you any insight into the missing children?”

“No, but he did fill me in on the families that were here, specifically which ones fought the development.”

“Does he think the two are connected?”

“He doesn’t know. But at this point, everyone is a suspect.”

“Even him?”

She ran a comb through her hair. “Even him. You know the saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

I bit my tongue over the reply that she seemed to have kept him close enough that afternoon.

“I’ll let you get dressed.”

I made my way down the stairs and paused by the front door. I don’t know what I was hoping to hear, but I could only make out the typical night sounds. I imagined what it would be like to shed human responsibilities for a few hours, to run under the moon and stars through the wild hills with the pack. I shivered. Would it all fall away, the grief over my grandfather’s strange disappearance, the guilt that blossomed at the thought of Louise going missing that morning, and the bitterness and anger over Robert’s betrayal? I could feel all of these things whirling around in my head, a miserable fog that weighed heavily on my heart. Ah, to be shed of that for even a few moments. A tear slid down my cheek and I took a deep breath so sadness wouldn’t overwhelm me. Even with two guardians in the house, I felt so very alone.

I swirled the red wine around in my glass as Lonna recounted what she’d learned from Peter. The alcohol warmed me from the center out and loosened some of the tension in my chest. A good fruity Merlot, it paired well with the rabbit-leek stew and the crusty French bread, which Gabriel had somehow found out I loved and which he had picked up at the bakery in town that afternoon.

Most of the settlers of Piney Mountain were of German and Scandinavian stock, and not much had changed due to the community’s isolation until the weekend commuters had discovered the joys of clean air and mountain living. The town’s resistance to being incorporated into Crystal Pines had been led by three families: the Van Dorens, the Schmidts and the Jorgens. Louise’s daughter had been Honey Jorgen, and it was her son—Louise’s grandson Johnny—who’d been the second to disappear. Eleven-year-old Simon Van Doren had been the first.

“How did the developers explain that one?” I asked. “It seems the connection is obvious.”

“It snuffed the resistance, that’s certain.” Gabriel used tongs to refill the bread basket with fresh, hot bread slices. “Suddenly the families who’d been here for generations were more willing to sell their land and get out. Your grandfather talked about it often.”

“And the ones who moved in haven’t lost any kids?”

Lonna took a piece of bread. “I pressed Peter for more information…”

Into the couch in his office? The angry little voice in my head broke in.

“And?”

“He said they just took it as a sign they were meant to be here, and the land was supposed to change hands