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“So it is,” he said. “They let you go?”
Charlie shook her head.
“I escaped,” she said, trying to think fast. “They thought I was too injured to go anywhere, so they left me alone for a while when they went out for bear time.”
“I see you’re better than they thought,” Buck said. “Maybe not anymore, though.”
The other man opened a cabinet, took out a glass, then poured water from a cold pitcher into it and handed it to Charlie. She drained it in seconds.
Buck pulled out a chair, and motioned for Charlie to sit on it.
“You’ll free Olivia?” she said. Her voice sounded tired, even to her.
“Of course,” Buck said, like it was an afterthought. “Trevor, a word?”
Trevor, she thought.
The two men left into an adjoining room, and Charlie sat still, just looking around.
Then she realized that she could just barely hear them through the door. She leaned toward it straining her ears.
“Of course the bear can’t go free,” Buck said.
Trevor murmured something that she couldn’t hear, and she could hear Buck reprimand him sharply.
“Too hurt,” Trevor said. “Not yet.”
“Tomorrow,” Buck said.
More murmuring from Trevor, but nothing that Charlie could hear.
She was dismayed, but not surprised. She hadn’t believed Buck’s offer to free Olivia any more than Kade and Daniel had. Now she was just going to have to find the bear, free her, and then call the cavalry.
All in a day’s work, right?
Unless there was some way she could escape without calling the FBI. The truck, maybe? She didn’t have the keys, though — and besides, she barely knew where she was, let alone where Kade and Daniel’s cabin was.
The mere thought of it sent a pang through her heart. More than anything, she wanted to be in their kitchen, watching Daniel carve lions into wood, at the table he’d built. Instead, she was here, dealing with wolves.
The door swung open, and Charlie tried to look like she hadn’t been listening.
“You’ve had a long day,” Buck said. “Get some rest, and we’ll do the rest tomorrow.”
“Let her go tonight,” Charlie said, even though she didn’t feel like there was much fight in her. It would be so much easier if they just let poor Olivia go.
“Tomorrow,” Buck said again, his smile slowly taking over his face. “It’s dark out tonight, and I don’t think she knows her way around just yet.”
Charlie just shrugged.
“Come on,” Trevor said. “I’ll put you up in the dorms. You can get a shower and I can bring dinner over.”
He led her to one of the outbuildings, this one apparently designed just for people to stay in. As they walked, he explained that in season, lots of people lived on the ranch. Mostly cowboys, and mostly wolves.
Finally he opened a wooden door to a nice, small bedroom with a single twin bed. There was one towel on it.
“Bathroom’s down the hall, second door on the right.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said. She didn’t dare say more. There were wolves everywhere.
