Dimly, I realized Colin was still holding my hand. I turned to him, opened my mouth, and closed it again. Then I turned back to the man on the grass. He was completely naked, lying on his stomach among the wildflowers. The grass hid his face, but his body looked strong, young, and healthy. And in ridiculously good shape, I realized as I followed the lines of his muscular legs to the curve of his—

I shook my head, trying to focus on the tranquilizer dart sticking out of his thigh. Damn it, I was not here to check out his ass. But there was something disturbingly compelling about his naked figure, something almost familiar. As if I already knew how his skin would feel under my fingertips. How it would taste.

I cleared my throat. “Colin...”

Colin’s hand twitched against mine.

“I shot a wolf,” I said. My voice sounded very small, as if it were coming from far away.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I saw it. You shot a wolf.”

I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut, picturing the black wolf running through the sagebrush. Remembering how he yipped when the dart hit his flank.

I opened my eyes. The man was still there.

There was a soft beep as Colin pressed transmit on his walkie-talkie. “Zeke,” he said. “Get over here. Bring the first aid kit.”

Zeke’s voice came over the transmitter. “What happened? Boss Lady stab herself with a tranq dart?”

“Just get over here,” Colin snapped.

My backcountry first aid training was slowly percolating through the layers of shock and disbelief swaddling my brain. I dropped to my knees next to the man. Carefully, I brought my fingers to his neck. His skin was warm under my fingers, his pulse strong and regular.

“He’ll be in shock, once he wakes up,” I said. “We’ll need a sleeping bag, or something.”

I pulled my backpack off my shoulders and brought out my rain jacket. It wasn’t much, but I stretched it over his torso before turning to the tranquilizer dart. A small trickle of blood leaked from the spot where the dart had sunk into his skin. I took a deep breath, wrapped my fingers around the smooth metal of the dart, and yanked it out of his leg.

He didn’t even flinch. I stared at his thigh. This was a shallow puncture wound; I needed to apply steady, even pressure. I tossed the dart to the grass and pulled my sleeve over my palm, pressing my hand against the bloody hole in his leg. After taking a deep breath, I turned to Colin.

He hadn’t moved. He was staring at the naked man in the grass with an expression that was almost wounded, as if the man’s very existence was an insult.

“Colin,” I snapped. He shook his head, bringing his eyes to my face. “We’re going to need a sleeping bag.”

He nodded.

“I need you to get a sleeping bag,” I said, speaking slowly.

“Okay.”

“Do you have a rain jacket? In your backpack?”

Colin nodded.

“Leave it with me, please. He’s going to be in shock.”

Colin pulled a bright red and yellow North Face jacket from his backpack. He stepped very carefully around the naked man and placed his jacket on the ground next to me. His hands trembled. The wind picked up again, rattling the leaves on the willow bushes. This time the scent of rain was unmistakable.

“I don’t think we have much time before the storm,” I said. “How quickly do you think you and Zeke can get a tent over here?”

“We’ll do it,” Colin said.

“Good.”

But he didn’t move. His eyes focused on the tranquilizer dart in the grass, the one I’d just pulled from the man’s thigh.

“Colin! Go!”

He shook his head a final time and nodded, turning to leave the willow grove on unsteady legs. Once he was out of sight, I took a deep breath and looked at the naked man whose skin was warm under my hands. His body was exquisite. His muscular chest rose and fell with his breathing, my rain jacket barely hiding the dark hair scattered across his pectorals. I fought the insane urge to run my hands down his chest, to feel the rasp of his hair against my palms.

“Karen, focus,” I muttered.

I tore my eyes away from him and looked at the sky. Dark thunderheads churned over Druid Peak. I checked my watch. It had been almost thirty minutes since I shot the tranquilizer dart. This would be the time we’d need to call it, to get away before the animal woke. If this were a wolf.

Slowly and carefully, I pulled my palm off the stranger’s thigh. There was a small bloodstain on my sleeve, but his leg had stopped bleeding. I reached for Colin’s rain jacket to wrap around the naked stranger’s chest.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered as I leaned over him. “And you really shouldn’t be so damn familiar.”

The wind gusted as I wrapped Colin’s rain jacket around his chest, and for a second his scent overwhelmed me. Musky and wild, with a distant hint of sweetness, like honey and clover flowers. I rocked back on my heels, trembling.

“Oh, shit,” I said. “It’s him.”

My heartbeat roared in my ears as I forced myself to lean over his chest until I could see his face. His high cheekbones, his soft lips. His long, dark hair.

He was, without a doubt, my dream lover.

His beautiful face looked almost peaceful with his eyes closed and his hair spread across the grass. The wind picked up again and I grabbed Colin’s jacket, wrapping my arms around his back and chest to keep the thin fabric from blowing away. A strand of dark hair fluttered across his lips and I brushed his mouth with my fingers, pushing the errant hair behind his ear.

His golden eyes flickered open, following my arm until he met my gaze. I felt his heartbeat quicken under my fingertips.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re okay.”

He said something guttural and strange in a language I did not understand. Then he shook his head and tried to pull himself up to sitting. He slipped, and I reached for him, wrapping an arm around his back before he could fall. He shook his head again, his hair falling in his face. I shifted my weight, supporting his body with mine.

“You’re okay,” I said again. “There was an accident. But you’re going to be fine.”

He took a long, shaky breath, and his golden eyes met mine again. “You,” he whispered. And then he smiled.

He had a gorgeous smile, like daybreak in winter, sunlight over snow, and it made my body surge with heat. I didn’t need to move much to press my lips against his. His mouth opened to mine, and his familiar tongue entered me, exploring me. He ran his fingers slowly down the back of my neck. My body trembled in his arms. Karen McDonald, some tiny, distant part of my brain whispered, what the fuck are you doing?

I jumped back, pulling away from him.  “I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “That was completely unprofessional. You—are you—”

He raised his hand to trace the curve of my cheek. “My woman,” he said.

I opened my mouth to disagree and then thought, under the circumstances, I might just let that one slide. His thumb lingered on my bottom lip, and I fought back the urge to pull his finger into my mouth.

“Why do I feel like I’m drunk?” he asked.

“Oh. Right. I, um, shot you. With a tranquilizer gun.”

“You did this?” His grin widened. “I knew you were special.”

My heart gave an absurd little flutter at that, which I tried to ignore. “I’m sorry. It was an accident, and you might feel a little, uh, strange. For a few hours. But you’ll be fine, I swear.”

“But where are the trees?”

“The trees?”

“Our trees,” he said, frowning. “Where are our trees?”

He thinks he’s dreaming, I realized, with a jolt. Dreaming of me, in the aspen grove. I reached for his arm, wrapping my hand around his wrist. His heartbeat raced under my fingertips. “What’s your name?” I asked, trying to distract him.

“Name?”

Electricity surged through my body as he grinned at me. Oh, God help me. It was impossible, totally fucking impossible, but he really was my dream lover.

And I was not dreaming.

“I’m Karen,” I said. “Karen McDonald. What’s your name?”

“Names?” He sighed, rolling his head back in a wide circle. “Funny. We already know each other so well, without names.”

He tilted his head and gave me a wide, predatory smile that made me slick with heat. “I’m Vali, my Karen McDonald. Vali Lokisen.”

Still smiling like he fully intended to devour me alive, he grabbed my waist and pulled me into his lap. His cock twitched against the seam of my pants and I whimpered, my body burning, my hips rocking against his. Karen, no, I told myself. Zeke and Colin—

“I don’t think—” I said, but he pressed his lips to mine and all my concerns faded to dull background noise. My mouth opened for his hungry tongue, his hands traveled down my back, and I stopped worrying about the tranquilizer dart or the approaching thunderstorm or the sheer impossibility of someone existing simultaneously in my crazy sex dreams and in the backcountry of Yellowstone—

My walkie-talkie exploded with static. Vali jumped, and I fell from his arms into an undignified heap on the grass.

“Boss Lady!” Zeke’s voice crackled through the receiver. “Do you copy? You’re freaking us out over here.”

Vali scrambled to his feet, his eyes scanning the horizon. “What in the Nine Realms was that?”

“It’s okay,” I gasped.

My breath caught in my throat before I could say more. He was a very attractive, very naked man, and the hard curve of his erection was quite distracting. I clambered to my feet and faced him, reaching for his arm.

“I’m so sorry. About the tranquilizer. About everything. You’re going to be fine. It’s all going to be—”

“I am dreaming, am I not?” His voice was sharp, his eyes hard.

“Uh, no. I don’t think so.”

Thunder rumbled over Druid Peak.

“But how are you here?” Vali demanded. “How am I awake? How did you do this?”

“I—I don’t know. I tranquilized a wolf. A black wolf.”

“Karen, you cannot do this.” His voice dropped and his eyes grew wild. “He’ll find me.”

The first serious crash of thunder echoed across the Lamar’s sagebrush flats. Vali leapt from the clearing, disappearing behind the willow bushes.

“Wait!” I called after him. “Vali, wait!”

The light dimmed, and the temperature dropped as the storm descended. I raised my hand to shade my eyes as I pushed the willow branches out of my way, but I didn’t see him.

“Hellloooo!” The cool wind carried Colin’s voice across the valley.

I turned and saw Colin and Zeke trotting through the sagebrush. When I waved, they broke into a sprint, running toward me. Zeke wore his enormous orange backpack.

“Where’s the wolf?” called Zeke.

“Where’s the man?” called Colin, simultaneously.

Both of them stopped, turning to stare at each other, and the rain began to fall. I walked over to them, handing Colin his rain jacket. The second I raised my own jacket over my head I realized it smelled like him, like my dream lover Vali, sweet and wild.

Oh, shit.

That just happened.

My head spun, and I dropped to my knees, crouching on the grass, watching raindrops pool along the hood of my jacket. Colin and Zeke sat down next to me. Crouching near the ground, with the sky dark above them, they both suddenly looked very young. And they were looking to me. They expected me to make this all better.

“What the hell happened here?” Zeke asked, staring at the red tranquilizer dart on the trampled grass.

I reached out, putting a hand on Colin’s arm and Zeke’s knee. “I don’t know what just happened,” I said. “I—honestly, I don’t even know what to say. But I can tell you what we’re going to do.”

They both turned to me, the exact same expression on their wildly different faces.

“We’re going to leave it here,” I said. “We’re going to just leave all this crazy shit right here. We can come back to it—maybe someday we’ll even understand it—but right now, we’re just going to stand up and walk away.”

I stood up.

“We’ve got four more days in the field,” I continued, “and we have a ton of work to do. We’re not going to let today ruin the rest of the week.”

Zeke nodded as he came to his feet. Colin took longer, and when he stood his face was ashen. He struggled to pull his eyes from the spot where he’d first seen Vali. Where he’d been expecting to see a wolf.

“We’re scientists,” I said, gently. “That doesn’t mean we have all the answers. But it means there are answers, and someday we might even find them. Right, Colin?”

Colin shook his head, slowly bringing his eyes to my face. “Yeah,” he said. “Answers. Right.”

We were all very quiet as we walked back to the campsite, in the rain.

The thunderstorm didn’t last long, perhaps only half an hour, but rain while backpacking is an epic pain in the ass. Everything was drenched: the cooking gear. My clothes. The backpacks. And, thanks to my suggestion to bring a sleeping bag for Vali, my sleeping bag was now also soaking wet.

“You had to bring my sleeping bag,” I muttered.

“It was the closest,” said Zeke, with a shrug.

We spent the afternoon setting up our tracking gear, monitoring the Leopold pack, and stringing up a clothesline between the pines to hang our wet gear out to dry. I even spread my sleeping bag on a big, south-facing granite boulder, although I didn’t really have much hope the last few hours of August sunlight would be able to dry it.

It was almost time for dinner when I stood up from the satellite dish, stretched, and slipped my cell phone into my pocket. Colin and Zeke were again debating merits of various brands of climbing ropes, which I took as a good sign. I walked through the woods for about ten minutes, aimlessly, until I realized I’d come back to the little stream where I took a bath yesterday. Where I’d seen the huge, black wolf.

I shook my head and pulled the phone from my pocket, dialing Susan, my best friend in the entire state of Montana.

“Hey, Karen?” she answered. “I thought you were in the park?”

“Yeah, I am in the park. Listen, I need to call in that favor.”

****

I BOUGHT A HOUSE AS soon as I moved to Bozeman.

Actually, I bought a house before I even moved to Bozeman. As soon as I accepted the full tenure-track position, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Biology at Montana State University, I was on the phone with a real estate agent. I flew out one weekend in May, looked at half a dozen little houses on the artsy, affordable southern side of town, and then signed my life over to the bank to purchase one.

My neighbors were Susan and Bob. Susan was tall and strong, with long, curly brown hair, the kind of woman who wore sensible shoes and chopped her own firewood. She worked as an adjunct Spanish instructor at MSU during the winters and a park ranger in Yellowstone during the summers, and I liked her immediately. Her boyfriend Bob, however, was short and perpetually twitchy. He was, as far as I could tell, a marijuana dealer, and possibly also some kind of fishing guide. I wasn’t crazy about Bob, but I loved Susan, and I was desperate to have normal friends again, so we shared a few cookouts and potlucks that first year.

Then, in July, Susan found herself with a few unexpected days off from her post at Old Faithful. She decided to drive back to Bozeman and surprise Bob. Bob was absolutely surprised to see her. So was the naked woman in their bed. That night Susan moved in with me. We lived together for almost three months, until she found a little apartment above an art gallery on Main Street.

“Anything you need,” she told me, as I helped her move into her new place, “you just call. I owe you one hell of a favor.”

****

MY CELL PHONE WAS SO quiet I pulled it away from my ear to make sure I hadn’t dropped the signal. “Susan? You still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Still here. What’s up? You okay?”

Not really, I thought. I just shot someone with a tranquilizer gun. Or I’m losing my fucking mind. Either option was pretty shitty.

“Listen, do you have access to the hiker’s records?”

“You mean the ones at the trailhead?” she asked.

“Yeah, where you have to sign in with the name, date, and number in party. Do you keep those electronically or what?”

Susan laughed over the phone. “Karen, this is the Forest Service. Of course, we don’t keep those electronically.”

I made a face, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “This is going to be a pain in the ass, then. Is there any way you could search the hiker records for someone named Vali Lokisen? Probably in the Lamar valley, but I guess he could have come from anywhere.”

There was a pause on the line.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Susan said, finally. “But, I’ve got to tell you. Those hiker records are a joke. I mean, most people don’t even fill them out. Especially if they don’t want to be found.”

“I filled it out,” I protested.

“Did your students?”

I thought of Colin and Zeke, rolling into the parking lot four hours late, loading up their backpacks with twelve cans of Miller High Life. “Probably not,” I sighed.

There was another pause before Susan’s voice came through again, lower this time. “I can check with the police, if you want. Discreetly.”

“Thanks.”

“What was the name again?”

“Vali Lokisen.”

“Appearance?”

“Tall,” I said. “Strong, athletic. Long, dark hair.”

“Clothes? Backpack?”

I felt my cheeks going red. “Uh, no,” I stammered.

Susan laughed. “Trust me, you’d be surprised how many people get naked in the backcountry.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, remembering my bath in the stream.

“When you get back to town, you’ll tell me what this is about, right?”

“Of course.” Just as soon as I can think of a way to explain it that won’t make me sound like a nutcase. “Thanks again.”

“I’ll text you if I find anything. You take care.”