Roarke didn’t have any trouble sounding worried when he hurried over to where Donald sat just inside his tent eating his stew. Leaving Abby to the care of this doofus, even if she wasn’t actually injured, went against Roarke’s every instinct. But he had no choice if he expected to solve the Bigfoot problem.

“Bad news, Donald.” He held the two cups of stew, the one Abby had eaten and the one he hadn’t touched. “Her wound’s infected and she’s running a fever.” He held up the full cup of stew. “She couldn’t eat.”

Behind his thick lenses, Donald’s eyes looked huge. “Good God. What are we going to do? The Sasquatch could be here by morning!”

“They could, but they’ll probably stop for the night, so it could be midday before they arrive.” Roarke was counting on the pair stopping to rest. “I hope to be back before they get here.”

Donald’s eyes got even bigger and he scrambled to his feet, spilling some stew on his orange sweatshirt. “You’re leaving?”

“I want you to stay with Abby while I head back to get some antibiotics for her.”

“No reputable doctor will give you a prescription without seeing her.”

Roarke mentally thanked Abby for giving him the answer to that one. “I have a friend who will, once I describe the situation. Look, I’ll travel as fast as I can. Believe me, adrenaline is pumping through my system and I’ll make good progress.”

“Yes, but—”

“I hope to get back here before the Sasquatch pair arrives, but in case I don’t, I’ll feel good knowing you’re here, getting the evidence and watching over Abby.”

“But what should I do about her? Does she need me to sponge her down?”

“No!”

Donald shrank back in alarm.

Roarke toned down his response. “I mean, she would hate that, being so modest and all.”

“Well, yeah, but if she has a fever, I’ve always heard you’re supposed to sponge people down.”

Roarke hated that idea on so many levels. “You might cause her to start bleeding again if you did that.”

“Oh.” Donald paled. “Well, then, better not chance it.”

“She’s not going to die, so don’t panic. But I can’t expect her to hike back out of here when she has a fever and she needs something to counteract that infection.”

“No, no, of course she can’t hike out when she’s like this.”

“Once she has the antibiotics, she’ll start to recover. But I need to get them for her now.”

“Right, right. It’s just that I thought you’d be here when Samson and Delilah showed up.”

“Who?”

“The Sasquatch pair.”

“They don’t have names.”

Donald brightened. “They do now! I named them today, while you were taking care of Abby. It’ll play better with the media if we give them each a name, like everyone uses Nessie for the Loch Ness Monster. Personalizes the creatures, you know. It would be good if you started referring to them that way, too.”

Roarke started to deny that he’d ever refer to the Sasquatch pair by the names Samson and Delilah, but decided not to waste his breath. It wouldn’t matter, because Donald would never make contact with them.

“We should name the baby, too.”

Roarke patted Donald on the shoulder. “You think about that while I’m gone. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll throw a few things into my pack and be off.” He turned toward his tent.

“I sure wish we got cell reception out here,” Donald called after him.

“But we don’t,” Roarke said over his shoulder. And now he was thrilled about that. “I’m afraid hiking back is my only option.” He made a dash for his tent before Donald could hold him up any longer. The Sasquatch odor grew stronger with every passing minute.

Fortunately the rain seemed to be letting up, which would make the forest floor a little less slippery as he loped along. Anticipating this change into wolf form, he’d brought a plastic bag for his backpack and his clothes. He stuffed that in the empty pack along with Abby’s ibuprofen. He decided to leave his watch in the tent. Donald wouldn’t notice he wasn’t wearing it and it was one less thing to leave out in the forest after he shifted.

As a human, he would have needed to take more on this trip. As a wolf, he needed nothing, but he had to leave camp as if he were a man going for a long hike, so he tucked some other clothes in the pack. In the process he came across the handkerchief he’d made into a headband. He allowed himself one long inhale before shoving that into his pack, too.

He was ready. Ducking out of the tent, he zipped it closed and stood. “See you, Donald.”

Donald stood watching him, anxiety etched on his round face. “Hurry.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” Then he walked quickly over to Abby’s tent. “Bye, Abby,” he said softly.

“Bye, Roarke.” She sounded a little bit nasal, as if she’d been crying.

“It’ll be okay.”

“I know.”

Shit, she had been crying. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about that. Anything he said would only make it worse. “Bye,” he said again, and walked away before he could hear her response.

In order to fool Donald, he had to walk back the way they’d come, at least until he had enough cover. As the light faded from the sky, he plowed quickly through the trees and underbrush, following the trampled leaves and broken branches from their passage through here earlier.

He walked nearly a mile before he considered it safe to strip down. As he took off his clothes and stuffed everything in the plastic bag he’d brought, he thought of Abby’s pictures and wondered what she planned to do with them. If she cared about him the way he cared about her, she’d destroy the flash drive and the prints when she returned to her grandfather’s place.

She was in control of that decision, because she hadn’t told him where she’d hidden the flash drive, only that her grandfather would look there if for some reason she turned up missing. But she wouldn’t turn up missing. She’d be fine in camp until he could go back for her.

Telling himself that and believing it were two different things. As he lay on the cold ground and willed his shift, he realized that being separated from Abby was a condition he didn’t care for at all. It felt unnatural, as if he’d left part of himself back at camp.

But he wouldn’t want her here, either, to witness his transformation into a wolf. She might have pictures of it, but that was one step removed. Aidan claimed that Emma was used to seeing her husband shift, but Roarke questioned that.

He still believed in the separation of humans and werewolves. It defied the natural order to throw them together. What a cruel joke, that fate had placed Abby in his path.

As he rose from the ground and shook himself from head to tail, he glanced down at his large forepaws. A few hours ago, they’d been human hands capable of caressing Abby. How could he expect her to accept that he could become…this? He couldn’t.

Nudging the plastic bag under a bush with his nose, he turned, caught the scene of the Sasquatch, and headed back the way he’d come. When he sighted the camp through the trees, he paused, head up. A light was on in Abby’s tent, and…damn it to hell, that traffic cone of a man was sitting in front of the open flap, probably droning on about his accomplishments at Sony.

Roarke fought the urge to charge in, take him by the throat, and shake him like a rag doll. But that would be stupid. Although Donald wouldn’t know the wolf shaking him was Roarke, he’d certainly tell everyone who would listen about his life-threatening encounter with a giant beast, and Weres didn’t need stories like that floating around.

Skirting the camp, Roarke picked up the pace. He had a job to do.

* * *

Abby pretended to fall asleep during Donald’s description of a conference he’d attended as, of course, a featured speaker. Donald didn’t seem to care whether she was conscious or not. Abby wondered if he talked to the wall at home. She couldn’t imagine Donald not talking. For all she knew, he held some sort of world record.

“So then, you’ll never guess who came up to me after my speech,” Donald said.

Abby faked a soft snore.

“The Terminator himself! Arnie! I pointed a finger at him and said, in his accent, hasta la vista, baby, and he just cracked up. He said I should’ve been an actor. Which I thought about back in college, but I—” Donald paused. “Did you hear something?”

Abby’s eyes snapped open. She couldn’t possibly have heard something with Donald droning on, but now that he’d stopped, she did hear a rustling noise. Were those footsteps?

Propping herself on her elbows, she raised up so she could see Donald. She’d no sooner done that than he scrambled into the tent with her and zipped the flap. Like that would protect him.

Outside a stick cracked as if someone, or something had stepped on it. All the possibilities ran through Abby’s head—Bigfoot had given Roarke the slip, a bear had smelled their food and wanted some, a herd of deer had shown up now that the werewolf had left the area. Or it could be a human, although why a human wouldn’t call out a greeting made her think whatever was out there wasn’t human.

She eased to a sitting position. She wasn’t quite ready to give Donald the information that she wasn’t hurt, after all. But if push came to shove, she’d rather use her legs than be trampled or eaten or whatever else might happen to her if she kept up the charade of being a maiden in distress.

Donald was shaking and his face had lost all color. “It can’t be Sampson and Delilah,” he murmured. “I checked the equipment an hour ago and their position was static. They’ve stopped for the night.”

“Maybe they changed their plans.” Donald had informed her earlier about his decision to name the Sasquatch pair, so she knew who he was talking about. But she was inclined to believe that it wasn’t them. For one thing, she couldn’t smell them, and both Roarke and Grandpa Earl had assured her she would gag once she did.

“Could be a herd of deer,” she said.

Donald stared at her, hope struggling with terror in his eyes. “You think?”

“Bigfoot would smell.”

“Oh, my God, you’re right.” His shoulders sagged in relief. But then they hunched up again. “Could be a griz.”

Abby smiled and shook her head. “Not around here. Could be a bear, though. I’ll grant you that.”

He began to shake again and his teeth chattered. “Which means we’re supposed to curl up and play dead, right?”

Abby felt sorry for the poor guy. “Why did you come out here by yourself if you’re so afraid?”

“My sister double-dared me.”

“Oh.” She made sure not to let a hint of a smile cross her lips.

“I researched the area, and bear sightings are rare.”

“That’s true.” And now Abby had a good idea why. With a pack of werewolves living on the Gentry estate, bears would tend to go elsewhere rather than fight for territory. She had seen deer over the years, but they were used to sensing predators nearby and the foliage was lush and plentiful enough to keep them hanging around, werewolves or no werewolves.

“I thought if I could get a picture of Bigfoot, I could stick it to all those people who think I’m some kind of nut, including my older sister,” Donald said.

Abby was tempted to ask him if he worked for Sony at all, or if he was a technician in a second-rate repair facility. But she didn’t want to kick a guy when he was down. Roarke was convinced Donald was really smart, but his lack of social skills might have caused him to be underemployed.

Another branch cracked. Whatever was out there hadn’t gone away. “I’ll bet it’s deer,” Abby said, more to calm her own jumpy pulse than to reassure Donald. She’d never camped overnight alone. She’d always had her brother along.

“I hope you’re right. Deer are cool.”

Abby decided to give him a chance to be manly. “Do you want to go out there and make sure?”

“Oh, I think we should leave them alone to do their thing. No use scaring them, right?”

“I guess you have a point, Donald.” He was beginning to grow on her. Or maybe it was any port in a storm.

“Think about it, Abby. If I walked out there, they might think I was some big, bad hunter ready to fire away. I saw Bambi as a kid. I can relate.”

“Okay, then.” Abby had to say this for the experience. It was a lot more exciting than listening to Donald bragging about his life as an engineer. She was beginning to suspect most, if not all, of the things he’d told her weren’t true.

But all guys couldn’t be like Roarke, who had the muscles, the looks, the courage, the brains, the fur…

Something sent a rock skittering along the ground very close to the tent and Donald flinched. “They wouldn’t stampede or anything, would they?”

“I’ve never heard of deer stampeding through a camp. You might be thinking of a cattle drive, or maybe even wild buffalo, back in the Old West.”

“You’re right.” His shoulders sagged again. “You know how it is in the dark, when your imagination runs away with—”

“You there, in the tent!”

Abby’s wide gaze met Donald’s and she couldn’t have said who was more scared. She couldn’t speak for him, but she almost peed her pants.

Even so, she must have found some courage somewhere, because she piped up immediately with “Who’s there?”

No answer. Her skin prickled. “I said, who’s there?”

Apparently they weren’t going to play her game of Knock, Knock, because no one bothered to answer her question.

“Drug dealers,” Donald whispered.

She shook her head. “They wouldn’t want anything to do with us.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Would they?”

He gulped. “I have some grass in my backpack.”

“Just so you don’t have any crystal meth, I think we’re okay.”

“God, no, but still, they might think that—”

“Come out of the tent,” said a voice cold as the waters of the Columbia. “We don’t want to have to wait for you.” Then light poured through the nylon tent from what had to be several battery-operated lanterns.

If this had been a movie, Roarke would have arrived just at that moment to save the day and put the intruders, whoever they were, in their place. But Abby didn’t think Roarke would show up just now. And she had a very bad feeling about who was outside the tent.

Donald could barely speak, but he leaned toward her. “Do you think it’s banditos here to rob, rape, and pillage?”

“No.” She would have preferred bandits. At least they had a profit motive.

Donald cleared his throat and clenched his fists. “We have an injured woman in here!” His voice quivered as he said it, but at least he’d tried.

“Thanks, Donald,” she said softly. “Don’t be a hero. I’ll be okay.”

“No, you stay here. They might have guns.” He looked as if he might pass out any minute. “I’ll see what they want.”

“Maybe you should let me go first.”

“Nope.” Resolution gleamed in his gray eyes. “Wallace told me to watch out for you, and I will.” He lifted his round chin as if he figured he was about to meet his death. “Semper Fi.”

“You were a Marine?” She regretted the disbelief in her voice, but if Donald was a former Marine, she was a former Miss Universe.

“No, my sister was.” With that he zipped open the flap and crawled out into the glare from the lanterns.

She couldn’t let him do that alone. Crawling out after him, she blinked in the bright light. Then she stood and faced…damn it all…Cameron Gentry, king of the Portland werewolves.