Valerie Hansen - Dangerous Legacy

She’d left Mark in the house with Wolfie while she tended to her evening chores right outside. Given the dropping temperatures, it was necessary to provide extra bedding for her larger patients and perhaps move some of the smaller cages under better cover.

The niggling sense that she was being watched made Maggie’s skin prickle. She kept looking over her shoulder as she worked, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, yet convinced she wasn’t alone.

Pulling off flakes of bedding hay, she piled them on a yard cart. Wind whipped loose stem fragments from the pile and swirled them high. Maggie sneezed once, twice, then drew breath to repeat. With her chin lifted she had a different view of her surroundings and thought she saw something moving in the forest.

“Of course I did,” she muttered. “Achoo! Stuff out there blows around just like my hay.” Which was not entirely true. Any lightweight vegetation would still be soggy from the recent rain. Her stored hay, on the other hand, was dry and more easily disturbed.

Most of the outdoor pens were adjacent to the house, while the smallest cages found protection in the barn. Maggie was passing a window that was low enough to let her peek in to check on Mark, so she paused. He and the dog were playing catch. That wasn’t an approved activity for inside, but they were quiet and happy. As long as the boy remembered to keep his tosses low, she wasn’t going to interfere.

A deep, distant howl stood the hairs on Maggie’s neck on end. She whirled, facing the direction of the sound just in time to hear an answering echo about twenty degrees east of the first. Listening intently, she held her breath. Higher-pitched yips joined the elongated cries that were so intense, so primal, they infiltrated her most basic senses. Adults and pups. Only not coyotes. What was a wolf pack doing in the Ozarks?

Instinct made Maggie spin back around. For an instant she forgot she’d been watching her son, so when she came practically nose-to-nose with Wolfie on the other side of the glass, she almost screamed.

The dog pawed at the window, panting until it was steamy. “You hear them, too, don’t you?” His ears perked. He cocked his head. “Take it easy. It’s okay, boy.”

The howls seemed to be getting closer. Maggie cast around for a defensive weapon. The only thing handy was a pitchfork. She reached for the handle. Stumbled over a wheel of the yard cart. Felt herself falling.

She missed catching hold of anything to break her fall and went down hard. In the midst of her useless flailing, she finally did scream.

Glass cracked and broke above her. Maggie covered her head with her arms, letting her jacket take most of the punishment from the falling shards.

There had been no shots this time. She was certain of it. So what...?

Something landed beside her with a soft thud and she knew instantly what had happened. This was the second time Wolfie had breached a closed window. The first time had been when Mark was a toddler and there had been a stray dog in the yard.

Maggie levered herself up just in time to see her enormous dog bound over the cart and disappear into the thick forest. “Wolfie! No!

“Wolfie, come.” She started to get to her feet. Looked down at her hands. And saw blood.

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