Excerpt of Secrets of the Wolf by Karen Whiddon

Lost! One more wrong turn and she'd probably end up in Massachusetts, which was so not where she needed to be. Pulling over to the side of the two-lane road, Brie Danzinger consulted her brand-spanking-new map of New York State, folded to reveal the Catskill region.

According to this, once she'd turned off Highway 17, she should only have had a few more miles of twisting, tree- lined road before she reached her hotel on the outskirts of Leaning Tree. A straight shot.

But apparently she'd turned one time too many. No surprise there. Back in Colorado, her dad had always joked she'd inherited a no-sense-of-direction gene from him at birth. The noticeable absence of street signs didn't help either.

Brie rolled down her window, inhaling the pine-scented air. There were no houses that she could see, no gas stations or convenience stores — nothing but trees, trees and more trees. Oaks and pines and maples battled with evergreens to spread branches toward the sun.

She sighed and attempted to refold the map back to the precise rectangle. Halfway through, she gave up and tossed the thing on the seat. The woods beckoned, tempting her with shifting shadows and moist earth. She might as well stretch her legs and walk off some of her frustration.

Slipping into the sheltering forest, she rolled her shoulders, feeling the tension lift, as though stolen away from her by the light breeze that ruffled the leaves. Somewhere nearby, a rabbit watched her — how Brie knew this, she couldn't say and didn't care to analyze. She simply knew.

From a branch high above, a squirrel chattered, scampering unafraid among the treetops. A crow cawed, and a blue jay screeched an answer. Brie smiled, pushing aside branches until she reached a small clearing. Transfixed by a shaft of sunlight that turned the foliage to emerald, she breathed in deeply, letting the scents and sounds of nature wash over her. She finally felt at home, oddly enough in a place she'd never been. Something resonated with her here in these woods, in tune with the steady beat of her heart and the rise and fall of her chest.

Peace.

Who knew? She'd traveled nearly two thousand miles to find her past, and fallen in love with a patch of forest.

"We shoot trespassers on sight around here."

Brie jumped and spun, swallowing back an instinctive scream. Her father's lifelong warnings rang in her ears. A silver-haired man glared at her, arms folded. An older man, his lined face wore an expression of shock. He seemed to have come out of nowhere; she hadn't heard even the slightest rustling of the leaves.

"I'm sorry?" Surely she hadn't heard him correctly.

"What did you say?" She glanced around, unable to see her car or even the place where she'd entered the forest.

"You!" Recoiling, eyes widening, he spat at her. His voice quivered with what sounded like surprise and hope. "Elizabeth? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead, you hear me? Dead."

Elizabeth had been her mother's name.

She took a step toward him, and then froze. "I —" The emotion shining from his dark eyes made her pity him. Elizabeth Beswick had died over twenty years ago. Obviously, she still lived on in this man's memory.

"Liz, where have you been hiding?" His mouth worked. "Why did you stay away so long?"

"I'm not —"

"Elizabeth," he repeated, one hand stretched out clawlike toward her, his tone beseeching.

Geez. She took a deep breath. "I'm not her. Elizabeth was my mother's name. But she's dead." Suppressing the urge to comfort him, she swallowed. "I just got here, been driving for days. All the way from Colorado."

The man stopped, the expression on his face changing to confusion. He shook his shaggy head once, like a dog shaking water from its ears. The pity she'd been unable to keep from her voice must have reached him. Rooted in place, he continued to stare, the emotion in his eyes changing to anger.

"You're trespassing," he spat.

"Actually, I'm lost." She tried for a smile. He wasn't having any of it. In fact, his obvious embarrassment over mistaking her for a long-dead woman appeared to enrage him.

"I posted signs."

"I'm sorry, I didn't see them."

His eyes narrowed as he advanced on her.

Time to beat a retreat.

"I'm going to leave now." Speaking calmly, in a rational tone, Brie shifted her weight and began moving slowly backward, wincing as dead leaves shuffled under her feet. She'd make no sudden motions, nothing to alarm the now furious man or bring out the predator instinct in him.

Predator instinct? Where had that come from? Some melodramatic vein she hadn't known she possessed?

The greens and golds and shadows, no longer soothing, now felt menacing. Even the birds had gone silent. The absence of normal forest sounds told her more than anything her fear was not entirely unfounded.

"I'll be out of your way in a moment. My car is just over there." With a jerk of her chin she indicated the direction. If she cut her eyes, she could see her Mazda's bright red paint through the trees. A few more yards.

Foolish or not, she felt a full-fledged panic attack coming on. No! Not now. Somehow, she needed to control it. She needed to be able to think rationally.

He continued watching her, one corner of his lip curled in a snarl. Still, he made no threatening moves toward her, so she continued to back away slowly.

Five yards. Three. Breathing hard, she pressed the remote, unlocking her car. Giving in to her panic, she crossed the last two yards in a flat-out run. Fumbling with the handle, she yanked open the door and jumped in, relocking the vehicle. She took several deep breaths, tried to slow her racing heart, and cursed panic attacks in general. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the key and switched on the ignition. Slamming the gearshift into Drive, she cast one final look at the shadowy woods before peeling out.

The man hadn't followed her out of the trees. But he watched her still — she'd bet on it.

Once back on the road, she found she'd been too hasty earlier in thinking she was lost. As the map had promised, she drove two more curves in the road and she saw a sign proclaiming Leaning Tree City Limits. Half a mile more and she arrived at her motel.

Still battling the edge of panic, she managed to check in and make it to her room. Once there, Brie tossed her keys on the double bed and took a deep, shaky breath, trying to figure out what had just happened.

That man had mistaken her for her mother. Even worse, he'd acted as though he'd loved her or, at the very least, had some sort of relationship with her.

The sad, crazy man in the woods was bad enough. What horrified her even more was her reaction. Panic attacks again? No way. With the exception of the night she'd found her father, dead of a massive heart attack, she hadn't had a panic attack since she was seventeen. Why here? Why now?

Exhaustion made her stagger. She'd been driving nonstop for sixteen hours and she needed to rest. Yanking off her shoes, she sank onto the bed with a sigh. She'd try and get some sleep.

Tomorrow, her new life would begin.

Police Chief Reed Hunter nodded patiently as he took Eldon Brashear's report. Leaning on the front counter, he cursed the bad timing that had made Eldon drop by while the guys had taken Tammy, the receptionist, out to lunch for her birthday. Normally, taking this kind of report was her job. Hoping to catch up on paperwork, Reed had volunteered to man the office, even though he could have gone along and forwarded the phones to his cell.

So much for paperwork. "I thought I was seeing a ghost." Eldon shook his head. "I'm telling you, you might have been only a boy when Elizabeth Beswick died, but this girl was her spitting image."

"You don't say," Reed repeated for the third time. Everyone knew Eldon had been enamored of the woman, long dead. Now the elderly man was seeing things. "Well, I'm sure it was just a weird coincidence. No doubt the trespasser drove on down the road."

"She claimed she was her daughter."

With a sigh, Reed wrote that information down. No one had seen hide nor hair of Elizabeth's husband, Tom — or their baby girl — in the twenty-odd years since her death.

Ignoring this, Eldon continued his invective against nosy outsiders with no respect for laws. "I had No Trespassing signs posted. She ignored them."

"Calm down," Reed interrupted, before Eldon got started again. "No harm, no foul. I'll file the report. If she shows up again, call me." He glanced at his watch. Tammy and his three deputies should be returning any moment. It was long past his own lunchtime and he was starving.

Still grumbling, Eldon finally took the hint and turned to go.

The bell over the front door jingled. Reed looked up, squinting as the bright sunlight reflected off the glass. A slender young woman with spiky blond hair came inside.

Reed looked up, met eyes the clear blue of a summer sky, and his gut tightened. He swallowed, momentarily unable to catch his breath.

Eldon swore. "You."

"You!" She gasped at the same time. Backing away, she stumbled, nearly tripping over the threshold.

"Wait." Reed regained enough equilibrium to use his best policeman's voice. Kind, yet authoritative. He couldn't seem to stop looking at her. Eldon was right — she did look achingly familiar. And beautiful. He inhaled again, wondering why she smelled like peaches.

"Can I help you, miss?"

Her gaze locked on his and he felt it again, that sensation of something tugging at his gut. He wanted to reach out and trace her delicately carved features, to trail his fingers down the sensual curve of her neck, and revel in the softness of her smooth skin.

"Reed! That's her," Eldon growled, stabbing a finger in her direction. "She's the one I was telling you about. The trespasser."

Twin spots of color rose in the woman's pale cheeks. "Look." Lifting her chin, she took a step into the room. "I've already apologized. I was lost. I didn't realize I was trespassing on private property. I told you that. What else do you want me to do, pay for taking a walk on your land?"

Even her voice played on his insides. Reed shifted his weight and scratched the back of his neck, wondering why.

"I don't want your money." Eyes narrowed, Eldon glared at her. Muttering under his breath, he stalked to the exit. The bell jangled again as he jerked on the door.