When shots are fired, wildlife officer Joe Cash responds to the call and finds himself face-to-face with Skylar Davis and her pet…wolf. It’s Joe’s job to protect all endangered species—including the pretty vet’s menagerie of rescues. As the threats intensify, Joe realizes Skylar could be the key to busting a ruthless poaching ring. But she’s keeping a secret that could cause more harm than either of them can imagine.

MICHELE HAUF is a USA TODAY bestselling author who has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries usually feature in her stories. And if Michele followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries and creatures she has never seen. Find her on Facebook, Twitter and at michelehauf.com

Also by Michele Hauf

Storm Warning

The Witch’s Quest

The Witch and the Werewolf

An American Witch in Paris

The Billionaire Werewolf’s Princess

Tempting the Dark

This Strange Witchery

The Dark’s Mistress

Ghost Wolf

Moonlight and Diamonds

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Witness in the Woods

Michele Hauf

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09453-5

WITNESS IN THE WOODS

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Note to Readers

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Joseph Cash raced toward the admittance doors of St. Luke’s emergency room. He’d driven furiously from Lake Seraphim the moment he’d heard the dispatcher’s voice announce that an elderly Indian man near death had been found crawling at the edge of County Road 7. A young couple had spotted him, pulled over and called the police.

Joe had responded to Dispatch and asked if he could take the call. She’d reported back that an ambulance was already at the scene and the man was being transferred to Duluth. The patient was seizing, and the initial report had been grim. They couldn’t know if he’d arrive alive or dead.

The description the dispatcher had given Joe could have been that of any elderly Native American. Sun-browned skin, long dark hair threaded with gray and pulled into a ponytail. Estimated age around eighty.

But Joe instinctually knew who the man was. His heart had dropped when he’d heard the location where the man had been found climbing up out of the ditch on all fours. That was the one place Max Owen had used to rendezvous with Joe when he brought him provisions, because from there it was a straight two-mile hike through the thick Boundary Waters to where he’d camped every summer for twenty years in a little tent at the edge of a small lake.

Joe hadn’t seen Max since June, two months earlier. He’d looked well, though his dry cough had grown more pronounced over the past year. Max had attributed it to the bad habit of smoking when he’d been a teenager. If anything happened to end that old man before Joe could see him—no, he mustn’t think like that.

Now he entered the too-bright, fluorescent-lit hallway of the ER intake area. Three people queued before the admissions desk, waiting to be assessed for triage. Normally, Joe would respectfully wait his turn, as he had occasion to check in on patients he’d brought here himself while on duty as a conservation officer with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Fingers curling impatiently in and out of his fists, he stepped from foot to foot. He couldn’t wait. If the emergency crew hadn’t been certain about Max’s condition…

“The Native American man who was brought in,” he said over the head of a stooped elderly woman at the front of the line.

The male nurse behind the bulletproof glass glanced up and, at the sight of Joe, smiled. Though weariness etched the nurse’s brow, his eyes glinted. “Hey, handsome, who you looking for?”

“An old man was found on County Road 7 about forty-five minutes ago. Dispatch says they brought him here.” He wore the conservation officer’s green jacket over his matching forest-green cotton shirt, so he had the official gear to grant him authority. But it probably wouldn’t matter, Joe decided, as the nurse winked at him.

“Please, I don’t mean to interrupt, ma’am.” Joe flashed a smile at the old woman who was giving him the stink eye. “I think I know him. I can provide identification. He’s eighty-two, Native American…” Joe thought about it less than a moment, then clasped his fingers at his neck. “And he always wore an eagle talon on a leather choker at his neck.”

The nurse nodded. “We got your guy.” He glanced at the computer screen before him and then muttered, “Oh.”

That single utterance dropped Joe’s heart to his gut. Because he knew. The nurse didn’t need to say anything more.

Wincing through the sudden rise of sadness that welled in his chest, Joe nodded toward the doors that led to the treatment rooms. The nurse touched the security button, which released the lock on the doors, and Joe dashed through, calling back a mumbled thanks.

He hadn’t bothered to ask for a room number. There were only two rooms designated for those bodies that awaited the coroner’s visit. He knew that from previous visits. Walking swiftly down the hallway, he beat a fist into his palm as he neared the first room. The walls were floor-to-ceiling windows. All the curtains had been pulled, and no light behind them shone out.

“Officer?” A short blonde nurse in maroon scrubs appeared by his side and looked up at him. She smelled like pink bubblegum.

“I heard the dispatch call on the old man,” Joe said. “I may be able to identify him.”

“Excellent. We thought he was a John Doe. I’ll just need your badge and name for our records. Why don’t you step inside the room and take a look to confirm your guess while I grab some forms?”

“Is he…? When did he—?”

“He was DOA. Dr. Preston called it ten minutes ago. Presented as ingestion of a poisonous substance, but we’re waiting for the coroner to do a thorough workup. I’ll be right back!”

She was too cheery, but then Joe had learned that the ER sported all ranges of personalities, and it was those who exuded cheer who survived longest the grueling emotional toll such work forced upon them. Either that, or she was faking it to get through yet another endless shift.

He opened the sliding door, which glided too quietly, and stepped inside the room. Though the body on the bed was covered from head to toe with a white sheet, he just knew. The ten-year-old boy inside him shook his head and sucked in his lower lip. Not fair. Why Max?

Carefully, Joe tugged back the sheet from the head. Recognition seized his heart. He caught a gasp at the back of his throat.

“Oh, Max.” Joe swore softly and gripped the steel bed rail. The man had been so kind to him over the years. He was literally the reason Joe currently worked for the DNR.

Poison? But how? It made no sense.

The sudden arrival of the nurse at his side startled him. She moved like a mouse, fast and stealthily.

“Sorry.” She handed him a clipboard and then turned on a low light over the bed. “Just need your signature. Do you recognize the deceased?”

“I do.” Joe scribbled his name and badge number on the standard form and handed it back to her. “His name is Maximilien Owen and he’s Chippewa. The Fond du Lac band. Doesn’t live on the Fond du Lac reservation, though. Hasn’t associated closely with his tribe for decades. Eighty-two years old. Has never seen a doctor a day in his life. I thought he was healthy, though he’d had a dry cough of late. Are you sure it was poison?”

“That was the initial assessment. You know these Native Americans have herbs and plants they use for rituals and whatnot. Probably ate the wrong plant or something. It’s very sad,” she added.

Joe lifted a brow. She had no idea.

“Max would never eat the wrong plant,” Joe insisted. “He lived off the land his entire life. He knew the Boundary Waters like no one else. His dad used to be a tracker in the Vietnam War, and he taught Max everything he knew.”

“Oh, that’s touching.”

She wasn’t in the mood to hear the old man’s life story, and Joe wasn’t going to gift her with Max’s wonderful tale. He pegged her cheery attitude as a false front.

“I’m going to stick around for the coroner,” he said. “I want an autopsy.”

The nurse’s jaw dropped. “Do you…know his family? We don’t usually…”

“He didn’t have family. I’ll pay for the autopsy. This is important.”

Joe wasn’t about to let the old man be filed away as an accidental poisoning. That was not Max. At all. Something wasn’t right. And Joe would not rest until it was confirmed that Max’s death had been natural—or not.

Two weeks later…

BURNING CEDARWOOD SWEETENED the air better than any fancy department store perfume Skylar Davis had ever smelled. Pine and elm kindling crackled in the bonfire before her. A refreshingly cool August breeze swept in from the lake not thirty yards away and caressed her shoulders. She breathed in, closing her eyes, and hugged the heavy white satin wedding dress against her chest.

It was time to do this.

Beside her on the grass, alert and curious, sat Stella, the three-year-old timber wolf she’d rescued as a pup. Skylar could sense the wolf’s positive, gentle presence. The wolf was there for her. No matter what.

She opened her eyes and then dropped the wedding dress onto the fire. Smoke coiled. Sparks snapped. Stella sounded an are-you-sure-about-this yip.

“Has to be done, Stella. I can’t move forward any other way.”

Using a long, charred oak stick peeled clean of bark—her father’s fire-poking stick—she nudged the lacy neckline of the dress deeper into the flames. The tiny pearls glowed, then blackened, and the lace quickly melted. The frothy concoction, woven with hopes and dreams—and a whole lot of reckless abandon—meant little to her now.

Stepping back to stand beside Stella, Skylar planted the tip of the fire-poking stick in the ground near her boot and nodded. She should have done this two months earlier—that Saturday afternoon when she’d found herself marching into the county courthouse with hell in her eyes and fury in her heart. An unexpected conversation with her uncle an hour earlier had poked through her heart and left it ragged.

Her world had tilted off balance that day. The man she’d thought she was ready to share the rest of her life with had a secret life that he’d attempted to keep from her. She’d had her suspicions about Cole Pruitt, which was why she had been the one to approach Uncle Malcolm in the flower shop parking lot that morning she had intended to say I do. Normally she’d find a way to walk a wide circle around the family member who had done nothing but serve her and her father heartache over the years. But she’d had to know. And Malcolm had been just evasive enough for her to press—until he’d spilled the truth about Cole.

Since then, life had been strangely precarious. Not only had she ditched a fiancé, but her uncle had been keeping a close eye on her, as well. Hounding her about the parcel of land he wanted her to sell to him. And so close to making threats, but not quite. Still, she was constantly looking over her shoulder for something—danger, or…a rescuer?

Hell, she was a strong, capable woman who could take care of herself. She didn’t need rescuing.

Maybe.

“Stella, I—”

Something stung Skylar’s ear. It felt like a mosquito, but immediately following that sudden burn, she saw wood split out, and a small hole appeared through the old hitching post three feet to her right.

“What the—?”

Clamping a hand over her ear and instinctively ducking, Skylar let out a gasp as another hole suddenly drilled into the post.

Stella jumped to all fours, alert and whining in a low and warning tone. The wolf scanned the woods that surrounded their circle of a backyard. Cutting the circle off on the bottom was the rocky lakeshore. A cleared swath in the thick birch and maple woods opened to the lake, where Skylar saw no boat cruising by. Was someone in the woods?

She opened her hand before her. Blood smeared one of her fingers. What had just happened?

The holes in the post answered that question. And set Skylar’s heartbeats to a faster pace.

“Stella, stay here.” Still in a squat, Skylar patted her thigh. The wolf crept to her side and Skylar ran her fingers through her soft summer coat. “Someone just shot at me,” she whispered.

And, unfortunately, that was no surprise.

Chapter Two

Finishing off a ham-and-pickle sandwich he’d packed for a late lunch, Joe Cash sat in his county-issue four-by-four pickup truck outside the public access turnoff to Lake Vaillant. He’d just come off the water after a long day patrolling, which involved checking that fishermen had current licenses, guiding a few lost tourists in the right direction and issuing a warning to a group of teens who had been trying to dive for “buried treasure.” The depths of the lake were littered with fishing line, lost hooks and decades of rusting boat parts. Only the beach on the east shore had been marked for safe swimming.

All in a day’s work. A man couldn’t ask for a better job. Conservation officer for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources was a title that fit Joe to a tee. Ninety percent of the time, his office featured open air, lakes, trees, snow and/or sun. Joe’s job was to keep the public safe, but also to protect and guard the wildlife that flourished in this county set in the Superior Forest. Not a day passed that he didn’t get to wander through tall grasses, spot a blue heron or, if he was lucky, spy on a timber wolf from a local pack.

He smiled widely and tilted back the steel canteen of lukewarm water for a few swallows. This job was what made him wake with a smile and dash out to work every morning. Nothing could give him more satisfaction. Except, that is, when he finally nailed the parties responsible for the rampant poaching in the area. Someone, or many someones, had been poaching deer, beaver, cougar, turkey and the animal most precious to Joe’s soul, the gray wolf. But tops on the list was the bald eagle. Taking down the other animals without a proper license was considered a gross misdemeanor. Taking down a bald eagle was a federal offense. And recently he’d begun to wonder if the poachers were using something beyond the usual snare or steel trap. Like death by poisoning.

The autopsy on Max Owen had shown he’d been poisoned by strychnine. He hadn’t consumed it orally, but rather, it had permeated his skin and entered his bloodstream. And even more surprising than the poison? His lungs had been riddled with cancer. That discovery had troubled Joe greatly. If he had known what was growing in Max, he would have taken him to a doctor long ago. The poison had killed him, but it was apparent the cancer would have been terminal. The coroner had ruled his death accidental. There had been no evidence of foul play. Max must have handled the poison improperly, it was determined.

Joe knew the old man was not stupid. He didn’t handle poison. Strychnine was rarely used, and if so, only by farmers for weeds and crops. Max had immense respect for wildlife and would never use or put something into the environment that could cause harm.

After saying goodbye to his mentor in the ER that night, Joe had gone directly to the site where Max set up his campsite from April to October. It had been past midnight, but Joe had tromped through the woods, confident in his destination. Yet when he’d arrived at camp, he had been too emotionally overwhelmed to do a proper evidence search. Instead, he’d sat against the oak tree where Max had always crossed his legs and showered wisdom on Joe. He had cried, then fallen asleep. In the morning, Joe had pulled on latex gloves and gathered evidence. There hadn’t been clear signs of unwelcome entry to the site, no containers that might have held the poison, but Joe had gathered all the stored food and the hunting knife Max used and taken it in to Forensics. The forensic specialist had reported all those items were clean. Whatever Max had touched was still out there, had been tucked somewhere away from the campsite or had been thrown.

And while the county had seemed to want to brush it off—the old man was dead and he hadn’t had any family—the tribe had seen to the burial of his body.

Joe had insisted he be allowed to continue with the investigation. The tribal police had given him permission, as they were not pursuing the death, having accepted the accidental poison ruling as final.

He might not have been family by blood, but Max was true family to Joe. He’d been there for Joe when he was a kid, and had literally saved his life. And he had been the reason Joe had developed his voracious love for the outdoors and wildlife.

Touching the eagle talon that hung from the leather cord about his neck, Joe muttered, “You won’t die in vain, Max.” He’d been allowed to take the talisman from Max’s things after the lab had cleared it as free from poison. The talon had been given to Max by his grandfather; a talisman earned because he had been a healer. It had been cherished by Max.

But the tracks to whoever had poisoned Max—and the reason why—were muddled. Did Max have enemies? Not that Joe had been aware of. He’d strayed from close tribal friendships and had been a lone wolf the last few decades. Not harming any living soul, leaving peaceably. A life well lived, and yet, it had been cut short.

The thought to tie Max’s alleged murder to the poaching investigation only clicked when Joe remembered Max once muttering that he knew exactly who poached in the county, and that they would get their own someday. Joe had mentioned a family name, and Max’s jaw had tightened in confirmation. Everyone knew the Davis family did as they pleased, and poaching was only one of many illegal activities in which they engaged—and got away with.

Now he needed new evidence, a break in the investigation, that would confirm his suspicion. So far, the Davis family had been elusive and covered their tracks like the seasoned tracker-hunters Joe knew they were.

The police radio crackled on the dashboard, and Dispatch reported an incident close to Joe.

“Anyone else respond?” he replied. Generally, if the disturbance was not directly related to fish and game, Dispatch sent out county law enforcement.

“We’ve got two officers in the area, but both are at the iron mine cave-in.”

This morning a closed taconite mine had reported a cave-in. It was believed three overzealous explorers who had crossed the barbed wire fence closing off the mine could be trapped inside.

“No problem,” Joe said. “I can handle it. What’s the call?”

“Skylar Davis reports she’s been shot at on her property. Her address is—”

“I got it.” Joe shoved the canteen onto the passenger seat and turned the key in the ignition. His heart suddenly thundered. He knew Skylar Davis. Too well. “Is she hurt?”

“Not sure,” Dispatch reported. “Sounded pretty calm on the call. You know where she lives?”

“I’m ten minutes from her land,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

He spun the truck around on the gravel road and headed east toward the lake where Merlin Davis—brother of Malcolm Davis, who owned Davis Trucking—had owned land for decades. Skylar had inherited her father’s land years ago after cancer had taken his life. His daughter now lived alone on hundreds of forested acreage set at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. She was a strong woman. A beautiful woman.

She was…the woman Joe could never sweep out of his thoughts. The one who had gotten away.

And she’d been shot at?

He slammed his foot onto the accelerator.

SKYLAR OPENED THE door and sucked in a gasp. Joseph Cash stood on the front stoop, dark hair swept over one eye and looking smart in his uniform. The forest-green short-sleeved shirt and slacks served to enhance his tan skin. Hand at his hip where a gun was holstered, he had been looking aside until she’d stepped onto the threshold. When he turned to her and his stunning green eyes connected with hers, she clasped a hand over her heart.

“Skylar, are you all right?” She heard genuine concern in his urgent tone.

She had so many things she wanted to say to him. Yet at the moment, she didn’t know how to assemble a coherent sentence. Joseph Cash was the kindest person she’d known, and had always seemed to be there when she’d needed protecting. Be it in high school when she’d been bullied for sitting at the unpopular kids’ table, or even when she’d had to struggle for customers when she’d been working as a small-animal veterinarian in town and most took their animals to the big city of Duluth. And yet, despite his kindnesses, she’d pushed Joe away, wanting to prove to him that she was her own woman. Independent and strong. That she didn’t need a man to look over her.

Her rushed choice in fiancé had proved just that point. What a fool she had been.

“Joe,” she said. “I didn’t expect you. I called the county sheriff. I thought…”

“Well, you got me.” He cast her a smile that surely made every woman in the county swoon. But Skylar had never known how to react to his easy charm and shyness, save with a thrust back of her shoulders and, admittedly, a stupidly stubborn need to prove herself.

“I was close when the call came in,” he offered. “Just down the road coming off Lake Vaillant after a patrol. You okay, Skylar? Dispatch reports you were shot at? What’s going on?”

“I’m okay. And yes, I believe I was shot at.” She absently stroked her fingers over her ear, covering it with her loose blond hair. “I didn’t expect you,” she said again, rather dumbly.

Because if she had known Joseph Cash would be the one standing on her front stoop, she might have brushed on a little blush and combed her hair. At the very least, changed into some clean jeans.

A squawk from behind Joe made him turn sharply on the creaky lower wood step. Skylar noticed his hand instinctively went to his hip where his gun was holstered. A chicken in a pink knit sweater scampered across the crushed quartz pebbles that paved the stone walk up to the front steps.

“What the hell?” Joe said.

“That’s Becky. She wants you to see her. She’s very concerned about her looks. Do you like her sweater?”

The man scratched his head and then bobbed it in a nod, even while squinting questionably. “Yes?”

“She’s one of my rehab residents.”

“That’s right, you rehabilitate animals. I’m not even going to ask about the sweater.” He followed the chicken’s retreat across the yard until she scrambled around the side of the house.

“Uh…come inside.” Skylar stepped back and allowed him to enter the log cabin where she’d been living for two years.

When her father passed, the family land had become her possession, as she was his only child. At least, it was hers according to a handwritten note Merlin Davis had written a week before his death. Skylar had lived in the house until she’d moved to Duluth for college. Eventually, she’d made her way back to the town of Checker Hill and set up shop as the resident veterinarian. She’d never gotten much business. The townspeople were leery of the name Davis. Now this home felt too big for one person, but it was a comfort to nestle onto the aged leather sofa in the evenings, blanket wrapped about her shoulders, and admire the photos of her and her dad that she kept on each and every wall.

“You want something to drink? I’ve got lemonade.”

Joe grabbed her by the upper arm to stop her from fleeing across the open floor plan living area and into the kitchen.

“What is it?” She shrugged out of his grasp with a huff. He looked concerned now. Too much so. She didn’t want any man’s pity.

“Seriously? Skylar, I’m not here for lemonade. I’m here to make sure you’re okay. And not bleeding.” He looked from her head down to her shoulders and all the way to her feet, then back up again. “And—where did the shots come from? Do you know who it was? How long has it been? I should go outside and take a look around. It’s this way, right?”

He headed through the living area and skirted the long quartz kitchen counter. Toward the back of the house sat the screened-in sunporch that stretched the width of the cabin and overlooked the lake. Once before, he’d been in this cabin. When her father had been dying, he’d come to pay his respects. But how dare he traipse on through—

Skylar stopped herself from reprimanding him. He was here on duty. And she had called the police for help, much as her better judgment had screamed for her not to. Would she hear about this from her uncle? On the other hand, maybe Malcolm Davis already knew about the incident. And, yes, that thought sickened Skylar.

“Just through the sliding doors,” she called to Joe. “You can take the deck stairs down to the backyard.”

After grabbing her cowboy hat, which rested on the back of the couch and which she wore like any other woman might wear earrings or a favorite necklace, she followed the man’s bowlegged pace out to the deck.

Standing on the high wood deck, which was stilted ten feet up due to the slope of the ground below, Joe took in everything. The perimeter of the yard was round, echoing out from the firepit in the center. Surrounding the yard were striped hostas that grew thick and lush in the shade provided by the paper birch and sugar maple.

12 3 След.

Witness In The Woods

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Chapter One

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