Caging the Wolf (Snowdonia Wolves) (2 page)

Hours later, I twisted in my window seat and gazed at the final rays of light playing across the ocean beneath me. The afternoon had passed in a whirl of last minute packing and goodbyes, along with several glasses of wine. I’d not had the space to sit and think about the weird encounter with the dog.
The wolf.

If it hadn’t been for the bowl of water on the kitchen floor, and the clump of long, black hairs on my car seat, I’d be convinced it was a dream.

His last words echoed in my head, silky and all too enticing:
I
will
see you again.
I shivered, just thinking about his voice.

As the sun drifted low in the sky, my eyelids followed suit. Snuggling under the airline blanket, I settled down to sleep. With luck I wouldn’t awake until we landed in Bangkok. My return flights had been cheap, but included several stops: Auckland, Sydney, Bangkok, Dubai, and finally, Manchester.

I dreamed of home, and Christmas shopping. I sat on a wooden bench in my local shopping mall, the giant Trafford Centre, and gazed at the opulent decorations strung from the glass ceiling. Busy shoppers hurried past me—the usual crowds—but even though I’d shopped here a thousand times, it now felt alien. 

I felt, rather than saw, someone take the space next to me. A glance to my side revealed a young man. He sprawled against the bench seat, one arm insolently thrown across the back, as though we were a couple.

I gave him a proper look. Messy, dark hair fell to his chin, and thick stubble raked his cheeks, as though he’d stumbled here straight from his bed. A black T-shirt hugged his chest, and worn, dark jeans clung to strong thighs. The denim looked soft and much-washed, and I dragged my gaze up from his crotch, to meet twinkling—
startling
—blue eyes. Where had I seen eyes like that before?

A lazy grin broke out on his face, and my cheeks heated. He couldn’t have missed the way I’d been staring at him. With his dark tan and perfect white teeth, he looked far too exotic to be sitting in a Manchester shopping mall.

“Hi, Jess.”

The rational part of me questioned how he knew my name. The rest of me wanted to swoon at his voice. Deep, and husky, it reminded me of salted caramel chocolate—velvety, but with a dangerous edge. It also had a lilting accent that was familiar. He was a Kiwi.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” My polite English upbringing stepped forward, even though I’d never seen him before. I couldn’t forget someone so delicious.

His gaze dropped briefly, as though he considered how to reply. A smile tugged at his lips. “Not really. I’m Levi.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say, I don’t think we’ve met, but something held the words back. He was familiar, oddly so. He continued to stare at me, amusement lighting his brilliant eyes, along with something else, an intensity that made my spine prickle.

“You’re from New Zealand?” I blurted. “Are you here on holiday?”

“Kind of.” He gestured to the shops around us. “I’ve never been here before.”

“To the Trafford Centre? Or to Manchester?”

“Either. Would you show me around?”

Show a hot guy around my favourite shops? Shame it was only a dream. I smiled at him, and wondered where to begin. Something niggled. “How did you know my name?”

Levi pushed away from the bench to stand before me, tall and imposing, but delicious. He shrugged and held out a hand. “We met briefly, but you were, uh, distracted.” Wiggling his fingers, he gave me an enticing smile. “Shall we?”

Still, I hesitated. I’d never conjured up such a gorgeous apparition in my dreams before, and I knew it was too good to be true. Would he morph into a psycho and toss me over the railings to the gallery below? “I don’t usually hold hands with a guy I just met.”

“I wouldn’t want you to make a habit of it,” he countered swiftly, “but it’s solely for my benefit. I might get lost otherwise.” His eyes widened with mischief. “Man, I could be stuck in here for weeks.”

How could I resist?

Taking his hand, I let him pull me to my feet. His grip was firm and confident, his palm warm and slightly calloused, and the moment I stood beside him, he tangled our fingers together. It felt right. Good.

“Where to? What’re you going to show me, Jess?”

“The Christmas tree. That’s what catches everyone’s attention the first time they come here.”

He was tall, and I barely came up to his shoulder, but he matched his stride to mine, and we strolled along the upper level, dodging the other shoppers with ease. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, the crowd moved out of his way, and we walked easily.

A thrill bubbled in the pit of my stomach. This was so unlike me. Not only was he a complete stranger, but also completely out of my league. Six foot tall Adonis’ didn’t make a beeline for me. They paired up with Barbie dolls, in my experience, or cover-model look-alikes. My nose was a little too big, my freckles too ginger, and my hair a dull brown. I was spectacularly ordinary.

Levi squeezed my hand, and caught my attention. “How big is this place?”

His voice scrambled my thoughts, and it took me a moment to respond. “I read somewhere, there’s three miles of covered walkways, with all the shops and cafés.”

He gave a low whistle. “You could walk the length of Wellington in less than that.”

“And you’d stay dry here.” I glanced up at him. “And out of the wind.”

This drew a laugh. “You’ve got me there.” We strolled another couple of steps before he spoke again. “You like it here? With all these people?”

“It’s one of my favourite places to shop. There’s nothing like it in New Zealand.”

“No, there isn’t.” He tugged me to a stop, and I peered up at him. “It doesn’t have
this
though.”

I blinked, and everything changed. Instead of pretty tiles beneath my feet, there was now forest floor. Giant trees formed a dense canopy high over my head, lush vines twined around a nearby branch, and sunlight filtered through the treetops. It was noisy. A myriad of birds called and chattered, as they flitted above us.

Levi held my hand still, and I slowly turned to him. “Are we in the jungle?”

His eyes crinkled in the corners when he laughed. “No, it’s the Rimutakas.”

I recognised the name—the mountain range north of Wellington. I’d driven through the area, but it hadn’t looked anything like this.

“We’re well off the beaten track,” he continued. “Few people have ever walked this path.” He eased me closer, and then turned me to stand with my back against him, his hands caging my hips. “This is one of
my
favourite places.”

I breathed in the scents of the forest, and gazed at the scenery. I’d never seen anything so wild, so prehistoric. I half expected a dinosaur to amble into the clearing. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

Levi rested his chin on my shoulder. “So are you.”

It was just a line, I knew that. I also knew it was a dream. In the real world, hot guys like Levi didn’t look twice at me. I determined to enjoy the moment, and when his hands shifted to rest on my stomach, I leaned back into the embrace.

His chest was firm, his abs flat and hard, and warmth poured from his body. He smelled good, of pine and green leaves, with a salty tang, as though he’d been standing in the sea. Delicious. Could he be any more perfect?

I yawned, my eyelids growing heavier by the second. “This is nice,” I murmured. “I hope I dream of you again, Levi.”

“You will, gorgeous. Look out for me.”

****

I opened my eyes to find we were circling above Bangkok. The next hour was a flurry of leaving the plane, and traipsing through the airport to my connecting flight. Every step taking me closer to home.

I looked forward to seeing my family, and my dog, Charlie. He’d been my best friend since I was seven years old. In my head he was still a bouncy, lop eared puppy, intent on chewing my shoes and school bag at every opportunity. He was now a grizzled, grey-haired pensioner, in dog terms, but Mum assured me he was still fine. I’d missed him. It would be good to take him for a long walk in the woods near home.

In a flash, I remembered.
Walking through an ancient forest with Levi
. I couldn’t help smiling. My subconscious had obviously been hard at work, mixing together a hot guy, and the weird talking dog, and throwing them together into a colourful dream. It had been so real. I’d felt the springiness of the forest floor, heard the raucous birds, and smelled the mossy, green-leaf fragrance all around me.

The dog
couldn’t
have been talking to me. That was crazy. I must have been over-tired. Stressed. I’d had a moment of madness where I’d released a dog from the pound, and then taken it home. I’d been out in the sun too long.

****

The flights finally over, I stumbled down the exit corridor at Manchester Airport. The past thirty-six hours all merged together and it was only when I stepped into the Arrivals hall that I realised it was daytime. To me it felt like the middle of the night. My sleep patterns would be screwed for days.

I hugged Mum and let her welcoming chatter wash over me as we headed for the car park. “Sorry.” I smiled while fighting another massive yawn. “It feels like I haven’t slept in days. I’m convinced any minute I’m going to wake up and find myself back on the plane.”

“You doze on the way home, love. We’ve plenty to catch up on, but it can wait until you’ve rested.”

I’d emailed home every few days, Skyped weekly, and talked on the phone a few times. There wouldn’t be any big news that I hadn’t heard already. I knew about my cousin Sheryl’s upcoming wedding, my friend’s new baby girl, and that Jack Harper had stepped up his campaign to buy my dad’s shop. What else could there still be to tell me?

I’d crushed on Jack for years, ever since school. I had a succession of pencil cases with our initials doodled on the outside. Jess and Jack—it sounded good. Mrs. Jess Harper had a nice ring to it. Only trouble was, he’d never seen me that way. To him, I was the shy, pig-tailed girl at the front of the class, while he hung in the back row with the cool kids. On the rare occasions he spoke to me, I either babbled like a lunatic on a full moon, or lost my tongue completely.

My big hope was that twelve months of living thousands of miles from home, would have made me interesting in his eyes.

When the steady movements of the car lulled me asleep, I thought briefly about Jack. 

But it was Levi who greeted me in my dream.

“Hey. There you are.” Looking exactly the same as in my previous dream, Levi pushed himself away from the wall he leaned on, and stepped to my side. “We haven’t finished the tour yet.”

“Tour?”

White teeth flashed in a beguiling grin. “Three miles of shops.” He spread his arms, and then hooked both thumbs in his pockets. “We haven’t walked one mile yet, let alone three.”

We were back in the Trafford Centre. The same wooden bench.

“This feels a little like déjà vu,” I murmured. “Haven’t we been here before?”

“Yep. You said we were going to see a tree, and then I distracted you.”

I had to smile. “I think your tree was better than mine.”

“Yeah?” He held out a hand. “Where else should we go then?”

He was difficult to resist. I didn’t demur when he laced our fingers together. The excited thumping of my heart softened at his touch, and like last time, he smelled divine. “I like dreaming about you, Levi.”

“Same.” He cocked his head to one side, and sniffed the air. “Hang on. Can you smell popcorn?”

I shrugged. “The cinema is just down the mall. We could get some, if you like?”

“Really? I love popcorn. What are we waiting for?” He tugged my hand and with a giggle, I let him sweep me along. “Do you live near here?”

“Not too far. I live in a suburb called Stockport.”

We queued up with the movie-goers, and inched closer to the busy popcorn dispenser. The questions continued, tossed so quickly I couldn’t reply to them, before he asked the next.

How long had I spent in New Zealand? Why had I gone there? Would I go back? What did I usually do at Christmas? Did I have a boyfriend? Did I have a big family?

I couldn’t help laughing, and he turned to me, a quizzical look on his face. “What?”

“I don’t know what to answer first.”

The part of me that recognised this was a dream, noted that we were no closer to the front of the line than we’d been a minute ago. The rest of me didn’t care. I buzzed with the thrill of his attention, utterly enthralled by the novelty of having him by my side. People moved around us, endlessly shifting, like the incoming tide, and we stood still in the centre of it all. I stared at his face, wondering again about the brilliance of his eyes, the devilment in his smile. How would it feel to kiss him?

It wouldn’t be real.

He doesn’t exist outside my dream.

Unthinking, I licked dry lips and saw his gaze focus on them.

“The boyfriend question.” Levi’s voice rumbled, deeper and even more dangerous. “Answer that one first.” He leaned forward, and placed his hand on my arm.

“Here we are, love.”

I opened my eyes to see Mum’s smile. Where was Levi? I blinked and the world reasserted itself. We’d parked on the street outside our house. I’d been asleep in the car. It had been Mum touching my arm. I’d never been jetlagged before, never travelled far enough to cross several time zones in one journey, and now I understood why people hated it. I felt disoriented, as though I’d really been there at the Trafford Centre, and had been dragged back to wake here.

I yawned, and then got my ass moving. Grabbing my bags from the car, I followed Mum up the path to the neat brick terrace house where I’d grown up. A typical Victorian build, it may have been narrow, but it was deep, and spacious inside. Everything was familiar, from the untidy heap of shoes by the door, to the fridge full of homemade food. I’d enjoyed travelling, but it was good to be home.

Checking the time, it was only two in the afternoon. Dad wouldn’t be home for ages, and Charlie with him. That was one advantage of having their own business: my parents could take the dog with them to work. They owned and ran a small hardware store, and it’d been in Dad’s family for three generations. He liked to say that Morgan’s Hardware still had the same values as when his grandfather first established the business, and he was probably right. Sometimes I feared it still carried the same stock.

Morgan’s Hardware would be my legacy when they retired. I’d spent afternoons and weekends behind the counter since I first started school, and would do my homework in the back room while my parents served customers. The shop was as big a part of our family as Charlie. That’s why it was so amusing that Jack was determined to buy it. Dad would never sell.

At one time I didn’t mind having my future mapped out, but these days I had my doubts.

Mum went back to work and I went for a long and blissful shower. That was the plan. I only meant to lie down on my bed for a few minutes, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Next thing, I was back in the Trafford Centre.