Her Perilous Wolf by Julie Steimle (free e books to read .txt) 📖

She also went into town to the clinic to see if she could get all her shots. One could not be too careful with Ebola, malaria, and yellow fever in the world—never mind the other diseases. When her e-visa came through and she bought the cheapest airline tickets to Tanzania she could get (not the direct, non-stop flight advertised, but at least she got to choose her seats), she sent one group email to everyone who needed to know about her departure: her parents, her brother, and Vincent. She didn’t call them. A feeling in her gut told her they would try to talk her out of it. She had ‘been on enough trips to Africa’, they had said any given number of times. They would not be sympathetic now, though Vincent might understand.

As soon as her bags were packed—from her checked luggage to her carry-ons—Audry locked her tiny house on wheels once more and drove her car to a storage facility where she could lock it up for the duration. She sighed as she tucked the keys away in her backpack then marched to the curb where she called for an Uber, dragging the heavy suitcases full of equipment. She would be bringing all her tranquilizer guns and all her photography gear, along with her solar charger and laptop.

She felt melancholy the entire ride to the airport, walk through the airport, and lift-off into the air back away from her important project. Truthfully, her mind was still occupied with overwhelming dismay that she had not been able to think of something uniquely helpful to finish off her PhD.

Stumped.

As for the rest, she decided it was best to just forget about what she had learned and seen with Rick. It was what he wanted besides.

Audry at least tried.

Unfortunately her mind had a way of bringing back to her thoughts the very things she was struggling to banish. As she attempted to sleep or read during the thirty-five or so hour flight with a few layovers, things around her which would not have even noticed before caught her eye. For example, when in the JFK International Airport in New York she could have sworn she saw a peculiar squat sort of man with leathery skin and almost lizard-like eyes messing with the airline luggage in the tunnel on the conveyor belt. It was loosening straps and unbuckling locks that had been set to zero but had not used the combination. Those handling baggage seemed oblivious to him, almost invisible.

Audry rubbed her eyes and stared at squat little goblin thing. He vanished the moment he spotted her. She wondered (as her heart pattered under her ribs) if she had secured all her combinations and straps on her luggage. Her checked equipment was valuable and precious. And what were things like that creature called anyway?

Gremlins, lifted into her mind.

Shaking her head, she thought ‘If that was a gremlin, then Stephen Spielberg got it wrong’.

That first transfer took her onto an enormous Boeing 747 heading toward Europe. This flight picked up a collection of vacation-going types who were already in khaki, prepared to use the last bits of summer; a collection of students who looked like they were returning to college, or home from some sort of ‘American experience’; and there were a handful in tee shirts, hats and other Disney paraphernalia—undoubtedly from Florida. She spotted business men and women, as well as a cluster of folk coming out from the California Pizza Kitchen with the remains of their personal pies, and an Indian family who were possibly traveling back to the UK. She wasn’t sure.

“Hey, where’re you goin’?”

Realizing the man’s voice was addressing her, Audry turned around. A tall, well-dressed gentlemanly sort of man smiled back at her. He was in casual wear, but the kind you’d see on a man in a GQ magazine. His teeth were immaculate, and his eyes were those starry blue ones. In her heedless younger years, she would have grinned back and struck up a conversation with him, but now all she could think was he was most likely another shyster scumbag guy who just wanted to get laid. So, still being polite, she merely responded, “Tanzania.”

“All by yourself?” He almost laughed.

“I’ve done it before,” she replied, giving him one more look before subconsciously deciding that Rick was handsomer—but that was because he was a wolf. He was also less condescending. Her conscious mind was saying this man was tad more like Harlin than Hogan. It would be easy to reject him.

“Really?” he was persistent. “What kind of work are you into?”

“Animal rescue,” she said. Then for good measure, she added, “A friend of mine there contacted me and said this time we will be chasing down poachers. We get to use his dogs and my guns this time. They’ve been tracking a group smuggling ivory, and he likes my marksmanship.”

All truth.

The man, however, paled. He pulled back. “Oh.”

“Don’t you mean marks‘woman’ship?” a blue haired traveler not far from her in the line said, grinning at her.

Audry blinked and shook her head. “Why complicate the English language? I meant what I said.”

Someone else nearby smothered a chuckle.

But then a third someone jogged up to her from a line parallel, going to a flight next to theirs. “Audry? Audry Bruchenhaus?”

It took a second for Audry to recognize her. “Wendy Nixon? Oh my gosh! Long time!”

“Isn’t it, though?” Wendy (her old roommate from NYU during her Master’s research) then laughed as a man carrying a small child came up to join her. They all had this tired look of end-of-vacation about them. She glanced to the man and said, “I’m Wendy Dougan now. This is my husband, Sean.”

Audry grinned wider. “No way! That’s great!”

“Where have you been since I left NYU?” Wendy asked.

“Oh. Here and there.” Audry shrugged, not really wanting to get into it. The line was moving. People were starting to load. Audry let people pass her. “Where are you going now?” Wendy asked, glancing up to the terminal gate,

“Africa.”

“Again?”

Audry laughed, nodding.

“How many times has it been?” Wendy asked, looking amazed. “Haven’t you had enough of Africa and large cats? I thought I heard you were back into wolves.”

The suave man who had been standing behind Audry seemed to take another step away and allow someone go between him and Audry as he went quickly ahead.

Sighing, Audry shook her head. “I’m actually stuck in my PhD work. This is a break.”

Wendy laughed. “A break? Africa?”

Audry nodded. Then she said, “Where are you off to?”

“Ireland.” Wendy grinned, thumbing to her husband. “It’s where we live. I met my husband Sean in Dublin while on study abroad. I fell in love with everything there and have only barely been back.”

Audry remembered now. Wendy had gone to study Chemistry in Ireland… which to Audry never made any sense. Her other roommate had said it was because Wendy had followed a man—but Audry had a feeling this Sean wasn’t the man. She said to him. “So, Sean Dougan? What do you do for a living?”

He smiled. With a thick Irish brogue, he replied, “I teach Irish culture, myths, language and history to Senior school students.”

“Wow.” Audry blinked at him. That was total opposite to Wendy. And she looked to Wendy. But Wendy seemed so happy. Wendy used to be such a staunch feminist too. Audry wondered what changed. Or rather, what drew her to Sean.

But her plane was loading quickly and Wendy and Sean could see they were holding her up. Audry had already let several people pass by, Mr. Flirt long gone now.

“Don’t be a stranger, Audry,” Wendy said. “My email is the same. We should catch up.”

Audry nodded.

“And say hi to Jessica Mason for me.” Wendy waved as she walked off.

Audry stood there, stunned, for a second. She had forgotten that Wendy had met Jessica, who had the time had been a NYPD cop. So much had happened since then. Oh, how the world just kept moving on….

But then she hurried on toward the plane, passing her ticket to the stewardess to be checked as nearly the last in line. As she followed the line of people in to the enormous airplane once more, searching for her window seat, she passed the fine seats of first class, which (if she had stayed with her grandfather’s good graces) she would have been riding in. But she was glad for her independence and continued on to coach then economy.

When she found her seat, someone else was already in it. Three young college swells were in the seats. They had the look of undergrads, still young with attitudes.

She pointed. “That’s my seat.”

“No, it isn’t,” the college punk replied, grinning back as if that was that.

“It’s on my ticket,” she said, pointing at that.

He delivered her a condescending look and said, “Just take my ticket and go in my seat.”

On a former occasion, she had done this for someone to be ‘nice’, only to end up in a bad seat she had not paid for. For that entire trip her neck had hurt and she felt like such a patsy. But this was ages ago. Narrowing her eyes on him, she shook her head and waved down a stewardess. Most of them were busy, but since nearly everyone was in their seat so Audry was easy to see and get attention. When the stewardess walked up, Audry showed her ticket and said, “He’s in my seat.”

The stewardess shot the young man a harsh look. “You need to get up.”

“Bitch.” He rose out of the seat, with the ugliest glare on Audry. “Why can’t you just let me sit with my friends?”

Meeting his glare with an older one, Audry replied, “What right do you have to push a woman out a seat she paid for?”

“What’s your problem?” he snapped, stepping out into the aisle. His friends gazed at her with similar peevish glowers. “There are plenty of seats on the plane.”

She shrugged. “My problem? How about injustice? I don’t like it. I paid for that seat. You paid for your seat. You get what you paid for.”

Another stewardess arrived to see what the problem was. With now two stewardesses next to him, the undergrad gathered his carry-ons and moved them, going back to his true seat—which was definitely in one of those uncomfortable and tight spots. Audry heaved up her backpack into the overhead compartment. She slipped past the other two young men to her window seat, and slid computer bag into the space underneath the seat before her. Once she did this, the stewardesses bustled back to their pervious tasks.

The one guy’s two friends glared at her, muttering epithets under their breaths. She had a feeling only one of them belonged to that row. Most likely they had chosen scattered seats for a discount rate, yet thought they would push people around to get what they wanted.  

“Why did you have to be such a bitch?” one of them said.

She turned her head with a glare for the pair of them. “So… not allowing a bunch of jerks take advantage of me is being a bitch?”

They nodded. One flipped her off.  

She delivered them such a dry look. “So, you’re spoiled brats, huh?”

People around them snickered. They heard it.

“Shut up, witch,” the other said.

Audry blinked at him. She didn’t know why, but she felt compelled to say, “I actually know a real witch.”

They snorted.

“She can curse you to have hives all over your skin to the end your days,” she said. “And those of her coven were even freakier. They could track you down with just a piece of your hair or a dropped cigarette. And the things they would do to you would make your skin curl.”

“Don’t you mean ‘hair curl’?” someone nearby said.

Audry shook her head. “Nope. I mean skin. One came at us with a knife—because my friend was leaving their coven—and I shot her.”

“Shot?” The guy to her right shuddered, leaning back.

Audry nodded, sighing as she settled in her