CHAPTER 1

Sedona, AZ…

      J. Brady Thomas jerked bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, blood sluicing through his veins and wiped away runnels of icy sweat that wet a three-day growth of beard.  

      He scanned the recesses of his Spartan cabin, knew well he’d find nothing more than personal demons lurking in the shadows. 

      “Sweet Jesus.” His throat was was dry, his voice raspy.

      Though he and Elizabeth Creighton had shared many warm and wonderful memories, Hilton Head Island was the dream he dreamed most often, the nightmare that had pervaded his nights, week after week, month after month, for over a decade. 

     The bomb that claimed her life had been meant for him alone; Liz but an innocent victim of his sordid past, of his association with the covert black ops team at COMMEX. Thank God she’d felt no pain. The coroner’s report stated that she had died immediately, feeling little more than a dramatic increase in air pressure and a moment’s searing heat as she was launched off the balcony into the cavernous maw of eternity.

    Within the month, he had burned his bridges with COMMEX commander, Colonel Tyrone Prescott, and moved to Arizona’s Oak Creek Canyon, a partial fulfillment of a shared dream.

      But what he could do nothing about was the never-ending goddamn guilt. If only he’d not stopped for the wine he might have been back in time to do something, anything for chrissakes. He might even have died with her, which he often considered infinitely preferable to the life he led without her.

      An hour later, he sat outside on the front steps, a cup of coffee in hand, and fought to shake off the effects of an on-going nightmare wherein he is always running toward her, trying to warn her, to save her. He still sees her as she was that night, as she will always be in the asylum of his mind, young and alive, filled with hope and dreams reborn.       

     At times like this, he felt only emptiness and silent resignation.

      He finished his coffee, drew heavily on a cigarette and leaned back on his elbows, his face turned toward a brightening dawn sky, his red-rimmed eyes squeezed shut.

      “I miss you, Elizabeth,” he said, her name a keepsake knotted in his throat.

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      He eyed Brady, began a silent approach, moving cautiously out from the safety of the trees, his almost super-natural ability to elude and endure bred into him by centuries of persecution. 

      He was a formidable creature with bright yellow eyes, the kind of eyes that loom large in the darkened corners of childhood fantasies. He closed on the cabin in an ill-defined pattern, stopping briefly at predetermined points along the invisible perimeter of his territory, never once taking his eyes off the man sitting on the front steps.   

      The muffled sounds did not go unnoticed. “Morning, Lobo.” Brady opened his eyes and stared straight ahead, refrained from cocking his head toward the Mexican Gray wolf that stood twenty paces from him.  

      It had taken quite a while for the wolf to accept his presence in the valley. It had been a mere pup, likely an orphan, its parents killed by poachers, when he’d first spotted it.   

      The pup had proved early on to be a survivor. Brady often found it snoozing in the mid-morning sun beside picked over jackrabbit bones. He’d never attempted to care for it, nor had he tried to domesticate it, opting instead to let the wolf remain forever wild and set the guidelines for their symbiotic relationship.

      Now, on those occasions when his predatory companion dropped by, Brady found himself talking to it, speaking openly to it of those things kept long buried in his heart. And the wolf appeared to almost listen, to somehow understand.

      Lobo eyed him, and a low, raspy growl escaped its throat.

      Brady turned slightly, cast the animal an expressionless glance. “Come to visit for a while?” He spoke softly, not locking eyes, purposefully maintaining a posture that displayed neither dominance nor submissiveness. 

      They sat for a while in silence, two Alpha males of distinct species who shared a common bond: they had each lost a soul-mate. Brady had seen neither the female nor the pups for months. It occurred to him that both he and the wolf were destined to live out the remainder of their lives alone, as Alpha males are considered monogamous creatures, known to mate for life.

      Moments later, his shiny, black nose pointed skyward, Lobo trumpeted a series of short, ear-piercing howls, then turned and sauntered off into the trees.

      “Not today, huh?” Brady whispered. “See you next time, my friend.”