Fire on the Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the bottom and smaller cracks branched
off to create a web of broken glass.
    "Now how
in the hell did that happen? Great, need a new mirror now, too."
    Trudging
through the open great room and into the adjoining kitchen, Isla filled the tea
kettle and set it on the stove. She thought she would need something stronger
than tea after the night she’d had, so she got out her french press and coffee
grinder as well. As she reached for the sack of coffee beans, her hand skimmed
across the steam piping out of the spout of the teapot.
    Yelping, Isla
jerked her hand away and then whirled around when a framed photograph came
crashing down from the wall. Isla blinked, looking at the picture, then at the
tea kettle, then back at her hand. Shaking her head, she returned to the
mundane task of grinding beans and making coffee.
    Atticus prowled
around her legs while Smitty leapt onto the kitchen island and settled in for a
nap in a sun spot. "Maybe I'm losing it. People have been calling me crazy
for years, maybe I'm just finally living up to it." After slowly sipping
her allotted one cup of coffee, Isla gathered her gear for the day's tours and
stuffed it all in her rucksack, grabbed her keys, and headed out the door.
    Out on the
stone porch, Isla turned her face to the sun and breathed deep of the fresh
island air. She started down the porch steps but froze at the bottom when she
saw a shape at the edge of the woods. Shading her eyes with her hand, she
strained to see what sort of animal would come out of hiding in broad daylight
with a human about.
    She sucked in a
sharp breath when she realized it appeared to be a grey...wolf.
"Impossible," Isla whispered. Everyone knew that wolves had been
hunted into extinction in Scotland back in the 1700's. And even if there were
still wolves on the mainland, how would they get to the island? Swim?
    Taking a few
seconds to admire the creature, she took in the light grey, almost white fur, soft
sky-blue eyes rimmed in black, like eyeliner, and three black strips of fur
around the wolf's neck. Isla thought this wolf had to be the most unusual
animal she had ever seen, but it could pose an extreme danger to the islanders
if it was a predator gone rogue.
    Making no
sudden movements, Isla side-stepped to her pickup as the wolf calmly watched.
Locking herself inside the vehicle, she shifted into reverse and backed out of
her gravel drive by muscle memory, her eyes never leaving the mysterious wolf.
     
    ~~~
     
    Isla was still
rattled when she rushed into Expeditions headquarters like the devil was on her
heels.
    "Oi,
where's the fire, lass?" Callum called from behind the check-in desk.
"You're over an hour early, don't worry!"
    Still panting,
Isla walked up to the opposite side of the desk and slapped her palms on the
glass surface. "Oh. My. God. You won't believe what I saw up at the cabin
this morning," she exclaimed, her brogue more pronounced in her
excitement.
    "What's
that?"
    "A wolf. A
fucking wolf, Callum!"
    "Bollocks!"
Callum rolled his baby blues at her, and turned his attention back to the
appointment book.
    Annoyed, Isla
snatched the ledger from his hand and waved it in his face. "Hand to God,
Callum. Cross me 'eart and all that. It was there just staring at me from the
edge of the woods when I left for work!"
    "Sweetie,
you know there aren't any wolves in Scotland. Haven't been for centuries, much
to the disappointment of the conservationists."
    "Yes, I
know. I thought the same thing when I saw it, but it was there just the
same!"
    Callum flicked
a skeptical look at her, and she could tell he didn't believe her. "Well,
wolf or no wolf, the show must go on. You have a hike in an hour and ten.
Remember that my tenant, the good doctor himself, will be on this one, so make
it good. We want him to come back."
    "Aye, we
do," Isla agreed, waving at Amy who had just entered the room. "And
bring his money with him."
    She patted
Callum's shoulder, and then turned to the other woman. "I'm going to