Miracle Wolf for Christmas by Vanessa Devereaux Page A

turn around, head home, bury her face into a cushion, and have a
good cry. After that, she’d get into bed, pull up the covers, and try and
forget it was Christmas. How she envied the bears. They got to hibernate. They
slept through one of the saddest times of the year. Well, it was when you were
single. She hadn’t been that way last year and that’s what hurt the most.
    What
a shitty year it had been. She hoped she never had one like it ever again.
    She
wiped a tear from her eye. It was getting dark, so she needed to get her act
together and decide whether she was going to work this holiday or head home and
watch the hands on the clock move painfully slow around its face.
    Axel
would probably not be happy if she let him down at the last minute. If she was
going to the center, she had another thirty minute ride and it was now snowing.
She put her foot on the accelerator and guessed she’d made her decision without
giving it any more thought. Work would be the best thing for her. She’d picked
up enough groceries to last her for the next three days. She looked with envy
at everyone picking up turkeys and prime rib at Albertsons. Not that she
couldn’t enjoy a home cooked meal—both her parents and her brother had asked
her to spend the holidays with them. However, she couldn’t burden them with her
angst. The saying wasn’t true—misery didn’t like company. Well, at least in her
case it didn’t. It liked being all alone. It had seemed fitting that she’d
walked over to the frozen food section and picked out a turkey TV dinner,
complete with stuffing and cranberry sauce.
    She
headed into higher elevation and, as always at this time of the year, the snow
fell heavier and faster the more she climbed. Ally reached the top of the ridge
and couldn’t help but glance sideways at all the twinkling lights of Kalispell.
So beautiful. All the houses, and inside, people celebrating the holidays with
their husbands and children.   Tears
formed in her eyes, momentarily blinding her. An animal dashed in front of her
car. She hit the brakes, hoping she could avoid it, but it was a little too
late.   Her car skidded to the right and
then thud , she’d hit the poor thing.
    Ally
put the car into park and opened the door. She got out and rounded the left
hand side of her car. There in the headlight’s beam laid a wolf.
    No, no, please
don’t be dead. Please don’t let me have killed you .
    She
knelt down beside it. It was huge, beautiful, and sort of ironic that she’d hit
her favorite wild animal. Her Master’s thesis had been all about wolf habitats.
She loved these creatures with a passion.
    Ally
gave the wolf a visual check before touching him. Judging by its size, it was
male. She sighed with relief when she felt his chest rising and falling. The
wolf lifted his head to look at her. She worked with these creatures every day,
studied them, but she’d never seen one with such beautiful eyes before. It was
almost like he was checking her out.
    “It’s
okay. I’m going to help you. Don’t move and I’ll be right back.”
    Ally
went to the trunk of her car, moved the boxes and grocery bags aside, and found
her flashlight. She turned it on and then walked back to the wolf. She leaned
over and shone the light across his body. It looked like his leg was injured.
Ally knelt. She showed him her hands and then gently touched his leg to assess
the damage. He whimpered.
    “Sorry,
and sorry for hitting you. You came out of nowhere.”
    No
good blaming him. He was a wild animal with no road or traffic sense. The
accident was all her fault. She shouldn’t have been trying to sightsee while
driving.
    She
suspected his leg might be broken. If she could get him into the car, she could
drive him to the research center and take a better look at him. Axel could even
fix his leg if it was in fact broken. She’d lifted wolves before, taking them
from one cage or enclosure to another, but never one quite this big. At least
she had to