Karly's Wolf (Hollow Hills Book 1) Read Free

attempt to get a better look. No, not killed. It was still breathing.
    “Shh, it’s okay,” she whispered as she reached into the prickly bushes and touched its soft, dark flank. The fur felt wet and her fingers came away sticky with blood. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry!”
    A broken whine was the only response. Wobbly and dazed, the dog raised its head. It tried to rise, but couldn’t and flopped back down to lie there instead.
    Was it the McQueens’ dog? Karly stood up, stabbing her fingers through her long blonde hair as she stared back down the road toward the rundown shacks. Was she brave enough to walk back there and tell the gun-toting hillbillies that Margo had expressly warned her about, that she’d just hit their family pet? Her heart thumped twice, almost stopping in her chest.
    No. No, she definitely was not.
    She looked at the dog, then at her car, and then back down the winding dirt road and quickly made up her mind. Digging her coat out of the trunk, she cleared as much room as she could on her backseat.
    “It’s okay,” she soothed as she crawled into the bushes with the injured dog. She wrapped her coat around him. “Please, please don’t bite me.”
    It made her nervous, getting her face this close to a wounded animal, but dazed as he was, the dog only turned his head to look at her. He nosed at her cheek, but didn’t growl and made absolutely no aggressive motions. Not even when she wrapped her arms under and around him and tried to lift.
    He was bigger than he looked and heavy—she grunted—much heavier than she would have thought. In the end, after several heaving attempts that failed to budge the unsteady animal and afraid she might hurt him more if she continued trying, she spread her coat out on the ground and gently rolled him onto it. Gripping her coat sleeves, she dragged him back out of the vegetation onto the road.
    Rocky as the ground was, it couldn’t have been comfortable for him. Grunting and straining with every tentative pull, Karly had only just drawn abreast of the rear passenger door when the dog seemed to gather wits enough to try standing again. She stopped pulling, for fear she’d accidentally sweep his unsteady feet out from under him.
    “Easy, puppy,” she soothed, offering support until he locked his legs, gaining some stability. He was still weaving though, still dazed. “It’s okay, baby. Easy. Easy.” She reached past him to open the back. “Okay, up. Get inside.”
    Head hanging low, he stared into the backseat, but made no move to comply. Gradually, Karly let go of him and sat back on her heels, watching without breathing, halfway hoping he might simply shake off his wounded lethargy and lope off into the woods without any further interference from her.
    It was an incredibly selfish moment for her, and one that she was heartily ashamed of as the seconds bled out into minutes and it became painfully obvious that the poor dog was anything but fine. He wobbled, he swayed. He took a single, faltering step, his front legs completely out of sync with the back and, in the end, Karly went back to her original plan.
    “It’s okay,” she soothed as she wrapped her arms around his thick chest. One paw at a time, one step at a time, she muscled the heavy canine into the back of her car. She all but lifted his hind legs up onto the seat when he seemed incapable. Massive, furry and bloody, he lay where she left him, overflowing her rear seat and whining softly when she tried to tuck his rear limbs in out of the way of the door.
    “It’s okay,” Karly said stupidly one last time. Her hand trembled, but she gave his massive head an impromptu pat in the hopes there would be no hard feelings when this was all over.
    As she withdrew, he lifted his nose to lick the back of her retreating hand. His tail thumped twice, a halfhearted wag that dropped it back off the seat. She carefully brushed it up to lie over his rear legs and softly closed the car door. Then she stood