by Terry Spear
Rain began to fall on them, and Gavin wished it had held off a bit. It wouldn’t reach his skin. He needed to shift and take over. Then he had an idea. His rain gear was in one of the bags. He could shift, dress in dry clothes, and put the rain gear on, and then Amelia could shift into her wolf. Why hadn’t he thought of that before he shifted and it began to rain? He was certain hypothermia had messed with his thought processes.
Amelia had been paddling for some time when he finally shifted. “I’ll take us the rest of the way now. You need to wear your wolf coat and warm up.”
“All right.” She kept paddling while he dug out some of his clothes.
“Good thing you have rain gear.”
“Yeah. I sure wish I’d thought of it earlier. Rain jacket too, for lighter rains. You need to just shift and get warm.”
“I will, as soon as you’re dressed. We’re drifting back out because the wind has shifted, so I’m fighting against it to keep us going in the right direction.”
“Do you see the cliffs? Where there’s a rock ledge for shelter?” He pulled on some board shorts—at least they would dry out fast and were meant for the water—a T-shirt, and the rain jacket and pants to keep him warmer in the chilly breeze.
“Yeah. It should give us some protection from the elements.”
“Agreed. Okay, I’ll take over. Go ahead and strip.”
Shivering from the cold, Amelia let out her breath. “I bet you say that to all the women you see.”
“You’re the first.” Gavin still couldn’t believe the woman streaking across her house in front of him had been a wolf all along. A white wolf.
He paddled harder and faster than she had and was making some real progress.
She was struggling to remove her clothes in the raft, which was rocking and rolling with the wave movement. “You made this look so much easier.”
“You helped me when I was so cold the first time.” He set the paddle on the floor of the raft and moved over to help her undress. “I hate to say this”—he untied one of her boots, and then the other—“but I should have left the sat phone in the bag when you told me to stay in my seat.”
“Don’t tell me. It’s at the bottom of the lake with the plane.”
“Yeah. I have a cell phone too, and it’s in my pocket. I doubt it’ll work.”
“Even if it wasn’t waterlogged, you can’t get any reception out here.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Mine is waterproof, though I don’t think they had swimming in mind. In this waterproof case, it’ll probably be okay. The problem still is no cell reception. I had already packed my bags and my sat phone on my plane and forgot about them when we switched planes.”
She pulled off her shirt, and he waited to see if she needed any help with anything else. She was wearing a hot-pink sports bra and bikini panties, and she fumbled with the back hooks on the bra. Her fingers had to be numb.
“Here, let me.” He stayed in front of her, because moving around in the raft was unsettling everyone. He felt around the back of her bra until he found the hooks and unfastened them. After slipping her bra off, he reached down to help pull off her panties.
Once she was naked, she immediately shifted. Even though the temperature was normally around seventy-five during the day in the summertime, the storm had cooled the temperature to around sixty, with a wind chill of lower than that.
Amelia woofed at Gavin, thanking him for helping her, and when he began paddling again, she curled up next to him. He reached down and rubbed his cold hand over her head. They had taken on so much water—from the wind-swept waves and trying to get Winston into the raft, from Amelia and Gavin climbing aboard, and now from the rain—that he wished one of them could begin bailing out the raft. The water in it was slowing them down. So was the headwind.
Lightning flashed across the darkening sky. Gavin didn’t like that they were still so far from shore while the storm raged overhead. Then the rain came down in a deluge. Great. More water in the raft. That’s all they needed. He couldn’t paddle and bail at the same time.
Amelia moved closer to him and rested her body against his leg as he continued to stroke the water with the paddle. The rigorous exercise was the only thing halfway warming him until she cuddled up next to him, and that helped too. He wanted to just shift and curl up with her in the raft and let the wind and the waves take them where they would. But the electrical storm made it too dangerous for them to be out on the water longer than necessary.
Gavin was still aiming for the cliffs where the rocky shelf jutted out. It appeared to be high enough that they could sit underneath for protection from the rain, wind, and lightning.
After another hour, he was finally able to say, “We’re almost there.”
In her wolf form, Amelia sat up to get a look.
As soon as he reached the rocky shore, she jumped out of the raft. Gavin climbed out and pulled it in to shore. Then he climbed back into the raft and grabbed hold of Winston’s collar, urging, “Come on, boy. We need to get out of this weather.” They needed to hurry. “Just a few more steps.”
The raft was rocking, and Winston seemed happy to remain where he was.
Amelia leaped back into the raft and nuzzled Winston to get him to move with her, and then they both jumped out. She coaxed him to the safety of the rock alcove under the ledge overhang. Gavin began unloading his gear from the raft.
Once the canoe was empty and he’d untied it and the cooler from the raft, he carried the raft into the woods and tied it to a tree so the wind wouldn’t catch it and carry it off. Afterward, he hauled the canoe up into the woods and secured it between tree branches. Then he grabbed his bags and joined Amelia and Winston under the rock ledge.
The two of them were sitting together, warming each other and wagging their tails. Winston was still wearing his life jacket. “Hey, fella, guess you can get out of this,” Gavin said as he unfastened the preserver and set it aside.
Then he headed back out into the storm to retrieve the cooler and the other containers that Amelia had rescued and set them at one end of the alcove. He needed to dress in warmer clothes and boots so he could make a real shelter for them. As humans, they could last for days without water, even longer without food. As wolves, they could try to catch meals, drink water from the lake, and sleep in their fur coats for warmth. With a shelter, they could stay here nice and safe as humans.
Gavin began stripping out of his rain jacket, and to his surprise, Amelia shifted. Naked, she began pulling off his rain pants.
“You don’t need to help me. You’ll be cold all over again,” he warned, removing his board shorts.
“You’re too cold. Are you going to shift?” She was beginning to tremble already.
“I’m going to dress in something warmer and hang up the tarp to make a real shelter to keep us warm and dry.”
“Okay, I’m helping.”
Gavin appreciated it, though he’d had every intention of doing this on his own so she could stay with Winston under the shelter. “I’ve got several days’ worth of clothes, including some sweats you can wear until your clothes are dry.” He dumped out the contents of one of the waterproof bags, while she pulled the sleeping bags out of another.
Amelia spread out the sleeping bags. “Two singles?” She said it as if she thought he often took a girlfriend with him. If he had, he would have just had a double. She could smell the bags, and though he’d washed them after the last trip, she would only smell a faint residue of his scent. No woman’s scent. He was glad for that.
“Yeah, I take two in case one gets wet. Then hopefully I still have a dry one. I learned that lesson when freezing fog blew through the tent vents in the middle of the night and got my sleeping bag all wet. Since then, I usually keep a spare sleeping bag in a dry pack, just in case.” He pulled out a pair of gray sweats.
“Uh-oh.” Amelia was eyeing the sleeping b
ags as if she’d done the wrong thing.
He shook his head. “They’re here for us to use. I’ll make a fire once it stops raining. We can hang the tarp to block some of the wind that’s whipping around in here. Once we’ve set up housekeeping, we can strip and shift.”
“Okay, or if we’re warm enough by then, we could stay as we are.” She hurried to pull on the sweats. “Maybe I can wear a pair of your dry socks and then put on my wet boots.”
“Yeah, sure. Here.” He handed her a pair of black socks.
She sat down on the pebble-covered floor of the alcove to pull them on.
“So what do you think happened?” Gavin asked, sitting next to her while Winston lay down on the floor and closed his eyes.
“For everything to go wrong?” She shook her head.
“Sabotage?” Gavin finally tied on his spare pair of hiking boots.
“Maybe. I can’t imagine how every system went down a few seconds after each other. I’d say it could be sabotage.” Amelia sighed. “I don’t think I have ever been so cold and wet in my life.”
He glanced at her. “You don’t need to help. I can do this on my own.”
“We can get it done quicker if we both do it.”
“You look damn good in my sweats. Much better than I do.” He hurried to pull on jeans and then a blue sweatshirt.
“Thanks.” She tied on her boots.
“You can wear the rubber rain suit to keep you dry.”
“What about you?”
“I have a lightweight rain jacket.”
The wind was whipping around their sheltered area, and he needed to get the tarp up now. He slipped on the rain jacket, while she put on the rain suit. She was swallowed up in it.
He began to tie the tarp to a tree jutting out of the side of the rocks. Then he secured the other end with stones from the beach a few feet away, both on the top edge of the ledge and on the floor of their shelter. Amelia helped him move the smooth stones, making a pile of them for him to use. They made a good team.
He paused to watch her, and an elusive memory of being in the woods with her made him wonder again why she seemed so familiar. Not that he’d known her for more than a passing experience. Still, he just remembered seeing her face, and then she was gone.
She glanced up at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you sure you were never in Seattle? I had the strangest notion I saw you in the woods somewhere when I was still living in the area.”
“In the woods?” Amelia continued bringing rocks over. This time, she was making a fire ring.
“I don’t know. I went camping with the guys a few times. Saw horseback riders once, other campers and hikers…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse. And I’ve never camped in the woods anywhere near Seattle. Alaska? Yes. Lots.”
Gavin knew he’d recall where he’d seen her if he thought about it long enough.
He wished it would stop raining, but he didn’t voice his opinion. “Okay, the tarp is secure enough unless the winds get much higher. Why don’t you take off your clothes—”
She began stripping. “Believe me, I never get naked in front of a wolf I barely know. Especially this often.”
“Except the one time.”
“That was different. You weren’t a wolf that time, and you weren’t supposed to be in my house.”
He zipped the two sleeping bags together, then spread them out so the inside was facedown to keep Amelia and him dry. They could wrap themselves up in the bags later, if they felt warm enough to shift into their human forms and were still stuck here. “I have to say, I’m still puzzled why you flashed me in your house in Alaska. If you were trying to get my attention, you sure had it.”
“Uh, yeah. Well, it was either that or shift into my Arctic wolf half. I didn’t want to scare the puppies.” She explained to him about the front door not shutting properly. The faucet in her master bathroom not working. The towels in the guest bathroom washed and in the dryer. It was just one of those days, Amelia told him.
“And you had left your clothes in the bedroom,” Gavin said.
“Right. I mean, I never take them in the bathroom with me. Then I heard you, and I figured I’d need to grab my Taser and my cell phone, which were both in the bedroom.”
“And if I had tried to grab you—”
“I would have turned into a vicious Arctic wolf. I could have flown you off to the wilderness, somewhere no one would ever have found you.”
He couldn’t imagine what he would have thought if she had turned into a wolf. “Good thing you only tased me.”
“You probably never figured me tasing you could be a good thing.”
“You’re right.”
She removed her clothes again, and he did too, thinking he should start a fire. In their wolf coats, they would be fine—as long as no one came upon them and saw a couple of wolves and one Saint Bernard, with no humans in sight.
Gavin wondered what his pack would think of him now. He knew his friend David Davis would be wishing he had this job himself, although he’d probably prefer to skip the ditching-the-plane-in-the-water scenario.
Chapter 4
After shifting into her wolf, Amelia stared at Gavin’s sexy physique for a moment before he shifted too. He was beautifully muscled and truly hot, hard all over, and she couldn’t help noticing he was well-endowed. Nothing little about him. Red hair trailed down his belly to his half-aroused cock, despite the chilliness. He smiled at her perusal before he shifted into his white wolf. He was taller than her, his tail fluffy, his coat fully fluffed—impressive. Even with the shift, their muscles would heat, so by wearing their warm, dry fur coats, they stopped shivering. She was grateful to have an Arctic wolf coat and Gavin to curl up with.
Amelia reminded herself she didn’t go out with cops any longer, wolf or otherwise. Now she was sure he knew he’d seen her. He was just confused about exactly when or where. He had to have been in pain when they’d crashed, and she’d tried to keep out of his sight, though he’d had his eyes closed when she struck Clayton with the stout tree branch. She knew from the way Clayton had been giving orders that he’d been in charge of the heist. That hadn’t lasted long when he was so badly injured and couldn’t tell his cohorts what to do.
She was dying to ask Gavin if he knew the cop. Had they been friends? Had they been partners in the crime?
Amelia hadn’t thought she’d mate Clayton, but he’d been fun to date while it lasted. She’d been one growly wolf when he’d threatened her with his gun and forced her to help with their getaway.
Gavin suddenly sat up on the sleeping bags as if he’d heard something, and she sat up too, listening to the rain and wind and thunder.
He nuzzled her face, then went out into the rain, returning a few minutes later to curl up with her again. She wondered why he’d left so suddenly. Maybe to relieve himself.
Winston seemed to think the sleeping bag had been laid out to serve as the canine bed. Though Amelia couldn’t blame him, since she and Gavin were both wolves and sleeping on it. And Winston’s own dog bed was still in the plane. Winston rose to his feet, stretched, then joined them and snuggled, treating them like they were his wolf pack. She’d never let any of the dogs she’d owned or fostered sleep with her. Not because she wanted to show who was alpha and king of the roost, but because she was such a light sleeper that a restless dog would wake her all night. Also because dogs got their feet dirty or wet, and she could just see them coming to bed with her and leaving paw prints all over her bedding.
It wasn’t long before Winston began kicking his legs in his dream world. Which was another reason not to take a dog to bed. Amelia had imagined he’d sleep the night and hadn’t counted on dog dreams. As exhausted as she was and Gavin had to be, she’d figured they’d sleep like the dead too. She’d camped several t
imes, but never quite like this—with a bachelor male wolf, a huge dog, and a stormy night in a little cave-like alcove after crashing a plane.
With all the time it had taken for them to paddle to shore, it was now late evening. Though the sun was already setting this late in the summer, the sky still looked much darker than normal because of the storms in the area.
She began to think about the business of sabotage again. And Gavin’s job—he was a PI. What was the chance he was really on a mission out here? Not just here to enjoy the solitude and get in a little paddling and fishing and running as a wolf. He was part of a pack. Why wouldn’t one of his pack members come here with him? She had been the one who had said he was here to run in the wilderness as a wolf, thereby giving him an alibi, when that might not be the case at all.
Had he lied to her? He’d better not have. Though she couldn’t really blame him, since she’d lied about seeing him before.
She thought back to when he’d asked if they’d dropped off any other party earlier, saying he wanted solitude. What if he really was on a spy mission concerning the earlier group they’d ferried out here? Mindy Michaels had been with that group. What if he’d been investigating her after the earlier situation with having her arrested? What if the plane losing all its power had to do with a PI job Gavin was on?
Amelia ground her teeth.
She considered the business with the plane again and all the trouble that had befallen it. It might not have anything to do with Gavin. Her dad had fired a man recently. The same man she’d dated. The gray wolf by the name of Heaton Compton.
Still as a wolf, Gavin rose to his feet, and she wondered what he was doing now. He shifted, then grabbed a camp blanket from his bag and covered her with it. Then he shifted again and curled up against her as a wolf, maybe thinking if one of them wanted to shift later, they wouldn’t have to find a blanket. She thought about that—them lying naked together as humans. She admitted the notion had appeal. Was it because he was an Arctic wolf and the only one she’d met in this area?