by Terry Spear
“It won’t be too late to ground us,” Minx warned.
“You didn’t have to come with us,” Anthony said.
“Of course I did.”
They both looked back at her. She couldn’t keep up with their longer stride, no matter how hard she tried, even though they were pulling the sled. But Anthony and Cody were always thinking up new schemes, and Minx wouldn’t be left out of an adventure for anything. She liked old Mr. Winston, too, and was just as worried that he couldn’t get into town to replenish his food when the snowstorm had hit. Not that several members of the wolf pack hadn’t offered to help him out. He had his pride. Since they were just kids, they figured he wouldn’t mind them bringing him food and giving him some company. As long as they didn’t have to do any math problems while they visited.
Cody and Anthony grinned at her.
“Your parents are betas,” Anthony said to Minx, continuing to move through the deep snowdrifts. “You never get into trouble. When we all fell off that cliff that time, I figured you’d get grounded forever since you’re a girl.”
“Nah, not Minx,” Cody said. “Not even for one hour.”
“Like the two of you should talk. Your parents didn’t punish either of you.”
“That’s only because we promised we’d never do it again. Otherwise? Dad said he would have had us mucking out Doc Mitchell’s horse stalls for two months.”
“Well, you didn’t have to clean out the vet’s stalls.” Minx stopped in her tracks. “How much farther is it? I don’t remember Mr. Winston’s home being this far out.”
“In the spring it isn’t. Or at least it doesn’t feel like it. Trudging through powder snow, it is,” Cody said.
Minx waded through the snow after the brothers again, trying to think about anything other than how much this was wearing her out. “I like Elizabeth.”
Neither Cody or Anthony made a comment.
Minx let out her breath. She was still thinking about meeting Elizabeth at the ski resort when she remembered something. “My dad thinks Eric Silver was at the ski resort.”
Cody glanced over his shoulder. “Why does he think that? They left the pack months ago.”
Minx wasn’t sure if her dad knew what he was talking about, either. But what if he did?
“Okay, so how does he know?” Cody finally asked.
“Well, my dad’s not sure, but he thought he saw Eric in the men’s room at the ski resort after he dropped me off there to join the two of you. Eric, if it was him, was moving really fast and had his mask down for only a moment. Dad only got a glimpse of his profile. Dad was a little surprised to see him, thinking the brothers had moved far away. But he could have sworn it was him.”
“Did your dad tell Darien?” Anthony asked.
“Of course, but because he couldn’t be certain and because the Silvers have no idea where their cousins are staying, there wasn’t much they could do about. Hey, is that smoke? Yes! We’re getting closer.”
She stopped again. “Cody,” she whispered, since he was closer to her than Anthony.
Both brothers stopped to look at her.
She pointed to wolf tracks in the snow.
***
Per Darien’s orders, all the searchers would remain in human form. Darien worried that the farmers or ranchers in the area would find out about the hunt for the wolves and try to tag along, although Elizabeth would have preferred tracking as a wolf. On Elizabeth and Tom’s team, Bjornolf and Anna had split off in another direction to look for any wolf or human footprints.
“Were your cousins really well liked?” she asked Tom.
“Yeah, they were. Everyone felt really bad about their dad. And about them leaving.”
“So it makes sense that Mr. Winston would give them a place to stay while they figured out how they wanted to attempt to return.”
“I guess so,” Tom said. “But Mr. Winston probably would have told them that we weren’t mad at them and would have welcomed them back, so the fact that Eric was so against just coming clean from the start makes me worry they’re up to something. And now that they’ve put the pack in danger, they’ve actually hurt their chances.”
Elizabeth wished they could spread out a bit, but he wouldn’t leave her for a second, and she knew he still worried someone might attack her.
“Lelandi is the psychologist in the family. What has she said about any of this?” Elizabeth examined a cluster of spruce branches, noticing some of the snow had been brushed off as if someone had walked into them recently. It could have been a searcher, but then again, Bjornolf and Anna were farther away, and the other search teams even more spread out. This was really recent, new snowflakes not having had time to cover the blue-green needles again.
Her heart sped up a little.
“Lelandi says it’s possible they’re acting out. Or maybe seeking revenge for their dad. Or they might not even be involved in any of this, like CJ said.”
“Or, they just want attention.”
“It’s one damn stupid way of getting it,” he said, glancing in her direction.
Elizabeth understood his anger, the betrayal, only too deeply. She turned away from him and studied a footprint in the snow, situated among the branches of the spruce. “Haven’t you ever done anything to get someone’s attention and afterward you regretted it? Some will do anything to get some notice, negative or otherwise. Since they’re angry that your brother put their father down, maybe they’ve been fuming about this and lashed out.”
“It’s dangerous for the pack. We can’t have our farmers reaching for their guns every time they see a wolf in a wolf-run town. We might have welcomed them back before, but now I don’t know if we want to have pack members whose decisions place all of us in danger,” Tom said, joining her as she measured her boot size with the one left in the snow.
“Man’s, recent,” she said. “He stood here, hiding among the branches of this spruce tree.”
Tom pulled his rifle off his shoulder and searched around the trees.
Someone was hiding nearby, listening, watching. If it was one of Tom’s cousins, she desperately wanted to talk him into giving himself up.
“They had a pack. They can’t let go of it. They want to be part of it again, but they don’t know how to come back and still save face,” she said.
Tom moved off into the trees, but Elizabeth didn’t follow him. He quickly came back for her. “Aren’t you coming?”
“They deserve a second chance, Tom. Maybe some intervention sessions with Lelandi. I never had a pack to grow up with. I only had my mother and father to learn from. I can only guess what it would be like for them to play and fight and be part of a pack growing up—and then lose their father, you and your brothers, and the rest of the pack all at once. Let them return to the pack. Show them what you’ve all shown me—tolerance, acceptance, and unconditional love.”
Tom looked around at the ground, searching for more footprints. “It’s up to Darien to make a decision like that.”
His expression tight, Tom stalked across the snow, shouldering his rifle. He took Elizabeth into his arms and hugged her tight. He whispered into her ear, “They’re here, aren’t they? Listening.”
She nodded, tears misting her eyes. She never cried if she could help it, and she’d been more misty-eyed around Tom and his pack than she wanted to admit. “You wanted to protect them, Tom. They knew if anyone would listen to them, it would be you. What they did was stupid. It all needs to end now.”
Tom gazed into her eyes. He shook his head. “You’re beautiful, you know? Inside and out. Despite all you’ve been through.”
“CJ turned himself in.”
“That was only because he stepped into the trap and couldn’t run any farther.”
“I think my charging after him, growling and snapping, spooked him. I think he came to see you when you we
re gathering kindling like he said, trying to find a way to get your attention and show you he didn’t mean you any harm. Only… I sort of ruined it by suddenly coming on the scene.”
Tom heaved a deep breath but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t convinced yet.
“Let them come in on their own and square things with Darien and Lelandi. Get back to being a pack. I like CJ. I want to have the biggest family I can have.”
Tom smiled at her, holding her still, looking down at her with wonder and admiration. “It won’t be easy. For any of us.”
“Time will heal.”
“But not in your uncle’s case,” Tom said vehemently. “That bastard will pay for attempting to kill you.”
“I also want to know if he murdered my parents. I want the proof, and Hrothgar can deal with him. As harshly as he sees fit.” Quinton didn’t deserve anything better.
Movement by one of the trees made Tom raise his rifle as Elizabeth turned to see who it was.
“Brett,” Tom said, sounding surprised, despite having assumed that one of his cousins was nearby.
Brett was wearing a white parka and ski pants that made him blend in with the snow, with only a hint of dark bangs showing beneath the hood of his coat and dark brown eyes. He studied Tom, waiting to see his response. He had Tom’s stern jaw, and she wondered if when he smiled, his expression would be similar to Tom’s.
Bjornolf and Anna came behind Brett, weapons pointed at the ground.
“We were watching him,” Bjornolf said, “while he listened to the two of you talk. I didn’t know what was going on until I realized you knew he was there.”
“Thanks, Bjornolf, Anna,” Tom said, then turned his attention on his cousin. “Where are your brothers?”
“They’re not here. We spread out so that we won’t get caught in a cluster. We knew you were searching for us, so we split up. We’ve been trying to find the damned wolves scaring the livestock. It wasn’t us. But we knew you’d suspect us first. We’ve tried damned hard to find the bastards and turn them over to Darien.”
“Why did you keep CJ out of this?” Tom asked, sounding suspicious.
“Hell, Tom. You know him. The minute he left the pack, he regretted it. He had his own ideas about how to get back in with the pack. Took us a lot longer to come to terms with everything. We know Darien had no other choice, but still…” Brett took a settling breath. “You’re still family, our pack. We knew the farmers would hunt any wolf, and one of our people could be killed. We had to hunt the rogue wolves down ourselves. Prove that we weren’t anything like our dad.”
Elizabeth felt all misty-eyed again.
“All right, say I take your word for it. But CJ said he overheard Eric talking to the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth. Did you know about that?”
Brett creased his forehead. “No, Eric never told us what they talked about. But I suspected that guy was up to no good.”
“Do you have any clues?”
Brett snorted. “They’re red wolves. They use hunter’s spray. We saw the three of them clustered in the distance, spooking some calves. They’re big wolves, but they’re definitely reds. We took chase, but they disappeared into the mountains. Easy to do when we couldn’t scent them.”
“You wore hunter’s scent camouflage, too,” Tom accused.
“Hell, yeah. If we hadn’t, you would have only smelled our scents at the farms. That would have assured you we were the culprits.”
“What now?” Tom asked.
“I’ll go into town. Settle the score with Darien. Where’s CJ?”
“Injured, leg trap. Doc’s taking care of him.”
Elizabeth saw the concern wash over Brett’s face.
Tom turned to Bjornolf and Anna. “Take him into town, will you?”
“What? I’m being treated like a prisoner?”
“Let’s just say that until Darien has a talk with you, this is the way it’s going down.”
Brett shook his head. “So who are you?” Brett asked Bjornolf. “I’ve never seen the two of you in the pack before. Leave for a short time and everything changes.”
“Sheriff Peter Jorgenson’s brother, Bjornolf.”
“He’s a retired Navy SEAL,” Anna said.
“Damn, I didn’t know Peter had a brother who was a SEAL. I thought you were trouble.”
“I am—for the bad guys.”
Brett chuckled, but Elizabeth thought the amusement was a little strained. “Didn’t know they sent you guys on missions like this.”
“I owed Peter big-time for not keeping in touch. See you later,” Bjornolf said to Elizabeth and Tom, and the three of them headed back through the woods in the direction of the town.
“He sounded sincere,” Elizabeth said to Tom, searching for new tracks, smelling the breeze, looking for any signs Brett’s brothers had been with him at some point.
“Could be. But why were the red wolves causing trouble for us?” Tom asked.
“The guys who kidnapped me were red wolves. I was able to smell them once their hunter’s spray wore off after we’d been flying for a few hours. They have to be the same ones.”
“If they’re the ones who kidnapped you, why would they want to harass our farmers?”
“What if they instigated the situation with the farmers to distract the pack from North and me? It’s clever, really. They created a situation that not only kept the pack occupied but made the farmers antsy specifically about wolves, thus making Darien want to limit the pack’s shifting,” Elizabeth said.
“So they thought that by distracting us with the farmer problem, they could slip under our radar and get away with stealing your deed and North’s evidence,” Tom said, nodding. “But they weren’t planning on you and me getting involved.”
Tom cast her an elusive smile.
She kissed his cold cheek. “You’re right. And all this time, you were tracking down your cousins and not the wolves actually spooking the livestock.”
“I suppose so. But we still don’t know for sure if Eric is up to something.”
“True,” Elizabeth agreed.
Not finding any sign of the others, she and Tom had been walking for about an hour when she paused, spying a footprint half-hidden by snow. “There.” She pointed to another place beneath a tree about three hundred yards from the other. “Smaller boot. Wait a minute. Look at the track marks. Somebody’s been hauling something fairly heavy.” She studied the snowshoe prints. “Three people. A girl and two men.”
“A girl? Silva’s out here. Anna, too, but she was with us.” Tom studied the girl’s footprints. “Small. Lightweight. She sat down over here and took off the snowshoes, then continued to walk without them.”
Elizabeth sniffed the air. “Minx?”
Tom sampled the air. “Cody and Anthony are with her. I bet none of them had permission to come out here. Not with the problems we’ve had with the rogue wolves. The boys haven’t given the pack any grief in the past six months, and next year, they’re supposed to work as ski instructors. We hoped that would give them enough to do to keep them focused and out of trouble.”
“They’re good kids,” Elizabeth said. “It looks like Cody and Anthony pulled a sled…” Elizabeth paused and turned, looking off to the side where the girl’s footprints stopped. “Wolf tracks, Tom.” She felt a chill race up her spine. Whoever hauled the sled had left it some feet from the first sign of the wolf prints.
“Darien said no one was supposed to be in wolf form,” Tom said.
“Groceries and one set of snow… wait, three sets of snowshoes,” she whispered, getting a really bad feeling about this.
Tom wanted Elizabeth to stay with the groceries, but he couldn’t leave her alone. And he didn’t want her to continue following the tracks in case they came across real trouble. When Bjornolf and Anna had been with them, that was one thing. Tom had felt
a sense of security when he’d thought the rest of his cousins would also turn themselves in.
Tom and Elizabeth followed the trail, both of them trying to be as quiet as possible. The kids wouldn’t have left the groceries behind unless they had run into trouble or had gone after the wolf tracks quietly, trying not to catch anyone’s attention.
They should have returned to Silver Town at once with word of what they’d found. Not that Tom or his brothers wouldn’t have done the same thing when they were the kids’ ages.
Elizabeth whispered to Tom, “Any reason they would be hauling groceries this way?”
“Nothing here but Mr. Winston’s house. He lives way out. He’s a wolf, but when he got cut off from the pack during the snowstorm, he said he didn’t need any help. Looks like the kids thought to take something to him anyway.”
“But the wolf tracks?” she asked, glancing at Tom.
He shook his head. “The house is just beyond those trees. The kids wouldn’t have left the groceries back there without some good reason. Like they were in trouble. Or Mr. Winston was.”
“We should get backup, or I should shift,” Elizabeth said.
Tom listened for any sounds of people or wolves moving about in the trees. Nothing. “Let’s get closer to the house. Mr. Winston should be the only one there, except for the kids.”
“Unless your other two cousins are here. Brett said they had split up, but I’d assumed he meant they were all out looking for CJ.”
“Yeah,” Tom said.
Moving in closer, Tom and Elizabeth used the shelter of the snow-laden spruce to study the one-story log cabin. The living room curtains were open, smoke drifting out of the stone chimney, lights on in the living room and kitchen. Eric paced across the living-room floor.
“Eric,” Tom said.
Of all the cousins, Eric was the tallest, six-one, and the most muscled. He wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans and appeared highly agitated.
A girl wearing a bright blue sweater and with blond hair in braids crossed in front of the kitchen window. She peeked outside, turned, and walked out of view.