Текст книги "A Silver Wolf Christmas"
Автор книги: Spear Terry
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
Chapter 14
At five o’clock, the celebration was winding down and Jacob Summers, the electrician, joined Laurel in the kitchen as she finished cleaning up, though several others had helped her with the job.
“Your finding?” she asked.
“A short in the wiring. I fixed it. No extra charge. Code-wise, everything is fine.”
“Thanks, Jacob.”
“No problem.”
Lelandi came into the kitchen to give her a hug. “Beautiful. Everything went splendidly. I’ll finish up anything else you need done in here. You have some guests ready to check in. Silva was going to do it, but she wasn’t sure what to do.”
“Oh, thanks so much.” Laurel gave Lelandi a big hug back. “I couldn’t have done it all without you and the rest of the pack who helped out.”
“That’s what we’re here for. And about winning the snow sculpture contest…it was an honest choice—and I’ll say unanimous. Everyone voted for it.”
“For…the sculpture,” Laurel said, smiling skeptically.
Lelandi smiled right back.
“Thanks again for everything.” When Laurel hurried to the check-in counter to take care of her guests, she saw the three Wernicke brothers standing there, looking a little miffed that she hadn’t checked them in at once. She stood taller. “Did CJ talk to you about the basement door?”
“No, why?” Stanton asked.
“Because someone unlocked it and let everyone down there.” She wondered where CJ had been all this time if he hadn’t run into the brothers and spoken with them already.
“That’s not good—for your insurance.”
“If you’re not pleased with the accommodations or anything else here, I’ll promptly refund your money.”
Stanton gave her a weak smile. So faked. “We just wondered who was going to check us in. Then again, we figured if we were…make that, when we’re running the hotel, we’ll have the proper staff to manage it. Though we would still be willing to hire you for the job.”
Normally, she and her sisters did hire a manager and more employees to help run their hotels, but this one was so small that they had wanted to take care of it on their own in the beginning. They figured they’d have time to hire additional staff once they knew the pack members better.
“If you do end up owning it, that will be up to you.” Laurel had no intention of running the hotel for these men. But from the sound of it, the brothers couldn’t claim it no matter how much they thought it should be theirs. “How are you paying for your stay?”
“Since the place is really ours, it should be free of charge.” Stanton smiled again.
Acting alpha-like, he was waiting for her to cower a bit. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not that he couldn’t be dangerous, but she just wasn’t going to be cowed by him.
She tapped her pen on the countertop. He slowly pulled out a wallet and then handed a credit card to her. She said, “And I’ll need to see some photo ID.”
His brothers chuckled.
“We have a TV show,” Stanton reminded her.
“That I don’t watch.” She eyed his photo ID carefully, memorizing his address, and then began to fill in the information on her computer. “And you’re staying a week and checking out on…”
“Two weeks.”
She looked up from her computer. “You made reservations for a week, checking out on Saturday morning by ten.”
Stanton turned to his brothers. “I thought you said we had reservations for two weeks.”
“That’s what I changed it to. Don’t remember who I talked to, and I didn’t get any confirmation number,” Vernon said.
“Then you didn’t get any reservation extension. We already have the rooms booked after that.”
“Then when do you have the next available opening?” Stanton leaned against the counter, getting into her space.
“Not for three more months.”
“I don’t believe you.” He tried to see her computer, and she turned the monitor so he couldn’t observe it. “That’s fine. We’ll stay at Bertha’s bed and breakfast.”
Lelandi came out of the kitchen and smiled at the men. “Gentlemen, enjoy your stay here.” Then she turned to Laurel. “Thanks for accommodating my brother’s…friends for the coming month. They’ve looked forward to skiing here while my brother, his wife, and their children visit with Darien and me.”
“I can’t wait to meet them,” Laurel said cheerfully, then handed the keys to the Wernicke brothers. “Your rooms are the first three on the right as you reach the top of the stairs.”
The brothers left then and headed to the stairs.
Lelandi whispered to her, “CJ was supposed to be back already, but he saw the white wolf you thought you had seen—only this time it was on the other side of the river.”
Laurel’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re kidding.”
“No. So he and some others are trying to reach that side of the river and track the wolf down. Trevor’s coming here to keep an eye on things for you until CJ returns. I’ll stick around until he arrives.”
“You don’t really have to.” Laurel knew Lelandi had little ones to take care of.
“Someone needs to stay here with you in case you have trouble, given the circumstances. CJ would, but he had the notion to check out the white wolf and just happened to see it.”
“It’s not one of yours?”
“No.”
“A full-blooded wolf?”
“Maybe, or one of our kind. Just not one of our pack. Anyway, we need to know the truth, and if it’s one of our kind, we’ll see. Oh, and about the hotel bookings,” Lelandi said softly, for Laurel’s hearing only, “we’ll ensure your place stays booked.”
“They’ll just stay at Bertha’s.”
“It’s also booked, guaranteed.”
Laurel smiled. She loved this wolf pack.
* * *
CJ got ahold of Darien, then contemplated how to get to the other side of the river. A bridge crossed to the other side ten miles down the road, but he didn’t want to lose the opportunity.
“I’m shifting,” he said over his phone to Darien.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until you have backup?” Darien asked. “I’ve had the alert roster called. Your brothers are at the top of the list, and Peter’s coming.”
“What about Laurel and the hotel?” He was supposed to be there, keeping an eye on the Wernicke brothers.
“Lelandi is there with her.”
CJ didn’t like it. Two women were no match for three aggressive male wolves.
“Trevor’s joining them as soon as he can get there.”
“All right.”
“But about this wolf—”
“It’s just one wolf. And because it’s white, it could be old or injured.”
“Or an Arctic wolf, healthy and strong. Could you tell?”
“No. The wind was whipping the fresh snow around and pushing the snow from the pine branches, making for a screen of white.”
“Are you sure it’s not a gray wolf and the snow was making it appear white?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve stripped. Got to shift and go.”
“Take care, CJ. Howl if you find anything. I’m on my way.”
“Will do.”
They ended the call, and CJ buried his clothes and phone underneath a pile of snow. Using his enhanced sense of smell as a wolf, he would easily locate his belongings when he returned.
He shifted, his muscles and skin heating as the welcome change came over him, the chill of the wind instantly blocked as his double coat of fur protected him from the elements—both cold and heat. Then he raced to the rocky riverbank, slipped down the rocks until he was no longer standing on the smooth stone river bottom, and swam against the strong flow of the current.
He hoped that if the wolf was older, he could reach him before long. But if this was the same wolf others had said they had witnessed—the ghost wolf that had never been located—he might be so good at evasion that even CJ wouldn’t be able to locate him.
CJ struggled against the pull of the cold, black water. If the wolf had not driven off in the truck like they had previously surmised, had he managed to swim across the river that night, evading them that way? CJ wasn’t sure when the first sightings of the wolf had been reported, though he’d never heard anyone say it was a white wolf. And he’d never known anyone personally who had witnessed the wolf. Or at least who had let on.
When he finally reached the other side of the river and found purchase on the slippery stones, he made his way up the bank and ran into the piney woods. He was here, ready for the chase and whatever he found, but he wished he could be in three places at once: here looking for the white wolf, watching over the hotel to ensure the Wernicke brothers didn’t give the sisters any further grief, and at the sisters’ home, learning if Laurel and her sisters had found anything hidden in their aunt’s furniture when it arrived. He hadn’t told Darien or anyone, because she hadn’t wanted to divulge the furniture’s secret compartments. If she found anything, she would tell him. And Darien and Lelandi if it was beneficial to the case.
But he was here for now. He wanted in the worst way to learn who the wolf was—to at least solve one of the mysteries they had run across.
He concentrated hard on looking for a wolf blending with the snow-covered trees. He was smelling for it and listening for any sign that it was moving through the woods. With the wind whipping about and the snow making popping sounds as it fell off the trees in clumps, he didn’t sense the wolf anywhere.
Worse, he had just climbed on top of a snow-covered, tangled mass of fallen trees and branches, and as soon as he stepped on it, he felt it move. The timber suddenly cracked and snapped. His heart went into his throat, and before he could leap off it, the deadfall broke beneath his weight and he fell.
* * *
Laurel’s sisters arrived nearly at midnight. As soon as the men off-loaded the furniture into the house and left, Laurel gave both her sisters hugs in greeting. Then Ellie said, “Okay, spill the beans.”
Laurel couldn’t stop worrying about CJ. No one had heard from him in hours, and Lelandi had updated her every hour on the hour. He’d taken off after the white wolf and then vanished. All Laurel could think of was the way in which their aunt and the Wernicke brother and sister had disappeared. At one point, she thought of alien abductions, which was nuts, sure, but she couldn’t quit thinking about CJ and wanting to go in search of him. Lelandi had told her that they had at least forty men out looking for him now. They would find him and he’d be fine, Laurel kept telling herself.
She swallowed hard and tried not to let her sisters see her eyes again fill with tears. If she hadn’t seen the white wolf, CJ wouldn’t be missing now. She was certain he wouldn’t have vanished without a trace unless something bad had happened.
She tried to concentrate on searching one of the highboy’s drawers for hidden compartments while her sisters worked on others. Worrying about CJ wouldn’t help anyone.
“Spill the beans about what?” Laurel asked, certain that Ellie and Meghan wanted to know all about her and CJ. But if that wasn’t the topic her sister had in mind, Laurel had no intention of bringing it up.
Both her sisters had stopped looking at the drawers and were waiting for her to answer Ellie.
“What do you mean, about what? About CJ, of course. Here you are telling us not to get too friendly with anyone in the pack, and what do you do? Get really friendly with one of them. And he’s not just a member, but the pack leader’s close cousin.” Ellie teased.
Laurel hadn’t thought they’d be upset about it, but hopeful that she’d want to stay. She hadn’t been sure until now.
“Really friendly,” Meghan said, nodding.
“I have some bad news.” Laurel hated that she had to tell them now. She didn’t want to mention what had happened with regard to CJ, unless that turned out to be really bad news.
“Don’t tell me you’ve already broken up with CJ. Ahhh, how could you go and do that?” Ellie asked. “Here I thought after you and he were caught in that scandalous photo—”
Immediately, Laurel defended herself. “He just kissed my nose.”
“And the one where you were sitting on his lap? Then he stayed overnight.” Ellie looked up from the drawer she’d pulled out and had been inspecting. “And more?”
“We just watched A Christmas Story and fell asleep on the couch.”
“Ohmigod,” Ellie said, poking Meghan, who was staring wide-eyed at Laurel.
“What did you think?” Laurel was afraid they thought she was mated.
Meghan smiled. “Wow. We thought he’d fallen asleep on the couch and you’d gone to sleep in your bed. You slept together on the couch? Together?”
As if she hadn’t said the word “together” enough! “You’ve fallen asleep on the couch while watching a movie any number of times,” Laurel said.
“Not. With. A. Wolf.” Meghan raised her brows.
“For heaven’s sake, that’s not what’s important.”
“It is too,” Meghan said.
Well, yes, it was. Wolves didn’t have sex unless they planned a mating, and it sure sounded like they could be headed in that direction. But now she wanted more than anything to join the search teams out looking for CJ. If something terrible had happened to him… She shook her head at herself. She couldn’t think of it. He was fine. They’d find him soon, and he’d be fine. But her gut instinct told her it wasn’t true.
“Okay, so what’s the bad news then?” Ellie ran her fingers over the bottom of the drawer, searching for a hidden compartment. “Ow.”
Laurel and Meghan looked up from examining two more drawers to see what the problem was.
“Sliver.”
Meghan rolled her eyes.
“The problem is that the Wernicke brothers claim they’re related to the hotel owners who vanished. And now they’re alleging that the hotel belongs to them.”
“Holy crap. No way,” Meghan said. “Are they still staying here at the hotel as guests?”
“Yes. But they thought they should have free rooms.”
Meghan put down the drawer and headed for the front door of the house.
Grabbing her arm, Laurel intercepted her. “Where are you going?”
“They can’t stay here if they think they’re going to take the hotel away from us.” Meghan’s eyes glistened with tears.
Feeling her distress, Laurel pulled her into a hug. “Darien and everyone else in the pack will help us to uncover the truth. And the unpaid taxes meant that the pack took over the property, so the brothers wouldn’t be able to claim it. But they could cause other trouble for us, trying to ruin our business and forcing us to lose money. We could face financial ruin.”
“And if that happened?” Ellie looked just as distraught.
“CJ suggested we build a new hotel. It can be Victorian, small, exactly how we like our hotels.”
“But we love this one. Meghan and I were talking about it while we were away. How much we loved this hotel and how beautiful it is.”
“Right, but we may not have a choice.”
“Wait,” Meghan said. “You want to build a new hotel here?” She wiped away the tears trailing down her cheeks. “You’d do that to stay here? To stay with the pack?”
“I don’t know. We still have to learn why our aunt disappeared and all the rest. The pack may not even want us here after we learn the truth. Would you even want to build a new place? CJ said they’d help us, but is it even something we’d want to do?”
“We love the old buildings,” Ellie admitted. “But to stay with a wolf pack? Especially as welcoming as this one is? I’d be willing.”
“I agree with Ellie. I like the charm of old buildings. But if it meant staying, I’d do whatever it takes,” Meghan said.
Then Ellie smiled deviously. “The pack would never allow the Wernicke brothers to buy the hotel, or if they did, they’d run them out of business.”
“I agree. So in the meantime, we fight them tooth and claw if they try to ruin our business. Even though they have a TV show, which could give them some clout, we have a pack to back us,” Laurel said. “But that’s only contingent on the pack still wanting us here if we discover one of their beloved pack members had anything to do with our aunt’s disappearance.”
“Are you kidding?” Meghan set her drawer aside and pulled out another. “Poor CJ would have no one’s nose to kiss on a cold, snowy day.”
“Or a she-wolf to snuggle with on our sofa while watching Christmas movies.” Ellie ran her fingers under the top edge of the highboy.
“If his father was involved in our aunt’s disappearance?” Laurel asked, trying to be pragmatic about it. “Family is family, after all.”
“He’s not going to stick up for his father if he was involved in murdering Clarinda or covering it up.” Meghan gave up on the highboy and started to search the blanket chest for a false bottom.
Laurel was hoping that would be the case. Her phone rang and she hurried to answer it, her sisters watching her.
She frowned when she saw it was Darien calling, not Lelandi. Her stomach clenching with dread, Laurel feared the worse. CJ had been found.
And he was dead.
Chapter 15
When CJ came to, he was still in his wolf form, thank God, or he would have frozen to death. He was lying on his side at the bottom of a twelve-foot-deep killing pit, with leaves, twigs, and pine needles cushioning his fall. A few wooden stakes pointed skyward at the black night, waiting to skewer their victims. The pit had been used to kill animals—and had been here for years, he suspected, as he considered the weathered age of the stakes. He couldn’t see all that well in the dark, as deep as he was, but he would have been able to smell new wood that had been carved into stakes.
His head throbbed where he was certain he’d cut it, and minor bruises, scratches, and a few ligament strains made him ache all over. An animal or two must have fallen into the pit earlier, and the unfortunate beasts had broken a few of the sharpened stakes. Thankfully, the broken ones hadn’t been replaced, and CJ hadn’t been gored.
Unsteadily, he sat up and tried to get his bearing in the darkness, some of the deadfall still covering the hole. He had to warn anyone else not to take a misstep and fall into the pit. The snow-covered trees looming above hid the sky from his view.
Nothing on the sides of the pit could help him climb if he shifted. There were a few exposed, gnarled roots, but they wouldn’t be strong enough to hold his weight. Remembering that Darien was coming and also sending men, CJ lifted his chin and howled. Maybe someone would hear him. His howl sounded strange and unreal to his ears. Maybe because he was surrounded by earth and sitting so deep in the pit. He hoped whoever had built this pit wasn’t still around to finish him off.
Off in the distance, howls rent the woods and he was cheered to hear his brothers and cousins calling. He howled again in greeting and in relief.
Everyone was everywhere, combing the woods for him, he realized. But they would be in their wolf forms. No one could get him out of here without shifting and using ropes. And for that they needed a phone. He was destined to stay down here for who knew how long.
Worse, he worried about Laurel being alone and hoped Trevor was keeping an eye on things. CJ wished he had her in his arms, snuggling with her on the couch again, breathing in her sweet she-wolf scent, listening to her steady heartbeat, feeling the heat and softness of her body.
Everyone had stopped howling. He knew they wanted to hear from him again, to pinpoint his direction. He suspected they wondered why he sounded like he was buried alive. He howled long and low, letting them know just where he was again. His head splintering in two, he collapsed on his side and waited for his rescuers to come for him.
Then a wolf woofed down at him. He wanted to warn the wolf to watch out for the deadfall covering the hole. That it could still be dangerous. When he looked up, he stared at a white face, ears as long as a gray wolf’s, and legs just as long. The white wolf. The ghost wolf. He or she was very real.
CJ didn’t remember anything after that, didn’t hear anything for a long time. When he opened his eyes later, he realized he must have passed out. He expected to see the white wolf peering down at him, but it was gone.
Then barks and woofs grew close, and again he managed to sit up and howl.
Darien howled back. He was nearly there. His brothers howled in unison. They were close by. He loved the sound of the wolves’ calls to gather the pack, to warn, to share camaraderie. A wolf howled again, right above CJ’s location, and peered down at him. Then several more. Darien, his brothers, others. CJ wanted to tell them to watch that they didn’t fall into the pit, but he knew they would be careful. He felt like an idiot for falling into it himself.
Darien shifted, crouched to stay warmer, and quickly said, “As soon as you howled and sounded like you were buried, Peter and others went back to get ropes and gear to get you out of there. Is anything broken? Are you injured?”
CJ shook his head, his skull splintering into a thousand fragments before he heard Darien calling his name from what sounded like a million miles away. “Hell, CJ. You are too injured.”
As wolves, the pack gathered, his brothers lying down next to the pit. Darien shifted into his wolf form and remained sitting upright, waiting, watching, his ears twitching back and forth, his nose sniffing the air.
Then his brothers sat up. CJ heard the other men coming before they got there. Men were so much noisier moving through the woods than wolves.
“Which way do you want to do this?” Doc Mitchell asked. “Bring him up as a wolf or a human?”
Hell, they had called the vet? CJ wasn’t injured!
Lanterns were sitting all over the place, and someone threw a couple of glow sticks into the pit. They landed near CJ and he glanced over to see what kind of animal had fallen and broken the stakes that had saved his hide. The bones of a wild boar and an elk. But what chilled him to the marrow of his bones was a human skeleton lying among the rest of the bones scattered in the pit.
“Human skeleton,” Doc Mitchell said. “Hell, CJ, we thought you were searching for a ghost wolf, not a human skeleton. Good job.”
Yeah, as if CJ had jumped down here, risking life and limb, to get a look at a skeleton! But then he worried that it could be Clarinda O’Brien. That made him feel ill. He really didn’t want to have to be the one to tell Laurel that her aunt had died this way.
Staring at the remains—a stake between the ribs of the human skeleton—he just couldn’t believe it. Brett and Eric disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later, wearing their clothes. Each of them carried a backpack, then hooked themselves into climbing gear, getting ready to rappel down into the pit.
When they were standing on the ground beside CJ, they made sure they didn’t step on any of the bones. Others in the pack would need to gather the evidence to determine who had died here and how. Instantly, CJ wondered if they’d had any other cases of missing wolves over the years. The problem was that sometimes wolves left the pack, no reason given, and there were always drifters and loners, so just about anyone could have made the mistake—like he did—of stepping on the deadfall and plummeting into the pit.
“Do you want us to take you up as a wolf or as a human?” Eric asked, crouching next to him and running his gloved hand over CJ’s head.
CJ hated to shift because it was so cold and it might take him a while to get dressed. He decided to run as a wolf. He woofed.
Eric smiled. “A wolf it is.” Before he put CJ in a harness to lift him out of the pit, Eric removed his gloves and checked him over, looking for broken bones or other injuries.
As a forest ranger, Eric was trained in first aid—which even meant caring for wounded animals. All the brothers and several members of the pack were trained in search and rescue and first aid. It was best that way so they didn’t have to call in humans to help find and take care of their kind.
Eric’s hand touched a tender ligament in CJ’s foreleg, and he yelped. Eric’s already furrowed brow deepened. He checked his foreleg again.
“Broken? Chipped? Torn muscle?” Doc Mitchell called down.
“Maybe just bruised,” Eric said, sounding relieved.
Then Eric and Brett carefully cinched CJ into a harness and gave the go-ahead to lift him. His body scraped against the exposed tree roots, and he gritted his wolf’s teeth until they hauled him up to the edge of the pit. Several hands grabbed for him, lifting him and placing him on a litter. He had every intention of running with them as a wolf, but he could see Darien and Doc Mitchell had other plans.
Three men strapped CJ down, while others went back into the pit with more lights to photograph and document the evidence and then to retrieve the human remains.
CJ growled. Wolves didn’t like confinement and he really wanted to run, to prove he was just achy and nothing was really wrong.
Brett soon joined him as the men carried him on the litter. “Trevor is watching the Wernicke brothers. While you’re getting checked out at the vet’s, I’ll let Laurel know we’ve found you and you’re all right. You might need to stay at the clinic overnight, depending on what Doc Mitchell says. We’ve got men locating your clothes and cell phone. They’ll give them to me so I can bring them to the clinic, and they’ll also drive your vehicle back to your home.”
“Doc Mitchell says CJ’s staying at the clinic tonight. Unless someone watches over him.” Doc Mitchell stalked up beside him, wearing his usual vet attire—leather vest, denims, well-worn cowboy boots, and a weather-beaten Stetson—and smelling of horses. He smiled.
Why couldn’t they have sent Doc Weber? Though he was even older than Doc Mitchell. Maybe Darien had been afraid that making the trek would be too much for the elderly doctor. But at least he worked on humans. Not that CJ was human at the moment.
CJ growled again at being strapped down. Brett and Doc Mitchell chuckled.
* * *
As soon as Lelandi called Laurel with word that they’d found CJ and he was getting checked out at the vet’s office, Laurel collapsed on the sofa, her body feeling numb, the blood draining from her face. “Thank you. I’ll tell my sisters, and I’m headed over there.”
“Brett asked if you’d wait and let him pick you up.”
“Thanks. I’d like that.” Laurel was so anxious, she wasn’t sure she could drive on the icy roads, but she was relieved that CJ would be okay. At least she hoped he was. They ended the call, and she looked up to see her sisters’ anxious faces. She explained what had happened, and her sisters gave her grief for not telling them beforehand.
“Do you want us to go with you?” Ellie asked, taking Laurel’s hand.
“No…he’s okay. He’s at the vet’s office.”
“Vet’s office?” Meghan asked. “Remind me never to get sick or injured here.”
Laurel managed a smile. “Yes. They brought him in as a wolf, and the vet took him to the clinic to check him over. Brett’s coming to pick me up and take me there.”
“Good. We’ll keep trying to find any hidden places in the highboy and blanket chest.” Ellie looked at the highboy. “I don’t know. Maybe neither of the pieces of furniture has secret compartments.”
“Maybe not. Or we might have to find a furniture refinisher or cabinetmaker and see if he can locate a hidden compartment,” Laurel said.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Meghan asked. “You looked like a ghost when the color drained so quickly from your cheeks.”
“Yeah. I’m just worried about CJ.”
“From the sound of it, he’s fine. We’ll let you know if we locate anything.” Meghan frowned. “Is he going home tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if he needs someone to stay overnight with him, I’ll volunteer you.” Ellie smiled. “Don’t think about me doing it.” She glanced at the old grandfather clock. “Speaking of which, I need to go to bed.”
Meghan agreed. “We can look these over again tomorrow. It’s time to sleep. We’ll take care of the hotel in the morning, so don’t worry about rushing home from CJ’s place.”
“He may not even be going home.” And since when did Laurel’s sisters decide what she was going to do?
A knock on the door sounded, and Ellie hurried to get it. “Your chariot awaits,” she said, then opened the door. “Hey, Brett, I hope your brother is all right.”
Laurel stared at Ellie. Her voice sounded sweet and demure, and Laurel swore her sister was looking coyly at Brett, like a she-wolf who was interested. Laurel wondered if that had anything to do with her involvement with CJ. Maybe Ellie felt it was okay to start dating a wolf too.
“CJ will be fine. Kind of growly, but he wants to go home,” Brett said. “If Doc releases him, he’ll want someone to watch over him.”
“That would be Laurel,” Ellie said, nodding sagely.
“I’m certain one of CJ’s brothers will be vying for the task.” Laurel joined them, giving her sister a look to behave. Ellie just grinned back at her. “Night, Ellie, Meghan. I’ll see you in the morning.” After making sure that CJ was okay, she would return and retire herself. To her bed this time.
Brett escorted her out to his car.
“Will the doctor release him?” Laurel climbed into Brett’s car.
“Yeah, if someone will watch over him.”
She really thought one of his brothers would.
Brett shrugged. “Between you and me, if he has a choice, he’s going to ask for you to stay with him. He’ll be on his best behavior. Believe me. With me, he’ll be a growly wolf to live with. Especially if you won’t go home with him.”
She chuckled. “I doubt it.”
“Yeah, well, he won’t show that side to you. Just to his brothers.”
“Is he really all right?”
“He was knocked out when he fell, bruised, and scraped up, but all that will heal in the next few days. He’ll be fine. The doc just wants him watched overnight.”
“What happened exactly? Lelandi said he saw the white wolf across the river and then told Darien he was going after it. She just said you all had found him.”
“He did go after the wolf. He swam across the river and then started searching for the wolf, but before he found it, he stepped on top of snow-covered deadfall rigged to cover the top of a killing pit.”
She felt her stomach drop. “How’d he survive?”
“Other animals had broken off the stakes.”
“Thank God for that. So he never found the white wolf?” Not that the wolf was as important as what had happened to CJ. She couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying.
“No, and neither did we, but then we began to search for CJ instead because none of us had run across him. Then he howled, and we knew he’d either found something or he was in trouble.”
“But he’s really okay.”
“Yeah. Just grouchy.”
She smiled, glad he was just ill-humored. That could be resolved with a little tender loving care.
