Chapter 6

Dylan thought it was nice that they were having the whole family over for dinner and they had invited him. He wondered if they wanted to meet him in a social setting because Roxie seemed to be interested in him and he was showing interest right back.

All bundled up, Dylan and Roxie headed over to Blake’s house next door. He thought it was great that the family lived so close to each other so they could help one another out.

Rosco immediately greeted them and so did a tabby cat. She wound her body around Roxie’s legs, then Dylan’s, as if she knew he was part of the family already.

“That’s Princess Buttercup,” Roxie said. “We take turns taking care of the two pets, though most nights they stay with me now.”

Everyone welcomed Dylan, introducing him to Gabrielle, since she was the only one who hadn’t met him yet. Nicole gave Dylan a hug and told everyone about a couple of other cases she’d helped him with.

“These two three-month-old babies are Gabrielle’s and my twins,” Landon said, “Evan and Trish.”

“And Blake and my twins are here, and they’re the same age, named Tucker and Ann,” Nicole said.

“That’s great. As they grow up, they’ll be best friends,” Dylan said.

“They already like being with each other,” Gabrielle said, “so I agree.”

“Does everyone want a drink?” Blake asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Dylan said.

Everyone else did too.

Blake made vanilla-cranberry mimosas with champagne for everyone, minus the champagne for Gabrielle and Nicole, and Dylan assumed they were still breastfeeding their babies.

Then Roxie and Nicole began serving up the pot roast, potatoes, carrots, and gravy.

“So what have you heard about the hunters or Eddie’s SUV? Anything about the teen wolf?” Dylan finally asked.

“The police in Denver told Peter that they checked with the hunters’ parents to see if they knew of their whereabouts, but they all said they weren’t due home for a couple of weeks,” Landon said.

“Did the parents tell the police their sons were out hunting?” Dylan asked.

Landon shook his head. “No. They said the guys just get together every year at this time. They had no idea what they did when they went on their trips.”

Dylan let out his breath. “And their sons just happened to be carrying hunting rifles on their trip for no reason.”

“Yeah, I suspect their families know more than they’re telling.” Landon showed Dylan his phone. A news reporter was talking about the dead hunter found in the woods near Silver Town.

“So Eddie’s family knows. What about the families of the three remaining men? How did they react to the news?” Dylan asked. “I mean, if the hunters hadn’t called their parents to tell them what had happened to their friend who died while with them…”

They all took their seats at the dining room table.

“I’m sure there’s going to be some falling-out between the parents if they had been friends prior to this. Maybe Eddie’s parents will tell the police what was going on—reference the illegal hunting and all, not wanting to protect these men if one of them killed their son,” Roxie said.

“But then they’d have to admit that they knew Eddie was taking part in the illegal hunting. They might not want to ruin his good name,” Dylan said.

“True, but it will come out anyway,” Nicole said.

Landon cut off several slices of roast so everyone could serve up what they wanted. “Exactly. So Jim or one of their cohorts might have called Eddie’s parents and told them what had happened to Eddie before the police arrived at their homes for questioning—to prep them, so they don’t say things they might not want the police to know.”

“If the hunters haven’t gone home, where might they have gone?” Gabrielle asked.

“Jim’s grandfather has a cabin near San Isabel National Forest,” Dylan said. “I found them illegally hunting there once before.”

Blake smiled. “You sound like a stalker.”

Dylan dished some slices of roast beef onto his plate. “Yeah, for those who defy hunting laws or anything else having to do with illegal wildlife activities. I’m their worst nightmare.”

“Someone needs to be,” Roxie said.

Everyone was dishing potatoes and carrots out of the bowls and pot roast off the serving platter. Then they began eating.

“We wanted to run tonight as wolves,” Dylan said, pouring gravy on his roast beef and potatoes.

“To search for the teen?” Nicole asked.

“Yeah,” Roxie said. “But we need to walk Rosco first.”

“I’ll walk Rosco,” Landon offered. “I’ll just put the babies in the twin carry pack.”

“I’ll do the same,” Blake said. “Then Nicole and Gabrielle can run as wolves.”

“Um, if we run as wolves, the babies turn into wolves,” Nicole reminded her mate. “But you can take the double puppy-carrier backpacks. They’re too little to run in this deep snow.”

“Yes! I knew that,” Blake said.

The ladies laughed.

“The babies are still waking us up all night long. I’m surprised any of us can function at all,” Gabrielle said.

“That’s for certain,” Landon said. “I thought for sure by now they’d sleep through the night.”

“Yeah, you and me both,” Blake said.

Dylan chuckled. Roxie smiled and wondered when Kayla and Nate would have kids too. Roxie loved sitting for the babies. Heck, everyone in the pack loved acting as nannies to the new wolves in the pack.

“This is delicious,” Dylan said, getting seconds of everything.

They all smiled.

“Family meals are the best,” Landon agreed. “We try to get the whole family together for lunch or dinner at least once a week.”

Roxie topped slices of homemade pecan pie with whipped cream for dessert for everyone and served them up. After they finished eating, those running as wolves got ready to strip, shift, and run.

Roxie told herself she was not going to look at Dylan when he stripped out of his clothes. But she swore doing so was a wolf condition or just a wolf’s curiosity. In the wild, wolves did consider the attributes of a prospective mate—not that she was considering mating him, but they did check each other out as a matter of course. Wild wolves didn’t have two physiques to consider—just a wolf’s. But she was just as curious about how Dylan would look as a wolf as she was about seeing him as a human.

She was rewarded with one hot, sexy male. His muscles were just exquisite, and she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to feel his arms wrapped around her in a wondrous hug again. He didn’t have an ounce of fat. All those muscles must have been what made him feel so heavy when she had pulled him out of the swimming pool.

She tugged off her last sock and saw him sneak a peek at her and smile, since she had been checking him over too and both got caught at it. Then they shifted into their wolves, and he was just as beautiful in his wolf coat.

He had the most amazing golden eyes and white fur framing them. Then a band of gray surrounded that, and lighter fur extended around his muzzle. His throat was covered with long, white fur. Black guard hairs and gray undercoat mixed together on his saddle. His belly and legs were lighter, and he really had beautiful, distinctive markings. So yeah, his wolf totally appealed to her too.

Roxie was so ready to do this. Her eye was still swollen and bruised, and it hurt, but she wasn’t letting that stop her from helping to look for the teen. She did wonder if Dylan was going to search for the hunters at Jim’s grandfather’s cabin though.

They took off through the wolf door, and she knew Landon and Blake would enjoy walking with Rosco while carrying the wolf pups. Everyone was going to have a good time. Nicole and Gabrielle looked for every opportunity to get some exercise in, though Gabrielle had started back to work at the vet clinic full-time and Nicole was doing some contract work looking into fraudulent claims for insurance companies again.

As they were running as wolves, the chilly wind cooled Roxie’s injured eye. It was like putting an ice pack on it for a while, so this worked out great. She and Dylan stuck close together. Kayla and Nate were nearby and Gabrielle and Nicole were in between the two “couples” until they ran into others beginning the hunt.

The wolves in the pack normally didn’t all go to run at night at the same time, though some moms or dads were staying home with little ones. Someone else had to man the sheriff’s department while they had the four drunks in the jail cell. Of course they always had medical staff on hand at the clinic too.

For three hours, they searched in the dark, a full moon lighting their way, and that made Roxie wonder if Dylan was a royal wolf with few human roots and could shift at will even during the full moon or new moon. She and her brothers and sisters weren’t, so they couldn’t shift during the new moon at all. They still needed to shift when the full moon was out. She suspected he was a royal so that he could work at the FWS. At the lodge, they always had enough royal wolves to fill in when Roxie and her siblings were having issues with shifting into wolves during the full moon. Though they’d gotten a lot more control over it over the years.

They continued to run until Dylan stopped dead in his tracks, smelled the air, and listened. Roxie stopped beside him, smelling the air and trying to learn what he’d sensed. And then she smelled it too. The teen’s scent from the tent they’d found. Gabrielle and Nicole joined them.

Nate and Kayla had run ahead, but when they realized Dylan, Roxie, and the others had stopped, they turned around and came back for them. They did the same as them—sniffed the air and listened, their ears twisting back and forth, trying to hear anything that they could. Then to Roxie’s surprise, Dylan shifted and called out, “We’re just like you, Luke. We know about the human hunters and their dead friend. We’re looking to arrest the men, and we’re trying to find you and bring you in for your own safety. Any of the wolf shifters in Silver Town—which is all wolf-run—will take you in.”

Then Dylan shifted back into his beautiful wolf.

She thought she saw movement then. All of them turned to look that way. A smallish wolf came out of the woods. Dylan woofed at him. Then Nate howled to let the other wolves know they’d found the teen.

Dylan shifted again. “Come with us. We’ll get you some clothes, a hearty meal, a hot shower, and a warm bed.” Then he shifted again, and he and Roxie turned and headed for Blake’s house.

She figured they were going to Blake and Nicole’s house because they had leftovers from the pot roast dinner.

She glanced over her shoulder to see if the teen was following them. He was still behind them, wary, not running to catch up to them. If he’d witnessed the murder, even though the hunters had been human and he had to suspect he was safe with her and the other wolf shifters, he had probably been traumatized. But she wondered if there was more going on with the kid. First off, why was he alone? Had he been in trouble himself? Was he a runaway?

They finally ended up at Blake and Nicole’s house, and Nicole ran inside first. Blake and Landon were rocking the wolf pups in padded rocking chairs. They had two rocking chairs just for when Landon and Gabrielle came over with their twins and needed to rock them to sleep. Though the daddies could have put them on their wolf beds to sleep.

Rosco belatedly came to greet them as they all entered the house. Blake and Landon’s jaws dropped to see the last wolf to enter the room. “Luke?” Blake asked, then smelled his scent and nodded.

Everyone began shifting except for the teen, and then they were getting dressed. The wolf pups were now babies, still sleeping soundly in their daddies’ arms.

Nicole took her son from Blake and then Blake got up from the rocking chair, cradling their daughter in his arms. “I’ll get you some clothes to wear, Luke,” Blake said quietly so as not to wake the babies, and then he and Nicole headed upstairs to their kids’ room to leave them in their cribs.

When they returned, Blake had some clothes for Luke. “You can change in the guest room over there.” Blake and Nicole had liked Roxie’s home’s layout so well—with a separate guest room on the first floor while the family had their bedrooms on the second floor—that they built their home in a similar configuration. Blake carried the clothes into the guest room, and Luke followed him in there.

Blake returned to the living room as they heard the guest room door close, and he smiled at the rest of them. “At least you found the boy, if that’s the one we were looking for.”

“He is. And yeah, I’m so thankful for that. I’m sure you don’t find teens on their own like this that you don’t recognize very often,” Dylan said. “I guess he’ll take care of the rest of your leftovers.”

Everyone smiled at the comment.

Landon was still rocking his babies.

“It’s time for us to get the twins to bed,” Gabrielle said, and she and Nicole began getting Landon and Gabrielle’s baby stuff together to pack up in the van.

Then Landon stood up from the rocker, cradling the two babies. Everyone said good night to them. Roxie knew Landon and Gabrielle would want to learn what was going on with Luke, but they needed to get their babies to bed, and she suspected they felt that having fewer people there would be easier on Luke. At least Roxie felt that it would be.

Kayla and Nicole went out to help Landon and Gabrielle with the babies’ diaper bags, baby carrier backpacks, and pet carrier backpacks while the parents strapped the babies into their car seats.

In the meantime, Roxie was on the phone, calling the sheriff while she watched out the window as the others packed up the van. “Hey, Peter, Luke is here. We howled to let everyone know we found him, but we needed to get him to Blake’s house to feed him and clothe him. He’s getting dressed in some of Blake’s clothes, and then he’s going to have dinner here.”

“I’ll be over as soon as I take care of an issue with the drunk skiers at the jail.”

Roxie was wondering what that was all about as she heard shouting and cursing in the background on the phone. Then they ended their call. “The sheriff’s coming to see Luke as soon as he can get here. He said he was having some issues with the drunks he incarcerated.”

Nicole and Kayla had returned to the house after seeing Landon and Gabrielle off. Nicole started heating up the leftovers for the teen.

“I’m not surprised,” Dylan said. “They need to sleep it off.”

Blake said, “While Luke is getting dressed, does anybody want another cocktail like the ones I fixed earlier?”

“Yeah, I could have one,” Dylan said.

“Me too,” Roxie said.

“Not me. I’ll have a glass of milk.” Nicole started bringing the leftover food out of the fridge.

Blake mixed them up some drinks, and then Luke came out of the guest room and joined them in the dining room. Introductions were made all around.

“Come, sit here,” Nicole said. “Pot roast? Mashed potatoes? Gravy? Carrots?”

“Yeah, all of that would be great, thanks.” Luke ran his hands through his long, curly blond hair and then took a seat at the dining room table.

Nicole began serving the warmed-up food for Luke. “Do you want water, milk, a soda?”

“Water and milk, thanks.”

Blake got Nicole and Luke some milk. Everyone joined Luke at the table while Nicole brought him a glass of water. “How…how did you know my name?” Luke asked.

“We found your ID in your tent,” Dylan said. “I had been searching for the hunters earlier and discovered they’d illegally killed an elk. I’m a special agent with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. So anyone who does illegal stuff like that, I arrest them for it.”

“They did more than that,” Luke said, scarfing down another forkful of gravy-covered mashed potatoes.

“We found the hunter’s body. Did one of the men with him shoot him?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah. I was tenting not that far away. I heard them shoot something farther away than that, and I didn’t know what to do. Remain in my human form and hope they didn’t shoot me accidentally, thinking I was prey? Wear my wolf coat and get out of their sight? But then I heard them arguing with each other, and I went to check it out as a human. Wolf’s curiosity. I heard one of the men accusing the other of seeing his girlfriend behind his back. Then the one guy said, ‘Don’t do it, Jim.’ Then Jim shot the other guy, and I ran away so I didn’t see what happened after that. I was so afraid they’d hear me running through the snow. You know with our enhanced hearing, it sounds so much louder. They might not have heard me at all.

“When I reached my tent, I was afraid I couldn’t pack it up fast enough to get away from there. But for a moment, I just stared at it, not knowing what to do. Everything I had was in the tent, and I didn’t want to lose it. But I figured they’d catch me too easily, shoot me if they thought I’d seen the murder of the other hunter, if I tried to run off as a human. I got inside my tent to strip off my clothes since I was also scared they’d see me shift. I stripped off my clothes as fast as I could. I shifted, tore out of my tent, hating to leave it behind, and ran off as a wolf.”

“Did you hear us calling for you earlier? We were searching for you, trying to locate you and put you in protective custody,” Dylan said.

“Sure. I heard men shouting my name way off in the distance. The thing of it was I didn’t know if it was the guys who killed the other man and they found my ID in my tent. They could have been calling my name, acting as though they wanted to help me. I mean, I had no idea anyone had found the dead man and was searching for me.” Luke cut off another slice of roast. He was eating like he hadn’t eaten in years. Poor kid.

“Okay, that’s totally understandable. I would have worried about the same thing if I’d been in your shoes.” Dylan sipped from his drink. “What made you take a chance with us?”

“I smelled your scent from before. I knew you were a shifter. So I figured you would be one of the good guys. The hunters were all human.”

Roxie cleared her throat. “Why were you out there on your own? You’re from Denver, your instruction permit said.”

“Uh…” Luke didn’t say anything. He drank some of his milk.

“Your parents. Aren’t they worried about you?” Dylan asked.

Tears filled Luke’s eyes and he shook his head.

“Okay, look, I lost my parents when I was sixteen,” Dylan said. “If something like that has happened to you—”

Luke’s eyes widened.

Dylan explained, “Yeah, so I didn’t want to end up in human foster care. I didn’t have any other family to take me in.”

“Oh.”

“So I lived as a mountain man until I was old enough to claim my inheritance.”

Luke smiled, appearing to like the idea. But it hadn’t been safe or fun—all the time—to live that kind of existence.

“Anyway, if that’s the situation with you, it doesn’t have to be. I’m sure lots of wolf families here would love to take you in,” Dylan said.

“We sure would. You can stay with us tonight,” Kayla said. “Or you could stay here with Blake and Nicole, but you would probably hear the babies waking my brother and sister-in-law up all night.”

Luke smiled again.

“You could stay with me,” Roxie said. “I live in the house next door in that direction. We’re all family.”

Her family didn’t look happy that she was offering for the teen to stay with her by herself.

“I could stay with you both,” Dylan said. “With Roxie and you.”

Blake raised his brows.

“I’m a special agent with a license to carry. I can protect them both,” Dylan said, defending his offer.

“Jim tried to kill you,” Blake reminded him. “You’re as much of a target as the boy could be.”

“The hunter tried to kill you?” Luke asked, his eyes huge.

Dylan couldn’t argue with Roxie’s brother about that. “Yeah, Luke, but I’m hard to kill.”

Roxie rolled her eyes.