by Terry Spear
So when she started to play with him, he was all for it. He had the passing thought that Lucas would benefit from seeing a male and female wolf playing together. Josh quickly dismissed the notion when she nipped at his ear. Before he could retaliate with a lick to her cheek, she swung around and nipped at his tail. He growled in a fun way, and she tore off. The chase was on. Forget showing Lucas all about wolf courtship. Josh was too busy trying to catch up to his she-wolf to give any more thought to teaching a teen wolf what it was all about.
Josh had lost sight of Brooke, but he was smelling her scent. He hadn’t played hide-and-seek as a wolf since he and his brother were younger. Playing the game with a wolf he was courting? It couldn’t get any more fun than this.
He barely heard something moving behind him, whipped around, and saw Brooke sneaking up on him before she attacked. He wanted to laugh out loud, and he would have if he’d been in his human form.
She growled and plowed into him, snarling, biting, all in fun, and he attacked back, only much gentler, not wanting to injure her. Wouldn’t that be a good way to ruin the courtship right off the bat?
Then he raced off to reciprocate, her turn to find him. Except she never let him out of her sight, and he wanted to laugh about that too. She was cute, and he knew without a doubt he loved her. She was the one for him—if she felt the same way about him. They ran for several minutes, then heard movement and both paused.
Adam came out of the shrubs, panting. But where was Lucas? Hell, he’d better not have gotten himself lost. All they’d need would be to spend half the night looking for him.
Adam shifted. “I lost sight of him. I’ve been searching for him. Maybe he backtracked to Carver’s house.”
Josh shifted. “Why don’t we go there first.” Then he shifted back. He didn’t want to waste time looking for Lucas if he was already back at Carver’s house. Howling wasn’t something they would normally do because it would alert anyone living in the homes bordering the park to their presence.
Then they heard a howl coming from the direction of Carver’s house. That was another thing they needed to discuss with him. At least Lucas had enough sense to return to the house when he’d lost Adam.
Josh was dying to know how Adam had lost him. Then again, he didn’t want to say how Brooke had turned the tables on him while playing hide-and-seek either.
The three wolves ran for Carver’s house, and when they went through the wolf door in the fence, they found Lucas sitting on a chair, reading his text messages on his phone. He immediately rose to his feet, looking like he was in trouble for losing Adam. But Lucas had done the right thing in returning to Carver’s place.
Josh and Brooke quickly shifted inside the shed and dressed. She was smiling at Josh. “You should have seen the look on your face when I was sneaking up behind you.”
“Surprise?” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “You’re a surprise. My kind of surprise.” He sighed. They needed to leave the shed so Adam could shift and dress.
When she and Josh left the storage building, Josh said to Lucas, “Quick thinking about coming here when you lost Adam.”
“I thought of sitting next to a tree. You know, like hugging a tree if I’d been in my human form until someone found me? I figured returning to Carver’s house would be better. I…I figure I’m not supposed to howl, but I knew you’d probably hear me and then you’d find me and wouldn’t be searching for me all night.”
“I lost your trail,” Adam said, leaving the building. “I assumed you’d backtracked to the house, but it all worked out fine.”
“But I shouldn’t have howled.” Lucas was waiting for confirmation.
“One little howl won’t hurt us, and it let us all know where you were,” Adam said.
Lucas glanced at Brooke to see her take on it, as if he were afraid the guys were being easy on him.
She shrugged. “You saved us from having to look for you half the night. What I want to know is how Adam lost you.”
Adam laughed. “I do too. The kid is damn fast.”
Lucas beamed with pride.
“Let’s get you back to Brooke’s house so you can head on home,” Adam said.
When they reached her house and all piled out of Adam’s Hummer, Lucas’s cell phone rang. He saw the caller ID and frowned. “Damn, it’s my dad.”
“Go ahead and answer it,” Josh said. Then he talked to the patrolman near the house and called the one out front of the shop, and everyone else walked inside the house and began removing coats and hats and gloves.
* * *
Brooke wished they’d had time to prompt Lucas on what to say and not to say, but it was too late for that. Josh soon joined them.
“Okay.” Lucas answered the call. “Hey, Dad, before you get mad at me for taking the truck out without asking”—Josh and Adam both shared looks and shook their heads—“a family’s adopting me out at a ranch. I’ll be doing community service at the reindeer ranch for stealing the calf. And I’ve got a job at the antique shop where I dropped the calf off… No, I don’t need your permission to be adopted.” Lucas let out his breath. “Yes. I’ll return the truck. But everything in my room I paid for.” He hung up on him.
In a hurry, Josh was on his phone calling the judge, and Adam was calling the pack leaders to find a home for Lucas.
Brooke just smiled at Lucas when he set his phone on the table and looked up at her, appearing a little guilty that he hadn’t discussed this with the rest of them. “He was pissed off at me,” Lucas said.
“Judge, this is about Lucas, fostered by the Thorntons. He’s one of us, a gray wolf, and we need to get adoption papers pushed through for one of our wolf families to adopt him, pronto,” Josh said. “Yep.” He handed his phone to Lucas.
The teen might pretend to be all macho, but his hand was shaking when he took the phone. “Yes, sir?” He smiled. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes…uh, yes, I will. Okay. Yes, sir. Thanks.” He handed the phone back to Josh. “He wants to talk to you again.”
“Adam’s talking to our pack leaders as we’re speaking. He’ll let you know as soon as we learn which family he’ll be staying with. Trial period? I’ll tell him. Thanks, sir.” Josh laughed. “You’ve got that right. Thanks. Bye.”
Adam said, “Thanks, Cassie. I’ll let him know. Josh has talked to the judge, and he wants there to be a trial period, right, Josh?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.” Adam got off the phone and said, “All right. You have four families to visit with. This is as much a choice for them as it is for you. We’ll need to drop off the truck at your foster parents’ house, since it’s in your foster dad’s name and he doesn’t want you to have it. We’ll pick up whatever you need from your home and drive down to the ranch, meet with the pack leaders, and visit with the families. You can stay with the pack leaders or with one of the families on a trial basis. You can move around, decide where you really want to stay for good, and go from there.”
“Four families?” Lucas sounded astonished, but Brooke was glad that so many wanted to take him in. He’d surely find a family he wanted to live with. “I can’t believe the judge is a wolf too. I never was close enough to smell him. When do I have to start working for you?” Lucas asked Josh.
“As soon as you’re settled in with your new family. There isn’t any rush.”
“If you can work on the website for me from your new home, I’d be grateful, and you can start earning some money from that.” Brooke was afraid she was already going to lose her new hire if he lived too far away, and she needed the assistance. Plus she wanted to help him to feel like he was a needed member of their wolf society so he wouldn’t continue to get himself into trouble.
“I can do that. I have a computer. I paid for it, so I get to keep it. But…it’s time for me to live free as a wolf too.”
“Good. This isn’t about avoiding h
uman contact but embracing your wolf side. Are you two going to be all right while I’m gone?” Adam asked Josh and Brooke.
“We’ll be fine,” Josh said. “Brooke?”
“Yes.”
“If Lucas is ready, we’re on our way,” Adam said.
While Adam took Lucas home, Brooke was on her phone, taking a picture of the authentication paperwork on the Chinese vases and then texting someone. “I want to do this one thing before we go to bed. I’ve wanted to do it ever since I learned I had the papers showing the vases are authentic.” Then she turned to Josh. “I know Lucas needs to be with our kind, but do you think it’s a good idea to take him away from the family who has raised him for several years without giving him more time to think about it? Kids can be so impulsive, and I believe he should have taken a couple of days to think on it first. I worry he’ll change his mind about staying with a wolf pack and miss his human friends and his foster parents, but the Thorntons won’t want to take him back at that point.”
She sent another text message.
“If he’s good with staying with them, yes. Mainly because he’s getting into trouble, something our kind can ill afford. It seems to me he needs to be with our kind to keep him on the right path,” Josh said, thinking of the trouble Lucas could cause. He guessed he was thinking with his detective badge. He also believed Lucas needed to have friends his age who were just like him. Josh couldn’t imagine living as a wolf among humans on his own as a teen. Not only because of the issues of reining in his wolf tendencies if he got aggravated but because he needed to learn to be a wolf among wolves. The ranch would be perfect for learning to take care of animals and horseback riding, if Lucas didn’t know how. Even having a girlfriend could be a real boon. As long as he and the other male teens didn’t fight over them.
Brooke sent another text message and let out her breath on a heavy sigh. “It’s almost Christmas. Maybe we should have done this for the new year, not right this minute.”
Brooke was thinking about Christmas, something Josh hadn’t considered. She was right. What if his foster parents had bought Lucas all kinds of presents and they had a nice Christmas family gathering planned? Maybe it was a surprise even.
“I’ll call Lucas and see what he thinks.” Wishing they’d thought of it before, Josh called Lucas’s number, then said, “Hey, Lucas, I’m putting this on speakerphone so Brooke can listen in. She is concerned you didn’t have enough time to really think this over. That you might have needed more time to make a decision of this magnitude. We are so eager to have you in the pack, but we should have considered the impact this would have on you. It’s nearly Christmas and—”
“My foster dad said if I messed up one more time, he wasn’t going to have his lawyer take my case. He was going to let me take responsibility for what I’ve done. That’s what I’m doing now. Taking responsibility. I think I’ve been…I don’t know…missing out on what our kind do. And kinda acting out because of it. I mean, I know there’s no excuse for it, but maybe this is what I need. As a kid, I remember running as a wolf with my parents, getting into trouble back then, too, but it was as a wolf, exploring. Got skunked once. Never again. Got lost when I chased after a rabbit. You know. Wolf pup stuff.
“My parents and I could talk about anything to do with wolves. For nine years, I’ve had to keep this secret. You know how hard that is? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to howl my frustration. I won’t be missing Christmas with my foster parents. They’re going on a cruise, and I told them I didn’t want to go. I was staying home alone. They were glad to have a honeymoon away from me. And you know what that means.”
“Getting yourself into more trouble,” Josh said.
“Yeah. Most likely. Though I didn’t really have anything in mind. Tell Brooke thanks for thinking of me.”
“You’re welcome,” Brooke said. “I was afraid you’d change your mind later and it would be too late. Everyone was so eager to have you join the pack and—well, I thought you might have needed more time to decide such a thing.”
“I think my foster dad is really eager to get rid of me. He doesn’t want my bad behavior to impact his work or his good name. He’s told me before he believes I’ll only get worse. He talked about sending me to a camp for juvenile delinquents next summer.”
Josh glanced at Brooke. She shook her head in disbelief. “What else have you done that we don’t know about?”
Lucas laughed. “Nothing illegal.”
“Good, then you’ll have a family that will teach you the way of the wolf, and that means staying out of trouble,” Josh said.
“What about your foster mom?” Brooke asked.
“His first wife divorced him when I was ten, and I stayed with him. Then he remarried a year later. The other woman liked me, but this one just tolerates me. I’m sure it’s a mutual dislike. She wanted him all to herself. I’m just a foster kid, not his real kid, and she had just married him, so she wasn’t in agreement about fostering a kid. She’s talked to him a number of times about sending me back.”
“If I’m not mistaken, I believe you were reaching out to us,” Josh said. “I figure you knew we’d catch on to you once you found out wolves were at the reindeer ranch.”
“Maybe,” Lucas said.
“That cinches the deal then. If the woman who’s your foster mother doesn’t even want you at home, there’s no sense in staying there.” Brooke was on her phone, typing away.
Josh wondered what she was doing now.
“That’s what I figured. I think it will be an adjustment for them, just like it will be for me, but I really believe we’ll all be happier. If things don’t work out with any of the families at the ranch, I could always move in with you,” Lucas said.
Brooke laughed. Josh didn’t.
“I’m sure you’ll like one of the families,” Brooke said.
“You’ll be just in time for the Christmas party the pack is holding.” Josh was glad Lucas would be able to attend the party with the pack soon. “Lots of food and fun.”
“Adam was telling me about it. I can’t wait. We’re here at my foster parents’ home. Adam said he’d call you if I have any trouble with them.”
“Okay. See you soon. At the party at the latest.” Josh ended the call and said to Brooke, “Sorry. I should have thought about the issue with Christmas and the family.”
“I was thinking about how it would have been if I’d done that to my own family, which isn’t the same at all. It sounds to me like he’s going just where he needs to be. There will be ups and downs. Everyone has to go through that. He would have, had his own parents still been alive.”
“That’s so true. I hope he settles down with the new family. I’m working the investigation here for the next two weeks while this business with the armed robbers is unresolved, by the way.”
“I really appreciate that, Josh.”
Josh opened one of the boxes they’d hauled over from the shop earlier. “All the guys at the station are ribbing me over it. Adam especially.”
“You sound like you’re enjoying it.”
“You bet.”
Brooke smiled. “It’s getting late. Let’s go to bed.”
“I haven’t ever felt this way about another woman,” Josh said as he and Brooke headed for her bedroom. In the room, he pulled her into his arms. “You are the one for me. We can date for a few weeks if you need more time, or we can—”
“Mate?” she asked, running her hands up his red-and-black-plaid shirt, her brows raising, an almost imperceptible smile playing on her lips.
“If you feel the same way about me.”
“As in I love you?”
He smiled. She wasn’t making this easy for him. “Like I love you. I’m seriously ready to give up everything to be with you.”
Her lips parted in a look of surprise. And then she gave him a more impish smi
le. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean you intend to give up your job? So you can help me unpack boxes and tag merchandise and help sell to customers? So you can—”
“Go on treasure hunts and provide personal protection and security for the store.”
“Hmm.” She pulled his shirt up, and he finished removing it. “It’s tempting.”
“But more. Hell. I’m not doing this right. I want to enjoy the time with you while you’re working, we’re working together. Take in estate sales on our days off. You won’t have to spend all your free time managing the store because I’ll be helping you sort out everything. We can keep Lucas on as our web designer. We can hire someone else to help out with the shop so we can—”
“Spend more time with each other?” Brooke ran her hands up his chest, her palms sliding over his nipples, making them erect and sensitive to her sensuous touch.
“Yeah. The nights will be ours. Running as wolves in the park or at the ranch, spending time like this.” He pulled her soft red sweater over her head and dropped it on the floor. “And on the two days the store is closed too.” He helped her sit down on the bed, then pulled off her boots. Then he sat down beside her and pulled off his shoes.
“But your job? I wouldn’t want you to quit it unless you really were ready to. You had to have worked hard to get where you are. You must enjoy what you do.” She knelt down before him and removed his socks.
“I did work hard to make detective. But I can retire at any time. With our longevity, I only look like I’m around thirty-five—like Adam and Ethan do—because of our slower aging process. We’ve all put in our twenty years. It’s time to retire. It’s time to do what I want to really do. Settle down with a she-wolf—not any she-wolf,” he quickly added, “but you. Hell, I haven’t had time to rehearse what I wanted to say to convince you I want to be your mate and love you always.” He rose to his feet and reached under her skirt to pull off her black leggings. Once he had stripped her out of them, he kissed her mouth.
