Seal Wolf Hunting (9781402293832) (9 page)

“While they're just ranch hands and don't possess anything of their own, I take it.”

“Right. Though we thought they were fine before that. It doesn't matter that they're wolves. We weren't interested in anything permanent with them. But it is nice to go out with a male wolf sometimes as opposed to a human. Let our hair down, so to speak. Talk about wolf stuff. When Dusty grabbed my arm, I seized his balls and squeezed hard.”

She swore Paul looked a little pained just thinking about that happening to another guy.

“Then he and his brother took off, and we hadn't seen either of them again until last night at the auction. Anyway, Rose and I tried to locate the necklace, but we couldn't find it, despite how clear the water is. It's just too deep.”

“I'll look for it, but I need to get my scuba gear. I still think there are possible packs you could enjoy being around. Like Hunter's. They're good people. When Allan and I are gone on missions, you'd have someone in a wolf pack to call on if you needed help.”

She let out her breath in exasperation. “I won't tell the two of you that you need to settle down here so we can be a viable wolf pack, and you shouldn't tell me that we should leave and find a pack to live with. Besides, maybe some lone wolf
will
be the right one for me, and he would help us make this more of a cohesive mate-run pack.”

Paul shook his head. “Lone wolves don't like to start packs.”

“Some do.” Not that she knew of any personally, but she was certain there would be cases somewhere. With real wolves there were.

“Emma would surely scare them off anyway.” Paul sounded glad her grandma was watching out for Rose and Lori's welfare.

Lori tried not to be annoyed again that he was suggesting they leave their home here and join another wolf pack.

Paul and Lori spent all day painting, cleaning, and putting everything back in place. They shared lunch and dinner, watched the sunset again, and took a shorter wolf run into the woods just to stretch their legs. He could really get used to this routine—working with Lori, sharing meals, running with her, and watching the sunset.

When it was time to retire for the night, Lori made a beeline for her bedroom as if she was afraid he'd want something more and she couldn't handle it.

He sighed and went to bed, thinking about how much he'd like to have her in his bed or be sleeping with her. He'd thought about it a lot lately. More so than usual. He guessed she wasn't thinking along the same lines as he was.

No matter how much he tried to sleep, he couldn't help thinking of her in the next bedroom and how much he'd love to be cuddling with her.

The next morning, Paul assumed he was up before Lori because he didn't hear her in the kitchen making coffee. Naked, he left the bedroom, shifted, and noted she wasn't around. Her bedroom door was still closed, and everything was quiet in there. He headed for the wolf door. Not only was it natural for a wolf or
lupus
garou
to scent-mark their territory, but it also was essential to ensure that other wolves didn't encroach—in this case, on Lori and Emma's cabin and the surrounding area.

If the women had lived in town? Or like Emma and Catherine, with homes surrounded by a lot of land, some for grazing and some for cultivating fields, they wouldn't need to scent-mark. Even though Emma and Catherine were near the national parks, they still should have no trouble. But here, out in the woods, he wanted to keep other wolves at bay.

When he had run with Lori the last two nights, he hadn't left scent markings that declared the boundaries of her property. So that was his first priority this morning.

Of course, it was tantamount to saying
he
claimed it, not that Lori had, but it couldn't be helped. Neither she nor her grandma had scent-marked the area in a very long time.

Every hundred yards or so, he scratched or pawed at the ground or trees, and he urinated in a few places, leaving an invisible fence that told other wolves to stay out. Not that a rival pack would honor it. But some wolves would, while others might actually mark right over the area to claim it as their own. He smiled a little as he thought of wolves having their own kind of pissing contest, literally.

When he was done, other wolves could smell his new scent marking for nearly two miles. Hopefully it wouldn't draw them here like some sort of challenge. He trotted back to the cabin and smelled pancakes and sausages cooking. His stomach rumbled with appreciation. When he barged through the wolf door, he startled Lori, who jumped a little. She shook her head at him. Wearing a peach tank top, black short shorts, no sandals, and lots of bare skin, she looked hot. He looked again at her tank top to see if she was wearing a bra this time. To his disappointment, she was.

“Don't tell me you were claiming my cabin for your own,” Lori said.

Hell, yeah. The cabin
and
the she-wolf. He gave her a wickedly toothy grin back, loving that she knew him well enough to realize what he'd been up to, then returned to his guest bedroom. Once he'd shifted and thrown on a pair of shorts, he joined her in the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. He wasn't much of a chef because he tended to get impatient and either burned his meal or didn't cook it long enough, so he was glad Lori loved to fix meals and was good at it.

“You've got to tell them who's boss around here.” He added sugar and milk to his coffee.

“Right. You know what happened the last time I did that? I had three males looking to mate with me. And they were
all
wolf.”

He choked on his coffee, half laughing, half trying to clear his throat because the coffee had gone down his windpipe.

“Yeah, you laugh.” She waved the spatula at him. “But
you
would have had to fight them all off if you'd been here. As it was, I couldn't leave the cabin for two days.”

He started chuckling again.

“Fine. You can chase them off if they decide to venture this way again.”

“They
wouldn't
dare.”

She gave him a small smile.

“After breakfast, I'm going to pick up my scuba gear from Allan's cabin so I can take a dive this afternoon. Did you want to go with me?”

“Nah, I'll just stay here and clean the gutters on the cabin.”

“Why don't you let me help you with that?” When she looked like she was going to object, he said, “Your grandma bid on my services to do this work.”

“You
can't
be serious. As long as her list is, you'd need your whole two-week vacation. I don't think she realizes how long it will take to do some of these tasks.”

Paul figured Emma wasn't as interested in having him fix up the place as she was in Lori and him having some quality time together to see if they might want something more. Her grandma was good at figuring people out. He knew she only had their best interests at heart.

When he didn't change his mind about wanting to clean the gutters, Lori said, “All right. I'll just see what else is on Grandma's list that doesn't require a highly trained SEAL wolf.” She cast him an annoyed look and then served the pancakes.

He smiled at her.

* * *

After breakfast, Paul told Lori, “I'll run over to Allan's cabin and won't be gone long.”

She waved him off, and he headed back around the lake.

Lori was really hopeful that he would be able to find her necklace. She would have asked him earlier if she'd remembered he was staying at her family's cabin and scuba diving anyway. She'd snorkeled, but couldn't catch sight of the necklace.

She'd even thought of asking one of the guys she'd dated who was with the local police diving force, but she was afraid that he'd think she was interested in dating him again, and she wasn't. That was the hardest part of being a wolf: having no others nearby to date. Other than Paul and Allan, the Cooper brothers and Jerome were the only male wolves in the area that she knew of.

She couldn't go out with a human more than a couple times before she worried that he might see something more to their relationship. She liked the diver and didn't want to hurt his feelings if he really was interested in something more.

That was the problem with dating humans. It was one thing if she and a guy just didn't connect. But if she did really like a human, that was another story. How could she lie and say she didn't feel the same way as the man did? That she'd have to turn him into a wolf before they could go any further in their relationship? Best to go out only a couple of times and leave well enough alone.

She cleaned the dishes but felt the pressure of an impending storm coming on. With her wolf's enhanced abilities, she could sense shifts in temperature, storm fronts, and changes in the weather. She'd thought everyone could do it, but seeing how far off weathermen's predictions could be, she soon realized that her wolf senses helped her to see the changes. Being a weatherman would be a great occupation for a wolf. Everyone would wonder how he predicted the weather so accurately though.

She kept going outside and looking, listening, and smelling the air. Swimmers were hollering and splashing in the water some distance from her place, their laughter carrying across the lake. The sky looked fine. But she knew bad weather was coming, although it could arrive earlier or later, and she wanted to be prepared.

She retrieved a ladder from the storage building, hauled it to the house, and began to clean the gutters.

* * *

When Paul reached the mountainside cabin, Allan waved at him from the deck where he'd been stretched out on a chaise longue reading a fantasy, beer at hand. “Did you finish all your chores over there?” Allan asked.

“Nope. I probably need to stay through tomorrow. Maybe even the next day.” More, if he could manage.

Allan smiled a little at that.

“Emma had quite a list of projects. Did you finish yours?”

“Yeah, took a couple of hours. Martha didn't have anything much for me to do. Just wanted me to help her move some furniture so she could clean behind it. And take some stuff to the trash and donation site. I'm going to a movie with Rose Tuesday night. She said if I don't take her, she's going out with some guy she's sure I won't like—just because he's human, not for any other reason. So I told her I'd take her. Did you and Lori want to go with us? The seven o'clock showing? It's that new Western that's out.”

“You mean the one with the aliens and vampires in it?”

“Yeah, you got it. You know how everything has to be paranormal these days. I heard there's a new werewolf movie coming out next year. What will they come up with next?”

Paul shook his head. “And they never get it right. I'll ask Lori if she wants to go.”

“Good show. So, if you're not done with your work, what are you doing back here?”

“I need to grab my scuba gear.” Paul headed to his room to get it.

“Emma's got you cleaning out the lake around the dock?” Allan asked, sounding really surprised.

With diving gear in hand, Paul returned to the living room and explained about the Cooper brothers, and Allan's sister and Lori having trouble with them.

“Damn it. I bet Rose didn't tell Mom about it,” Allan said, red-faced. Then his brow furrowed even more. “Hell, that's the necklace Lori's mother gave her before she died.”

“Yeah, so you know how much it means to her. About your sister, she may have told your mom but then Catherine didn't tell you, afraid you'd do something hasty about it. I'm diving for the necklace this afternoon. If I can't find it, maybe you can come over in the morning and help me locate it.”

“Sure thing.”

“You could have breakfast with us first. We made some huckleberry jam. It's fresh, sweet, and delicious. I know how much you love it.”

“You've been picking
berries
? What
else
have you been doing? I thought you said you were working.”

Paul chuckled, hauled his gear outside, and loaded it into the SUV.

“Hell, you sure got a real bargain. I bet you even went with her on a wolf run last night.”

Smiling, Paul closed the hatch.

Allan folded his arms across his chest, looking highly speculative. “You…didn't want me to come with you this afternoon to look for the necklace? My date isn't until later tonight.”

Paul shook his head and climbed into his vehicle. As much as he got along with Allan and loved his company, Paul really wanted to spend as much of the time as he could with Lori.
Alone.

“Okay. Your loss. Sounds like a deal for tomorrow. Even if you do find the necklace, if you don't mind, I'll just pop on over and get some breakfast.”

Paul laughed. “I'll let Lori know and make sure it's all right with her. I'm sure it will be.” Paul could just imagine Allan calling his sister next and interrogating her about the situation with the Cooper brothers. “I'll call you about the movie and let you know one way or another, and update you on the necklace search.”

“Sure thing.”

When Paul arrived back at the Greypaws' cabin, he found Lori standing on a ladder, showing off her tanned legs and cute little ass as it jiggled while she cleaned the gutters.

“I was going to help you with that.” He unloaded his scuba gear.

“Storm's coming in late tomorrow or the next day. Don't you think?”

He smelled the air and nodded. “I think you're right.”

“At any rate, I figured we'd get done whatever we could outside today and tomorrow. We can do anything inside later.”

“Sounds good to me. I'll start trimming back some of the vegetation around the drive to the parking area.”

“Join you in a few minutes.”

He took another gander at her shapely legs. “I could just sit here, watch you, and supervise.”

She laughed. “I don't think that's what Grandma had in mind when she bid for you.”

Paul was fairly certain she did. Maybe not the ogling while supervising part, but having Lori work with him, yes.

He headed for the storage shed and got out a chain saw, then began to trim back branches that were getting ready to scrape the car when they drove in. Otherwise, the Greypaws kept the place in a naturalized setting. No grass yards to maintain. No trying to turn the cabin property into a manicured lot like some did, as if they were still living in town.

He saw movement in his peripheral vision and turned to see Lori wearing garden gloves, a pair of loppers in one hand. She gave him a little nod, then began to clip small branches farther away. He got busy with his work, and with the noise of the chain saw, he didn't realize she'd gone inside after a time until she waved to him from the front deck.

He turned off the chain saw. “We're having lunch and then going to the furniture place, right?” He could smell the food cooking and headed in her direction.

“Yeah, I was just waiting for you to finish up and return home.”

The comment about “home” made him pause. He could almost envision this being home. He liked the idea—wolf runs in the forest, sitting on the deck watching the sunset with Lori, even swimming with her when he wasn't just diving for her necklace. Diving for her lost treasure made him think of something a whole hell of a lot more intimate.

“I invited Allan over to help me look for the necklace in the morning if I can't find it this afternoon. I said he could have breakfast with us, if that's all right with you.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. When we go into town to pick out the furniture, we could get a few more groceries.”

They both went inside.