Still, the annoyed look Lori gave him made him think that if she’d had that broom in her hand, she would have bashed him with it again.
Chapter 5
“Don’t look at me like that, Paul,” Lori growled, setting the groceries on the counter. “Like Rose and I committed the crime of the century. The brothers wanted to visit us and go swimming in the lake. And why am I explaining myself to you? I don’t owe you any explanation!” It was her decision, her mistake, but hers to deal with. And she’d dealt with it. Not fully to her satisfaction, but the best she could have at the moment.
Paul eyed her warily. “You asked them to go swimming with you? And you smack me in the head with a broom?”
It did sound kind of funny. Lucky for him, he said it with a teasing light in his eyes, or she would have been totally pissed off.
“They were invited to the cabin. You weren’t expected at Catherine’s house. What would you do if you were talking to the guys, just having a normal conversation, and I snuck into the house wearing all black clothes and black face paint, carrying a gun, and suddenly appeared out of the dark in a totally alarming way?”
He smiled, albeit a little evilly. “I wouldn’t have hesitated to tackle you, take you down to the floor, disarm you, and…well, no telling what else.”
Kissed her, she was certain after what happened the last time. She still couldn’t believe she’d caught him so off guard and taken him down instead. Then again, he probably hadn’t even considered she might do that to him. Now she was thinking of how it would have been if the roles were reversed, and yeah, she could see him doing it too.
“I know martial arts.” As if that would have prevented him from getting the upper hand. Though at that point, she’d had no plan to spar with him, instead deciding to just enjoy the sensual moment.
“Yeah, you do a good job at it. So I might have had a bit of a struggle when I tackled you, but in the end…” He shrugged and grinned so roguishly that she fought smiling back.
She was still irritated with his attitude about the Cooper brothers having been there. Rose and she had their reason. She would have told him why, if he hadn’t badgered her so about it.
“Did Emma know you allowed the ranch hands to come here?”
Lori’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe Paul’s gall. “I can bring anyone here that I like. My grandma hasn’t visited the place in over a year. She doesn’t care what I do as long as I take care of things.”
Paul snorted. “I can guarantee she wouldn’t like you and Rose having those wolves up here. And neither would Catherine or Allan.”
“Or you, apparently.” She hastily put the groceries away. “They just came up here to swim and visit for a while.”
“Right. The way they were strutting onstage, they would have wanted more than that from two pretty wolves.”
She paused, appreciating the compliment, even though he was annoying her with the conversation. She didn’t remember ever hearing him call her or Rose pretty. “Maybe they did, but we didn’t have anything else in mind. Besides, if we had wanted to do something else with them, that would have been our business. Not yours. And if you go sniffing around the place looking for their scents in the bedrooms, you can walk right out the door. I’ll paint and do whatever needs to be done on Grandma’s list without you.”
She was right and he knew it.
Paul leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and watched her put the rest of the food away. “You can’t tell me that they didn’t want more. And that not getting anything more, they weren’t ticked off. I saw the way they acted when Dusty was in the grocery store this morning trying to sweet-talk a woman into going out with him. She said no, and he didn’t like it.”
“Noth…thing happened. All right? Give it a rest.”
At least nothing life-threatening, though the Coopers were lucky Paul and Allan hadn’t witnessed it. They would have been in serious trouble with a couple of hotheaded SEAL wolves. It all had to do with their wolf nature. Even a really loose-knit pack would treat this as a pack matter. Just as his parents would have done when he and Allan were young.
Lori closed the fridge door and turned to frown at Paul, letting him know that she wasn’t going to put up with anything related to the business with the brothers.
Paul couldn’t help feeling wired and aggressive about this. He swore Lori was trying to hide her feelings from him, but he could smell that she was upset. He was certain the men had given the ladies a hard time about not getting more than just a swimming excursion at the lake.
If nothing had happened, why would she be so ticked off at him?
When she was done putting away the groceries, she changed the subject. “I know it’s getting late, but before the sun sets, do you want to pick huckleberries? This is the perfect time to harvest them, and I bought the ingredients we can use to make jam. I’d normally gather the berries earlier in the day, but I want to have the jam ready for breakfast.”
“Hell, yeah. Now would be the perfect time. I haven’t had fresh huckleberry jam in years. We can make it tonight so we have all day tomorrow to work on the projects.” He remembered countless times as a boy when he’d picked the berries for his mother to make into jam, or just ate the berries straight off the bushes when running around in the woods with Allan.
“We only get you for a few hours,” she reminded him.
“About that…” He took two of the pails she had retrieved from a closet. “I’m willing to stay here long enough to get everything done that Emma wants taken care of. I’m fine with it.” More than fine with it. He realized that this was the first occasion he’d had to spend any real time with Lori without other pack members’ involvement. “Allan and I will get together after I put in some work here. He’s got dates tonight and tomorrow night anyway, so he might even need the extra time to have the place to himself.”
She raised a brow at Paul as they headed outside and began to walk through the woods.
Paul shrugged. “The auction was good for him. He got lots of attention.”
“Too bad you didn’t luck out with some dates too.” She sounded serious and even a tad concerned that he might have that in mind for the rest of the time they were here.
“Hell, why would I want to date anyone when I’m having so much fun here?”
She rolled her eyes at Paul. He laughed. He never dated humans here. He wouldn’t when he was way more interested in a wolf named Lori.
“I imagine he won’t mind helping me finish up when we’re here scuba diving at the end of our vacation,” Paul said, “if we don’t get everything done before that.”
“Scuba diving,” she said as they sauntered down the path through the woods.
He wondered if Emma hadn’t mentioned it to her. “Yeah. It’s not going to be a problem, is it? We don’t have to stay here if you have other plans.” That immediately made him think of Lori and Rose having other guys up there.
“No, no, uh, I was wondering…” She shook her head as she led him into a clearing and pointed to a group of huckleberry bushes with clusters of black berries that looked like blueberries hanging off the branches among the bright green leaves.
He started picking the berries but paused when she didn’t say anything further. He glanced at her. “What?”
She shrugged. “I…lost something in the lake. Way out past the dock in the deeper water. Without scuba gear, I couldn’t reach it even if I could see where it went.”
“What was it?”
“A gold necklace.”
He glanced at her bare neck. He hadn’t realized she wasn’t wearing the gold chain that held a hand-carved turquoise hawk. Except for when she ran as a wolf, she never removed it. “The one with your animal guide?” he asked, verifying it was the same one he was thinking about, since he hadn’t seen her in the last two years.
“Yes.”
The hawk was her spirit guide. She was the intuitive one, victorious, which he attributed to her having saved her grandma’s life when the wolves attacked and decimated their pack. Lori was the messenger, the healer of the group, the guardian. He swore she could remember anything that had happened over the years much better than he could, so the hawk suited her. She was usually the one to convey messages from Emma and Catherine to Allan and Paul when they were off with the SEAL team. He suspected that was why Catherine had wanted Lori to tell him and Allan about the auction.
He continued to pick berries while she also was filling her bucket.
As to Paul’s animal guide? Lori swore his was the cougar, which meant Paul was a born leader—loyal, courageous, willing to take responsibility when things went bad, and always had the foresight to get them out of messes before they got into them. The notion that a big cat served as his animal guide, one that normally would love to kill him if they met in the woods, didn’t seem quite right. Though he’d had a couple of encounters with cougars that could have killed him and didn’t. Paul had to admit he had led the others of his pack out of several troubling situations over the years, even when he was still young. He just seemed to have the natural instinct to perceive danger and steer the remaining pack members in the right direction.
Though he still thought Lori had said his guide was the cougar because she wanted him to take charge of the pack, even when they were small. He thought she’d used that as a way to try to heal him when he had lost his parents. But how could he have taken charge of the pack when he’d been so young? Certainly the grown women hadn’t needed him to provide leadership. And not even Lori or Rose had needed it for many years.
Lori moved to a bush farther away, picking huckleberries and dropping them into her bucket as he pondered how she could have lost the necklace, as much as she treasured it.
“So the chain broke?”
“No.” She moved even farther away from him although there were still plenty of berries on that bush. Wolves were wary creatures. And actions like that got their notice.
He started to pull off berries from the bush she’d just left and smelled the anxious scent she’d left behind. That didn’t bode well. “You were swimming when it happened?” He couldn’t fathom how the necklace could have floated off her head if the chain hadn’t broken.
Wolves normally didn’t wear jewelry of any kind because it was problematic if they had to shift outside rather than at home, where their valuables would remain more secure. But the necklace was special to her.
She cast him an annoyed look. “Yes. If you can find it, I’d be grateful. But I’ll understand if you can’t.”
She picked more berries, but he was studying her now, noticing her irritated expression and the way she was no longer pulling the berries off leisurely but yanking them off a little harder than necessary.
“The clasp came undone?”
“No.” She acted irritated that he’d asked her so many questions about it, but since she wasn’t forthcoming, he suspected something bad had happened.
He wondered just how far the jewelry might be buried underneath the sediment. They hadn’t come home since March, and she hadn’t said anything to him about it then. Then again, she had conveniently been gone when he came home the last time. But it had to have happened more recently, when the water was warm enough to swim in. “When did you lose it?”
At first, she hesitated to say. Then she finally let out her breath and said, “Last week.”
Good. He was glad it hadn’t been long ago. He would have a better chance of finding it. If she’d been roughhousing in the water with Rose, that was one thing. Basing his assumption on the strength of their scents, last week would be about when the Cooper brothers were at the cabin. And then swimming in the lake with the women? Had one of them yanked off her necklace? Had she been struggling to get away from him?
Paul ground his teeth and quit picking berries again, eyeing her. He really shouldn’t ask, but it bothered him that she was so reluctant to tell him the details. He couldn’t see how she could have just…lost it. He suspected that whoever Lori had been with hadn’t liked that she put the brakes on with him.
Lori stopped picking berries and gave him the evil eye. “Quit analyzing everything I’m saying. I just need my necklace back, if you can find it. That’s all.”
He scowled right back at her. “If I learn that Dusty or Howard yanked your necklace off in a fit of rage—”
“What? You’re going to kick his ass?”
“Hell, yeah.” He meant it too. He wasn’t about to let any man think he could treat Lori or Rose in an aggressive manner and get away with it. What might he do when Paul and Allan left again?
She took a deep breath, shook her head, and swung her attention back to the bush.
“So what happened?”
“Nothing that I couldn’t handle. Don’t keep asking because I’m not saying. It’s over and done with.”
“Except that your necklace is at the bottom of the lake.” That pissed Paul off. Even if the necklace hadn’t meant much to her, it would matter. How it got there was what bothered him most. But the necklace was important to her.
She again turned away from Paul and continued to look for huckleberries on a new bush farther away.
He let his breath out in exasperation. “It was Dusty, wasn’t it?”
She glanced over her shoulder at Paul. He was ready to wring the guy’s thick neck. Or take a good bite out of him.
“He immediately regretted what he did. All right? The way he limped out of here, I’m sure he was on some heavy-duty painkiller for a couple of days. We came to an understanding. He’s not about to hassle me any further.”
Damn it! Paul knew it. But he had forgotten about her martial-arts training. Even so, he didn’t want the guy to think he could get away with what he had done. Or that Lori didn’t have someone who’d take him to task for it.
Trying to get a handle on his feelings—wolves protected one of their own—he went back to picking berries.
“Thanks for being so concerned though,” Lori finally said.
“You didn’t tell Emma, did you?” He couldn’t let go of the anger. Damn it.
“No. But she knew something was wrong right away. For one thing, she noticed my necklace was gone. She didn’t ask me a million questions like you did. I’m sure she realized I took care of the situation to my satisfaction, and that was that.”
“Not quite the end of it, since you don’t have your necklace. Have you been up here since then?” He didn’t believe her scent was fresh enough to indicate she had been.
She shook her head.
He immediately wondered if she’d been afraid to return to the cabin in case either of the brothers showed up. “Are you okay with staying here?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m okay with it. Even if I wasn’t staying with one of the legendary SEALs, who happens to also be a damn scary wolf—with or without face paint—and who is armed to the teeth, I would be fine with it.”
“So, you’ve been afraid to return with Rose or on your own.”
“I just said I wasn’t. No, I haven’t been afraid. I’ve been working. So has Rose.”
But he knew she had been afraid. He could tell by her stiff posture and annoyed expression, her scent, and the way she turned her back on him again.
He picked more berries and then started worrying about the reason her grandma wanted to fix up the place. What if she was apprehensive about the women coming up here on their own? “Emma isn’t planning to sell the cabin, is she?” The land had been the Greypaws’ for centuries.
“Of course not.” Lori frowned, then shook her head. “At least I don’t think so. She never said anything to me about it.”
“She would have said something to you.” He was fairly certain. Still, if Emma no longer went to the cabin and Lori didn
’t come out because she was afraid to, it made no sense to pay the high taxes on the lakefront property just to keep it in the family.
They heard movement in the dark woods, and Lori said, “I’ve got enough berries. What about you? We can always pick more early tomorrow if we don’t have enough.”
“I’ve got a bucket full.”
Her eyes rounded a bit as if she was surprised to hear it.
“I can talk and pick berries at the same time.” He gave her a little smile.
“Start the inquisition rather.” She peeked into his bucket just to see how full it was.
He chuckled at her tenacity. “See?”
“You would have had even more if you’d been concentrating on that and not me. However, between mine and yours, that should be enough.”
They headed back to the cabin while Lori banged her tin buckets together, careful not to lose any of her berries.
“You think it’s a grizzly?” That would explain why Lori was making such a racket—to chase away anything in the woods.
“It might be. Or anything running around at dusk to find something to eat, just like we would be if we were all wolf. We had a female grizzly recently make the surrounding area her home range, with Flathead Lake in the center of it. She spent close to twelve hours swimming, staying at various islands, including Wild Horse Island for three days. Then she had a day of rest on Bird Island. No one’s ever seen a bear that swims as much as she does. So we’ve been watching out for her in case she comes around here.”
“All right. Grizzlies and the Cooper brothers. Gotcha.”
She gave him an annoyed look.
When they reached the cabin, their wolf instinct was to smell the scents around the place to ensure they hadn’t had any unwanted visitors. Paul couldn’t help feeling that Dusty or his brother, or both, might come back and retaliate in some manner. He shouldn’t have been concerned about it, since nothing had happened in the week that had gone by. But some men couldn’t let go of a grudge, and he worried about Lori. And also about Rose.