“We didn’t know that.”
Elizabeth barely breathed. Had Tom and Jake been looking for her article and come across the one she had written about coyotes and wolves? She hadn’t wanted them to read the article. Sure it was available online, but she hadn’t thought they would have looked for Jake’s interview already and found her other article.
Tom stroked her hair. “Gray wolves came first.”
She thought she heard a hint of amusement in his tone of voice and looked up at him. He gave her a smug smile, as though he was delighted to learn that he and his gray wolves had been right.
Her stomach tightening, she worried how Lelandi would view it. “You won’t tell Lelandi, will you?”
“She found the article first.”
Her heart sinking, Elizabeth groaned. “I never meant for her to learn of it. I’m so sorry that she saw what I’d written.”
“Don’t be, Elizabeth. She says that makes the two of you even more like sisters. She’s very happy for that.”
Elizabeth took a deep, grateful breath. The reason she had made the trip to Silver Town in the first place was to make things right concerning her rotten uncle, and she had ended up finding a home, a pack, and a mate who gave her a whole new outlook on her kind.
Not that they didn’t still have real problems.
Chapter 27
Early the next morning, the bitter cold and north-chilled breeze stirred up the snow, creating a white mist-like world as Minx, Cody, and Anthony trudged along in their snowshoes to reach Mr. Winston’s house out in the country. Like the others in the pack, they were homeschooled. Some of the pack members had better teaching skills than others, and Mr. Winston was the best calculus teacher anyone could want.
“You know our parents won’t be happy with us if they learn we’re headed out this far when they think we’re skiing at the resort,” Minx said to Cody and Anthony as the two boys hauled a sled carrying groceries—bread, milk, OJ, tuna fish, and a few other items they thought Mr. Winston might need.
“So we don’t tell them. If old man Winston lets it slip, we’ll at least have done the deed, and what would they say about it then?” Cody asked, his jester ski hat jingling with every step he took. “It’ll be too late.”
“It won’t be too late to ground us,” Minx warned.
“You didn’t have to come with us,” Anthony said.
“Of course I did.”
They both looked back at her. She couldn’t keep up with their longer stride, no matter how hard she tried, even though they were pulling the sled. But Anthony and Cody were always thinking up new schemes, and Minx wouldn’t be left out of an adventure for anything. She liked old Mr. Winston, too, and was just as worried that he couldn’t get into town to replenish his food when the snowstorm had hit. Not that several members of the wolf pack hadn’t offered to help him out. He had his pride. Since they were just kids, they figured he wouldn’t mind them bringing him food and giving him some company. As long as they didn’t have to do any math problems while they visited.
Cody and Anthony grinned at her.
“Your parents are betas,” Anthony said to Minx, continuing to move through the deep snowdrifts. “You never get into trouble. When we all fell off that cliff that time, I figured you’d get grounded forever since you’re a girl.”
“Nah, not Minx,” Cody said. “Not even for one hour.”
“Like the two of you should talk. Your parents didn’t punish either of you.”
“That’s only because we promised we’d never do it again. Otherwise? Dad said he would have had us mucking out Doc Mitchell’s horse stalls for two months.”
“Well, you didn’t have to clean out the vet’s stalls.” Minx stopped in her tracks. “How much farther is it? I don’t remember Mr. Winston’s home being this far out.”
“In the spring it isn’t. Or at least it doesn’t feel like it. Trudging through powder snow, it is,” Cody said.
Minx waded through the snow after the brothers again, trying to think about anything other than how much this was wearing her out. “I like Elizabeth.”
Neither Cody or Anthony made a comment.
Minx let out her breath. She was still thinking about meeting Elizabeth at the ski resort when she remembered something. “My dad thinks Eric Silver was at the ski resort.”
Cody glanced over his shoulder. “Why does he think that? They left the pack months ago.”
Minx wasn’t sure if her dad knew what he was talking about, either. But what if he did?
“Okay, so how does he know?” Cody finally asked.
“Well, my dad’s not sure, but he thought he saw Eric in the men’s room at the ski resort after he dropped me off there to join the two of you. Eric, if it was him, was moving really fast and had his mask down for only a moment. Dad only got a glimpse of his profile. Dad was a little surprised to see him, thinking the brothers had moved far away. But he could have sworn it was him.”
“Did your dad tell Darien?” Anthony asked.
“Of course, but because he couldn’t be certain and because the Silvers have no idea where their cousins are staying, there wasn’t much they could do about. Hey, is that smoke? Yes! We’re getting closer.”
She stopped again. “Cody,” she whispered, since he was closer to her than Anthony.
Both brothers stopped to look at her.
She pointed to wolf tracks in the snow.
***
Per Darien’s orders, all the searchers would remain in human form. Darien worried that the farmers or ranchers in the area would find out about the hunt for the wolves and try to tag along, although Elizabeth would have preferred tracking as a wolf. On Elizabeth and Tom’s team, Bjornolf and Anna had split off in another direction to look for any wolf or human footprints.
“Were your cousins really well liked?” she asked Tom.
“Yeah, they were. Everyone felt really bad about their dad. And about them leaving.”
“So it makes sense that Mr. Winston would give them a place to stay while they figured out how they wanted to attempt to return.”
“I guess so,” Tom said. “But Mr. Winston probably would have told them that we weren’t mad at them and would have welcomed them back, so the fact that Eric was so against just coming clean from the start makes me worry they’re up to something. And now that they’ve put the pack in danger, they’ve actually hurt their chances.”