“That would have been you, too, if you had been with us.” Owen poured himself some more coffee and refilled everyone else’s mugs.
“I’m glad you were all okay. What about you, Faith?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh, I thought I was the smart one. I stayed at the cabin. So while the guys were following David and Owen’s scent trail and discovering that a grizzly had been after them, the grizzly had left their area and come to the cabin where we were staying. Darn cell phones weren’t working at all,” Faith said.
“Oh, no,” Sheri said again.
“Yeah, well, it worked out in the end. The guys came back, scared it off, and we ended up reporting it to the park rangers. We didn’t want anyone to hurt it, knowing what it’s like to be wolves that people want to hunt, but we didn’t want innocent campers to be hurt or killed either. That bear was hungry. At some point, it was going to hurt someone.”
“Okay, then, that decides it,” Sheri said, slapping her hands on her thighs. “No going to Montana.”
“I’m flying out there in a couple of weeks and thought you might come with me, Sheri,” Slade said.
She smiled brightly. “Hmm. If I’m flying high above the danger, I suppose I can make an exception.”
He chuckled. “We’ll have to land, but not in bear territory.”
Chapter 19
Once the pack members finished eating and cleaning up, they walked around the whole island looking for any other bear signs, a science lesson for the little ones. Angie found the bear’s scat. Nick discovered bear fur caught on a couple of brambles. Corey located the bear’s paw prints in the sand.
The kids loved exploring and learning how to track and be wolves, even when they were in human form. Still, while they were on the island, all three kids and Faith and Sheri ditched their clothes, shifted, and raced around the island as wolves—until they heard paddlers on the water talking to each other. Corey swore he heard one man say, “Damn, did you see the Arctic wolf on the island?”
“No, let’s head that way,” the other man said.
The pack members wearing their wolf coats hurried back into the woods, shifted, and dressed; then they all met at the shore where the pack members’ canoes were. They loaded up their canoes and got ready to paddle back to the mainland and their homes, done with their fun outing.
They were already on the water when one of the men shouted out to them, “Hey, did you see the white wolves on the island?”
“No wolves!” David shouted back. “But we saw a black bear. He swam back to the mainland, though, or we wouldn’t have hung around.” Unfortunately, like the bear had left fur, and footprints, the wolves did too. Most people would chalk them up as dog prints though. Hopefully, that would be the case with these guys too.
But it did worry them—how could it not?—that these men might say they saw the wolves, and wolf biologists or others would descend on the area to see if wolves had returned to the mainland. Which gave David an idea.
All the canoes were paddling toward the mainland in a unified force, and David said, “Hey, Amelia, since you have sources for rehoming dogs, can you find us a couple of big white dogs that look similar to Arctic wolves that we can take in?”
Everyone smiled at David, and the kids shouted, “Yay!”
“Good idea. We should have done that a while ago. I’ll begin a search right away,” Amelia said, dipping her paddle in the water.
Maybe no one would come to check out the men’s claims, especially if they hadn’t actually taken photos of the wolves. And if they got a couple of big, white wolf-looking dogs, if anyone chanced to see a wolf and came to investigate, they would just show the dogs to them. End of speculation.
“We can help her find just the right dogs,” Elizabeth said.
“It will be a fun project for all of us,” Faith said.
“We want to help,” the kids said.
And that was their weekend mission. To locate at least two white dogs that would be companions to their beloved Saint Bernard. And to help keep them out of trouble if anyone came sniffing around, so to speak.
“Puppies or full grown?” Candice asked.
“Full grown,” most everyone agreed.
“Puppies,” the kids said.
“How do we explain about the wolf pups the men might have seen?” Sheri asked.
“How about we find a pup we can raise and a young adult dog too?” Amelia asked.
“We need them to be comfortable with wolves,” David said. “If they smell us—especially an older dog—they need to be content with what we are. The dogs might not realize we’re wolves, never having been around them, but they would still smell our canine scent, and we need to be a good fit,” David said.
“I agree,” Amelia said.
***
Once home, Sheri announced she was going to Faith and Cameron’s house to do dog searches with the family. Elizabeth didn’t know if it was to give her and David more alone time, or if she really wanted to start right in looking for potential dogs. Maybe a little of both. Either way, Elizabeth sent her a grateful smile.
As soon as Elizabeth and David were inside, Elizabeth said, “I need a shower. Do you want to join me?” She stripped down and tossed her clothes into the washing machine on the way to the bathroom. She might have swayed her hips a little more than she normally would have, then looked over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised in question.
He hurried to join her. “Yeah. I do.”
She laughed and raced for the bathroom; David joined her just as she got the water in the shower hot enough. He slid his arms around her waist and growled into her neck, lightly nipping the skin there. She laughed again and wrapped her legs around him. “You are so much fun. I adore you,” she said, and kissed his mouth.
He held her against the tile wall and kissed her back. “You are a dream come true.”
An hour later, washed, dressed, and entirely satisfied, David made some more coffee, and Elizabeth had a cup of tea.
“I never thought of having dogs to raise because they could serve as camouflage for us as wolves, but it’s a great idea,” Elizabeth said as she opened a laptop and started a search.
“Yeah. I don’t know why none of us ever thought of it. Probably because we haven’t had any trouble with sightseers. We’ve been pretty isolated up till now. But before it can become an issue, we need to do something about it.”
Instead of looking for dogs, David was on his phone doing searches for white wolves spotted at the island.
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” she said.