She knew just how this would look to her siblings, and the same for Nate with his sister and his parents.

  Chapter 9

  That morning, after Nate and Kayla made pancakes, he was amused to see her rushing through breakfast so they weren’t too much later to work. Then he drove her to her house and parked, and she rolled her bag inside while he carried in all the things she’d had in her car since it would be towed away as soon as Desmond Reynolds, the insurance adjuster, took a look at it and released it.

  Roxie was at work, so she wouldn’t know exactly what time Kayla had arrived home, only that she showed up late for work this morning. Nate knew Kayla was embarrassed about it, but he figured they’d be late, and there wasn’t anything further they could do about it. Not that there was anything wrong with it either.

  “I’ll look into the situation with the owner of the keys that were found in the room safe. Roxie sent me the third-party booking information already,” Nate said.

  “Okay, good. I should have thought of that when I asked if you could do it. Oh, I forgot to ask. Does anyone know you were planning to invite me to go with you to the cabin?”

  “Jake Silver might have figured out what was going on. I had to reserve the cabin through him. Though I didn’t tell him I was taking you. And he didn’t ask. He might have thought I was taking the family.”

  Jake was the pack leader’s brother and second in charge, so that was one of the jobs he took care of for the pack. Nate said it with a teasing light in his dark eyes and a smile on his lips, dimples appearing on both cheeks.

  She loved his dimples. They made the rugged Army Ranger approachable. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She wasn’t sure if she should tell him that Nicole had already let the cat out of the bag with Roxie or not.

  “And Nicole knows because I had to tell her so I could take off and make arrangements with the Green Valley wolf PIs to help out. But I didn’t tell those PIs who I was going with on the vacation. Nicole would have known I was taking you, or I would have said I was going with some of the guys in the pack,” Nate explained.

  “Okay, so since Nicole knew, Blake would know. And if he knew, Roxie and Landon would know.” There. She hadn’t given away Nicole, not wanting to get her in trouble. Roxie had slipped up by telling Kayla the news. Kayla kissed Nate. “If there’s any chance of a storm, we’re not going for a run in the woods.”

  He chuckled. “No, you’re right. Only fun stuff this next time. Let me know if we’re on for two birthdays or—”

  “One. Four on one day. That’s it.”

  “Sounds good to me, but don’t be shocked if I have a birthday surprise for you after that.”

  “I would be surprised if you didn’t, and it will be welcome.” Then she kissed him until he parted his lips and she tongued him.

  He groaned.

  “Oh, are you hurting?”

  “No. I just wish”—he smiled—“we didn’t have to get up so early to go to work.”

  She laughed. “We are late to work.” She knew what he meant though. At the cabin, they could make love to each other the whole week long, go to bed when they wanted, get up when they wanted. No sisters or brothers or jobs to worry about and they’d be all healed up.

  “If you’d like, I can take you to Green Valley to look for a car,” Nate said. “This afternoon or tomorrow afternoon?”

  “I need to speak to the insurance adjuster this morning. Then he’ll release it and it can be towed off.” She had figured she’d just get one of her brothers or Roxie to go with her, but it would be nice to go with Nate. “But sure, that would be great. Look at your schedule and see which would be best for you.”

  “Okay, I’ll see what Nicole says too.”

  “Sure.” She liked how he was eager to help her with her car and didn’t put things off. She could always borrow Blake’s or Roxie’s car, but she’d rather have her own in case they needed theirs.

  As soon as they said goodbye, she locked up the house, then walked to the lodge and saw Landon’s car parked there, so he was in. Blake would have walked from his place already if he wasn’t home with Nicole.

  Kayla walked into the lodge through the staff entrance. If she was bringing Rosco and Buttercup, they always went through the front doors to show off the arrival of their lodge mascots. When she entered the lobby, Rosco hurried to greet her with licks and body rubs. Kayla gave him a big hug. “I missed you too.”

  “Hey,” Roxie said, joining Kayla and giving her a hug. “If you can’t tell, Rosco missed you last night. So did Buttercup. I’m so glad you stayed with Nate after that storm hit though.”

  “Yeah, it was a wild night all right. Uh, sorry for getting in so late.”

  “Hey, I told you I didn’t expect you to come in early this morning. I mean, what with your car being totaled—so sorry about that, by the way—but you had to get Nate to drive you here, and I’m sure he was dragging his feet.”

  Kayla laughed.

  “Do you need me to help you with the car?”

  “Yes, taking me to see the insurance adjuster in an hour at Nate’s place would be great. Then I’ll have a tow truck haul the car off and I’ll ride home with you. And thanks, Roxie.”

  “What are sisters for? What about shopping for a new car? Or did you want to wait a bit on it?”

  “Nate’s going to take me to Green Valley to look for one.”

  “Oh, great. Even better. A lot of the guests’ vehicles in the parking lot at the lodge were hit too. Luckily, Landon had already driven home, and his car was parked in his garage. The same with the rest of us. But here, we had a whole lot of unhappy guests. Not with us, just with the hailstorm causing so much damage to their cars. We’ve been helping them contact insurance investigators, and we set up a lemonade stand out there to cool off tempers.”

  “What a great idea. Oh, by the way, before you hear it from Nicole once Nate tells her, we’re having all the birthday parties on your birth date.” Roxie opened her mouth to speak, but Kayla quickly added, “Nate finally told me he’s taking me to the cabin near the Silver Falls. You didn’t tell me it was that cabin.”

  Roxie’s lips parted, and then she smiled broadly. “Oh, wow. Yes! That’s great. I didn’t know it was that cabin either. Maybe Nicole didn’t know it. Or she might have been at least keeping that secret.” Then she frowned. “You didn’t let on you knew already, did you? I don’t want to get Nicole in trouble or for her to be mad at me for accidentally not keeping the secret.”

  “No. I let on that I didn’t.”

  “Oh, great.” Roxie sighed and put her hands on her heart. “For a whole week. You’re going to have a great time, and it will be so well deserved.”

  Blake came back from the indoor swimming pool area and must have overheard Roxie’s enthusiastic comment. “What’s the good news?”

  “Well, our very own Kayla is going on a camping trip for a whole week with Nate. And they’re staying at the Silver Falls cabin.”

  “Whoa.” Blake winked at her.

  “It’s just for a fun trip.” Kayla hated that she became so easily flustered over things.

  Landon joined them from the restaurant with a cup of coffee in hand. “Family meeting?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s just a camping trip. Is everything else covered? I’m going to get a jump on our winter promo,” Kayla said. “And I’m celebrating my birthday on the same day as all of you are.” Then she headed for the office.

  “Wait,” Roxie said, looking at something on her phone, “Nicole just texted me that you and Nate ended up in the creek during the storm. In the middle of the hailstorm?”

  “Yeah. And he saved me.” Kayla smiled and headed into the office, and Buttercup wound her way around her legs. She’d missed Kayla too. She lifted Buttercup into her arms and sat down on her office chair, stroking a purring cat.

  “I hear wedding bells ringing in the not-too-distant future,” Roxie said, loud enough for Kayla to hear.

  “What did I miss out on?” Landon asked.

  Kayla smiled. She’d gotten her way. She was having her birthday celebration with her siblings. Of course that had a lot to do with going to the cabin with Nate. She hadn’t expected her family to be so excited about it. But she knew she’d have a great time.

  She began drawing up plans for when winter arrived at the ski resort. Oh! She needed to make her camping list first. She started a new page and began listing everything she needed to take with her so she wouldn’t forget anything.

  Chapter 10

  Later that morning, Kayla and Roxie headed over to Nate’s apartment to get this business over with concerning her totaled car. Desmond Reynolds, their insurance adjuster, was a wolf, so there was no problem with him saying the car was totaled, though after she’d seen it, she didn’t think there was any doubt of that. Wolves helped each other out whenever they could.

  “Ohmigod, I’m so glad you weren’t driving it when the hail demolished your windshield,” Roxie said, taking pictures to show their brothers, Kayla figured. “I can’t imagine the two of you being out in the storm during a wolf run.”

  The adjuster shook his head. “Damaged property can always be replaced. Wolves? That’s a whole different story.” He had Kayla sign the documents that she needed to. “We’ll be sending you a check in a couple of weeks, hopefully, though it can be as long as forty-five days, but I’ll try to expedite it.”

  “Thanks, Desmond.”

  Then the adjuster left, and Kayla called Ollie’s Auto Body Shop and Towing Service. “Hey, Ollie, this is Kayla Wolff. Can you come pick up my totaled car at Silver Town Apartments?”

  “Oh, you too, eh? So sorry to hear it. Though I’ve had a jump in business a hundredfold. I’ll be right there. I just picked some up from the ski lodge and impounded them,” Ollie West said.

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Shortly thereafter, Ollie drove up with his tow truck, wearing his trademark red-and-white tow truck shirt and blue jeans and work boots. When he was working on cars, he wore his green-and-white auto-body shirt. Red-haired and red-bearded and with bright green eyes, he was a character. He’d sweet-talk a car into doing anything for him, and everyone trusted him to take care of their vehicles as if the cars and trucks were his own family members’.

  Ollie had Kayla sign a release of the car, and then he towed it off for her. She brushed her hands together, as if washing her hands of one more task that had to be done, and then got back in Roxie’s car and they returned to the lodge.

  “That was easy,” Roxie said. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll get this time.”

  “Something bright red.”

  Roxie smiled. “I guess you’re not too upset about it.”

  Kayla sighed. “I’d be lying if I said I was. It guzzled gas and gave me fits half the time. I’ll be glad to get a replacement, though seeing it so damaged was upsetting. Like you, I was just glad I wasn’t in it at the time.”

  When they arrived at the lodge, Roxie went to see where she was needed.

  The phone began ringing, and Kayla answered it in the office. “This is Kayla Wolff at the Timberline Ski Lodge. How may I help you?”

  “I need to speak to a manager,” a man with a gruff voice said.

  “You’re speaking to her.”

  “I left my keys in a room at your lodge. I need to pick them up.” He was very authoritative as if they had made the mistake of keeping his keys.

  “Uh, sure. If you have some ID, you can come in and do that anytime. Which room was it?”

  “I don’t remember the room number.”

  “Okay. Your name?”

  “Durham Manning.”

  “Can you describe what was on the key chain?”

  “A car key, house key, safe deposit box key.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Might be. I can’t think right now. I just need to get my keys.”

  Kayla thought that was strange. She knew exactly what she had hanging off her key ring. And why wouldn’t he have mentioned he had two safe deposit keys on the key ring, not just one? “Can you describe the key ring?”

  “Silver.”

  Why wouldn’t he mention a skull dangled from it too? “Okay, it’ll be here. Just ask for me, Kayla, or one of the other managers when you get in.”

  “All right.” He hung up on her.

  Kayla left the office to speak with Blake. “Hey, a guy by the name of Durham Manning says that he’s coming in for those keys we found in the guest room safe, but I don’t have a good feeling about this guy. He didn’t tell me that there was a smaller key that looked like a mailbox one or two safe deposit keys on the ring, and he couldn’t say what else was on it. He said it was silver, but you know how often key rings are silver. And he didn’t mention the skull hanging from the key ring, which is pretty noticeable as far as helping identify them as his own. He didn’t say the keys were in the safe either. You’d think he’d mention that first in case we hadn’t looked in there and found them but also to help further identify them. And he didn’t know what his room number was.”

  “Okay, well, if he drives here, we can see if the key belongs to the car he’s driving. If it’s a duplicate key. If not, we need to make sure they’re his keys. Have we had any success at locating the person who stayed in the room?” Blake asked.

  “Not yet. I’ll check with Nate. I figured I’d give him a chance to look into it first. But if we have the possible owner of the keys coming in, we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “I’d go with your wolf instincts, and we’ll have to do everything we can to verify they’re his before we hand them over,” Blake said.

  “Right.” Kayla called Nate next and told him what was up. “I suspect you haven’t learned anything about the man who registered for the room and left his keys in the safe.”

  “I just got some information right before you called me. The man who made the reservation was named Durham Manning.”

  “Okay, so that’s the name the man gave me who said he’s coming to pick up the keys.” She explained what was bothering her about this man’s claim. “Maybe I’m just reading too much into this.”

  “I don’t blame you. I do the same thing. On another topic, is there anything special you’d like to eat at the cabin?”

  “No, nothing special. You know what I like, and that will be fine. Just whatever we usually eat.”

  “All right. Now that I know a Durham Manning reserved the room, I’ll look into who he is as much as I can in the meantime. And give you any information on him that I can find.”

  “Thanks, Nate. I sure appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  They ended the call, and she went out to speak with Blake. “Nate said the guy’s name is Durham Manning, which is what the guy coming in for the keys said his name was over the phone. But because of my concerns, Nate’s going to look into the man further.”

  “Good show. If he can get a picture of him, we’ll know if it’s the same guy who shows up.”

  “Okay, sounds good.” She went back to working on winter promo ideas. It wasn’t long before Nate sent her a picture of Durham Manning that he’d found on Facebook. Ohmigod, that was the muscular, black-haired, and bearded man she and Roxie had seen when they’d run as wolves the one day, speaking to another man, trespassing on their land. She printed the picture out and shared it with Blake. “Roxie and I saw this man and a blond-haired guy talking on our land when we came upon them as wolves.”

  Blake stared at her in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell Landon or me?”

  She sighed. “They would have been gone by the time we returned home, dressed, and called anyone. Besides, we scared them off, and they were having a discussion, like they wanted to get away to somewhere private.”

  “You should have told us.”

  And then he and Landon would have left their mates to run with Roxie and Kayla from then on when they could have been needed at home. “We never saw them again. Just the one time.”

  Blake still looked disgruntled. “You still should have told us. You went running the next day, correct? What if they’d been there again?”

  “They weren’t. But we were cautious.”

  Blake scoffed. “Next time—”

  “We’ll tell you.” Kayla conceded only because she knew he’d tell Landon and the two of them would give her and Roxie grief.

  “All right. We’ll tape the picture right here with a note to verify the identity of Manning when he shows up.” Blake was already writing a note to their clerks and the siblings, though only the siblings—as management and owners of the lodge—would actually hand the keys over to the owner due to liability issues. “What exactly were they talking about?”

  “A job, I think.” Kayla shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing really specific.” She gave Blake the description of the other man, and he wrote it down. “I’ll come to back you up as soon as the man arrives to get the keys,” Kayla said. She returned to the office, but before she could thank Nate for the photo, she got a slew of attachments from him. She began opening them up, then printed them out.

  Then she got a call from Nate, and he sounded worried. “This Durham Manning has committed a number of armed robberies of jewelry stores.”

  “Are you sure this is the same Durham Manning who rented the room? What if it’s some other?” But now she was thinking that the “job” the men had been talking about in the woods had to do with a robbery.

  “Yeah. It’s the same man.”

  “But they released him from prison? Or he’s never been caught?”

  “He was in prison for eight years. And now he’s out and wanted for questioning about the new armed robberies.”

  Kayla’s jaw dropped. “You mean he might be involved in the armed robbery in Green Valley?”

  “He could be.”

  “And he stayed here at the lodge?” That was the thing about having a lodge like this. They had no idea who was staying here—good guys or bad. Though most of the time they were just everyday normal people on a vacation. Silver Town and the ski resort weren’t on any of the major highways—which was just the way the wolf pack wanted it—so they didn’t often get folks who were driving through to somewhere else unless they were taking a more scenic route.