Gabrielle smiled. “Sure, I would love to. My friends too, if they arrive before we go for a run tonight? They’re jaguars.”

  “Absolutely. That will be a new experience for us and we’ll have fun,” Kayla said.

  “Okay, let’s go and get you ready for your first ski lesson, Gabrielle.” Then Landon hurried her off before Blake came along to talk to them too. Wolves were curious by nature, especially when it had to do with the family. When Blake began seeing Nicole, and she was taking care of a PI job at the lodge, the whole family got involved to help her out.

  “So what do your friends do?” Landon asked Gabrielle.

  “They’re both with a JAG agency that deals with rogue jaguar shifters.”

  “Really.” Landon had heard about them, and how they had a facility to actually incarcerate shifters—any kind now, but only shifters. No humans. It was privately funded by their own kind, so no one—especially no humans—were the wiser.

  “Yeah. They were supposed to be through with the case they were on by now, so I’m not sure what the problem is. They didn’t give me any of the details, just that they would be late in arriving.”

  Once Gabrielle was all set with skis, poles, boots, and a ski pass, Landon walked her back to the office where they had a storage area for the family’s skis, poles, and boots.

  “You’re sure you don’t mind at all?” she asked, looking uncomfortable about trying this out.

  He could smell her anxiousness. “Yeah. I let everyone know where we’re going to be in case they need me.”

  “All right.” She sighed. “I could just hire someone to give me lessons.”

  “There’s no need to waste your money when I can do this with you.” He walked her past the Christmas tree in the lobby, sparkling with lights. They headed outside onto the deck of the bar and grill where early skiers were grabbing coffee, or hot chocolate, and pastries before they headed for the ski lifts. The deck had a coating of snow, though they cleared it every day so that it wouldn’t end up being knee-high.

  First, Landon took Gabrielle to the bunny slope where she rode the magic carpet up the 50-foot incline. He talked to her about giving right of way to other skiers. “People ahead of you have right of way. Which means you have to avoid them, not run into them. When you stop, you have to be out of the path of others, and you don’t want to be someplace hidden from view as a skier comes up over a hill on the trail. Whenever your trail merges with another, you have to look uphill and not ski into a downhill skier’s path. You have to always stay in control.”

  She laughed. “Oh, that will be a fun trial, I’m sure.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it.” He was sure of it. Though she might have to practice for several days to feel comfortable with it. “How long are you going to be here?”

  “Eight days. Well, seven days left now. We leave on the night of day eight, so we’ll ski in the morning, eat lunch, go to the airport, and fly out.”

  Seven days of teaching her how to ski? He could certainly go for it. But once her friends came, that would probably be the end of all the fun times he wanted to spend with Gabrielle.

  * * *

  Gabrielle was so nervous about this business of skiing that she hoped Landon proved to be a good and patient ski instructor. She’d barely made it to the top of the bunny slope when she fell. She was just standing upright, doing nothing but just standing there. And then she wasn’t.

  “Okay, next lesson. How to get up. It’s really important that you learn that lesson.”

  She laughed. “I can see that.” She watched little kids get up easily since they didn’t have half the distance to fall down or stand up. She was finally up and then she practiced forming a wedge, or a snowplow, with her skis to learn to control her speed and practiced turning. After that, she finally was ready to learn how to get on the ski lift and go down an easy green slope. She was beginning to feel like she might be all right with skiing, and she was having fun in Landon’s company. It made her feel better about her girlfriends not getting here on time. Sure, she could have sat around the lodge watching all the skiers in their ski clothes laughing and smiling, with red cheeks and red noses, and looking like they were having the time of their life.

  Gabrielle was much more of a doer, even if she did feel bad that she hadn’t been able to do this with her dad like they’d planned a decade ago. She almost felt guilty about enjoying it. But she knew she needed to move on and put the past behind her.

  She was hopeful that if she got good enough, when her friends arrived, they wouldn’t have to teach her the very basics.

  First, she was taking the ski lift to the top of the slope. At the top, she managed to get off the ski-lift chair just fine. Landon had told her to ski away from the lift so others could get off after her. She was standing in the way and felt panicked that she needed to ski away from the chairlift right away, but she was still trying to remember how to move her skis in the snow while trying to ski. Then she fell. Ugh. She envisioned everyone running over her as they tried to unload from the chairs and a pile of bodies fitted out in skis and poles all tangled up in that mountain of a mess. Landon skied around her to get out of everyone’s path and waited for her to get up. At least she was getting good at that part. She thought she’d had the most practice at that—falling down and getting up.

  Then she was at the top of the easy slope that looked a lot higher and scarier than she’d thought it could be—for being a green slope. But at least it was nice and wide and had a gentler slope than the intermediate and expert slopes had. Other skiers headed down the hill, looking like experts to her as they weaved back and forth, their skis close together, their turns like little hops. Not like she had to do it, by making a wide snowplow each time she pointed her skis downhill and picked up speed.

  She couldn’t imagine starting this at three years old. Though by now, if she came regularly to ski, she would be an expert.

  “You can do it. And if you fall, lean against the slope to get back up. While you’re skiing, keep your upper body and head leaning toward the valley and over the downhill ski. Keep your legs and knees and ankles equally bent. As you make your turns, your weight will be transferred to the downhill ski.”

  Oh, that would be easier said than done, Gabrielle thought. She began going down the slope, slowly, picking up speed, turning so she could slow her speed, turning again, and going down. This was fun. But scary. She sliced into the slope and felt her body lean downhill. She imagined falling all the way down the hill—rolling, gathering snow, and becoming a ball of snow with only her head, hands, and feet sticking out—and quickly fell against the snowbank so she could regain her balance. Then she figured out how to stand back up again, this time on the side of a hill.

  Landon encouraged her every step of the way, which she appreciated. She assumed with running the lodge, he didn’t often teach a new skier how to ski. And she imagined how boring that must be when he could just be enjoying the slope, winging his way down all the way to the bottom.

  She slid down just a little with her skis against the slope, then took a deep breath and started her wedge and began the planned fall down the hill, back and forth, getting better, her wedge not as wide, and she wasn’t falling down as much. She had this down.

  She was nearly at the bottom of the hill when she took another spill. Argh.

  Landon was right back at her side, smiling down at her. “You’re getting really good at this.”

  She laughed. “Right.”

  “You are. This is your first time out. Lunch is on me in a couple of hours, but did you want to take a drink break?”

  “When I’m getting so good at this? Let’s go again.” She was afraid she would forget everything she had learned if she took a break now.

  “Okay.” He sounded pleased.

  That was one thing about her. She might feel like she couldn’t do well at something, but she kept trying until she knew she could do it. Maybe not expertly, but at least until she felt more comfortable at it.

  Gabrielle was not giving up, no matter how frustrated she might become.

  “I don’t usually instruct people on how to ski because I don’t have a whole lot of patience, but when I was younger, and while I was helping to run a ski lodge with my family, I did earn some money as a ski instructor.”

  “With me, you seem to have plenty of patience.”

  “You have so much drive to do this, you make it easy on me. You’re eager to get this right and laugh at yourself every time you fall. You’re fun to be with.”

  She smiled. “You make a perfect ski instructor for a first-time skier—at least in my case. Thanks.” She appreciated that he had made her feel good about something she thought she might never get the hang of.

  Then they hit the slopes again. This time she didn’t fall at all, either after getting off the ski lift or anytime on the hill, and not at the bottom either. She was ready to get in the lift line again. Several of the ski instructors smiled at her as she passed them by—they were all wolves. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like living in a community that was made up of wolves who ran everything. Pretty cool, she figured. No need to hide what they were. As long as there weren’t any humans around, they could talk openly about wolf issues.

  She and Landon went up the chairlift and skied down the green slopes several more times. But this time when she was on the chairlift again with him, she was feeling cold, the wind blowing about them as they rode it up. “I think after we go down this time, I would like to get some hot chocolate.” Despite wearing everything warm that she’d had at home, she still wasn’t warm enough.

  “We can do that and you can get warmed up.”

  Thankfully, she skied down even better than the last time, and they both skied to the outdoor part of the bar and grill where they could put their poles and skis on a rack before they sat down at one of the tables to have a drink.

  “Indoors or out?” he asked.

  “Oh, indoors. I’m cold.” She rubbed her gloved hands together.

  A bunch of skiers were sitting out at the tables, enjoying the sunny day, having hot drinks and talking about their ski day, their cheeks and noses red from the cold.

  “Yeah, sure. We could have lunch early, if you would like,” he said.

  “And a swim?”

  He laughed. “The pool’s open now. Are you sure you want to swim when it’s officially open?”

  “Nah, what’s the fun in that?”

  Three

  After Landon and Gabrielle took their seats in a booth in the restaurant, they ordered hot chocolates and then Landon called Roxie to ensure he wasn’t needed. “Is everything going okay without me?”

  “Yeah,” Roxie said. “We don’t need you, really.”

  Their mugs of hot chocolate arrived and Landon thanked the server.

  “Okay, good, Roxie. You know to call me if you have any need of me.”

  “We will.”

  Then they ended the call.

  “This is great hot chocolate,” Gabrielle said, then took another sip, the whipped cream coating her lips. Landon wanted to lean over and lick the whipped cream off before she did.

  “It’s got extra chocolate to make it just right.” He smiled at Gabrielle. “So when are your friends getting here?”

  Gabrielle got a text message and read it. “Speaking of my friends, they said they’re not going to be arriving until later tonight.” She texted them back.

  “It’s a good thing we were able to go skiing, then. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s waiting on people who don’t show up and then I’ve wasted all my time just sitting around and doing nothing fun,” Landon said.

  “I agree. I mean, honestly, I did think of just sitting on the sidelines for the day, but I’m so glad I won’t be a total neophyte at skiing when they get here. By the time I have lessons with you after our hot chocolate break and then more after lunch, I’ll be ready to go up on the slopes with my friends tomorrow. They’re both experts. Not that I’ll be able to ski at that level.”

  Landon gave an exaggerated sigh. “Looks like that will be the end of a blossoming relationship between the two of us, then.”

  She laughed. “It’s supposed to work the other way around. The girl dumps her girlfriends for the hot guy.”

  “That definitely works for me.” Not that he wanted her to ditch her girlfriends, but he would love to keep seeing her while she was here, if she could spare the time.

  She smiled. “I’m sure they would be shocked.”

  “You don’t date much?”

  “No. I’ve been too busy with work, and there haven’t been enough wolves around to go out with. I would see some wolves come through Daytona Beach on a vacation—some single, date one every once in a while, but nothing that would ever amount to anything.”

  “Ahh.” That was good news. Enticing the she-wolf to join the pack would sure work for him. “So do you have any family back in Daytona Beach?”

  “No.” She looked down at her mug. “We were in a car accident while headed to a ski resort in Montana, first time ever for us to ski. It was ten years ago, but sometimes it still haunts me. In a blinding snowstorm, we met a moose on the road. Dad swerved to miss it and we ended up in a frozen lake. They didn’t survive. I–I haven’t ever been back to snow country since.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He felt awful for bringing it up.

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “I kept wishing I could have saved them. I did everything I could. It was a long time ago, but you know how it is when you lose someone you love. You always wonder what you could have done to prevent it. And I have to admit I really had a lot of qualms about coming to a ski resort at all.” She gave him a sad smile. “What about your parents? Do they live here?”

  “They’re gone too. A hunter killed our mom, and our dad killed the man. He didn’t have a choice. The hunter had seen her shift in death.”

  “Oh, that’s so awful. He had to have felt terrible about losing your mother like that.”

  “Yeah, he died of a broken heart. He just wouldn’t eat. You know how wolves can be. They mate for life. Sometimes they can move on. Sometimes they can’t. He just couldn’t. We were all grown, running the old lodge in Vermont on our own by then, my parents having retired. But we were all profoundly shaken by it. We tried and tried to bring him out of his depression, but nothing worked. It’s another reason we moved here. It’s safe to run as wolves, no hunters allowed on our properties.”

  “That’s true.”

  Then Landon got a call from Blake and he figured there was trouble or his brother would have just texted him. “Yeah, Blake?”

  “Hey, Rosco’s not in the lodge. At least I’ve made a good search for him. You know him. He usually just chills by the fireplace, and if he needs to go outside to relieve himself, he comes to one of us. I went to our homes to see if he slipped back inside the houses through the wolf doors for some reason, but he’s not there. He’s been really good about not leaving the lodge without us.”

  “Okay, I’ll look for him.” Landon sighed. That would curtail his skiing for a while, and he hated to give up spending the rest of the day with Gabrielle. “I’ll let you know if I find him or not.” When he ended the call, he said to Gabrielle, “Blake called to say he couldn’t find Rosco. He never leaves the lodge without us, but I need to search for him and make sure he’s still here.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “But you wanted to ski. I don’t want you to waste your vacation time on this. I could set you up with a ski instructor who can give you some more training while I look for Rosco and join you later for lunch. Or I could join you back on the slopes right after I locate him. I don’t want you to miss out on skiing.” Of course, he would only have asked someone in the pack who was mated to teach her to ski.

  “No, no, that’s all right. I would rather go skiing again with you, after we find Rosco.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I would feel terrible if I were out there skiing and you couldn’t find him, when I might have been able to help locate him. And if he has suffered an injury, I can take care of him.”

  “Okay, good.”

  They grabbed their skis and poles from the ski rack outside and put them in the storage room, then switched out their ski boots for their snow boots.

  “We might as well go in separate directions to cover more area, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah, if you can stay in this half of the lodge, I’ll check out the other half,” he said, and then they took off in different directions. But after half an hour of searching for the dog and finding no scent for him on the elevators, but a more distinctive scent for him near one of the doors, Landon suspected Rosco had gone outside. Landon saw Gabrielle coming out of the pool area, and when she noticed him, she shook her head.

  They got together and he said, “I think he went out to the ski slope. He’s never done that on his own before, but there’s always a first time. I can walk through some of the snow in snow boots, but depending on how far he went into the unpacked snow, I might have to use snowshoes.”

  “Do you have a pair for me?”

  He couldn’t believe she wanted to come with him to continue to look for Rosco. “Yeah, I’ll ask Kayla or Roxie if you can borrow a pair of theirs. Have you ever… Scratch that. You aren’t from snow country, so you’ve probably never worn them.”

  “Nope, so you might need to give me lessons.”

  He smiled, and after he asked his sisters who could loan snowshoes to Gabrielle, Roxie quickly offered hers before Kayla could.

  “I can’t believe Rosco took off like that. If you don’t find him, let us know and we can contact Darien to see if he can call up more of the pack members to help us find him,” Roxie said, getting the snowshoes from the storage closet in their office.