“This is superb,” Dylan said.

  “Yeah, it is. Delicious. We make a great team.”

  “We do.”

  After they ate and cleaned up the dishes, they put the futon away and threw the sheets in the wash.

  She said, “I’ve got to make a dessert for tonight. Do you want to help me make it?”

  “Absolutely. What can I do to help?”

  “Let’s make seven-layer magic cookie bars.”

  “I love them. I haven’t had them since I was a kid when I used to make them with my mom,” he said.

  “That’s okay then, isn’t it?” She didn’t want him feeling sad about it.

  “Yeah, absolutely.”

  She got out all the ingredients while he found a pan for the bars and preheated the oven. Then he started melting the butter and swirled it around to coat the whole pan. She sprinkled graham cracker crumbs evenly over the melted butter, and he pressed them down. He added the semisweet chocolate chips. Butterscotch chips were next and then drizzled condensed milk over that. She sprinkled shredded coconut on top. They finally added pecans on top. She pressed it all together lightly. After they baked the bars, they set them out to cool, put the sheets in the dryer, decided on a movie to watch, and fell asleep on the couch in each other’s arms.

  When they woke, they smiled at each other for being so tired and missing some of the movie. Then they dressed and walked out into the snow to have dinner with the family that night. Dylan carried the dessert. Everyone was there already. The guys began grilling steaks off the partially enclosed patio, Nicole was nearly done baking potatoes, and Kayla and Roxie finished making a cheesy cauliflower dish. Nicole and Nate’s parents were watching the babies.

  Gabrielle and Landon were making pomegranate gin fizzes for everyone, except that Gabrielle’s and Nicole’s were nonalcoholic.

  They began serving up all the food and taking their seats at the dining room table.

  “Any sweetheart resolutions?” Landon asked everyone.

  “I want to go skiing with Roxie,” Dylan said, clinking his drink glass with Roxie’s. “I couldn’t before because of the head injury, and then I was back to looking for Jim and then the trapper too. But first chance I get, I’m skiing with her.”

  “Oh, that would be great. All expert slopes, right?” Roxie asked.

  “Uh, I think I’ll work into it with a green and then the blue slopes.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “I take it you don’t go skiing much. You’re too busy on the job all the time,” Roxie said.

  “Yeah. When I was a kid, I skied a lot, but that was a long time ago. That’s also my resolution. Enjoying life to the fullest with Roxie and all of you,” Dylan said. “Seeing more of the sights out here, visiting with pack members.”

  “Well, we’re glad to be taking in another member of our extended family,” Gary said.

  They all cheered.

  “Thanks for bringing me into the family,” Dylan said.

  “The pleasure is all ours,” Nelda said.

  “My resolution is having a ball with Dylan and enjoying all the perks of having a wolf mate,” Roxie said.

  Everyone laughed. She swore Dylan even blushed a little.

  “Oh, mine is losing my baby fat so I can snuggle closer to my sweetheart,” Gabrielle said, patting her tummy.

  “Me too!” Nicole said.

  Roxie thought both of her sisters-in-law looked great for having had twins just three months earlier.

  “You girls look great,” Nelda said.

  “Yeah,” Landon said. “I can’t imagine how I’d look if I’d had twins. You’re both beautiful and just perfect.”

  “I second that,” Blake said.

  “These drinks are delightful,” Nelda said.

  “Yeah, they really are good,” Gary said.

  “The steaks are divine. I love the seasonings you put on them,” Roxie said.

  “Nicole got them as a special treat for family night.” Blake raised his glass to her.

  “We need to take a family trip,” Landon said.

  “Yes!” Roxie said. Now that she had a mate, she was all for it.

  “I’m game,” Dylan said, reaching out to grasp her hand.

  Everyone loved the idea.

  Roxie squeezed his hand back. “That’s one of the good things about working here and with the sheriff’s department. Peter will give you time off whenever you need it.”

  “Yeah, I can’t wait to begin working here full-time.”

  She couldn’t wait for him to work here.

  They served up the seven-layer magic cookie bars and enjoyed them before they started their games.

  “These are the greatest,” Kayla said.

  “Yeah,” Blake said. “I’m glad you made them.”

  “Thanks. It was teamwork,” Roxie said.

  “It was hard not to eat one before we came over here,” Dylan said.

  Everyone laughed and then they set up phone app games to play, starting with Psych! While each family member was taking turns creating fake answers to trivia questions, those who guessed the correct answer among the false ones earned points. The person who made up the answers would win points for each player who chose theirs as the correct answer.

  Kayla won five games, and they all said she was the best at psyching them out.

  They did Clue next, to determine who the murder was from a list of characters. Dylan won most of those. But Gabrielle and Nicole had to give up on the game to shift and feed their hungry babies as wolves. It was easier to feed twins that way!

  They also did a mobile trivia app that featured themed rounds of questions like in Trivial Pursuit.

  Then the mothers finished feeding their little ones and woofed at everyone.

  “Are we ready for a run?” Landon asked.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Blake said. “We’ll take a shorter walk with the pups and then run tonight.” He and Landon took the pups outside to an area where the snow had been shoveled off to let them relieve themselves, then returned them to the house and packed them in their pup carriers.

  The moms remained in their wolf forms while everyone else stripped out of their clothes and shifted.

  Landon took hold of Rosco’s leash as he and Blake carried the pups on the walk.

  The others ran as wolves for a short trip into the woods, because everyone was a little tired after coming in so late from the Valentine’s Day party last night and especially the brothers and sisters-in-law with babies getting them up during the evening. But this was important too. The daddies didn’t mind walking as humans instead of running as wolves, to their credit.

  They finally returned to their homes and said good night to each other.

  “Was it worth it to you to have the family night?” Roxie asked Dylan as they walked inside their home and shut and locked the door.

  “Absolutely. And returning home with you after the family gathering when I would have been on my own if it hadn’t been for mating you? That means the world to me.”

  “The same to me.”

  This time, they headed to bed to finish off the day in style.

  Chapter 25

  The next morning, the team was ready to head out on a search for Jim and the trapper. Dylan called to let his boss know that they’d found four of the trapper’s lethal devices, but no luck on finding Jim or the trapper yet. His boss wished him the best of luck and to be careful.

  After they finished the call, Dylan kissed Roxie goodbye and said, “I don’t know when we’ll return home this time.”

  “Don’t worry about it. The party is over with and now it’s back to work for all of us. We’re going to spend the morning setting the ballrooms up for the functions for this afternoon and evening. So we’re going to be busy. It will be boring compared to what you have to do.”

  “I wouldn’t mind boring if I could help you with all that.”

  “Thanks, Dylan.”

  Then he and the other guys left to try to locate Jim and the trapper. They hoped they’d be successful this time. They also spent the day again checking two of the three cabins that Jim was known to frequent just in case anyone had seen Jim again, but no one had.

  “We ought to check out his grandfather’s place,” CJ said after they visited the first two cabins. It was about twenty miles from the abandoned cabin.

  “All right. It’s getting late. I say we stay at the abandoned cabin tonight and check out his grandfather’s place in the morning,” Dylan said.

  “Yeah, that sounds like a plan,” CJ said.

  They headed out to the abandoned cabin, and Dylan wondered if they’d find Aaron still there.

  When they finally arrived at the cabin, they smelled smoke and saw it curling out of the chimney, and a low light was on in two different areas of the cabin. They also only smelled Aaron’s scent around the cabin, no one else’s scent. CJ knocked on the door and called out. “Hey, Aaron, it’s CJ and our team.”

  There was no answer, but when they peered through the window, they saw a couple of battery-operated lanterns were on inside.

  CJ cautiously opened the door and peered inside. “He’s not here.”

  They went inside and looked around the cabin. Quite a few of Aaron’s things that they recognized from before were there—his backpack, sleeping bag, and camping equipment.

  “Does anyone feel that something’s off? That something’s not right?” Dylan asked.

  “Yeah,” Daniel said. “He could be bowhunting at night but—”

  “His bow and quiver of arrows are over there in the corner,” Michael said, pointing them out.

  They set their backpacks in the cabin, and Daniel and Bryan added wood to the fire while the others pulled out their food packs to make a hot meal—campfire grilled-cheese sandwiches.

  They filled the room with more lanterns and turned them on.

  “I think we should look for Aaron before we eat.” Dylan drank some of his water. “Someone should stay and watch the fire, but maybe a couple of us can see if we can find him. I was thinking he’d gone into the woods to relieve himself, but it has been a long time.”

  “Yeah, I’ll go,” Michael said.

  “Me too,” CJ said.

  “I’ll stay and tend to the fire and be here if he returns,” Daniel offered.

  “I’ll stay behind with Daniel, and we’ll alert you if we have any trouble,” Bryan said.

  “Good idea,” CJ said.

  They all left the cabin. Even Daniel and Bryan went with them initially to get more wood for the fire. “Be careful out there,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah, we will.” CJ brought the first aid kit in case they needed it.

  They normally would go in stealth mode, but this time they had to call out if Aaron was close by and had been injured or lost his way back to the cabin. They all were calling out to him, trying to locate him. They could smell that he had gone in this direction, so they knew he had come out here. His scent continued on farther, and Dylan wondered why he would have walked so far away from the cabin at night. Unless it was like he’d thought before. Aaron had gone out to relieve himself and didn’t want to do it too close to the cabin.

  Then Dylan thought he heard a moan way off in the distance. “Aaron?”

  “Have you got something?” CJ asked.

  They were all spread out, trying to find Aaron.

  Dylan kept getting whiffs of Aaron’s scents in this direction. “I thought I heard him over this way. Aaron!”

  “Help,” Dylan heard Aaron say, his voice strained.

  It was Aaron! “Hey, guys, Aaron’s over here and I think he’s injured.” Dylan was trying to rush to his aid. “Aaron, this is Dylan and the rest of our law enforcement team. Keep calling out. We’re coming to help you.”

  “Here,” Aaron said, his voice still really not much more than a whisper.

  Dylan was worried Aaron was suffering from hypothermia. “Keep talking. I’m getting close.” He thought he was. But he wasn’t positive because Aaron’s voice was so distorted.

  “Watch where…you’re…walking,” Aaron gritted out.

  The other guys were getting closer to Dylan, and then Dylan saw Aaron half-buried in the snow, his face covered in a ski mask, which would help to keep him warmer. “Aaron! He’s over here,” Dylan yelled out.

  “We’re coming!” CJ hollered.

  Dylan reached Aaron and pulled his parka off to cover Aaron with. “What happened?”

  “Leg,” Aaron croaked out.

  “Leg trap? Crap! Hey, CJ, we need that first aid kit!” Dylan called out. “Aaron’s leg is caught in a leg trap, I think. We need to shovel out the snow around his legs.”

  CJ called Bryan and Daniel to come help them.

  Michael pulled out the first aid emergency blanket and wrapped it around Aaron and then was immediately on his radio while the others were digging Aaron out. “We’re bringing in an injured park ranger with a possible leg fracture after stepping into a—”

  “Bear leg trap,” Dylan said, locating the dangerous device. “Aaron…also has hypothermia.”

  “Bear leg trap. He has hypothermia. We’ll take him to a nearby abandoned cabin where we have a fire going, stabilize him, and then bring him in. Uh, okay. We’ll get him ready for transport then.” Michael gave them the GPS coordinates. “See you soon.” He ended the call and said, “EMS rescue is sending a team to pick him up.”

  “Oh, even better,” Dylan said. He loved how they had so many people who were capable of dealing with problems in the area. But he wished he could trap the trapper with one of his own devices and leave him out to suffer—see how he liked that.

  Bryan and Daniel soon reached them.

  Once they had exposed the rest of the bear trap, Dylan and CJ carefully opened the trap and Michael eased Aaron out of it while Bryan and Daniel tried to stabilize Aaron’s leg as much as possible. The pain was too much, and Aaron cried out and then lost consciousness.

  “Let’s hurry, but…carefully,” CJ said while he and Dylan released the trap and let it snap back into place. “It’s better that he has passed out for moving him to the cabin, but we need him warmed up, his leg stabilized, and then we need him conscious. I’ve been through this before myself, and I know how bad it can be.”

  “Hell,” Dylan said, figuring CJ might even have PTSD from seeing Aaron experiencing the same trauma.

  They splinted Aaron’s leg with the materials from the first aid kit. Then they carried him to the cabin. It seemed to take them longer while carrying Aaron and trying not to injure him further.

  When they reached the cabin, Daniel immediately ran to open the door and threw it open. Daniel hurried to spread Aaron’s sleeping bag out for him.

  The men settled Aaron on the bag.

  “I’ll be right back,” Bryan said, but Daniel went with him as he left the cabin and shut the door.

  Dylan began heating up some beef broth for Aaron to warm him up. “He’s mildly hypothermic.”

  CJ and Michael removed the splint and swore.

  “Compound fracture,” CJ said. “This is worse than I had.” He pulled out a bandage to wrap around Aaron’s leg to stop the bleeding, and then they splinted it again.

  Aaron stirred. “God, how bad is it?”

  Dylan brought him the beef broth as the others covered him up with their sleeping bags.

  After giving Aaron the broth, Dylan helped him to drink it to warm himself up. If Aaron had been a wolf, he would heal twice as fast as a human. So CJ had been lucky in that regard.

  “It’s a compound fracture,” CJ told Aaron.

  Hopefully Doc could save his leg.

  Aaron closed his eyes.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” Dylan warned.

  “Yeah. I’ve had the drill as a forest ranger, since I’ve assisted in—” Aaron’s face contorted with pain. He smelled of it too.

  “Are you all right?” Dylan asked, wanting to do anything he could to help him through this until he could get real medical assistance.

  “No. But I’ve helped on lots of emergency medical cases, so I know what I have to face.”

  “Okay,” Dylan said. “We’ve got a team coming to pick you up. We need to get you sufficiently warmed up.”

  Bryan and Daniel returned to the cabin with the bear leg trap.

  “Good thinking,” Dylan said, though he’d planned to retrieve it once Aaron was picked up.

  “Hell, that’s it?” Aaron shook his head. “I heard someone out there. I thought it might be Jim—that maybe he was afraid to approach the cabin in case someone else was staying there. I went out to see if it was him and talk to him. I kept hearing the sounds of someone roaming around out there and saw a man’s tracks. The snow was deeper there. I didn’t even realize it until I stepped off, sank down into the snow, and the trap closed onto my leg. I heard a snap and felt pain a few seconds later. That was a horrible feeling. I tried to dig out around the trap, to see if I could free myself, but I kept passing out from the pain. I called out over and over again, but whoever it had been didn’t come to my aid. I knew unless you guys, Jim, or possibly the asshole trapper were about, I wasn’t getting out of there. Unless someone else just happened to come along, and I didn’t think that was likely.”

  “We’re glad we returned here,” Dylan said.

  “Me too,” Aaron said.

  Dylan heated up some more broth for Aaron. “Are you feeling a little warmer?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. The fire, all these sleeping bags, and the heated beef broth are helping. I take it if you’re here, you haven’t found Jim yet,” Aaron said.

  “Not yet. But we’re also looking for the trapper who’s setting the illegal traps,” Dylan said.

  “I sure as hell would be too, but it looks like I’m going to be out of commission for a while,” Aaron said.

  Dylan had mixed feelings about staying here. He wanted to see that Aaron arrived home fine and came out of surgery without any problem. He wanted to be with Roxie tonight.

  They made their grilled cheese sandwiches, ate, and made sure Aaron had enough to drink and fed him some more beef broth.

  Two hours later, they heard snowmobiles off in the distance. It appeared Aaron’s medical team was nearly here.

  CJ went outside with his flashlight and waved at the men coming for Aaron.