“What?”

  “I can’t quit thinking about it, but when the woman tried to pull me out of the water, I thought she cut herself on the ice.”

  Josh’s eyes widened. “Hell, you didn’t bite her, did you?”

  “I don’t know… I was thrashing around, trying to get out of the water before I lost all my strength to do so. But I smelled her blood when she applied some liquid skin bandage to her hand. And…well, I don’t want to leave things to chance. Especially when she can shift, if I turned her, since it’s the full-moon phase.”

  “Aww, damn, Maverick.”

  “I know. She was in her own tent, so it didn’t appear she had a significant other, but he might have stayed home. The one guy was her brother, so she has family. I just have to know if she’s one of us or not.” Which meant he had to get close enough to her to smell her scent. She had smelled like she was only human earlier, but if he’d bitten her, it could take a while for the change to occur, and then she would smell like a wolf. “You need to take the reindeer home. We have the show to do with the pack. The ranch hands can assist you.”

  “No turning into your wolf,” Josh warned him.

  “No. I’ll set up camp with just the small tent, and when they’re on the hike tomorrow, I’ll track them and see if I can smell her scent—just to make sure she’s still human. But if she has a wolf scent now, I’ll have to deal with this.” And hope that she didn’t shift around her brother and friends, which could be a disaster. “I’ll keep watch for the reindeer too.”

  “You’re not going to interact with the campers.”

  “No, not unless I have to. If she’s not one of us, it will be no big deal. If she is, then I’ll have to come up with a plan.” Maverick had been looking forward to a nice hot shower at the guest house at the ranch. He wished he had a she-wolf in his life, but he was glad Josh had retired as a police detective, and when he wasn’t helping Brooke with her antiques shop, he was assisting Maverick with the reindeer ranch like he used to do when he had time off from police work.

  “You won’t change into your wolf?” Josh asked again.

  “No. I’ll be strictly human.” Maverick knew his brother didn’t want to let him do this on his own, but they had to move the reindeer back to their ranch. “I’ll keep in touch with you the whole time. I’ve got the satellite phone and my cell phone with me.”

  Josh began helping his brother repack, giving him the extra food supplies, water, and another camping blanket.

  “I can turn wolf if I need to get warm.”

  Josh frowned at him. “You assured me you wouldn’t shift.”

  “Only in my tent, if I’m cold. Otherwise, no, I won’t shift.”

  “What are you going to do if you learn she’s one of us?”

  “I told you, Brother, I’ll have to wing it. If she’s a wolf like us and I try to talk to her, she’ll probably recognize my scent as Shep, the German shepherd. I could see things really getting out of hand. It would be hard enough trying to explain all this to someone who’s alone, but when she’s got a brother and a couple of friends who are werewolf hunters with her? So, yeah, I really don’t know. I’ll just have to figure it out as I go. Though she might think I’m Shep’s owner and that’s why I smell like him.”

  “If that’s the case, maybe you can get to know her better, tell her your brother took Shep home with the reindeer, thank them for saving him if they mention it.”

  “Okay, that sounds good.” Josh was always a great sounding board for Maverick. He gave Josh a hug. “I’ll keep in touch. I’m off to set up camp. Early in the morning, before they take off, I’ll try to learn what I can about her.”

  “All right. Be careful.”

  “I will be.” But all Maverick could think of was what he was going to do about having turned Gina if he had. They had to watch out for newly turned wolves. A newly turned wolf had to sever ties with family and friends. They had to be among their new kind. Did she work? Have other family? A boyfriend? Lots of other friends? It could be a real nightmare.

  Maverick returned to the place he and Josh had set up their campsite, erected the one-man tent, and got some sleep before he began the next phase of his new mission, which he knew was going to be fraught with missteps and could be deadly, given what Weston’s other friends had done back in Maine to the werewolves they found there.

  ***

  Gina woke to hearing something scratching around her tent. A raccoon, she thought, and instantly she saw that Shep was no longer sleeping beside her. She glanced at the tent zipper, thinking she’d forgotten to zip it up last night, but she hadn’t. It was still zipped. How had he managed to leave her tent?

  Maybe he’d woofed without waking her to let everyone know he had to relieve himself, and one of the guys had let him out. But why hadn’t Shep returned? Maybe he had left to find his real family. She felt disappointed, saddened even that he was gone. Then again, maybe that was the sound she had heard—not a raccoon but Shep.

  She yanked on her boots and parka. Pulling the zipper to the tent flap up, she peered into the dark and saw a raccoon digging around the camp. A flashlight should scare him off. Once she grabbed hers and shined it in his eyes, he took off, and she didn’t see any sign of the dog. She sighed and glanced at her watch. It was only two in the morning, and the moon was peeking out from behind a cloud. Stars were sprinkled across the dark night, and she realized that with all the excitement, she’d forgotten to take pictures of the night sky. But she was so tired, she just turned off her flashlight, looked again at the campsite, making sure the furry little raccoon hadn’t come back, and then zipped up her tent.

  She removed her parka and boots, curled up in her sleeping bag, and stared at the place where the dog had slept. She frowned. The tent should have been totally black as dark as it was out. In fact, when she had first seen the raccoon, she hadn’t even had the flashlight in her hand. She crawled out of her sleeping bag and unzipped her tent, peering out into the night. She could see the other tents, the trees, the ring of stones for the fire, as if the light from the campfire and the lanterns was still lighting the way. Glancing at her watch again, she figured it wasn’t working right—again—and it had to be nearly dawn.

  It was a dive watch, but maybe when she reached into the frigid lake to try to save the dog, the cold water had affected it. She noticed that the cut on her hand was completely gone. Weird. She zipped her tent back up, returned to her sleeping bag, closed her eyes, and fell back to sleep no matter what time of night—or early morning—it was.

  Until she felt at some point that she was burning up with a fever. She unzipped her sleeping bag and laid on top of it. But she was still so hot, and she knew she had to remove her clothes at once to cool down the fever racing through every bit of her. She yanked off her sweatshirt followed by her socks and sweatpants. Then suddenly, she was standing on her sleeping bag, feeling perfectly fine, her temperature stabilized—comfortable, not cold or hot. She curled up on her sleeping bag and started dreaming of being a dog, running through the woods, smelling the pines and fir trees around her, the campfire, the chili and cocoa they’d had.

  Then sometime later, she felt the heat fill her whole body, the fever renewed. She was panting, hot, then suddenly chilled to the bone, tugging her sleeping bag around her, trying to get warm.

  Something snapped, as if someone had broken a stick close to her ear, finally waking her. She sat up in her sleeping bag. Ohmigod, when had she pulled off her clothes? She glanced at her watch. Five. So it was working to an extent. Then she got out of her sleeping bag, searched through her backpack, and grabbed a change of clean clothes. Cold, cold, cold. She hurriedly dressed, pulled on her boots and parka, and then headed outside with her flashlight. But she hadn’t even turned it on, and she could see everything. Her watch was playing tricks on her.

  She took care of business and then returned to the campsite and began building a campfire.

  Patterson emerged from the tent armed with a flashlight and lantern. “Hell, what are you doing up so early? And why are you building a campfire in the dark?”

  “It’s not that dark out. I can see perfectly fine. My watch isn’t working. What time is it?”

  “It’s twenty minutes past five. And it’s dark as can be out here. What does your watch say?”

  “The same thing.” So she guessed her watch was working okay, but she couldn’t understand how he thought it was dark out.

  Patterson left the lit lantern for her and took off to do his business, focusing the flashlight on the path he was taking, even though she realized she had seen just fine on the path without a light.

  Her brother emerged from his tent with his flashlight on, frowning at her. “Why are you up so early?”

  “How are you feeling after falling into the lake? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but I could have slept for another couple of hours.” He ran his hand through his disheveled hair. “We never get up this early.”

  “I’ll have the fire going and the coffee ready in no time.” She just couldn’t wake up enough to get a move on though, like she was moving in slow motion, as if she’d barely had enough sleep last night.

  He grumbled under his breath, “You could have done that at seven.” Then he took off through the woods.

  At least her brother seemed to be fine this morning after the chilling lake accident. She was glad for that, though he could be a grouch before his first cup of coffee, especially if he had to get up earlier than he normally did. That was the thing about his job as a software engineer—he worked from home and had flexible hours. So did she as a freelance zoologist and she didn’t have any assignments right now, which was why she was on the hike with her brother and his friends.

  Bromley was the only one still sleeping in his tent. She swore he could sleep through anything.

  She finally finished making the fire and sniffed the air. More snow was coming. Then she started the water for the coffee, and Patterson came back from his trek through the forest carrying more wood for the fire. Finally, Bromley unzipped his tent, grunted, and headed into the woods.

  Her brother returned, and she said, “Okay, so who let Shep out of my tent?”

  “Not me. Once I was cozy in my sleeping bag after being so chilled from the dip in the lake, I didn’t leave my tent until you saw me this morning,” Weston said.

  “Me either,” Patterson said.

  Bromley was just coming back from the woods. “What did I miss? And why is everyone up so damn early?”

  “Who let the dog out of my tent?” Gina got a cup of coffee, and the men followed suit.

  “Not me. I slept soundly until I smelled the coffee brewing.” Bromley began to make the eggs and bacon for breakfast. He grumbled about making breakfast in the dark.

  She sighed. “Okay, someone let him out, unless the dog was extremely talented and could unzip the tent by himself and left.”

  The men all smiled at her.

  “You walk in your sleep when you’re overly tired,” Weston said. “You must have done it yourself and don’t even remember it.”

  Maybe she had. Only rarely did she recall when she walked in her sleep. Her parents or her brother had witnessed the times she had and told her about it, or she wouldn’t have known about the other cases. But she was kind of scared to think she might sleepwalk in the forest in the middle of the night while they were on a campout and lose her way or come upon a predator. Talk about a rude awakening.

  “The dog probably needed to pee, you let him out, and then you zipped the tent back up. You fell fast asleep, and he took off to find his owner,” Patterson said.

  She hoped that’s what had happened and that he had found his way home.

  Chapter 3

  Maverick had traveled in the dark early to reach Gina’s campsite and saw her making the campfire before dawn. It hadn’t been a good sign. As a human, she would have to have had a lantern or flashlight to aid her. She didn’t even seem to notice that she was working in the dark without light.

  He had wanted to approach her in the worst way, to smell if she had her own unique wolf scent that would verify she was one of their kind—and that he had made her that way. He was sorry for that. But if he had approached, he figured she would have screamed at the sight of him emerging from the dark woods. Then Patterson had left his tent, so Maverick had stayed put, silently watching them. Patterson was a giant of a man, and Maverick thought they didn’t need to look any further for Bigfoot.

  What else could Maverick have done but secretly observe them? He didn’t know if they were armed with weapons. They could have seen him as a threat, coming out of the dark to greet them.

  When Patterson had left the camp, Weston had come out of his tent. Maverick had moved away from their camp, still shrouded in darkness except for the campfire Gina had started and Patterson’s lamp. After a short while, everyone had gathered around the campfire to have breakfast.

  “I can’t believe we’re up so early. It will be dark for another hour and a half,” Bromley had said, serving up the breakfast.

  Maverick had had a granola bar on the hike back to their camp. The eggs, bacon, and coffee had smelled really good to him.

  He’d noticed Gina had been asking about the time, unable to figure out why it was so light out, and he suspected she was a wolf now. Then she had been asking if any of the men had let Shep out of the tent, and luckily her brother had come up with a legitimate reason—she was a sleepwalker and had let him out herself. Not that it was a really good thing. What if she could shift into a wolf in her sleep and then sleepwalk? Maverick had never known anyone who sleepwalked, so he was unsure what that would mean.

  ***

  After breakfast, Gina and her friends packed up and then continued their search for Bigfoot and werewolves, but what she saw had her detouring from the rest of the party—Shep’s paw prints in the snow and the smell of his scent.

  “Where’s Gina?” Weston called from some distance away.

  “Over here.” She was surprised her brother wasn’t with her, looked around, and saw that she was on her own. But she kept moving, wanting to find Shep in the worst way. She wasn’t going to find Bigfoot or werewolves, but if she located Shep, she could put him on a short rope and take him home with her at the end of this trip. So much for letting him run on his own. She was too worried about him.

  From farther away, Weston called out, “Gina!”

  “Over here!” She wasn’t giving up her pursuit of Shep. If she discovered the dog was with his owner at a campsite, she’d feel a whole lot better about it.

  Patterson and Bromley called out, “Gina!”

  But their combined voices were such a distance away, she realized they had no idea where she was. Damn it. Why couldn’t they hear her when she could hear them perfectly well? She was shouting as loudly as she could. She didn’t want to stop tracking Shep.

  She sighed and then started running through the woods to where the men were, and after several minutes, she finally found them.

  “There you are,” Weston said, relieved but annoyed too.

  “I thought you’d come to me when I called out to you, but you sounded like you were getting farther and farther away,” she said.

  “We couldn’t find you at all. We didn’t hear you respond or anything,” Weston said, frowning at her, worried.

  “I heard you, and I was calling out in response. Come on. I found Shep’s paw prints in the snow. I want to learn where he’s gone to. If he found his family, I want to know it. Otherwise, I’m taking him home with me,” she said.

  Weston shook his head.

  “Hey, I always come with you on these hikes, and I love to do it, but this time I have something I really want to track and for a good reason. So are you coming or not?” Gina was not giving up her pursuit of Shep no matter what. Though she would prefer her brother and their friends to stay with her, for safety concerns. She could imagine getting lost, and then who would save her?

  “Maybe the dog is tracking werewolves or Bigfoot,” Patterson said. “Let’s go.”

  She really did like Patterson. Not in a boyfriend way, but he always stuck up for her when she needed her brother to see things her way.

  “Well, that way is as good as any other,” Weston said, and Bromley agreed.

  Then they headed back the way she’d come, though they didn’t seem to have any clue where she was going. She knew exactly how to get there. She could smell her scent all the way back to the path she’d been on while tracking Shep. And she’d left her own footprints in the snow.

  When she reached Shep’s tracks, she smelled his scent again. “This way.”

  “You know those paw prints look like a wolf’s,” Weston said, studying them more closely.

  “They’re Shep’s tracks.” She could smell him.

  “You’re right, Weston,” Bromley said. “Those are wolf tracks. Look at the spread and gait. And look, over here, there are more wolf tracks. Two joined up together, right here.”

  She smelled a second—well, dog, she thought. Shep and another. Then she frowned. “Do you think Shep was a wolf?” Ohmigod, she had slept with a wolf?

  “Hell, maybe,” Weston said. “Here I rescued a wolf in the lake.”

  “I carried him across the ice,” Bromley said.

  “And I carried him into Gina’s tent last night,” Patterson said.

  “It was getting dark last night, and who would have thought the dog was a wolf?” Bromley said.

  “Or these could be wolf prints and not Shep’s,” Weston said.

  No, she smelled Shep’s scent in the vicinity, no other canine, clear as day. “I think you might be right and Shep isn’t a German shepherd after all but a wolf.” Shivers ran up her spine at the thought that she could have been petting a wild wolf that might have bitten her. She glanced at her hand where Shep had cut it with his tooth. The bloody cut truly was completely healed.