“I’ve got it, Blake.” Landon put his phone and towel on a chaise lounge, then stripped off his shirt. He’d hoped that Blake would just leave, but his brother was still standing there watching for the swimmer to reappear.

  “You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you?” Blake asked.

  “Yeah, the swimmer’s in trouble. The guest shouldn’t be swimming after hours!” Landon wasn’t as annoyed about it now that he’d seen the rule breaker, but he didn’t want to let on to his younger quadruplet brother that a pretty woman was the reason.

  Frowning, Blake shook his head. “I mean that maybe he is having issues swimming.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  “Okay. I’ll check from the restaurant.”

  Great. Then Blake would see why Landon didn’t immediately take the swimmer to task or correct Blake about the sex of the rule breaker. Landon kicked off his sandals and walked over to the deeper edge of the pool, worried when he didn’t see the woman return to the inside pool. It was snowing like crazy out there tonight.

  He dove into the warm water and swam to the divider with powerful strokes and dove under to reach the other side to make sure the woman was all right and remind her of the rules. When he came up into the chilly air, the snowflakes falling all over his hair, he found the woman had…vanished.

  * * *

  Gabrielle had swum five laps the length of the pool before she figured she was tempting fate and a scolding and left. She felt good, having finally gotten over her fear of jumping into the pool in the snow. She knew her fear of snow and the water wouldn’t go away overnight, but maybe this would be a beginning.

  On the snow-covered patio surrounding the pool, she pulled off her white swimming cap, freeing her blond hair, and shoved the cap into her bag. Shivering, she yanked her green sweater over her head and her bikini top, and then struggled to pull her skintight black ski pants over her wet bikini bottoms. She slipped on her favorite Christmas howling wolves socks and shoved her feet into her snow boots. After pulling on her red-and-pink-striped ski hat, she shouldered her bag. Even though she knew she had dressed quickly, it felt like it had taken forever. She was just not used to this kind of cold.

  At least she was well on her way up to the bar and grill on the crunchy, snowy walkway before anyone caught her entering the restaurant from the outdoor pool area.

  She took a seat in a booth as soon as she entered the warm restaurant where guests were sitting and eating while Christmas music played overhead. She loved the way the glass dividers providing privacy for guests had illustrations of wolves etched in them. White Christmas lights were hanging everywhere, making the whole restaurant festive. A waitress came to take her order, and she realized several of the staff at the lodge were wolves.

  The waitress, Minx, her name tag said, smiled at her. “We close in half an hour, just to let you know.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll just take”—Gabrielle quickly looked at the menu—“the baked potato, salad, and a medium rare T-bone steak. And a cup of hot chocolate. On the salad, blue cheese dressing, if we have enough time for all that.”

  “We sure do. I’ll bring it right out.”

  “Thanks.”

  Poinsettias and lighted red candles sat on each of the tables, which were covered in red tablecloths. It was the perfect place for a couple to have dinner, Gabrielle thought.

  She noticed a man watching her, and then he smiled at her. Another soon joined him and garnered his attention.

  “Did you find your swimmer?” the first man asked the newly arrived guy who looked so similar to him, they had to be brothers or cousins. They were both a little over six feet tall, the first one having light-brown hair and blue eyes, and the other light-brown hair and dark-brown eyes.

  At the mention that the brown-eyed man had been looking for the errant swimmer, Gabrielle felt her heart hitch and she turned to look at the view of the outdoor part of the pool from the restaurant. Had the blue-eyed guy been watching her dress outside by the pool while he was in the restaurant?

  Her whole body warmed with embarrassment.

  “Nah. When I reached the pool outdoors, there was no sign of the swimmer,” the other man said.

  Well, the deed was done, and there wouldn’t be any reason to talk to her about it unless she’d committed some major crime. She hadn’t realized the restaurant patrons could have been watching her outside in the snow dressing poolside, or undressing before that. At least right now no one was eating in the section of the bar and grill with a view of the pool. Most were sitting where they could watch the nighttime skiers on the slopes before the lifts shut down for the evening.

  The lodge owners probably had security cameras that would have caught her actions. But again, why look at them if she hadn’t really done anything bad?

  So who were these men? Part of the security for the lodge? She suspected as much. And she guessed the guy who might have seen her dressing wasn’t going to tell on her. She just hadn’t expected one of them to be wearing soaking-wet board shorts that were clinging to his wet legs. His hair was also wet, and even his T-shirt that indicated the name of the resort was damp and clinging to his muscular chest.

  The waitress brought her water, hot chocolate, a salad, and fresh-baked bread. Gabrielle’s stomach rumbled, she was so hungry. She began to eat her salad and buttered her bread.

  “Are you going to go swimming, Landon, or just drip water all over the restaurant?” the other man asked the one in the board shorts.

  Gabrielle hid a smile.

  Landon smiled at him a little evilly. “I’m swimming. See you in the morning, Blake.” Then Landon, who must have actually swum after her in the pool since he was all wet—but thankfully missed catching her—left the restaurant, and the one named Blake grabbed a cup of hot chocolate, smiled at her, and left too.

  Gabrielle sighed, relaxed, and enjoyed her delicious meal. After she finished her dinner, she was about to head up to her room when she got a text. Her jaguar friends were running late on a JAG mission they were working. They would see her tomorrow afternoon instead of tonight.

  Great. They were the reason she was here at all!

  Oh well, Gabrielle would run tonight as a wolf and then swim tomorrow, doing the things she loved anyway, and she wouldn’t have to snow ski for a while. Normally, she wasn’t afraid of anything…but falling down mountains in the cold, wet snow? It didn’t appeal. She couldn’t imagine how her friends had gotten into snow skiing, since they were jaguar shifters, but they loved the snow. Then again, with their catlike actions, she could imagine they would do well on the slopes.

  She sighed, paid her dinner bill, and walked up the carpeted stairs to her room on the second floor to ditch her wet bathing suit and dress in other warm, dry clothes. She carried a bottle of water for after her run and a backpack to stuff her clothes into when she was ready to shift in the woods. The backpack was white and would blend in with the snow. But she would bury it too, just in case, not wanting anyone to find it and steal it or worry about a missing person. She could find the buried backpack with her enhanced sense of smell as a lupus garou.

  Once she was ready to go, Gabrielle headed downstairs past the pool, though she glanced through the entryway to see Landon swimming with muscular strokes, his back, arms, and shoulders well sculpted, and she smiled, glad he hadn’t caught her swimming.

  Then she left the ski lodge and trudged through the snow past two beautiful two-story brick-and-stone homes, rustic but new, with white lights hanging from the eaves and around the trees out back. She headed for the tree line where she figured she could run safely through the woods on a snowy eve. She did briefly think about running into a frozen lake on her travels, but if she did, as a human or a wolf, she shouldn’t be able to break through the ice. Not as cold as it was and for as long as it had been cold in Colorado. A big Saint Bernard barked inside the first of the homes, peering out a glass door. It looked like the one that had been sleeping by the fire earlier tonight when she’d first checked in and had to stop and pet him, minus the barrel around his neck.

  Gabrielle moved a little faster through the snowdrifts, worried she might be trespassing in the houses’ backyards, though there were no signs or fences, so she couldn’t be sure.

  When she finally reached the woods, far away from any residence, she hurried to yank off her clothes, stuff them in her backpack, and bury the bag quickly before shifting. The shift warmed her body all the way through at once, and she felt better as soon as she was covered in fur, standing on four legs, and ready to run as a wolf. Then she tore off into the woods, wanting to howl her delight but stifled the urge. She didn’t want to alert any lupus garous in the area that she was running as a wolf in these parts if it wasn’t allowed, or if hunters were illegally hunting to rid the area of the wolf “menace.”

  She was running along happily, the glorious, waning crescent moon peeking through the snow-bearing clouds, when she came into a clearing and saw four wolves—three females and one male—frolicking with each other in the powdery snow until the largest one caught sight of her and stood still. The others all turned to see what the male had seen. Two of the she-wolves were lighter-colored with brownish masks on their faces, their chests white. The second female was a little taller than the other. The third female was more reddish, her face a white mask, her chest light-red. The male had darker brown fur and more black guards on the saddle on his back.

  But were they real wolves? Or lupus garous?

  Maybe a whole pack of lupus garous lived here. Gabrielle had smelled wolves at the lodge. The waitress had been one and so had several of the staff members; was it a wolf-run lodge? Had to be and that’s why so many of the decorations throughout the lodge featured wolves.

  Her friends had found this out-of-the-way ski resort in Colorado and thought they might even get some running in as shifters in the backcountry. Like she was doing now. But the lodge hadn’t been open to guests then, having recently been built when her friends came to Silver Town. Maybe the wolves at the lodge were all new to the area.

  One of the she-wolves barked at her in greeting. Okay, Gabrielle thought, they were some of her kind and not a wild wolf pack that wouldn’t want her in their territory. She exhaled the air she’d been holding in and breathed out a frosty mist.

  The other two female wolves barked at her, and she barked back to let them know she was safe to be around. The male didn’t respond, eyeing her, protective of the females in his harem, Gabrielle thought facetiously.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. Should she turn around and return to her backpack, shift, dress, and head back into the lodge? But then the three females approached her, greeting her in a wolf way, telling her they were safe. One turned her head, indicating she wanted Gabrielle to follow her and the others.

  Okay, so this could be fun. She hadn’t expected to come across any other lupus garous out here and she ran with them. The three female wolves began playing with her, and she hadn’t expected that. The male was a little aloof, but he might have been worried about making her feel uneasy. The way he had been running close to one of the females, Gabrielle thought he was with her, as in courting or mated. The other wolves seemed just as familiar with him, so maybe related? She couldn’t be sure.

  She’d been playing with them for about an hour, and it was getting to be about eleven when she felt really tired. She hadn’t gotten used to the time difference yet, and it was two hours later for her back home. She barked at them, telling them she was leaving.

  They barked and followed her until she reached her backpack and woofed at them to let them know she was fine.

  They woofed and she barked back and they hurried off to give her privacy, which she was glad for. She tugged her clothes out of her backpack with her wolf teeth, shifted, and hurried to dress. Cold, cold, cold. This was nothing like shifting after a run in Florida at night, even on the coldest winter days. Certainly, there wasn’t any snow to stand in.

  She finally finished dressing and trudged through the woods, past the two houses where the outdoor Christmas lights were still on. She could see the trail left behind by two wolves, the male and female she thought were mated. The other two females had left tracks to the house closest to the lodge.

  So they weren’t guests at the lodge, but owned the homes here in Silver Town.

  Just then she saw the man called Landon heading toward the first house, and he glanced in her direction.

  She mumbled “Hi” and hurried off as fast as she could through the deepening snow to the lodge. She glanced over her shoulder and found him still watching her.

  He had to be a wolf like the others. Was one of the females his mate? He seemed wary. She hoped he wasn’t putting two and two together and realizing she was the one who had been swimming in the pool, if he’d seen her face at all.

  She kept going and finally made it inside the toasty-warm lodge, where she saw a new night staff working the front desk and a man polishing the floor. Gabrielle stood at the entrance to the pool and eyed it for a moment. Tomorrow, before it was open and before the restaurant opened, she would go for another swim when no one would be watching the pool.

  She headed up to her room, eager to take a hot shower and climb into bed and sleep.

  The funny thing was that she never broke the rules anywhere, so why now? She hadn’t planned to do that until she realized the pool was closed because she’d arrived so late. But now, the business with Landon trying to locate her made her want to do it at least once more, to challenge him, to see if he would give up the search or if he would catch her—and then what? He had to be a wolf since so many of the staff were.

  She smiled. He’d brought the devil out in her, and only the jaguar sisters had ever done that!

  Two

  When he reached his back door, Landon was still thinking about the pretty blond who had greeted him in an almost reluctant way in the snow behind his house. As soon as he went inside, he saw Roxie and Kayla straightening up the living room where they’d been putting together a wolf-pack puzzle. They had just finished making beef stew for a late dinner. He was curious about the woman who had been trespassing in their backyard, though since they hadn’t put the fence up yet, anyone who wasn’t from Silver Town wouldn’t know that. “Did you happen to see the woman who just passed through our backyard, earlier while you were running as wolves?”

  She had been coming from the same direction as his family, since that was the way they always went running when they were out in the snow as wolves. Plus that’s where all the wolf tracks were coming from.

  “She was probably the woman we met when we went for a run. We didn’t see her shift. We were all playing as wolves when we saw her.” Roxie served up bowls of stew.

  “She was a wolf?”

  “Yeah. She witnessed us playing and we all stopped what we were doing, surprised to see a new wolf watching us. We greeted her to let her know we weren’t a danger to her, and she ran and played with us. She was a lot of fun. She’s not from here, so she might be one of the guests at our lodge.” Kayla smiled. “She was all alone, about our age, maybe an eligible she-wolf? You missed out on going with us when you could have played with her yourself.”

  “I was swimming.” If he’d known his family had hooked up with a single she-wolf, he would have been there to check her out and forgotten about watching for someone else showing up at the pool. Though he had hoped to catch sight of the woman in the string bikini again. Still, someone just passing through Silver Town wouldn’t have made for a permanent friendship—as in courting.

  Kayla served the rolls and they sat down to eat.

  Roxie smiled. “I know you. You were making sure no one else showed up to swim when the pool is closed, after what happened earlier.”

  Landon smiled at his sisters.

  After dinner, he carried the dishes into the kitchen to clean up. “Dinner was delicious. Thanks for making it.”

  “You’re welcome,” Roxie said.

  He finished cleaning up the dishes and told his sisters, “I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.” But he couldn’t quit thinking about the woman in the candy-striped string bikini. He wanted in the worst way to find her in the pool—not only by sight, but to actually catch her. He was a wolf at heart, but hell, when did he lose sight of his mission that fast?

  After he’d showered and gone to bed, all he could think of was the woman diving under the water like a mermaid and then slipping under the glass divider and vanishing. As if she had escaped to the sea. He had desperately wanted to reach her while swimming—and he might have, if Blake hadn’t interrupted him! But if she was human, that wouldn’t be half as grand as if she were a wolf. And that’s what he had to know. Was she or wasn’t she?

  * * *

  The next morning, Landon was at the lodge early, taking care of guests who were looking for directions to town, gift shops in the area, eating places nearby. He gave them the brochures that Nicole’s parents had made up for them at their stationery store.

  While he spoke to the last guest about the Wolffs’ gift shop and shipping policy for purchases, Roxie came over to speak with him, wearing a big smile, and arched her brows. “You know the pool’s not open yet. But I heard a swimmer swimming across the length. Do you want me to tell the swimmer it’s closed for two more hours?”

  “I’ve got it.” Landon hoped it was the woman he had seen last night in the pool. No way did he want anyone else to get involved. Despite his need to tell the woman she couldn’t swim at this hour, he wanted to see her in the string bikini again. What could he say? He was a bachelor male wolf, and if she was a single she-wolf, he was going to have to rethink his notion that a guest couldn’t swim when the pool was closed. But just for her. And someone, like him, would have to be there swimming with her to make it officially all right. He figured his family would rib him mercilessly about it if that happened.