“I’ll have to check them out. You’re really okay with me staying here? I didn’t even ask if you might be seeing some guy. He wouldn’t like that a bachelor male wolf was staying here with you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there will be some bachelor males in the pack who are a bit envious. No one I’ve ever dated—not that I’m saying I’m dating you, mind you—has ever stayed with me overnight. And here you come along—”

  “I nearly drowned in your pool, for starters…”

  She smiled and dried the pan he’d just washed. “Yeah, you know never has a guy gone to such drastic measures to meet me.”

  “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

  She put the pan away and she pulled him in for a kiss. “Yeah, and I’m damn thankful you were okay, after the fact.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and began to kiss her like he wanted to keep her. She liked that feeling. Warm, glowing, the heat growing. Her heart was beating faster, and so was his. His hand moved to the nape of her neck and caressed her. She felt tingly all over.

  She tasted his mouth, felt the tenderness in his touch, and soaked it in. Ohmigod, she loved kissing him and him kissing her. She wanted to take him to the Valentine’s Day party and keep him even after that.

  But she had to get him dressed for the occasion and that meant taking him shopping. She placed a playful kiss on his nose. “Come on. If you’re up for it, let’s go and get you that tux before you change your mind,” Roxie said.

  He laughed. “No way would I change my mind about taking you to the Valentine’s Day party.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

  Then they headed into town in her car. As soon as she reached the town, she parked at the shop, Faye’s Formal Wear, and smiled. She could just imagine what everyone would be saying if they saw her visit the shop with Dylan.

  Dylan had never shopped for anything as dressy as a tux. As a special agent for the FWS, he worked mostly undercover, and dressy had never been his style. He was glad Roxie would be there to help him figure this all out.

  She introduced him to Faye Blackstone, a pretty redhead with shining green eyes. “She’s the owner and manager of the store,” Roxie said. “We need to find Dylan a tux for the Valentine’s Day party.”

  Faye was still staring at him, and she finally said, “You’re the man who almost drowned in the pool.”

  Roxie laughed. “He’s a special agent for the Fish & Wildlife Service, but everyone will remember him as the man who almost drowned in the pool.”

  Dylan smiled. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “I’m so glad you can take the ribbing so good-naturedly,” Roxie said.

  He got a kick out of the wolves of Silver Town. He really was having a good time here.

  Faye offered them pieces of homemade fudge and cups of hot cocoa. He thought that was a cool way to entice customers to buy even more. The chocolate fudge chock-full of pecans was out of this world. Dylan took a sip of the cocoa. Roxie ate some of the mocha-and-chocolate-swirl fudge. Faye encouraged them to try out the different varieties. After they had their cocoa and fudge, they washed their hands and then Dylan began to look through a rack of tuxes. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Roxie was pulling out white dress shirts and holding them up to eyeball them and him to calculate whether they’d work on him or not. “Any of these would work so that you can wear it to the more formal functions but also for more informal wear. You never know when you might need one.”

  He wasn’t planning on telling her he didn’t ever wear fancy white collared shirts to anything and ruin whatever image she might have of him. “Right.”

  “Do you have black socks?” She ran her hand over the socks.

  He smiled. “Nope. Not with me.” The ones he did have back home weren’t dress socks.

  She set a pair on the counter. “What about a bow tie or a tie?”

  “James Bond always wore a bow tie.” He smiled.

  The ladies laughed.

  “James Bond it is.” Roxie picked out a bow tie for him.

  Dylan was still undecided about a tuxedo as he poked through the ones hanging on the rack.

  Roxie started pulling dress pants off a rack and handed them to him. “You can try these on.” Then she began checking out each of the tuxes. She was pulling them off the rack, looking them over, and handing each of them to him that she liked. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to rush through the experience. It was more like she worried he would get exasperated if they took too long at this. Sure, shopping wasn’t normally his idea of a good time, but he’d never experienced having anyone interested enough in him to do this for him, and he had to admit, he really liked it.

  Faye was taking a phone call and telling a customer what she had available in the line of tuxes. So Dylan wasn’t the only one who needed one at the last minute. He was glad for that.

  This was a lot easier than he thought it would be while Roxie was the one picking them out.

  She found three waistcoats she liked and was about to hand them to Dylan, but Faye ended her call, took them from Roxie, and gathered up the dress shirts too. “I’ll put these in a dressing room for Dylan.”

  Before Faye could return for the pants and tuxes, Dylan and Roxie heard the doorbell jingle and they turned to see Lelandi bringing Luke in to get him a tux.

  “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here,” Luke said, eyeing the handfuls of pants and tuxes on hangers that Dylan was holding on to.

  “Yeah, you should never put off things until the last minute,” Dylan said.

  “That’s what Lelandi said!”

  Lelandi smiled. “I sure did. Why don’t you look at this rack, Luke? The clothes are more your size.”

  Roxie handed Dylan one more tuxedo. “That’s it. Why don’t you try them on and see which you like the best?”

  “Are you going to wait for me so I can model them for you?” Dylan had no idea which he would like the best. Besides, getting a second opinion worked for him.

  Roxie nodded. “Of course.”

  Lelandi helped Luke pick out some clothes. Then he rushed with the clothes into the dressing room next to Dylan’s to try them on.

  Dylan came out of his dressing room to model the first set of clothes and said to Roxie, Lelandi, and Faye, “What do you think?”

  The three ladies looked him over. “Love it,” Roxie said. “With black dress shoes, socks, and the bow tie, it will be perfect. Oh, and cuff links too.”

  “Yeah, that looks great,” Lelandi said, Faye agreeing.

  “Okay, great. So that’s it then,” Dylan said, glad that was over with.

  “Nope,” Roxie said. “This is an investment. I want to see them all on you.”

  This was going to take forever. Here he thought he’d be out of here in no time. Before Dylan could return to his dressing room, Luke hurried out, still buttoning his white shirt.

  “What do you think?” Luke asked Dylan.

  Dylan smiled. “You look like James Bond Jr.”

  Luke smiled and turned to Roxie and Lelandi. “Do you think this is all right?”

  “Yes,” Lelandi said. “You look great.”

  “I agree. Very handsome,” Roxie said.

  “I don’t have to try anything more on?” Luke glanced at Roxie as if she knew better than anyone about these things.

  “Nope,” Roxie said. “That looks perfect on you.”

  “Oh, wow, thanks. Be right back. Save me some fudge.” Luke rushed back into his dressing room.

  Dylan cocked a brow at Roxie, hoping he’d get a reprieve, but she waved him into the room. “They resell kids’ formal wear because they grow out of their things so quickly. What he picked out is perfect for him. He looks great in it. You will be keeping yours for other events so you need to make sure it’s the one you like the best,” she said.

  Smiling, Dylan shook his head and returned to the dressing room. He really liked the fit and style of the shirt and trousers, so he would just try on the other tuxedos and waistcoats. By the time he left the room to model the second tux, Luke was setting his new clothes on the checkout counter and asking Faye if he could have some fudge.

  Lelandi paid for his clothes and sampled some of the fudge too.

  Everyone watched as Dylan came out in his boot socks and the tux ensemble each time, but they all agreed that they liked the first one he had modeled best. Luke was grinning at him, as if he knew he had gotten out of having to do all that extra work for nothing.

  “You had to try all of them,” Roxie said, justifying her actions. “It’s so costly, you need to be sure it’s the right one.”

  “Yeah, I know. And you will too, Luke, when you’re fully grown and will keep the formal attire for longer.” As if Dylan thought he’d ever wear it again unless he was invited to another formal event down here.

  He still had to buy dress shoes and cuff links. Faye had the cuff links in her store so he picked out stainless-steel ones he wanted. He would have to go to the shoe shop for the dress shoes.

  Once he had made his purchases, he was glad everyone had helped him decide. He would have just picked out the first set of clothes he pulled off the racks. Though in retrospect, those were the ones everyone had liked best.

  Faye gave both Luke and Dylan a box of her fudge to go home with them. They thanked her for the fudge, and she thanked them for coming to the store and buying their tuxes for Valentine’s Day.

  “A trip to the shoe store is next, right?” Dylan asked.

  “Yeah!” Luke said, sounding eager to do this, which surprised Dylan.

  When Dylan was that age, well, if he hadn’t been running around in the wilderness when he was sixteen, he wouldn’t have been interested in shopping for dress clothes.

  They placed their packages in their vehicles and walked down to the shoe store a short distance from the formal-wear shop. Inside, they found shoes for men on one side, shoes for women on the other, and kids’ shoes in between.

  Luke and Dylan were soon trying on shoes, the women checking out the shoes in the women’s department.

  “So how are things going with you and the Silver family?” Dylan asked Luke.

  “It’s been great. The triplets were disappointed that I get to go to the Valentine’s Day party, but Lelandi said that was only for teens sixteen and up and they’d get their time when they are that age.”

  “Are you…” Dylan hesitated to say anything further while he was pulling on another shoe, thinking it might hurt Luke’s feelings if he was going solo.

  Luke looked up expectantly, waiting for him to finish what he had to ask.

  Well, hell, Dylan had started the conversation. He might as well finish it. He stood and looked in the mirror at the shoes. “Are you taking anyone to the party?”

  Luke smiled. “Yes! Everleigh Boatman. Her parents own the new movie theater, Silver Town Theater, and she is my age. She and her brother, Benjamin, are going to the party, but I get to escort her.” Luke beamed.

  Dylan slapped him on the back. “Good. Do you know how to dance?”

  “Lelandi is giving me a quick dance lesson. What about you?”

  Dylan smiled. “She might need to give me one too.”

  “You better hurry and do it. Valentine’s Day will be here before we know it.” Luke walked around in a pair of new shoes, made a face, and sat down to try on another pair. “Those pinched my toes. I like sneakers better.”

  “Yeah, I agree with you there. Or hiking boots.”

  Then they both picked out a pair of shoes and found the women had picked out some too.

  “Dylan said he needs dancing lessons too,” Luke joked to Lelandi.

  Everyone laughed. Dylan should have known Luke might bring it up.

  “I can teach you what you need to know,” Roxie said, “unless you want Lelandi to show you.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said, not wanting to admit he knew how to dance in front of Luke. “You can show me, Roxie.”

  Lelandi just smiled at him as if she knew what that had all been about.

  When they left the store with their purchases, Luke was talking away about the Valentine’s Day party, about skiing with the Silver triplets, about skiing with Everleigh when she wasn’t working at the movie theater selling popcorn. “I’m going to start working there too.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Roxie said.

  “Yeah, and Lelandi and Darien are teaching me to drive. They’re getting me a used pickup truck to drive to work and to the ski lodge once I have my driver’s license,” Luke said.

  It sounded like Luke was happy to be with the Silvers, and Dylan was glad about it. It was better that he wasn’t living with or adopted by the Boatmans, whose kids were his age, because it seemed Luke had really taken a liking to Everleigh.

  At their cars, they put their purchases inside and said goodbye to Lelandi and Luke, then headed home. Dylan was glad to get this done.

  “So you need dance lessons?” Roxie asked.

  “Lelandi is giving them to Luke, and I said she might need to give me some.”

  “To make Luke feel better about it?”

  Dylan laughed. “Yeah, and it sort of backfired when Luke brought it up.”

  “Well, if you need any, just let me know.”

  They finally arrived at her place and hauled their purchases into the house. “What did you buy?” he asked Roxie.

  “A pair of dress shoes to go with my dress so I can spend the night dancing with my date.”

  He smiled. He loved a challenge.

  Chapter 9

  That evening as Roxie and Dylan were preparing dinner, someone knocked on her door, and when she answered it, she was surprised to see Luke standing on her front doorstep, smiling at her and looking a little sheepish. “Uh, sorry, I left one of my bags on the other side of the bed. I thought I had gathered everything up earlier.”

  She swore he wasn’t telling the truth and suspected he wanted a reason to come back and see them. What if they’d been in the middle of something private?

  He smelled the aroma of beef stew cooking in the kitchen and said, “That smells good.”

  “I’d invite you to stay for dinner but I’m sure the Silvers already have plans to feed you there,” Roxie said.

  “Oh, they said I can eat over here if it’s all right with you.”

  “Are you sure? We have plenty of extra food for all of us, but I don’t want to upset the Silvers if they plan to have you eat with them. I’ll just give them a call.” Roxie wasn’t sure if Luke was telling the truth. He appeared to be anxious about things, and given the way he’d shown up here, she suspected he felt more comfortable with them, or with Dylan, in any event. Then she frowned. “Did they just drop you off here?”

  “Yeah, they said it was all right if I ate here,” Luke said.

  But he hadn’t made sure it was all right with Roxie! She got on her phone and called Lelandi. “Hey, it’s Roxie. I guess one of you dropped Luke off here to get his other bag.”

  “Yes, and he said you invited him for dinner.”

  Roxie sighed. “Okay, well, he’s certainly welcome to join us anytime, and once Dylan leaves, he can still come over to see me at any time he wants.” She wanted to remind Luke that Dylan wasn’t hanging around. But then she wondered if that was why he wanted to be here. To hang around here to get to know Dylan more because he was leaving soon.

  “I think he wants to see more of Dylan,” Lelandi said.

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “Maybe, if it’s all right with you, he can visit sometimes during the week. The kids want Luke to go skiing with them tonight, and he said he wants to. After dinner, he can head over to the lodge and ski with them,” Lelandi said.

  “Yeah, that certainly works.” Roxie thought Lelandi was a wonderful and caring pack leader. Luke couldn’t be in better hands.

  “Then Darien will pick them up from the lodge tonight.”

  “Okay. I’ll let him know. Thanks, Lelandi.” Then Roxie set her phone on the dining room table. “Serve up three bowls of stew, Dylan. Luke’s staying for dinner and then going skiing with the Silver triplets. But you know, Luke, you should really ask me if it’s all right first to come and have dinner with us.”

  “I was afraid you would have said no.”

  “I wouldn’t have. But we might have been going out for dinner or not made enough food for three. And you need to be honest with the Silvers and with us.”

  Luke took in a deep breath and exhaled it. “Okay. About the skiing…” Luke said, hurrying to set the table as if he wanted to show how helpful he could be since he got a reprieve from eating dinner with Darien’s family. “I wondered if Dylan could go too.”

  “No,” Roxie said, frowning at Luke.

  Dylan chuckled and Luke laughed. “Ohmigod, you two sound like you’re mated already. There’s hope yet,” Luke said.

  “He can’t go, even if he’d love to, because of his head injury. If he banged it again in a bad spill, it could have dire consequences,” Roxie said, pouring everyone a glass of ice water.

  “Yeah, she’s right, as much as I hate to admit it, or I’d take you right up on it. Roxie could even go skiing with us.”

  “Exactly.” Roxie sat down to eat with them.

  “But you might turn into a wolf?” Luke asked her before he began eating his stew like he hadn’t been fed in forever.

  “No. I should be good now since I was a wolf already this morning. But I’m staying at home for Dylan.” Roxie saw Dylan open his mouth to speak and she suspected he might tell her to go ahead and ski, but she gave him a look that said not to, and he quickly concentrated on spooning up some of his stew instead. Luke needed to be with the Silver triplets to have some fun if he was going to get to know them.

  Then Dylan said, “Yeah, just in case I feel worse.”

  She was worried about asking Luke how it was going with the Silvers in case he said he hated it over there, but she had to know if the reason he was here was that he was really unhappy being with them. “So how are things going with Darien and Lelandi and the triplets?”