SEAL Wolf in Too Deep Read online

  Slipping a bit, Debbie hurried as fast as she could back down the hill to reach them with blankets and some dry clothes.

  “Let’s get them up to the vehicle. You can remove the baby’s clothes inside the car, and I’ll take care of Franny,” Allan said.

  “Okay,” Debbie replied, and Allan gave her the baby, then lifted Franny’s trembling body into his arms and trudged up the hill.

  “Need…to…turn,” Franny bit out.

  Yes, their double coat would help warm her, as would the shift itself, but then her baby would turn too. He could just see Debbie dropping the baby-turned-wolf-pup and screaming in fright.

  “When you’re in the ambulance, Franny. Just wait.” He spoke firmly, like the pack sub-leader he was, encouraging her but at the same time commanding her to do his bidding.

  At the car, Debbie climbed into the backseat, pulled off the baby’s soaking-wet pink fleece jumpsuit, and wrapped her in a dry blanket, while Allan struggled to remove Franny’s wet clothes. She was shaking badly from the cold, which was better than if she wasn’t shivering at all, but her skin was ice white, her breathing abnormally slow.

  Sirens in the distance told them the cavalry was coming. Thank God. He just hoped it was their ambulance and not the regular one.

  “What happened?” Allan asked Franny. He had to keep her talking and alert, keep her from shifting unexpectedly.

  “Red car—no accident.”

  Allan paused as he was trying to get a wool ski hat on her head, but she kept removing the blanket. She was either thoroughly confused or she really wanted to shift. Maybe a little of both.

  Franny looked on the verge of collapse as he pulled the wool knit cap over her head and removed the rest of her wet clothes. Then he wrapped her tightly in the blanket, lifted her into his arms, and set her inside the hatchback. There she was at least protected from the bitter wind. Debbie was holding the baby close. Both he and Debbie were also suffering from hypothermia. He felt his speech slurring, and he was having a hard time concentrating on what he needed to do next. But he had enough presence of mind to know not to shift.

  “Your daughter’s breathing and her heartbeat’s steady,” Allan reassured Franny, though he couldn’t know for sure about the baby’s overall condition until the EMTs took her to the clinic and had her checked out.

  Debbie frowned a little at him, and he realized he’d made another mistake. The problem was that his wolf senses were enhanced enough that he could hear, smell, and see things that humans couldn’t. Debbie probably figured he was just soothing the mother with a story. The truth was that he could hear the baby’s heartbeat. It was steady, which gave him a modicum of relief.

  The ambulance pulled up and the medics took over from there. Allan should have asked Franny more particulars about the accident, but he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he normally did in an emergency. Not that Franny could have responded with any real mental clarity, but it was something he should have done in a case like this.

  He and Debbie were shaking as hard as Franny from the cold, but the EMTs had already given them blankets too.

  “My…purse,” Franny said, her teeth chattering.

  “Anything else you need from the car?” Allan wished he could put on his wolf coat or his wet suit. He was afraid she had something damning in her purse with regard to being lupus garou, though he couldn’t imagine what. He didn’t want to jeopardize their situation if anyone else went to get the bag for her later. So he made the decision to go after it, despite how chilled he was.

  “Just…purse,” she managed to get out. “Front…seat.”

  Then again, the hypothermia might be the reason she felt she had to have her purse. It might have nothing to do with keeping their secret safe. Just more of a concern about her money, credit cards, driver’s license, and whatever else she might have in it. Hell, he knew of a case where a woman told her adult son to return to her burning house to retrieve her laptop. And then she was kicking herself for it afterward, wondering why she even had him do it. Irrational, sure, but people could do or say crazy things in a crisis.

  Still, Allan felt it was safer if he went back for it—just in case. “I’ll get it for you,” he reassured Franny.

  Debbie took hold of his arm. “You’re already suffering from hypothermia. Let someone else do it.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m already wet. We’ll get warm and dry real soon.” Their wolf pack didn’t have wolves working for the sheriff’s department, except for Paul and Allan as contracted divers. So they had to take care of their own. Not that he could let on to Debbie why that was so.

  At the edge of the culvert, he dropped the blanket on top of the snow.

  Despite already being soaking wet and chilled to the marrow of his bones, he felt even colder when he entered the water. But his faster wolf healing abilities would help him overcome this more quickly than any human responder could.

  He waded out, then dove into the submerged SUV, glad Debbie had returned to the hatchback to protect herself from the chilling wind. He pulled his flashlight out in case he needed it and to make sure no one would question how he found the purse in the dark. He was certain Debbie would be watching to ensure he would return safely.

  He located the black leather bag resting on the roof of the upside-down SUV and pulled it out. Fearful he wouldn’t be able to hold on to the purse in the fast-moving water, he clutched it to his chest and waded to the shore. Once there, he grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around himself, then trudged slowly up the slope to the waiting ambulance. He felt as if he were wearing wet cement shoes.

  “Thank you,” Franny said, taking her sopping-wet bag and holding it tightly to her body, as if it were her baby too.

  The EMTs shut the ambulance doors, but before the ambulance took off, a bark came from inside. Then with its lights flashing and siren blaring, the ambulance headed for the clinic as some of the sheriff’s men arrived at the scene.

  Debbie was staring at the ambulance as it drove away. “Did you hear a dog bark inside the ambulance?”

  “No.” A wolf, yes. Dog? No.

  “You should have let someone else get her bag, Allan. You’re not invincible,” she said, shaking hard as they sat inside the vehicle with the heat blasting them, a cold north wind sweeping across the area as they waited to speak to the police officers who had just arrived.

  “Well,” said Rowdy Sanderson, a homicide detective, his blue eyes considering the two of them, “why don’t you get into something warm and dry before both of you need hospitalization too. I’ll handle this until you can file a report.”

  “What the hell are you doing here? No dead bodies,” Allan said. He knew Rowdy was here because Debbie was.

  “Could have been,” Rowdy said, glancing at Debbie.

  “Thanks. We’re out of here,” Allan replied. They had to get into dry clothes pronto.

  Allan and Debbie were always on call if something came up. They had been finishing up some paperwork on the Van Lake murder case. A car had been found in one of the area lakes, and the driver had contusions that were probably not due to the car accident. More likely, the victim had been beaten and the accident had been staged. Allan and Debbie had been on their way to get lunch at the pizzeria when they saw Franny’s SUV upside down in the culvert.

  He still couldn’t believe it had been one of his wolf pack members. He would have contacted Paul and Lori with the news right away, but he knew the EMTs would let them know what had happened. He figured it was safer that way, rather than calling them in front of Debbie.

  “Why did you want them to go there instead of to the big hospital?” Debbie asked.

  “Franny’s baby was born at the clinic. The doctor there is Franny’s and the baby’s doctor.”

  “She doesn’t have a pediatrician for the baby?”

  “No. Dr. Holt is board certified in family medicine
and pediatrics. Franny trusts her.”

  “Okay, but I don’t think we should have canceled the first ambulance. I want to drop by the clinic as soon as we can change and get warmed up.” Debbie leaned down to pull off a boot, and then the other. She slid off a wet sock, dropping it on the floor, then struggled to get the other off.

  “Agreed. I can drop you off at your place, let you get a hot shower, dry your hair, and dress. I’ll pick you up, and we’ll head on over there.”

  The clinic took only lupus garous for long-term care. In an emergency, they would provide care for humans, stabilizing the patient so he or she could be sent off to the hospital in Bigfork. That meant human visitors rarely came to the clinic. The staff would have to be on alert when Debbie dropped by to see Franny and her baby.

  “Thanks, sounds like a good plan,” Debbie said.

  She pulled off her sopping-wet sweater and dumped it on the floor. This was the first time in the four and a half months they’d worked together that they’d had a situation like this—where they needed to get warm and dry pronto, and were too far from anywhere to do it quickly. He hadn’t expected Debbie to start stripping though. It was a good idea, but he just hadn’t predicted it.

  Next, came her black turtleneck. He was trying to concentrate on the ice- and snow-covered road, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw that her bra was purple-and-white polka-dotted silk. He smiled a little, never having thought of her wearing bright and fanciful underwear.

  She unfastened her bra and dropped it on the floor. He nearly missed the turn to the main road that would take him to Whitefish where Debbie lived. He really was trying to be a gentleman, but, hell, he’d worked with her for months, and lots of times when she was wearing a skintight diving suit, he’d envisioned what she would look like naked. Now she was stripping next to him?

  Not that this wasn’t essential to their—well, her—good health, but it was wreaking havoc on his libido, despite how cold and wet he was. He was a wolf, after all. But he was going to have a damn accident if he wasn’t careful.

  She used one of the towels they kept in the car when they went diving to cover her waist and another to dry herself off.

  Thankfully, she was concentrating on pulling on a dry turtleneck and then a sweater, too cold to notice him glancing at her. They always kept a couple pairs of clothes in backpacks in the car for diving and emergencies. She struggled to get her jeans off next and then wiggled out of her panties, which matched her bra.

  As soon as she’d pulled on the rest of her dry clothes, zipped her parka up to her throat, and tugged her ski hat on, she said, “Pull over. You’ve got to get out of your wet things too.”

  “I bet you say that to all the guys you dive with.” He pulled onto the shoulder and they switched places, the cold outdoors feeling even icier.

  She laughed. “If I were diving with Lou Messer, probably not. His brand-new wife told the sheriff if he paired Lou up with me, he’d be leaving the police dive force.”

  Allan smiled. “I heard she checks up on him all the time, wanting to know where he is, what he’s doing, and if he’s safe. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with her. If I did, I’d probably say something and get myself in trouble.”

  “Yeah, but everyone needs your expertise, so they’re stuck with you.”

  He laughed. “Stuck with me, eh?”

  “It can be a good thing. I still can’t believe you went back for Franny’s purse. The crew could have gotten it when they pulled her SUV out of the culvert.”

  “You know how women are. She was probably afraid of losing her credit cards, cash, driver’s license, no telling what. Maybe a special keepsake she was afraid might be lost.”

  Then it was Allan’s turn to remove his wet clothes. He moved the passenger seat as far back as he could to give himself more leg room and began the tedious project, his fingers numb with cold and the shivering impeding his progress.

  “Well, it was sweet of you, but too risky.”

  After he got a dry flannel shirt and wool sweater on and had yanked a wool ski hat over his head, he finally felt relief. Then he tugged at his boots, socks, and jeans. When he got down to his black boxers, Debbie said, “I figured you for white briefs.”

  “I figured you’d wear a white lacy bra and matching bikini panties.”

  “You looked!” But she was smiling when she said it.

  He chuckled and pulled on a pair of blue briefs, jeans, socks, and a pair of dry boots.

  All dry now, he was feeling a hell of a lot better. His hair was cut short, but Debbie’s was long. He was certain her wet hair was still making her cold, but the hat she wore would keep the heat from escaping in the meantime.

  He got a call on his cell and fumbled to get it out of the console, realizing then he was still feeling some of the effects of the hypothermia. The call was from Paul. He and the rest of the SEAL wolf team members still did contract missions together, but they’d put that part of their life mostly on hold while they raised families. The shared responsibility of raising lupus garou pups was all too important to a pack like theirs.

  Now wasn’t the best time to call because Allan was with Debbie, but Paul would know that. Which meant Allan was probably needed for a pack-related emergency. He worried that it had to do with Franny and her claim that the SUV sliding down the embankment hadn’t been an accident. With Paul’s broken leg still incapacitating him, Allan was taking up the slack.

  “Allan, we’ve got a problem.”

  “Okay. Just a sec. Debbie and I were just on a case, and we’re suffering from a mild case of hypothermia.” Which Paul would be aware of, because the EMTs who rescued Franny would have told him. But Allan couldn’t let Debbie know that Paul was aware of it. “We’re dropping by her place so she can dry her hair and get warmed up a bit and then I’m headed over to my cabin. Can I call you back?” Allan didn’t want to have to watch what he was saying.

  “Call me as soon as you can. We have a minor emergency.”

  “Will do.” Allan was dying to know what the emergency was—if it was related to Franny or something else—but he didn’t want to ask in front of Debbie and then have to make up some story about it later.

  They ended the call and he phoned the clinic. “How are Franny and Stacy doing?” he asked Dr. Christine Holt, glad Lori had found her to help establish a clinic for them. When Dr. Holt had delivered Franny’s baby, the whole pack had come out to see the new mother and cub. His sister, Rose, was pregnant with triplets, and they had thought she would be the first pack member to give birth. But then Franny and Gary had joined the pack. It was good to see new blood in the pack.

  “They’re in stable condition. Your partner didn’t suspect anything?” Christine asked him.

  “No.”

  “Good. Are you all right? The EMTs said that you went back in the water after her purse.”

  “Yeah, in case she had something important in there.”

  “Well, she pulled a piece of paper out of her purse, sopping wet, the ink all gone, but she said it wasn’t important anyway. She was so out of it, she just knew she had to have her purse with her. Both Franny and her baby will be fine. Her husband is here with them now.”

  “Good to hear. Debbie and I will be dropping by as soon as we can get dry and warm.”

  “Give us a heads-up when you’re on your way. We don’t have any other patients at the moment, but you never know when we might, and we need to make sure that Franny remains human.”

  “Will do.”

  “Take care.”

  Allan told Debbie about the condition of mom and baby, but not about the purse. He didn’t want her reminding him how he shouldn’t have gone after it.

  He was tasked with ensuring that all the new wolf pack members worked well together, but he also helped with any trouble the pack was having. He should have been interested in one of the lovely
single she-wolves, but he couldn’t get his thoughts off a certain sexy, kick-ass human. Some of it was because they worked together, but they also had a lot in common. They both loved to dive as a hobby, liked thrillers and Italian food, and read some of the same fantasy books.

  They had been on a number of missions together already—rescue diving for underwater casualties and search-and-recovery diving for evidence and bodies. And they were still trying to find clues in the Van Lake case.

  “I’m glad to hear Franny and her baby are doing well. Is there a problem at home?” Debbie asked.

  “Not sure. Probably some minor family issue.” This was the part Allan hated. He’d told her about his family, as far as he could say. That his mother and sister had taken Paul in. That he was like a brother to them. But Allan hadn’t been able to say much more than that. Certainly nothing about their wolf pack and their increased longevity. That had changed though. They were aging nearly the same as humans now, but they hadn’t figured out why. He and his family had lived for many years, although they didn’t look it.

  Trying to explain how eons ago he had run through a forest that once was on dry land and now was buried underwater in Lake MacDonald—and other such things—wasn’t an option. He had gone diving with her there just for fun and wished he could have told her about the time Paul and he had had a very close call with a bear, when the forest wasn’t underwater. She would never have believed him.

  “Hope everything’s all right,” she said, sounding genuinely concerned.

  The problem was that she had a cop’s way of thinking. She was curious and had good instincts. She could tell something was going on. He knew the longer they worked together, the dicier it would get. Paul had warned him, but what could Allan do? He didn’t want to ask for another partner when he really loved working with her, and how would he explain why he couldn’t work with her any longer?

  Anything he said might hurt her career. And he wasn’t about to do that.

  He sighed. Somehow he would just have to keep up the facade. That meant not letting on that he could smell things that humans couldn’t. She’d already commented on his remarkable eyesight when it was getting to be dusk and dawn.