That earned a couple of chuckles from the men who had been with her as she played the perfectly lovable but—according to Tom—disobedient dog.
“Okay, she’s with us,” Jake said, as if he was in charge instead of Darien.
Darien, however, looked to Tom to see if he was agreeable, which surprised Elizabeth. Why wouldn’t the pack leader just make the decision?
“I think she should rest up a bit more from her ordeal,” Tom said.
Elizabeth was about to say she’d go it alone if she could help—just to prove her worth because she was desperate to let the others know she really could be an asset to a pack and not just a liability. But before she could respond, Lelandi cleared her throat.
Everyone looked at her. Lelandi said, “She should go. She’ll be a welcome resource.”
Darien smiled at her. Elizabeth loved the way he treated his alpha-leader mate. Elizabeth couldn’t be annoyed with Tom, though. She suspected he was just worried about either her previous injuries or the possibility of one of the red wolves injuring or trying to kill her. She was a good fighter. She might not be as hefty as a gray wolf, but she had a set of wicked canines and was extremely wily, like a coyote.
“All right,” Tom said. “Our team should probably start at Mr. Winston’s, see if he knows anything, and then branch out from there.”
Darien nodded. “Tomorrow morning. We’ll have four tracking teams. I want everyone to report at regular intervals. Oh, and while you were gone, Tom, we met Peter’s brother. The guy’s likeable. I’ll give him that. He said he and his mate are not staying, that they’ve settled down on the Oregon coast with a gray pack out there. He just wanted to see his brother and have him meet his mate. But he did say he’d like to give us a hand with tracking down these men. His mate, Anna, also wants to help. They should be here any moment.”
A knock on the door sounded and Jake said, “Right on time.”
He headed for the door and returned with a man and a woman. Elizabeth gaped at Bjornolf Jorgenson. He was Sheriff Peter Jorgenson’s brother?
“Bjornolf Jorgenson?” He was just as hot as she’d remembered, only his burnt sienna brown hair was cut short this time, military style. His mouth curved up as he saw her, but a white parka hid his tanned muscles.
“Elizabeth Wildwood, I’ll be damned. You get around, woman.” He appeared to want to give her a hug, but he glanced at the feral expression on Tom’s face and just smiled a little.
“The two of you know each other?” Tom asked, mentioning the obvious and not sounding really comfortable with the notion.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth said, slipping her arm around Tom’s waist. He reciprocated by wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She hoped he would get over his newly mated possessiveness soon, but she didn’t mind for now. Then again, Bjornolf was an unknown to Tom. Not part of his pack. If it had been someone from his pack, he probably would not act as possessively.
“We worked together on locating a kid one time. The boy was autistic and had gotten separated from his parents on a campout. I was doing a story on Palo Duro Canyon, and Bjornolf was there for some reason. He never told me why. He scented what I was right away, of course. He was practically the only male wolf I ever met who didn’t act like he wanted to kill me. Prior to coming here.”
Bjornolf shook his head and slipped his arm around his mate’s shoulders.
“That’s because he reserves those feelings for me.” Anna had silky auburn hair tied back in a tail. Her eyes were a lovely shade of green, her smile infectious. She wrapped her arm around Bjornolf’s waist.
He laughed, leaned down, and kissed her. “Anna, this is my tracking partner, Elizabeth Wildwood. Between the two of us, we found the kid. Only he wouldn’t come to me.”
“You were a much bigger, badass wolf,” Elizabeth said.
“You were just a pretty red dog,” Bjornolf said, smiling.
“You’d better smile about the dog reference,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t know you were Peter’s brother.”
“I didn’t know you knew Peter.”
“I didn’t. I only just met him a few days ago.”
Bjornolf bowed his head a little to Tom. “Will you be on our team?”
Before Tom could say anything, Elizabeth said, “Yes. For old time’s sake.”
“Jake, Tom, Elizabeth, join me. I need to talk with you,” Darien said. “Sam, you want to fix Bjornolf and Anna some lunch? Make them welcome?”
“I’m on it. If… you’re discussing the teams,” Sam ran his hand through his hair. “Silva wants to go with us. With me. On… the same team. The… two of us.”
Darien smiled. “You got it.”
He waited for his brothers and Elizabeth to enter his office, then shut his door. “Lelandi wanted to sit this one out because she won’t be on the hunt tomorrow and is off to see to the kids. So, tell us what’s going on, Elizabeth. We’ve heard bits and pieces, but we need to know everything.” He took a seat in a chair in front of the coffee table where two love seats were situated.
Tom sat next to Elizabeth on one of the love seats as Jake sat on the other. Tom pressed his leg against her, unable to keep from showing his possessiveness, despite both brothers being mated wolves. It was just instinctual. He would have held her hand, but she was using her hands to explain her situation, family, what had happened to her up until now. So he just sat close, watching his brothers’ expressions, reading them as they listened to all that she had told him already.
Until she came to one minor point. North Redding.
Tom turned to look at her. She blushed.
“All right, so for once in my life, a red wolf was interested in me. But he couldn’t stand up to my uncle. He didn’t protect me from my brother or my uncle.”
Tom took Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed gently.
Elizabeth continued, “But he said he would give me evidence of my uncle and half brother’s involvement in my parents’ murders in exchange for me giving him my parents’ horse farm. I was willing to do it, since I didn’t ever want to go back there. All I want is to see my uncle brought to justice. Anyway, I called North the morning I left and there was no answer. I’m worried that Quinton might have learned North’s plan and gone after him. Or worst-case scenario, they deliberately let him find the evidence and are using him to lure me to them.”