Chapter 8
Slade was so glad that he and Sheri had made unconsummated love last night. They’d made love like that lots of times after returning home from dates. They couldn’t have stopped the urge if they’d tried. They’d seen movies, had dinners out, attended the carnival, sure, but really being together overnight, sleeping together, waking up to each other in the morning? This was damn nice. A game changer, Slade felt. They’d always just made love and then kissed goodbye because of their early-morning work commitments.
But now, they were still enjoying just cuddling in bed this morning and weren’t ready to jump up and head out to do anything. He loved this with her. He was ready to do this with her back home too for now and forever. She was sexy and sweet, sympathetic and sensitive when it came to how others felt. She was determined to solve her case mysteries, and in general, just so much fun to hang out with. Fortunately, she got his sense of humor, and he loved hers too.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. He loved relaxing with Sheri just like this.
“Hmm, this is so nice,” she said, stroking his arm.
“Yeah, I feel the same way.” If she kept stroking him like that, they weren’t going to get out of bed.
“I don’t know why we never stayed together overnight like this before,” he said.
“Work. But I’m not going to use that as an excuse again,” she said.
“Good, me neither.”
“We’re never going to have time to do anything if we don’t get up. Though I have to admit, I love this,” Sheri said, and then she finally pulled her covers aside and climbed off the mattress.
“Yeah, me too.” Feeling relaxed, he slowly left the bed. Then he hugged and kissed her. “But that was damn nice.” When she was asleep, he had slipped downstairs to hang the mistletoe up. He hoped she would get a kick out of it.
“It sure was.” While they were dressing, she said, “It’s time to make breakfast so we can go on a new adventure.”
“I’m ready for it.”
When they went downstairs, she saw the mistletoe hanging up with a bright-red bow and smiled. “Ohmigod, that is too cute. That wasn’t there before, was it? I can’t imagine I missed it.”
“Nope. I finally managed to sneak down here and hang it up.”
“That is so sweet and romantic. And it’s fresh. You had to have just bought it.”
“I did right before I picked you up. I wouldn’t have if only Hans was coming with me.”
She laughed, grabbed his hand, and pulled him under the mistletoe. Then she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulled him snug against her body, and kissed him. “You are a romantic.”
“I try to be.” He kissed her mouth softly at first, and then they deepened the kiss, his hands in her blond hair, loving the soft silkiness of it.
They finally broke free of the kiss, smiled, and headed into the kitchen. Sheri began scrambling eggs and peered out the window. “It’s dark out, but there’s a negligible wind and it doesn’t look stormy this morning.”
He started frying some bacon. “I hope it stays that way for the rest of the time we’re here.” Then he popped some bread into the toaster.
“Me too. Do you want to go on a wolf run first thing this morning?” She set the table, giving them each a Victorian-dressed Santa napkin.
He poured them both cups of coffee and added milk and sugar. “Yeah. A quick run and we’ll set up to go ice fishing?”
“That would be great. We can have fish for lunch, if we can catch anything. What if we find anyone else in trouble after last night’s storm when we go for our wolf run?” As soon as the food was done, she served up the bacon and eggs.
“Hopefully we won’t find anyone needing help or we’ll have to do the same routine as we did last night. One of us stays—” He brought over the toast, blackberry jam, strawberry jam, and butter.
“Me.”
They both sat down to eat. He smiled at her and buttered his toast. “You, so you can watch them or help in any way you can, and I’ll return to the cabin to get supplies.” He slathered strawberry jam on his toast.
“Good idea.” She crunched into a slice of bacon.
After they finished eating, they cleaned up, removed their clothes, each of them eyeing the other with interest, which couldn’t be helped! Then she shifted. He opened the door and was confronted with a ton of snow piled up outside. She leaped through the snowdrift. He joined her, closed the door, and shifted. It was still dark out and perfect for a wolf run. Stars filled the sky and a sliver of a moon lit the way.
Then they ran as wolves before the sun rose. They loved running through the fresh snow. If they’d gotten up around four this morning, they might have seen the northern lights again, but they’d needed to sleep in a little because of the late night they’d had—especially because of their extracurricular activities afterward.
More trees were down, and they had to watch for deadfall—trees that were dead but hadn’t fallen yet. But as wolves, it was easy for them to leap over or on top of the fallen trees.
When they arrived at the trail that they’d taken to find the men last night, they heard talking off in the distance. She woofed at Slade.
Yeah, it sounded like Trenton and Andy had returned for the gear they’d left behind before the sun even rose. They had to have been disappointed about having to leave early, not to mention being upset about their friends’ injuries and the damage to their camping gear.
Sheri turned around and headed back to the cabin. He smiled. He knew she wanted to help them, and they both raced off. They finally reached the cabin, and he shifted and unlocked it and they went inside. She shifted and they began to dress. “Rescue mission?” she asked.
“For camping gear this time?” he asked.
“Yeah. Let’s help them out. We need to shovel the snow off the porch too when we get back.”
Slade felt the same way about helping the men. With their wolves’ eyesight, they could see what the campers couldn’t in the dark. They finished dressing in warm clothes and headed out with an ax, a shovel, and a first aid kit, water, and protein bars, in case the guys didn’t have any.
Then they headed back out. When they finally reached the trail connecting to the Border Rogue Trail, Slade hollered, “We’re coming to help you all.”
Trenton shouted, “Is that you, Slade?”
“Yeah, and Sheri’s with me.”
“Hell, thanks,” Trenton said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Andy said.
Slade was glad they could help.
They finally made it to the campsite where they saw the two men digging with their shovels, trying to get to their gear buried under the snow, several lamps set up to light their way.
“We never expected you to assist us this morning,” Andy said.
“We were taking a hike to see what was going on out here when we heard your voices,” Slade said. “I’m surprised you’re here so early.”
“We worried someone might come across some of our gear and take it. Not only that, but we want to drop by Morgan’s home and bring him his things and take him a get-well gift and something for his kids for Christmas. We also want to give Lionel a get-well gift. He doesn’t have any kids though. There was no sense in delaying getting this done.”
“I don’t blame you,” Slade said.
Trenton shook Slade’s hand. “Well, thanks so much for helping us again.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How long are you going to be here on vacation?” Trenton asked.
“Through the end of the week,” Slade said, digging through the snow.
“Good. Hopefully, you won’t have any more issues for the rest of the time you’re here,” Andy said.
“That would be welcome,” Slade said.
“How are Morgan and Lionel doing?” Sheri pulled out a sleeping bag and two blankets from Morgan and Lionel’s collapsed tent.
“Morgan had a simple leg fracture. Lionel had bruised ribs. So he got away with fewer injuries than we were afraid he had. Though both will take some time to heal from their injuries,” Andy said. “We were going to call you about it after we finished packing this up and leaving here.”
Then they got to work on locating all the rest of their camping gear. With four of them digging and chopping away at the tree, they managed to get some of their camping equipment out. Their tents and Lionel’s sleeping bag were unsalvageable. They still had to take them out of the BCWA with them and dispose of them properly.
Morgan and Lionel’s sleds were still there, so Slade and Sheri helped the men pack up their gear on them. It took them a couple of hours to dig everything out, and once they were sure that there were no other items left behind, they finished securing their gear.
“We can’t believe you’re spending your vacation on rescue missions,” Trenton said, getting a drink of water from his thermos.
“You’ve become our favorite guys to rescue,” Slade said.
Everyone laughed.
“Well, we really appreciate all the help,” Andy said.
“We’re glad we could assist you,” Sheri said. “Where are you going to now?”
“To where our vehicle is parked about two miles from here. But we had a good night’s sleep at a hotel last night, so we’re ready to go,” Trenton said.
“That’s good,” Slade said.
“Where’s your dog?” Andy asked.
“Oh, she’s curled up by the fire. After taking her for a brief walk this morning to do her business, she wanted to stay by the woodburning stove,” Slade said.
“I don’t blame her,” Trenton said. “Oh, we wanted to mention something to you also. If we hadn’t had this unfortunate experience, we would have looked into something we came across and wanted to check out further. It was some kind of debris from something, but we didn’t know what. If you’re interested in trying to figure out the mystery, here are the coordinates.” He gave Sheri and Slade the location.
Slade made a note of it. “Thanks. We’ll check it out.”
“Thanks again.” Andy shook their hands.
Trenton did too, and then they headed out on the trail leading to the trailhead where they’d parked their vehicle.
Slade and Sheri took the trail back to the brT and headed to the cabin to get ready to ice fish. “I’m glad we were able to help them again,” Sheri said. “We can investigate whatever they thought they had found at the coordinates Andy gave us afterward.”
“Yeah, I agree. I’m glad too that we saw them. It brings us some closure and they appreciated our help.”
“I didn’t expect them to ask about our ‘dog.’”
“I know, right?” Slade gave her a hug. “I’m glad you didn’t mind me calling you a dog.”
“No, they had to believe that.”
Once they reached the cabin, they both shoveled off the snow on the porch. Then they got their fishing equipment out and hoped they would catch enough for a meal.
But Slade couldn’t help wondering about the debris Andy and his friends had seen.