Page 37 of Must Love Mistletoe

“Cinnamon rolls?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Cherry pie?”

“Could do.”

“What about gingerbread men?”

“I do like a new challenge,” she said. “Promise me you won’t go wandering off alone. Not even from the house to the barn to check on the horses. Not by yourself, you hear?”

“Who’s going to feed ’em?”

Fair question. “We both will. Together. Morning and night.” Which was how they used to do it, but she’d grown complacent of late. She who knew the dangers of smug complacency better than most. “Promise me you’ll be extra careful.”

“I promise.”

“A crossing-all-ten-toes promise.” She knew her kid. “And fingers. Even if the Caseys go out intheirpack to look for tracks, you’re not to go with them.”

“But,Mom.”

“No.” She was leaving no wiggle room here at all. “Promise.”

He had his father’s stubborn scowl, or maybe it was hers. “I promise.”

*

There hadn’t beena wolf pack in the valley for years, and the first thing Cal had done was phone Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to see if this pack was being tracked by GPS. Most of the wolf packs in Montana were. But they’d wanted information he hadn’t been able to give, like how many were in the pack and what the color mix was, and he only had rough answers. Somewhere between six and ten animals, sharing a mix of colors starting with gray. He’d seen them in the distance as they’d run the edge of the tree line. And wasn’t the purpose offancy GPS collars and tracking systems to let researchers know instantly where a wolf pack was? Why didCalhave to tellthem?

There’d been no livestock losses to report, so he couldn’t ask them to open an investigation.

He didn’t have a lot of confidence in them getting back to him with answers.

TJ had been downright excited at the prospect of having a wolf pack in the valley, but TJ lived several states away, so what use was he?

And call it a sixth sense, but when he and Jim had been moving those heifers along, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of being watched. Jim’s sled dogs had been on edge the whole time and Beth’s cows had never seemed happier to get through an open gate and head down the road toward the barn.

He’d waited until his brothers had brought the rest of the stock onto the flat, and together, they’d made short work of laying out extra hay and molasses and checking that the six-wire electric fence surrounding this main winter barn and paddock area was running strong. Not their first rodeo when it came to protecting stock from predators, even if this was their first wolf pack.

“You heading to Beth’s or Mom’s?” Jett asked when they were done.

Seth had returned to the Love Ranch. Jett’s Mardie and Claire were in town, and he’d offered to take first watch. Cal would then take the night shift.

“I’ll do mom.”

Cal’s protective instincts had always been strong. Now they were working overtime, but that was one less person to worry about. “I’ll see to Beth.”

*

“Mom, they’re here!”

Given that Cal and his canine companions had just stepped into Beth’s kitchen, and she was smiling straight at him, the kid’s comment seemed unnecessary, but Sam always had been the type to say most of what was in his head out loud.

Cal had recently begun to think of Sam’s chattiness as a sign of his happiness.

“I haven’t had time to drop the dogs off at my place and I didn’t want to leave them in the truck,” he said, by way of apology when Beth took one look at his dogs in her kitchen and raised an eyebrow.

“Sam, you’re on dog duty,” she said and rolled her eyes when her son pumped his fist in the air and then called them to his side. She pointed a fork at Cal. “And you’re a bad influence.”

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