Silence of the Wolf(78)
“Maybe your uncle or half brother planned to get rid of you and pin the blame on him. Maybe he was set up to get in touch with you in the first place.”
“Like they made the evidence available to him to lure me here.” Great. She loved being her uncle’s pawn. Not.
***
Early the next morning before Tom or Elizabeth had awakened enough to realize the sun would soon rise, someone banged on the front door, giving Tom a near heart attack. He yanked on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, grabbed the rifle, and hurried for the bedroom door, hoping to hell it was someone from their pack and not the rest of his cousins, if they meant to cause trouble.
Elizabeth whispered, “Not CJ’s brothers.”
“I don’t know. Stay here.”
He entered the living room and crossed the floor to the front door.
CJ had raised his head off the sofa bed, looking anxious.
“Just stay there and don’t move,” Tom warned him. Not that CJ would, being handcuffed to the sofa leg and at a distinct disadvantage with his broken leg.
Tom looked out the peephole first and grinned to see Kemp and Radcliff standing on the porch, stomping on the snow and rubbing their gloved hands.
“Just a minute!” To Elizabeth, Tom hollered over his shoulder, “Ski patrol’s here!”
Chapter 23
Tom jerked open the door and let Kemp and Radcliff in. Both men grinned at him, snow clinging to the fur around their hoods. He smelled the fresh, crisp air and pine on them.
“I didn’t hear you coming. No snowmobiles,” Tom said.
“We used snowshoes. Quieter. We could hear any trouble in the area.”
“Am I damned glad to see you,” Tom said.
Kemp slapped Tom on the shoulder with warm regard. “Darien asked for volunteers to see if you were here. Glad you were instead of stuck someplace else in this weather.”
Radcliff entered the cabin and shut the door and locked it. “No coffee on yet? Blizzard hit town hard. Everything is snowed under. Electric lines and trees are down. So we’ve had a time of it there, too, and—”
They all caught a glimpse of Elizabeth pulling on a sweatshirt as she rushed to shut the bedroom door, her cheeks crimson.
Kemp and Radcliff stared at the bedroom door, their jaws hanging open.
Tom said, “How about one of you getting the fire going again? The other can get some coffee water ready. I’ll be right back.”
“Need any help?” Kemp asked. “You make better coffee than I do.”
“That’s not what you said when you complained last time about my coffee-making ability,” Tom said, grinning. He knew the brothers would rather check on the she-wolf.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Kemp said.
“Yeah, I bet.” Heading for the bedroom, Tom motioned to his cousin and said, “Just don’t bump the sofa bed and jar CJ.”
Both brothers glanced at the living room. “What the…” Kemp said. He yanked off his jacket and gloves, tossing them on a chair, then pulled off his ski hat. “Here we worried all the way up here that Tom would be safe. All this time he had a real setup going. Though I’m not sure about CJ.”
Radcliff shook his head as he ditched his parka, hat, and gloves on the dining-room table and started the coffee. “This will be one for the history books on Silver Town.”
Tom knocked on the bedroom door. “Elizabeth, can I come in?”
Elizabeth opened the bedroom door a crack.
“Can you hand me the lockpicks for the cuffs?” Tom asked. Now that he had backup and CJ was still incapacitated, he figured he didn’t need to keep his cousin confined. Last night he’d hated to do it, but Elizabeth’s safety came first in case whoever wanted her came here to get her. Though he mostly trusted CJ, Tom hadn’t wanted him to open the door to visitors in the middle of the night while he and Elizabeth slept.
“Sure.” She hurried to get the picks and handed them to him. “We can go now, can’t we?”
“Yeah, we sure can. Just holler if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” She shut the door.
Kemp stood over CJ. “Looks like you had some trouble.” He got a fire started. “So what’s the dice with Elizabeth? And… him?” he asked as Tom removed the handcuffs.
“CJ caught his leg in a trap. We need to get him down to the hospital.”
“Has he been involved in the livestock situation?”
“No, I haven’t been,” CJ said, sitting up in bed, rubbing his wrist, and sounding tired and irritable.
Tom and Kemp joined Radcliff in the kitchen.
“I didn’t think she would be returning that soon. How in the hell did she end up here? Or… was that really the plan all along? To rendezvous with her?” Kemp asked.