Movement by one of the trees made Tom raise his rifle as Elizabeth turned to see who it was.
“Brett,” Tom said, sounding surprised, despite having assumed that one of his cousins was nearby.
Brett was wearing a white parka and ski pants that made him blend in with the snow, with only a hint of dark bangs showing beneath the hood of his coat and dark brown eyes. He studied Tom, waiting to see his response. He had Tom’s stern jaw, and she wondered if when he smiled, his expression would be similar to Tom’s.
Bjornolf and Anna came behind Brett, weapons pointed at the ground.
“We were watching him,” Bjornolf said, “while he listened to the two of you talk. I didn’t know what was going on until I realized you knew he was there.”
“Thanks, Bjornolf, Anna,” Tom said, then turned his attention on his cousin. “Where are your brothers?”
“They’re not here. We spread out so that we won’t get caught in a cluster. We knew you were searching for us, so we split up. We’ve been trying to find the damned wolves scaring the livestock. It wasn’t us. But we knew you’d suspect us first. We’ve tried damned hard to find the bastards and turn them over to Darien.”
“Why did you keep CJ out of this?” Tom asked, sounding suspicious.
“Hell, Tom. You know him. The minute he left the pack, he regretted it. He had his own ideas about how to get back in with the pack. Took us a lot longer to come to terms with everything. We know Darien had no other choice, but still…” Brett took a settling breath. “You’re still family, our pack. We knew the farmers would hunt any wolf, and one of our people could be killed. We had to hunt the rogue wolves down ourselves. Prove that we weren’t anything like our dad.”
Elizabeth felt all misty-eyed again.
“All right, say I take your word for it. But CJ said he overheard Eric talking to the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth. Did you know about that?”
Brett creased his forehead. “No, Eric never told us what they talked about. But I suspected that guy was up to no good.”
“Do you have any clues?”
Brett snorted. “They’re red wolves. They use hunter’s spray. We saw the three of them clustered in the distance, spooking some calves. They’re big wolves, but they’re definitely reds. We took chase, but they disappeared into the mountains. Easy to do when we couldn’t scent them.”
“You wore hunter’s scent camouflage, too,” Tom accused.
“Hell, yeah. If we hadn’t, you would have only smelled our scents at the farms. That would have assured you we were the culprits.”
“What now?” Tom asked.
“I’ll go into town. Settle the score with Darien. Where’s CJ?”
“Injured, leg trap. Doc’s taking care of him.”
Elizabeth saw the concern wash over Brett’s face.
Tom turned to Bjornolf and Anna. “Take him into town, will you?”
“What? I’m being treated like a prisoner?”
“Let’s just say that until Darien has a talk with you, this is the way it’s going down.”
Brett shook his head. “So who are you?” Brett asked Bjornolf. “I’ve never seen the two of you in the pack before. Leave for a short time and everything changes.”
“Sheriff Peter Jorgenson’s brother, Bjornolf.”
“He’s a retired Navy SEAL,” Anna said.
“Damn, I didn’t know Peter had a brother who was a SEAL. I thought you were trouble.”
“I am—for the bad guys.”
Brett chuckled, but Elizabeth thought the amusement was a little strained. “Didn’t know they sent you guys on missions like this.”
“I owed Peter big-time for not keeping in touch. See you later,” Bjornolf said to Elizabeth and Tom, and the three of them headed back through the woods in the direction of the town.
“He sounded sincere,” Elizabeth said to Tom, searching for new tracks, smelling the breeze, looking for any signs Brett’s brothers had been with him at some point.
“Could be. But why were the red wolves causing trouble for us?” Tom asked.
“The guys who kidnapped me were red wolves. I was able to smell them once their hunter’s spray wore off after we’d been flying for a few hours. They have to be the same ones.”
“If they’re the ones who kidnapped you, why would they want to harass our farmers?”
“What if they instigated the situation with the farmers to distract the pack from North and me? It’s clever, really. They created a situation that not only kept the pack occupied but made the farmers antsy specifically about wolves, thus making Darien want to limit the pack’s shifting,” Elizabeth said.