Ben chuckled. “We all pretty much know each other, or at least know of each other. When I was a teenager, I remember how this guy from out of state decided to build a gas station and mechanic shop just off the main road. Less than a month after completion he was running back home, tail firmly between his legs. He’d inflate prices, use cheap parts, do half-ass vehicle inspections, and at times tell an owner that something needed to be fixed or replaced when it didn’t. As soon as those he hired from town figured it out, they quit on the spot. See, it’s hard to screw over your son’s teacher, or put the only doctor in town in a ‘repaired’ vehicle that you wouldn’t let your wife drive.”
“So you watch over each other.”
“Yeah. Of course, now that we have the ski lodge, that has extended to tourists as well.”
Holy crap! Willow had totally forgotten about the lost snowmobile riders. “Speaking of which, I take it you found your lost riders?”
“The riders, yes. The vehicles, no.”
Willow fidgeted with the top of her sweater. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“We found them about a mile off the road, walking in the wrong direction. They’d left the trail and, somewhere in seven hundred thousand acres of forest, managed to hit a fallen tree.” Ben’s irritation with the riders was evident, his tone on the sarcastic side. Willow could understand. A trail was safe, maintained. Known. The rest of the forest, not so much. It all started to look the same once you got in far enough. Willow would have been totally lost without Ben if she’d had to make her way back to the cabin alone.
Ben continued. “First two riders were thrown off, both bruised to hell and back, one with a broken wrist. Luckily they were wearing helmets or it could have been worse. The second driver managed to slow down enough to avoid a full on collision, but still did enough damage to make the vehicle undriveable. We’re going back out to locate the runners, but I wanted to call you first, find out how you’re getting along.”
Thankfully no one was in the room, otherwise they would have seen the goofy smile on Willow’s face. “I’m good. Really. It’s nice of you to call.”
“Nice only goes so far,” Ben’s voice lowered to a husky drawl, making Willow shiver with delight. “I really wanted to make sure no male strippers were there vying for your attention. I want it all on me.”
Goofy smile and shiver morphed into an all-out body melt. “Don’t be silly, Ben. There are no strippers.”
“And your attention?”
Willow wasn’t raised to be easy. If Ben really wanted her, he’d have to work for it. And for some reason she had the urge to tease him. “On the clock. Why are you going out tonight to look for the snowmobiles? Can’t it wait until daylight?”
A few second of silence passed while Willow wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have teased Ben, but then he laughed, soft and sinfully wicked. “Playing, Will? That’s good. That’s very good. I like to play, and I have a very inventive imagination.”
Willow nearly broke out in a sweat at his suggestive words. Ben’s tone insinuated his type of play involved naked bodies and her own imagination went wild. Dark swirls of heat and lust gathered low in her belly and she instinctively clenched her thighs together to assuage the building ache between them.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Good Lord! She was practically having phone sex!
Luckily Ben moved on to answer her question because she didn’t have a darn thing in her mind. “We don’t want to leave the vehicles out overnight because of the animals. And I should be able to track them within a few hours so it’s not that big of a deal.”
Willow glanced up when Kaylie walked in the kitchen, a huge bag of trash, aka wrapping paper and other odds and ends, in her hands. “Track them?”
When Ben didn’t immediately answer, Willow had the strange feeling he was picking his words carefully. “A tracker is part of the search-and-rescue job. We follow the clues people leave behind—a broken leaf, lost mitten, sometimes even a scentand use those to find the lost. It’s an extremely useful skill up here.”
She became sidetracked when Ben mentioned scent. He could follow a scent? Like a dog? Willow’s gaze shot to Kaylie as the other woman began moving the left overs to several thick paper plates, her eyes caught by the gleaming gold tip in the center of the tiered serving tower. It was a wolf, its face raised as it howled in silence.
“Or a wolf.”
Kaylie’s head popped up just as Ben said, “What?”
Feeling pinned between the two, Willow babbled, “I was thinking you should be careful of the wolves. Some seem so tame, like the one I’ve seen the last two nights just behind the back of the cabin.”