Chapter 3

As a wolf, Gavin wouldn’t feel the cold like he did as a human. But he couldn’t remove his clothes right now and shift. Besides, as soon as he was in the raft, he had every intention of taking over the paddling so Amelia could strip and shift to warm up.

At least he had clothes in the dry packs that they could wear, plus two single sleeping bags—in case one got wet—a tent, a tarp, and food to keep them going until someone came and picked up Amelia. He still had a mission. He was damn glad he’d rescued his canoe. He looked back at the plane that could no longer be seen. It could still be just below the surface, but with the roughness of the waves and the darkness of the day, it was impossible for him to tell.

“Gavin, you’ve got to be freezing.”

“The storm’s coming in fast and furious. You know how they are. It isn’t safe out here with the lightning closing in on us. We need to take cover.” He was stuttering a bit from the cold. “How do you feel? Are you sure you’re okay?” She was cut up and bruised. As long as she wasn’t badly injured, she’d heal quickly with their enhanced wolf healing genetics.

“I’m good. What about you? You look a little banged up.” Amelia finally reached him and tossed him a rope.

He tied his canoe to the raft and then figured it would be just as difficult to climb from the canoe into the raft as it would be to jump into the water and use the ladder to climb into the raft. Since he hated to get into the cold lake again, he opted for showing off his agility skills—which, as cold as he was, were sorely lacking. “Nothing that won’t heal soon. Besides, I’m used to roughing it.”

With an arm and leg over the raft and the rest of his body in the canoe, Gavin struggled to get into the raft while Amelia steadied the canoe. In the middle of making the move, he wondered if he should have just pulled the raft behind the canoe.

Once he collapsed in the bottom of the raft, he said, “Go ahead and take off your clothes and shift.”

“No. You’ve been in the water far too long. You need to shift first.”

Gavin was going to argue that with the water temperature between 68 and 70 degrees, they could have lasted twelve hours if they were floating in the lake the whole time. Amelia picked up the paddle again and headed toward shore.

“All right. For a few minutes, and then I’ll take over.” He began to remove his clothes. He was having so much trouble untying his boots that she set the paddle down and began to help him. They finished untying the boots, and she pulled them off. She tugged off his socks, and then helped him out of his life vest.

Her fingers were numb too, and she was having trouble with his zipper. She finally managed to unzip his cargo pants, while he removed his T-shirt. Finally, he tugged off his cargo pants. “This life vest won’t fit right on a wolf,” Amelia said.

“I can swim without it if I need to.” Gavin pulled off his boxer briefs. He wasn’t planning on being a wolf for very long. Off in the distance, streaks of lightning struck the ground, and thunder boomed only a mile away. “We need to take cover from the thunderstorm. Maybe I should just skip shifting.”

“One of us needs to be a wolf to warm up. We can switch off after a while.”

He wanted her to warm up, so he’d paddle the rest of the way after he changed back. Between the cold-water shock to their systems, the terror of experiencing the plane crash, the struggle of pulling Winston into the raft, and all the paddling she’d already done, Amelia had to be exhausted. He was naked now and calling on the shift, feeling the heat suffuse every cell in his body, warming him like a hot bath deep inside. And then he was a wolf, his thick, double coat of fur able to deflect the water.

“I’m glad you rescued your canoe, but I’m not happy with the way you could have drowned yourself.”

He’d had to try, though she was right.

She began to paddle again. “I have to say, you’re beautiful as a wolf.”

He moved toward her, licked her cheek, and settled next to her to share his heat, his head resting on her lap.

“Now, that’s nice.”

He woofed in agreement. He still didn’t like that she was so cold, but he was glad to help her any way that he could. He hoped she didn’t believe she had to save the day now that the plane had crashed. Looking down at his wolf nails and the raft, Gavin hoped he didn’t puncture the rubber. He glanced at Winston, whose nails were neatly trimmed. He was sitting up, ears perked, nose sniffing at the wind. He seemed to be happy with the rafting excursion now, out in the wilderness, smelling all the interesting scents. Gavin couldn’t imagine the dog had ever been here before, so everything was new to him.

Rain began to fall on them, and Gavin wished it had held off a bit. It wouldn’t reach his skin. He needed to shift and take over. Then he had an idea. His rain gear was in one of the bags. He could shift, dress in dry clothes, and put the rain gear on, and then Amelia could shift into her wolf. Why hadn’t he thought of that before he shifted and it began to rain? He was certain hypothermia had messed with his thought processes.

Amelia had been paddling for some time when he finally shifted. “I’ll take us the rest of the way now. You need to wear your wolf coat and warm up.”

“All right.” She kept paddling while he dug out some of his clothes.

“Good thing you have rain gear.”

“Yeah. I sure wish I’d thought of it earlier. Rain jacket too, for lighter rains. You need to just shift and get warm.”

“I will, as soon as you’re dressed. We’re drifting back out because the wind has shifted, so I’m fighting against it to keep us going in the right direction.”

“Do you see the cliffs? Where there’s a rock ledge for shelter?” He pulled on some board shorts—at least they would dry out fast and were meant for the water—a T-shirt, and the rain jacket and pants to keep him warmer in the chilly breeze.

“Yeah. It should give us some protection from the elements.”

“Agreed. Okay, I’ll take over. Go ahead and strip.”

Shivering from the cold, Amelia let out her breath. “I bet you say that to all the women you see.”

“You’re the first.” Gavin still couldn’t believe the woman streaking across her house in front of him had been a wolf all along. A white wolf.

He paddled harder and faster than she had, and was making some real progress.

She was struggling to remove her clothes in the raft that was rocking and rolling with the wave movement. “You made this look so much easier.”

“You helped me when I was so cold the first time.” He set the paddle on the floor of the raft and moved over to help her undress. “I hate to say this”—he untied one of her boots, and then the other—“but I should have left the sat phone in the bag when you told me to stay in my seat.”

“Don’t tell me. It’s at the bottom of the lake with the plane.”

“Yeah. I have a cell phone too, and it’s in my pocket. I doubt it’ll work.”

“Even if it wasn’t waterlogged, you can’t get any reception out here.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Mine is waterproof, though I don’t think they had swimming in mind. In this waterproof case, it’ll probably be okay. The problem still is no cell reception. I had already packed my bags and my sat phone on my plane and forgot about them when we switched planes.”

She pulled off her shirt, and he waited to see if she needed any help with anything else. She was wearing a hot-pink sports bra and bikini panties, and she fumbled with the back hooks on the bra. Her fingers had to be numb.

“Here, let me.” He stayed in front of her because moving around in the raft was unsettling everyone. He felt around the back of her bra until he found the hooks and unfastened them. After slipping her bra off, he reached down to help pull off her panties.

Once she was naked, she immediately shifted. Even though the temperature was normally around seventy-five during the day in the summertime, the storm had cooled the temperature to around sixty, with a wind chill of lower than that.

Amelia woofed at Gavin, thanking him for helping her, and when he began paddling again, she curled up next to him. He reached down and rubbed his cold hand over her head. They had taken on so much water—from the wind-swept waves and trying to get Winston into the raft, from Amelia and Gavin climbing aboard, and now from the rain—that he wished one of them could begin bailing out the raft. The water in it was slowing them down. So was the headwind.

Lightning flashed across the darkening sky. Gavin didn’t like that they were still so far from shore while the storm raged overhead. Then the rain came down in a deluge. Great. More water in the raft. That’s all they needed. He couldn’t paddle and bail at the same time.

Amelia moved closer to him and rested her body against his leg as he continued to stroke the water with the paddle. The rigorous exercise was the only thing halfway warming him until she cuddled up next to him, and that helped too. He wanted to just shift and curl up with her in the raft and let the wind and the waves take them where they would. But the electrical storm made it too dangerous for them to be out on the water longer than necessary.

Gavin was still aiming for the cliffs where the rocky shelf jutted out. It appeared to be high enough that they could sit underneath for protection from the rain, wind, and lightning.

After another hour, he was finally able to say, “We’re almost there.”

In her wolf form, Amelia sat up to get a look.

As soon as he reached the rocky shore, she jumped out of the raft. Gavin climbed out and pulled it in to shore. Then he climbed back into the raft and grabbed hold of Winston’s collar, urging, “Come on, boy. We need to get out of this weather.” They needed to hurry. “Just a few more steps.”

The raft was rocking, and Winston seemed happy to remain where he was.

Amelia leaped back into the raft and nuzzled Winston to get him to move with her, and then they both jumped out. She coaxed him to the safety of the rock alcove under the ledge overhang. Gavin began unloading his gear from the raft.

Once the canoe was empty and he’d untied it and the cooler from the raft, he carried the raft into the woods and tied it to a tree so the wind wouldn’t catch it and carry it off. Afterward, he hauled the canoe up into the woods and secured it between tree branches. Then he grabbed his bags and joined Amelia and Winston under the rock ledge.

The two of them were sitting together, warming each other and wagging their tails. Winston was still wearing his life jacket. “Hey, fella, guess you can get out of this,” Gavin said as he unfastened the preserver and set it aside.

Then he headed back out into the storm to retrieve the cooler and the other containers that Amelia had rescued and set them at one end of the alcove. He needed to dress in warmer clothes and boots so he could make a real shelter for them. As humans, they could last for days without water, even longer without food. As wolves, they could try to catch meals, drink water from the lake, and sleep in their fur coats for warmth. With a shelter, they could stay here nice and safe as humans.

Gavin began stripping out of his rain jacket, and to his surprise, Amelia shifted. Naked, she began pulling off his rain pants.

“You don’t need to help me. You’ll be cold all over again,” he warned, removing his board shorts.

“You’re too cold. Are you going to shift?” She was beginning to tremble already.

“I’m going to dress in something warmer and hang up the tarp to make a real shelter to keep us warm and dry.”

“Okay, I’m helping.”

Gavin appreciated it, though he’d had every intention of doing this on his own so she could stay with Winston under the shelter. “I’ve got several days’ worth of clothes, including some sweats you can wear until your clothes are dry.” He dumped out the contents of one of the waterproof bags, while she pulled the sleeping bags out of another.

Amelia spread out the sleeping bags. “Two singles?” She said it as if she thought he often took a girlfriend with him. If he had, he would have just had a double. She could smell the bags, and though he’d washed them after the last trip, she would only smell a faint residue of his scent. No woman’s scent. He was glad for that.

“Yeah, I take two in case one gets wet. Then hopefully I still have a dry one. I learned that lesson when freezing fog blew through the tent vents in the middle of the night and got my sleeping bag all wet. Since then, I usually keep a spare sleeping bag in a dry pack, just in case.” He pulled out a pair of gray sweats.

“Uh-oh.” Amelia was eyeing the sleeping bags as if she’d done the wrong thing.

He shook his head. “They’re here for us to use. I’ll make a fire once it stops raining. We can hang the tarp to block some of the wind that’s whipping around in here. Once we’ve set up housekeeping, we can strip and shift.”

“Okay, or if we’re warm enough by then, we could stay as we are.” She hurried to pull on the sweats. “Maybe I can wear a pair of your dry socks and then put on my wet boots.”

“Yeah, sure. Here.” He handed her a pair of black socks.

She sat down on the pebble-covered floor of the alcove to pull them on.

“So what do you think happened?” Gavin asked, sitting next to her while Winston lay down on the floor and closed his eyes.

“For everything to go wrong?” She shook her head.

“Sabotage?” Gavin finally tied on his spare pair of hiking boots.

“Maybe. I can’t imagine how every system went down a few seconds after each other. I’d say it could be sabotage.” Amelia sighed. “I don’t think I have ever been so cold and wet in my life.”

He glanced at her. “You don’t need to help. I can do this on my own.”

“We can get it done quicker if we both do it.”

“You look damn good in my sweats. Much better than I do.” He hurried to pull on jeans and then a blue sweatshirt.

“Thanks.” She tied on her boots.

“You can wear the rubber rain suit to keep you dry.”

“What about you?”

“I have a lightweight rain jacket.”

The wind was whipping around their sheltered area, and he needed to get the tarp up now. He slipped on the rain jacket, while she put on the rain suit. She was swallowed up in it.

He began to tie the tarp to a tree jutting out of the side of the rocks. Then he secured the other end with stones from the beach a few feet away, both on the top edge of the ledge and on the floor of their shelter. Amelia helped him move the smooth stones, making a pile of them for him to use. They made a good team.

He paused to watch her, and an elusive memory of being in the woods with her made him wonder again why she seemed so familiar. Not that he’d known her for more than a passing experience. Still, he just remembered seeing her face, and then she was gone.

She glanced up at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you sure you were never in Seattle? I had the strangest notion I saw you in the woods somewhere when I was still living in the area.”

“In the woods?” Amelia continued bringing rocks over. This time, she was making a fire ring.

“I don’t know. I went camping with the guys a few times. Saw horseback riders once, other campers and hikers…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’ve never ridden a horse. And I’ve never camped in the woods anywhere near Seattle. Alaska? Yes. Lots.”

Gavin knew he’d recall where he’d seen her if he thought about it long enough.

He wished it would stop raining, but he didn’t voice his opinion. “Okay, the tarp is secure enough unless the winds get much higher. Why don’t you take off your clothes—”

She began stripping. “Believe me, I never get naked in front of a wolf I barely know. Especially this often.”

“Except the one time.”

“That was different. You weren’t a wolf that time, and you weren’t supposed to be in my house.”

He zipped the two sleeping bags together, then spread them out so the inside was facedown to keep Amelia and him dry. They could wrap themselves up in the bags later, if they felt warm enough to shift into their human forms and were still stuck here. “I have to say, I’m still puzzled why you flashed me in your house in Alaska. If you were trying to get my attention, you sure had it.”

“Uh, yeah. Well, it was either that or shift into my Arctic wolf half. I didn’t want to scare the puppies.” She explained to him about the front door not shutting properly. The faucet in her master bathroom not working. The towels in the guest bathroom washed and in the dryer. It was just one of those days, Amelia told him.

“And you had left your clothes in the bedroom,” Gavin said.

“Right. I mean, I never take them in the bathroom with me. Then I heard you, and I figured I’d need to grab my Taser and my cell phone, which were both in the bedroom.”

“And if I had tried to grab you—”

“I would have turned into a vicious Arctic wolf. I could have flown you off to the wilderness, somewhere no one would ever have found you.”

He couldn’t imagine what he would have thought if she had turned into a wolf. “Good thing you only tased me.”

“You probably never figured me tasing you could be a good thing.”

“You’re right.”

She removed her clothes again, and he did too, thinking he should start a fire. In their wolf coats, they would be fine—as long as no one came upon them and saw a couple of wolves and one Saint Bernard, with no humans in sight.

Gavin wondered what his pack would think of him now. He knew his friend David Davis would be wishing he had this job himself, although he’d probably prefer to skip the ditching-the-plane-in-the-water scenario.