Several moments later they were making their way toward a mountain range that loomed up ahead, imposing and on the aloof side, much like the man in the truck with them had been when they first met him.

Griz’s truck was a beat up old pickup that looked more like something from an old TV show Camden remembered catching a few moments of on a sleepless night. Two detective brothers, the blond had a sports car and the other had a monstrosity of a big red truck. That truck could have been Griz’s truck. Except this one was blue, not red.

“Want to give us some background on the assignment?” Eden asked.

Cam and Eden had opted for the backseats together. Neither wanted to see Mac lose the contents of her tummy from any roughness that might happen.

“So, we have two little girls—” Griz glanced at Mac.

“Four years old actually,” Mac added.

“Right. They’re orphaned.” Griz frowned.

Damn. That plucked at Cam’s heartstrings.

Griz continued, “Trista and Tessa. Shifter cubs. One has an earth elemental. The other has a wind.”

“Wind,” Eden exclaimed, excitement tinging her voice.

“We rarely see wind elementals,” Camden added. She found that a bit exciting. So far, only Circe had dealt directly with a wind elemental.

“Should we know about the circumstances surrounding their being orphaned?” Eden inquired.

That had been Camden’s next question.

“It’s not been released yet,” Griz said.

Released to whom, Camden wanted to ask, then wondered why his fingers were gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles had gone white.

“You are uniquely qualified to handle this, as they are twins—identical—with elementals. And it seems lately their elementals have been wreaking a bit of havoc. Not on their guardians, but rather on the nannies brought in by their guardians.”

“Tell us about their guardians,” Eden prompted.

“Twins, grizzly shifters.”

Eden inhaled sharply.

Camden glanced at her sister, put her hand on Eden’s knee. “It’s okay. I’ll be there. We’ll be there together.”

Beneath Camden’s fingers, Eden was shaking. Camden squeezed hard. Eden gave her a look, as though to say, I may be fine, but my elemental is in chaos.

Camden nodded. She got it. But she didn’t want anyone else to figure it out, so she pressed on with the conversation.

“So, we have twin sister grizzlies in charge of the little hybrids?”

“Not exactly,” Griz said, shifting gears. “The guardians are twin brothers, grizzlies.”

Camden felt her jaw drop. “Why twin brothers?”

“Yeah, why are their guardians males?” Eden said.

Cam hoped they didn’t sound sexist, but… Oh, who cares how they sounded; the wellbeing of the little girls was what mattered here.

“They are uniquely qualified to be their guardians.” Griz’s tone said there would be no argument.

Seemed he liked the uniquely qualified phrase.

Okay, fine, Camden wasn’t going to argue, but she had questions and wanted answers, and there was more than one way to skin a cat.

“How did you come to have the little girls?”

“They were my first case at the Bear Canyon Wildlife Reserve,” Mac said.

Eden raised a brow. “I don’t think that’s cleared it up much.”

“I’m the veterinarian for the reserve.” She looked at Griz, as if seeking permission to go further.

Griz nodded, his expression unreadable in the rearview mirror.

“One purpose of the reserve is to help with orphaned shifters, or relocation of shifters—young and old. It’s a covert operation for the most part, working on the principle that only those who need to know are given information.”

“Right,” Griz added. “There are some who we help who could be in serious peril, and thus bring danger to the valley—or the mountain range—and we can’t have that. So, we keep things on the down low.”

“So, the little girls were orphaned,” Camden began. “Then they came to you—” She looked at Mac. “—and then?”

“And then we placed them with the O’Reardon twins.”

“And you can’t disclose why you chose them to be their guardians.”

“It’s in the file,” Griz said.

Camden wondered if that meant no, so she pressed on. “And we have access to the file.”

“No.” Griz let the word drop with the finality of an anvil. No finesse there. No doubt.

Clearly, it meant no. Well, Camden had never been good at hearing the word. Actually, she heard it just fine. It’s just that it didn’t pose an obstacle to Cam. If anything, it spurred her on.

Eden frowned at Cam, knowing exactly what her twin was thinking, clearly.

Camden gave her a slow wink, one that she was sure the others in the front seat wouldn’t catch, then ignored her sister’s look of warning and focused her gaze out the window on her own side.

She’d get to the bottom of it all. Sometimes, Camden wondered what path her life would have taken if she hadn’t joined the OE—Order of Elementals. She thought she’d have made a half-decent detective. Or something like that.

What’s to stop me now, a part of her asked.

She had a commitment, a higher cause, a calling. Her contribution to the OE, along with that of her siblings, was one they were suited for and did the most good in. But every now and then, when a mystery would come up, boy-oh-boy, was Camden rearing to get to solving.

What got to Camden was how she’d never made any progress on the mystery that lay between Mae and Circe. When Circe put her mind to it, she was tighter than a clam.

She looked away from the majestic mountains, the evergreen trees, the winding road before them, and went back into grilling mode.

“So, what’s the situation with the nannies? Are the brothers unable to care for the kids?”

“No, not unable,” Griz explained. “But they have jobs. And they can’t take the kids with them on a daily basis.”

Eden frowned. “What kind of jobs?”

Griz’s jaw tightened, the muscles working.

Great. Another damned secret. She was close to exploding on him. Why did they bring us here if they can’t tell us jack shit?

“They work in security.”

Okay, she wasn’t really mollified because that wasn’t much of an answer, but she couldn’t go ballistic on him because technically, he did answer—sort of.

“So, what’s the deal with the nannies then?”

“They keep quitting.”

Mac laughed. “That’s because they keep looking for help among a group of women shifters, for the most part, that they know. Women they’ve either had an entanglement with, or women that would like to be entangled with one—or both—of the O’Reardon guys.

Ewww.

Camden looked at Eden. Eden’s face was scrunched up, too.

“Women that want brothers?” Camden couldn’t help the tone of her voice. Surely, she didn’t mean at the same time.

She never found out. First, because Mac was laughing too hard at her exclamation—and even possibly at the expression on her and Eden’s face, but also because Griz had pulled into a driveway and stopped in front of a large cabin with a huge wraparound porch.

On the porch, hanging from the ceiling were two swing horses carved out of wood, suspended on thick chains.

On the wooden horses, two perfectly adorable little girls with hair pulled into two braids each, miniature Stetson hats, and boots, were swinging to and fro, pushing their bodies forward, then backward to gain more and more height.

She’d been ready to ask who the hell was keeping an eye on the girls when the largest man she’d ever seen stepped out of the shadows.

Her breath hitched.

Eden turned to her curiously.

Camden bit her lip. She didn’t react to men. Men didn’t hold a place in her universe.

She studied the broad-chested, wide-shouldered man who stood between the two little girls, a large hand on the rump of each wooden horse.

It was clear he was there to protect them, and it was also clear there was no way in hell anything would happen to the adorable little ones while he was around.

“That’s Tyler.” Griz nodded toward the porch. “Tyler O’Reardon.”

“Where’s the other one?” Eden asked.

“Sean had to take care of some out-of-town business. Without a nanny, one had to stay behind.”

“They don’t look like they’re a handful,” Eden exclaimed.

Griz’s smile was grim. “Right now.”

“Did you know when they came to you that they had elementals? Did you know when you placed them?”

“Nope. They kept well hidden.”

“Why do they run the nannies off?”

Griz shrugged.

Camden studied the ground before them. There were broken trees, gouges and ruts in the earth. Leaves scattered everywhere, though it wasn’t fall.

“So, they do security? This place doesn’t look too secure to me.”

Griz’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t say a word.