Chapter 1

Nearly Christmas, two years later

Owen Nottingham, Arctic wolf and private investigator, had made daily treks into the wilderness ever since he’d seen the white wolf across the river. He knew she had to be an Arctic lupus garou just like him. But the fact she was running with humans had to mean she had lots more control over her shifting or she couldn’t be with them on a long-term hiking and canoeing trip. Maybe she’d been born as a lupus garou. Maybe her wolf roots went so far back that she was a royal and completely in control of her shifting at all times.

One thing was for certain—she wasn’t one of the Arctic wolves who had changed him and his friends. He would never forget that day seven years ago when he and his PI partner David Davis were hunting for bear in Maine, never having come close to finding one in the five years they’d been trying. They’d spotted a bear, and the hunt was on. Never in a million years would he or David have thought his good friend would end up having a heart attack.

Nor that the Arctic wolves the guide had on the hunt weren’t all wolf and that they were all from the same lupus garou pack. Neither the guide nor Owen could do anything to save David’s life way out in the woods. Owen had been willing to pay any price to save his friend. Whatever it cost. He’d envisioned the guide calling in a helicopter and air evacuating David to a hospital.

Owen had to admit that he’d agreed to it. Anything. Like making a pact with a devil wolf. The wolves wouldn’t have bitten them if he hadn’t asked for the guide’s help. Owen hadn’t known what was going on at the time. Only that the wolves had bitten both of them—David, to give him their enhanced healing abilities to repair his heart, and Owen, because he couldn’t witness what they were without paying the consequences. Which meant becoming one of them or dying.

After that, the pack took them in. They had to because David and Owen had no control over the shifting, but they were captives just the same, until one of the pack members had helped them to escape. So Owen knew all of the members of that pack. Those were the only Arctic wolves he’d ever met, beyond his own small pack.

More than anything in the world, he wanted to find her. Wanted to get to know her. Locating her could mean finding a mate for either him or one of his bachelor male partners in the PI agency. He still envisioned her standing near the river’s edge—half hidden in the brush, watching him, wide-eyed—and wondered where the hell she’d come from. He knew she’d been a she because she was smaller than the males. She had to be a shifter. Arctic wolves didn’t live in this part of the country.

Still, he’d tried to locate her after that, to no avail. She and her friends had taken a canoe trip after a few days, and he never knew what had become of her. He wasn’t even sure which of the women she’d been.

He was afraid he’d be looking for her until he was old and gray and might never see her again.

Owen opened up the new PI office that morning in White River Falls, Minnesota, the Christmas wreath jingling on the door. He was eager to make a go of a brick-and-mortar business again after seven years of working online, unable to set up a real office.

None of the other investigators believed they’d get a call first thing that morning, so they were coming in a little later. He finished hanging his sign on his door and stringing more Christmas lights on the miniature tree in his office. The whole pack—three bachelor males, and one couple and their two sons and a daughter—had decorated the seven-foot tree in the lobby so it looked cheery and welcoming sitting next to one of the front windows.

When Owen had settled down at his desk with a cup of coffee and a Christmas tree–decorated donut, he began checking his emails. He had only read one when he got the call that would be the first job they received at the office. He was enthusiastic about solving the missing person’s case promptly, hoping for their first good review.

* * *

Ever since that day in the woods, Clara Hart had been a very different person, her whole world turned inside out. Her friends were no longer her friends, and her adoptive parents had disowned her. She’d changed her name to her pseudonym, Candice Mayfair. She’d moved from the suburbs of Houston to the wilderness in South Dakota. It was beautiful, perfect for her to run free and be herself. Or rather—her other self. The wolf part of her that howled to be free, especially during the occurrence of the full moon. But at other times too, except during the new moon. She’d finally realized this by keeping a calendar of the moon phases at hand at all times to document the trouble she was having with fighting the urge to shift. She’d also purchased dozens of books about werewolves that definitely were not written by real werewolves.

She finished hanging her Christmas wreath on the door, placed a Christmas throw rug she had hooked on the kitchen floor, and added a few more nutcrackers on the mantel. She’d set up her Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving as she’d always done. At least that was something that hadn’t changed. Though last Thanksgiving, she’d had to wait until she turned back into her human form to finish decorating.

After two years, she had finally come to grips with what she was. That she wasn’t going to suddenly be her normal self again. She’d sometimes dreamed she was, but then she’d get the urge to shift and that shattered the illusion.

She suspected everyone she’d known thought she’d gotten into drugs or alcohol, because she’d disappeared from their lives. At first, she’d given excuses for why she couldn’t see them. But then she realized she had to isolate herself from anyone she’d known in the past. They didn’t understand what was wrong with her. And she couldn’t explain.

Drinking didn’t stop her from shifting either. She’d learned that the hard way. Being tipsy just made it harder to remove her clothes and shift, which meant she was caught in her clothes as a wolf for several hours one night, thankfully in her own home. So, no more drinking to try to control the shift. She’d also had the uncontrollable urge to howl sometimes when she ran as a wolf, and she was certain that would be a disaster. What if a wolf pack responded? She could be in real trouble.

She’d settled into her life, such as it was, and she’d found that writing about the subject she knew best—werewolves—was a good outlet for her. Using her former talent at writing romantic suspense, she’d started writing Arctic wolf romances. Unlike in other books where werewolves were hideous monsters out to eat people, her characters were misfits like her. She’d never encountered another like the male and the pup she’d seen that night she was camping. She knew they had to be out there somewhere in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota. She’d never been back there. Why would she be?

She had no idea if werewolves ran as a pack, a family unit, or whatever. What if the beautiful male was mated?

Candice had made a niche for herself on her fifteen acres where she still could get Internet, with a small town nearby for groceries and anything else she needed. She could avoid people. Except online. Which worked great.

The worst part was her parents disowning her. When her father had a stroke, the full moon had been in full swing. Candice had been so angry, furious with her inability to control the shift. She’d even driven partway home when she’d had to pull over on a dirt road, park, strip, and shift. She knew then she just couldn’t manage the trip. When her mother had gone in for a pacemaker, the moon was nearly full. Her parents’ medical emergencies never came up when the new moon or waxing and waning crescents came around. And she couldn’t explain how she couldn’t travel anywhere as a wolf. That she was liable to turn into a wolf in the emergency room.

Her folks must have thought their adopted daughter didn’t care anything about them, so she was out of their lives. It didn’t matter that she’d come to see them straightaway when it was safer to do so. They believed she hadn’t wanted to help them when they needed her, and she’d felt horrible about it.

She’d learned they’d both died in a car accident, and it broke her heart. She had no one to blame for being unable to be with them when they really needed her but herself. She’d hand-fed a werewolf puppy on a camping trip and had paid the price.

* * *

Owen was glad he and the rest of his buddies were officially back in business. Sure, they were still out in the boonies, had a wolf door for an easy escape, and conducted most of their business online, but they officially had an office again after seven years of trying to get their shifting under control. At least, it was a first step.

This morning he had his first real client. In fact, the first for any of them. His partners, Cameron MacPherson, David Davis, and Gavin Summerfield—all formerly of Seattle—were coming in later that morning, so he was it, and he got the job.

He was glad they lived in northern Minnesota where they had the freedom to run unseen. They couldn’t have settled in Seattle where they’d had their PI office. They’d tried, but a gray wolf shifter pack had learned of their presence in the city and threatened to kill them if they stayed. Not only did Owen’s pack have trouble controlling their shifting, but they also were Arctic wolves and couldn’t easily blend in with the surroundings the way the gray wolves could. Not to mention that wolves were naturally territorial, and the gray pack had ruled there for many years. All of this was news to Owen and his partners. They hadn’t known shifters existed before their trip to Maine.

“I’m Jim Winchester,” the man said over the phone. “I’m an assistant to Strom Hart. His offices are based in Houston. He’s in need of a PI who can look for a missing person—his niece, Clara Hart. You have a month to find her and return her to Houston so she can claim her parents’ inheritance, or it will be forfeit.”

“Okay. Do you have any idea where she is?”

“That’s the thing of it. If it were up to me, I’d hire a local PI. But the boss says she wasn’t the same when she returned from a camping trip up your way. He wants you to start looking there. See if she ended up moving up there. She quit her job, sold her home, and took off. She wouldn’t let her parents know where she was living.”

“Okay. If I don’t find her, who would the inheritance go to?”

“Strom Hart. He’s the brother of John Hart, the deceased, and is Clara’s uncle. John died two weeks ago; his wife, a couple of days before that. Mr. Hart thought his brother had disowned his daughter. But when the will was read, he learned his brother had not. The provision was that Mr. Hart would have one month to search for her and deliver the message to her, and if he couldn’t find her or she didn’t return to Houston, the money would go to him as the next living relative.”

“I see. Have you asked anyone else to look into this matter?”

“No. It’s all in your hands. He’ll pay the going rate. Deliver her before the month is up, and she can claim her inheritance.”

“Okay. I just need you to tell me a few things—last known address, phone number, where she was staying in this area. Her last place of employment, and if you know any of her friends, a list of their names. Also, do you have a photo of her?”

“This is the most recent picture I could find of her. She’s been gone for two years. In anticipation of you needing some other information, I’m sending that along too.” In an email, Mr. Winchester forwarded a photo of the woman and some of the information Owen had requested. “Her dad checked with her place of employment, friends, anywhere he could think of. She just disappeared without a trace.”

The assistant hadn’t given him a list of friends’ names though. “I take it you don’t know the names of any of her friends?”

“No. Sorry.”

Owen opened the picture of the woman. She had dark, reddish-brown hair, long and curling over her shoulders. Her eyes were a vivid violet, and her glossy peach lips were smiling. She appeared happy in the photo.

What had made her give up everyone and everything and vanish from her former life? Drugs? A cult? Boyfriend? The wrong crowd?

Owen wondered if she’d changed the color of her hair since then. He suspected if she hadn’t wanted to be found, she would have.

“Can I ask how you learned of us?” Owen hoped their online site had finally gotten some notice.

“Online, based on your location. You are the closest PI office to where Clara was visiting before she…quit her family and friends and job so suddenly,” Mr. Winchester said. “Mr. Hart could use one of the big-city PI agencies, if you think they’d do a better job.”

“No, no, I’m the man for the job. I’ll get right on it.”

Owen made the arrangements to have Strom billed for the charges while he worked the case. He had every intention of finding the woman as soon as he could. They could use all the good reviews they could get. And a quick resolution should give them a five-star review. Though he wondered how much inheritance they were talking about and how much motivation that would be for this Strom Hart to ensure his niece was never found. Maybe that’s why he’d hired Owen’s firm instead of going with a big-time Houston PI.

Owen wished he could have asked for something of hers so he could get her scent. He imagined the uncle would have fired him on the spot.

He ended the conversation and called Cameron to tell him the good news. “Got a viable case.” He told Cameron what he was looking into.

“If you need any of our help, just holler,” Cameron said.

The money went into the pack’s funds so they could all share in the proceeds, so it wasn’t like one of them would get a job and the money would be all his. They all helped one another.

“I sure will. Thanks, Cameron, and tell Faith her new website is working.”

Owen checked out Strom Hart and Clara’s deceased parents and was shocked to learn both brothers were billionaires in their own right. For a moment, he thought he was charging too little for the job. He smiled. Then he got down to business and called Clara Hart’s old workplace, a law firm in Houston.

“You would need a court order for me to release information about where Clara Hart is living now. But yeah, we had to forward her last pay to that location,” said Lyn Rose, the law firm’s administrative assistant. “What is this concerning?”

“An inheritance. I need to find her to let her know she needs to claim it before it goes to her uncle.” Owen wouldn’t normally have said so much, but he wanted to impress upon the woman—if she was at all a friend of Clara Hart, and he suspected she was from the way she had talked about her—that she’d better share any information she had.

“An inheritance? Oh wow. A big inheritance? Well, she deserves it, as much as she cared about her parents. Tragic car accident, but her mother shouldn’t have let her father drive when he was on the medication he was on. Not that I don’t know how that goes. My dad had lung cancer and was dying, for heaven’s sake, but my mother still let him drive. Why? Because he was always the one who drove everywhere when they went places together. You know, like he earned the money in the family, and when Mom worked, it was just her pin money. Not to use to pay household bills. I tell you, things have sure changed since then. Yeah, we’re emancipated, but now the guy wants us to make as much as him and never quit working.

“Well, you probably can’t tell me how much her inheritance is worth. That’s okay. Yeah, she was the best little helper. If I needed her to do anything, she was right there assisting me, though her job called for her to be a file clerk, nothing else. She would rather be doing something than not. I still can’t tell you where she lives now, but I can share something with you that isn’t classified as confidential.”

“That is?” Owen eagerly asked.

“She’s a romance author. Surprised the daylights out of me when I saw she had her own website, and I began buying her books. She’s really a great storyteller too. Love them. Just wish I could find one of those dreamy, hunky wolves she writes about.”

“Wolves?”

“Yeah. She wrote romantic suspense before, but she switched a couple years ago. There’s something about her werewolves that just sucks me in. They’re great. Anyway, she goes by Candice Mayfair. That’s her pen name. Just look her up. She has a message box you can query her at that goes right to her email. That’s how I got ahold of her to tell her how much I love her stories, and then what do you know? I learn she’s the same sweet woman who worked here in our office as a file clerk. Send her a note. She’ll write back. She always does. Good luck!”

As soon as Owen thanked the administrative assistant and did an online search for Candice Mayfair, he came face-to-face with a red-haired beauty with piercing green eyes, her curly hair in a short bob. “Clara Hart?” He couldn’t be sure it was her. If it was, the find would prove to be Owen’s lucky day. He’d never solved a case so fast.

Owen quickly searched her biography page, but it didn’t have a phone number, email, or snail mail address listed. He would use the webpage contact note and hope she answered him back pronto.

Thinking about how he could show her some real wolf loving for her wolf stories, he smiled and started typing the message: If you need a real wolf to base your characters on…

Then he deleted the message. Hell, what could he say to get her response? He called Cameron’s mate for some advice. “Hey, Faith, I need to run this by you.”

* * *

Candice had been writing for two days straight, working on her publisher’s book deadline, when she wrote the ending, smiled, and set the book aside. She would start proofing it tomorrow after she’d given her brain a break. Now she’d do what she always did when she finished a book or reached a good stopping point in one. Clean house. Check her backlog of emails. Pick up some more groceries. And take a run on the wolf side.

She finished vacuuming and dusting, swearing every window must let in all the outdoors, and then started a batch of gingerbread cookie cutouts to celebrate the Christmas holiday season and finishing another book. While they were baking, she finally settled down to check her emails. Fan mail always came first, and one from her website got her attention right off. She opened it and read:

Hello, I’m Owen Nottingham, private investigator for White River Investigations, White River Falls, Minnesota. My client, Strom Hart, hired me to locate you. Your parents, John and Cynthia Hart, left you an inheritance, and you need to see the lawyer about it so you can claim it. I need to verify that you are the right woman first. Is there any way we could meet and get this taken care of so you can collect your inheritance? Strom Hart will be the one to receive it by the end of the month otherwise. His assistant, Jim Winchester, said Mr. Hart is your uncle.

Candice reread the message, not believing her eyes, tears filling them. She quickly looked at the date of the message. Two days ago! She knew she shouldn’t have neglected her emails, but when she was into a story, she couldn’t break away.

She ground her teeth, raised her fingers to respond, and heard a knocking at her door. No one came here. Never. Ever. Not even salesmen.

She glanced at her phases-of-the moon calendar. The waxing gibbous was just beginning. She should be fine. Just to be on the safe side, in case the person at the door was trouble, she pulled a can of mace from her desk drawer and headed for the door. She peered through the peephole. Waiting at the door was a handsome black-haired man with rugged features and intense blue eyes. He was dressed in a black suit, a red shirt, and a dark-purple tie covered in red, purple, and gold Christmas balls. She raised her brows.

“I’m Owen Nottingham,” he said to the door, holding up his PI license and driver’s license. He couldn’t know that she was watching him, so he must have hoped she was there, observing him. “I tried getting ahold of you through the contact form on your website about your inheritance. Your contact form might not be working, so I had to locate you in person.”

So this was the man who had sent the message. Was he for real? He had to be. He wouldn’t have come all this way to see her if he wasn’t. But how had he found her?

Candice opened the door, the bells jingling on her Christmas wreath, and the man glanced down at the can of mace in her hand. He smiled, his gaze holding hers with such intensity that it was as though he could see clear through to her soul. “Really, just a PI doing my job.”

A chilly breeze carried his scent to her. Wolf scent. All at once, she felt so light-headed that she grabbed the door to keep herself upright and dropped the can of mace on the tile floor. It clattered, but she couldn’t have reached for it if her life depended on it.

Oh. My. God.

This couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be real. No wonder he’d been talking to the door. He must have heard her footfalls as she’d approached.

He took a deep breath at the same time, and when he smelled her scent, his eyes widened in surprise. His hand shot out to grab her arm and steady her. For a minute, she tried to control her breathing and her heart rate, neither of which she could steady. She felt like she was going to pass out.

“Hell, you’re the wolf I saw across the White River, aren’t you?”

Her jaw dropped, and her knees buckled. He swept her up in his arms and she wanted to object, but he slammed the door behind him with his hip and carried her into the house. He was the wolf she’d seen across the river that day on the camping trip in Minnesota two years ago, sipping from the water? She still remembered it like it was yesterday. Him looking up and seeing her staring at him while she’d believed she was hallucinating.

Until the next night, and then she knew she hadn’t been dreaming at all.