Joy to the Wolves (Red Wolf #1) - Terry Spear Page 0,5
The police officer hung up on her.
Brooke wanted to growl! Though she suspected it did sound funny, and the officer might be used to getting crank calls about Santa and his reindeer during the holidays. Still, she was not amused!
* * *
Josh Wilding had taken a long wolf run with his brother at the ranch that morning, the first time in a couple of weeks. They’d paused to play-fight before he had to get into work. For now, they were red wolves, snarling and growling, biting and barking and having a ball. They needed to experience the more primal side of their existence, their wolf roots, and enjoyed the bonding. Like playing games with each other, wolf style.
Then they’d howled, signaling an end to their wolf games, and raced each other back to the ranch house. Time to get on with work.
“Hey, I’ll see you tonight,” Josh said, dressing in his bedroom after taking a shower, his brother already in the kitchen getting coffee.
“Yeah, pizza tonight, right?”
“Sounds good to me.” Josh left his bedroom, grabbed a cup of coffee and a Danish roll, and headed out to work. He hadn’t even gotten there when his brother called him on the Bluetooth.
“Hey, I was just in the barn and saw that one of our reindeer calves has been stolen.”
Hearing one of the reindeer making a honking noise and their hooves moving around on the ground, Josh could tell Maverick was in the barn with them right now. “Which one?”
“Jingles. I made sure he hadn’t sneaked out of his stall, but he couldn’t have. The latch was closed.”
“None of the other ranch hands left it open by mistake?”
“No. And it was latched. I smelled an unknown male wolf. A human too maybe, but we have so many tours, it might have been someone here yesterday on a tour.”
“Hell.”
“I’ll keep you posted. I’m checking the security videos next, but I wanted to let you know right away that he’d been stolen.”
“Thanks.”
A few minutes later, Maverick called Josh again. “Jingles is at Cerise’s Antique and Gift Shop.”
“You’re kidding. The new owner has our calf?”
“Or someone else might have taken over the business. There are tons of messages going out on social media about a reindeer calf at the shop, and it is Jingles, from the pictures I saw of him.”
“I’m on my way! I’ll let you know what I discover.” Josh turned his car in the direction of the shop, ready to question the new owner about why he, or she, had their calf there. He was glad Jingles was unharmed and being taken care of, but he had to find out who had stolen him in the first place. He wanted answers now.
Chapter 2
Brooke called the first reindeer ranch she could find the number for while she hurried to leave the boxes outside for the recyclable trash. When she returned to the shop, someone from the ranch picked up the call.
“Hi, I’m Brooke Cerise, and a reindeer calf showed up—” She quit speaking when she saw a tall, dark, and handsome man walk into her shop wearing a suit, a parka, and a badge. He’d better not be the bozo at the police bureau who had hung up on her!
The man glanced at the reindeer calf and then moved through the customers taking pictures of him. He reached Brooke, his posture saying he was in charge and going to get to the bottom of this. “This deer belongs to Wilding Reindeer Ranch. Do you care to explain why he’s in your shop?” He raised a dark brow. He had an Indiana Jones-type build—muscled enough to swing across caverns and climb tall peaks, nice broad shoulders, physically fit, not like he sat around in an office eating too many doughnuts. “This is your shop, correct?”
“Yes. I’m Brooke Cerise, the owner.”
That was when she smelled the officer’s scent and realized he was a red wolf like her. Wild, wolfish, and an Ivory fragrance. A red-wolf pack was located outside Portland, but on her visits to see her great-aunt, she hadn’t had time to meet anyone. She hoped it wouldn’t be a problem for her to move into the area without contacting the pack leaders first. Did he belong to the pack? Not that she could ask him in front of her human customers.
She said to the man on the phone, “Uh, sorry, it looks like I just found where the calf belongs.”
“No problem. Thanks for calling and checking with us.”