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While his tank filled, he overheard two truckers. The fill stations for the semis were a ways off, but the pair were shouting over the sounds of the big engines.
“Big storm brewing in the Montana mountains, Jenny,” a small man with a big bass voice rumbled.
“I heard,” said the other trucker, who was so bundled up that Adam hadn’t realized she was a woman until she spoke. “I’m stopping in Sandpoint. I have friends there with space to park the truck.”
Adam pulled out his cell and texted Mercy a request for backup food. Just in case. Because the address Honey had given him for the last place she knew that Gary was working was outside of Libby, Montana. According to the map app on the SUV, they would be driving through Sandpoint, Idaho, to get there.
The storm worsened the whole way from Coeur d’Alene up the panhandle of Idaho to Bonners Ferry, where he stopped to put chains on. The roads were bad enough to spawn multiple winter advisories, and traffic disappeared entirely except for an occasional snowplow and a few cars off to the side of the road as they climbed the mountains above Bonners Ferry. Mercy fell silent again, and not because she was mad at him. Her hand on his leg grew tense until she let go of him.
He glanced away from the snowdrifts that fought to pull him off the mountain pass and into the valley below. Mercy was squinting into the blizzard, leaning forward in her seat as if that would allow her to see farther. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her midriff, and he wished she’d put her hand back on his leg. He missed her touch.
“If you had a car manufactured in this century, we could have taken that and you could be driving,” he told her, his eyes on the road again.
“My van could have handled the roads, but she would have traveled slower,” she told him. “Her center of gravity is too high for speed in this kind of terrain.”
“Speed being a relative thing for a Vanagon,” he observed.
“There is that,” she agreed, and he could feel the grin he didn’t take his eyes off the road to see. “And you’re a better driver for this kind of road than I am.”
Her reply shouldn’t have surprised him. He wasn’t sure it was true—Mercy was a good driver and knew it. But her opinion made him want to puff his chest out like a teenager. Ridiculous.
“I love your dimple,” she said. “Like a promise of the soft middle in a crusty roll.”
He laughed at that as he changed the angle of his tires to account for the drag of a deep bit of snow that the wind had gathered in a protected curve of the road. “I’ll show you a crusty roll.”
“No nudging when you are driving on snowpack,” she warned him.
“I am the Alpha,” he informed her with mock smugness. “I can nudge anytime I want to.”
The SUV chose that moment to fishtail, and it took a bit of finesse to get it traveling in the direction of the road.
“Anytime within reason,” he admitted. “Though there is something to be said about flirting during these life-or-death moments.”
She laughed—but it turned into a squeak when he came around a sharp turn to find a car stuck, wheels spinning, in the middle of his lane. He dodged it and pulled over, hoping he didn’t catch a soft edge and have his rig roll down the mountain. Mercy hopped out before the wheels were fully stopped. By the time he made it to the stuck car, she was already talking to the driver.
“You aren’t going to get a two-wheel-drive anything up the rest of this hill,” Mercy was saying. “Do you have chains?”
He didn’t. Mercy gathered the three kids and two car seats and organized them in the SUV while Adam and their father pushed the car out of the traffic lane. On a dry road, Adam could have pushed the car at a brisk jog. But no matter how strong you were, the coefficient of friction mattered. He could only push until his boots lost traction.
Satisfied that the car was as far off the road as they could manage without pushing it down the side of the mountain, Adam chivvied the driver into the shotgun seat of the SUV. Mercy had shoved their luggage to the side and put herself in the far back, behind the kids. No seat belt back there, but it couldn’t be helped.
It took them half an hour to deliver the small family to their intended destination—a house a couple of miles up a country road behind the cluster of gas stations where Highway 2 broke east and 95 kept going north. In better weather, it would have been a five-minute drive. By the time they parked in front of his house, their adult passenger had recognized Adam.
Being rescued by a werewolf should have terrified him, but instead their new friend Wayne was thrilled. Adam found himself smiling for selfies and posing with each of the children as he simultaneously turned down heartfelt offers of lodging and food. It took some effort to extract himself without offending anyone.
Mercy—who had managed to stay in the SUV—regarded him as he left Wayne’s mother’s house with a little more speed than was prudent under the driving conditions.
“Say it,” he growled.
She unbuckled so she could turn in her seat and kiss his cheek, then she belted herself back in. “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”
The delay, the driving conditions, and the short winter days meant that it was already dark when they hit Libby, Montana. He fueled up and Mercy managed to get “Montana directions” for where they were heading.
“The ranch Honey told us he was babysitting is on the same side road as someplace called Looking Glass Hot Springs,” she said, putting a large cup of steaming coffee in the cup holder beside him. “There will be two signs. The second one is right next to the road we need to take. If we don’t feel a cattle guard as we leave the highway, we need to stop because we’ve missed the turn and there’s a drop-off on either side of the road that tends to get filled with snow and look like it’s level ground. Gary’s ranch will be at the end of the road, about a mile after we pass the resort.” She took a sip of her own drink, grimaced, and set it aside.
“Gas station hot chocolate is dangerous,” he murmured, taking a swig of coffee. It wasn’t the worst he’d had, and it was hot.
“That’s fair. Sounds like the place we’re looking for is a dude ranch open in the summer months. They hired some stranger, meaning someone not native to Libby, to watch the place and keep the water pipes from freezing—which they did last year. That would be my brother. He was all alone up there. The owners take their horses to California for the winter months, but sometimes they leave a pair for the resort to use for winter weddings, which apparently are a big moneymaker.”
