With great reluctance on her part, she pulled away. “Really got to go.”

He smiled, but he slipped his hands to her shoulders and rubbed them. Clearly he was having a hard time letting go as well. “We’ll work it all out one way or another.”

She nodded.

She was really viewing the hotel as theirs with all the work they had put into it. All of the hotels they’d renovated in the past were labors of love, but somehow this one was different. She felt that whatever had happened to her aunt here, the hotel was still warm and welcoming. And the idea that anyone would try to ruin it for them didn’t sit well with her.

Then they parted company and CJ moved his truck around the back to the parking area behind the hotel. Bertha, Silva, and Sam arrived, carrying the food they’d made through the back door of the hotel. Before long, they would be serving the finger sandwiches, drinks, and sweets from the hotel kitchen.

Because of the winter storm coating everything in several inches of fresh snow that day, everyone began to arrive slowly. In about forty-five minutes, they would have the ribbon-cutting ceremony and head inside. Laurel couldn’t believe how she’d been so tired last night, and then she’d slept until way too late this morning.

Many of the townsfolk, of all ages, had gathered to talk and enjoy the revelry while the barber, Mervin, wore his barbershop quartet outfit—a black vest, a red band around the arm of his white long-sleeved shirt, a red bow tie, and a straw hat—to play a fiddle, while someone else was playing a flute. He had to be freezing!

Despite the snowstorm, nothing could dampen the enthusiasm. As soon as she began to greet everyone, Laurel was asked over and over again where her sisters were. As wary as wolves were, she was afraid the pack members suspected something was up when they learned her sisters weren’t there. She still didn’t want to tell anyone but CJ about the furniture. What if she and her sisters learned who the murderer was from a slip of paper in the highboy, and the murderer learned of it too? Then again, what if the murderer had been Sheridan?

CJ had been upset about his father’s complicity in a murder before, and she knew he’d be upset all over again if he learned his father had been involved in the death of her aunt. As close as she and CJ had become, she felt she owed it to him to let him know what they had hoped to find in the furniture.

But now she and her sisters had a new dilemma. Were they going to have real trouble with the Wernicke brothers? She was beginning to feel that this could be their real home. It all had to do with the wolf pack that lived here—and one special wolf in particular, CJ.

Even Carol Wood, the psychic, was there, her blond hair in a bun, her blue eyes warm and smiling. Laurel smelled that she was a red wolf. There were so few of them that she wondered how the woman had been turned. Had Lelandi, also a red wolf, turned her? Carol was there with her mate, Chester Ryan McKinley, with his dark coffee-colored hair and amber eyes, and his sister, Rosalind. She had the same color hair, except it curled about her shoulders, and her amber eyes were darker, but she and Ryan definitely looked like twins. She owned and operated the greenhouse and garden shop in Green Valley where Ryan and Carol served as pack leaders. Laurel thought it was nice that the pack members here were also welcoming to pack members from elsewhere.

She was surprised to see so many people wearing just wool sweaters. No one had gloves, though a few wore ski hats. She was bundled to the max: hat, gloves, wool scarf, wool coat, and snow boots. She was wearing jeans and they were way too cold. She truly had not yet acclimated to the weather in Colorado.

“We love your wolf sculpture,” a couple of teenage girls said as they hurried on by, their target a group of four teen boys.

Other attendees were crouched down with the wolf sculpture, having their pictures taken, which she loved.

Laurel managed to break away and tell Rosalind how beautiful the poinsettias were that she’d brought over yesterday morning. “I’d love to order live flowers for the check-in counter three times a week, if that would work for you,” she told Rosalind.

“Oh absolutely. I have deliveries all over the area, including Bertha’s bed and breakfast and Silva’s tearoom. Silva’s even making Sam keep plants in the tavern near the window and flowers for the women’s bathroom. He refused to put plants or flowers in the men’s room.”

Laurel chuckled. She loved seeing the dynamics between the various pack members. Even though lupus garous were human too, their wolfish half dictated their behavior just as much as their human half influenced their actions as wolves.

She noticed Carol was staring at the attic window. Laurel didn’t want to look and see what she saw or interrupt her thoughts. But she was dying to ask her what the matter was. Carol didn’t look worried, but she was concentrating on something.

Quietly, Laurel said to her, “I understand you have some…special abilities.”

Carol swung her attention from the attic window to Laurel. “Uh, yeah. The pack members know about it, but it’s not something I advertise. I’m a nurse full-time and wouldn’t like the word to get out to…other kinds.”

“Sure. My sisters, Meghan and Ellie, sense things too.”

Carol smiled then, looking as though that made all the difference in the world to her. “I see future visions.”

“Do you see anything about the hotel?”

“No. Now that I’m with Ryan and his pack, and living in a different town, I often have visions about goings-on there. But I haven’t seen anything here for some time.”

“Did you ever see anything about the hotel? Or witness anything paranormal when you lived here before?”

Carol glanced around, but the only people nearby were other pack members. “As a human? No. I don’t see ghosts or feel paranormal activities any more than others do. Just sometimes, I see a glimpse of the future.”

“Ah, okay. So…what made you look at the window?”

“The woman up there, peering out.”

A wave of chills crashed over Laurel as she turned to look at the window. No one was there.

“Um, no one’s in the house. Could it be a future vision of yours? Someone else staying in the room at a future date?” Laurel clung to any explanation other than the obvious: the woman was a ghost.

“Could be.” Carol gave her a bright smile.

“So not a bad premonition.”

“No. I have good ones too.”

Laurel hoped that’s all it was. She looked for CJ and saw him near Bertha’s bed and breakfast. He must have run home to shower and change into his uniform while she was directing where the food should go for the opening. He was busy with crowd control—mostly watching everyone. He looked sexy in his uniform, in charge, alternately frowning and smiling. Everyone she’d met in the pack seemed even friendlier toward her, if that was possible. As if they knew that she and CJ were mated or about to be.

She glanced down at the beautiful wolf sculpture they had created last night, still perfect. Just like the night had been. She couldn’t see building a new Victorian-style hotel. Or watching their hotel being run by someone else. They loved renovating old hotels and bringing them to life again. But this one was special.

If they felt they had to leave, she would miss CJ most of all. She noticed that Peter and Trevor were also overseeing the crowds. Each of them slapped CJ on the back at one point, looking in her direction while chatting, then headed off to do their duty. She could just guess what they were saying.

Even his brothers had stopped to talk to him. All grins.

She felt her face turn hot despite the frosty breeze.

Main Street had been closed to traffic so that everyone could walk down the street. A large gravel parking lot at the end of town had been set aside for events like this. She and her sisters had witnessed Victorian Days in the fall, an annual celebration the town held to show their thanks for their longevity and to celebrate the town they had built. She and her sisters hadn’t participated, telling everyone they were too busy with renovations.