“I’ll get the blankets,” Debbie said as she left Franny on the shore and ran up the incline to the vehicle while Allan administered CPR on baby Stacy.

The infant suddenly coughed up water and let out a weak cry. Allan swore his stopped heart came back to life. She wasn’t out of danger yet. She was lethargic and her skin was bright red and cold.

Franny was trying to pull off her wet clothes in the frigid weather. He was afraid she was planning to turn into her wolf.

“Franny, hold on. We’ll get you and Stacy to the clinic as soon as we can. The ambulance will be here any minute. Dr. Holt will take care of you both.” With one arm, he held the baby against his wet chest, holding Franny close to him with the other, trying to keep her from stripping out of her clothes. They needed to, but not as a prelude to shifting. He moved them up toward the hatchback to get them out of the stiff, cold wind, but Franny was struggling to get free.

Slipping a bit, Debbie hurried as fast as she could back down the hill with blankets and some dry clothes.

“Let’s get them up to the vehicle. You can remove the baby’s clothes inside the car, and I’ll take care of Franny,” Allan said.

“Okay,” Debbie replied, and Allan gave her the baby, then lifted Franny’s trembling body into his arms and trudged up the hill.

“Need…to…turn,” Franny bit out.

Yes, their double coat would help warm her, and even just the shift would warm her, but her baby would turn too. He could just see Debbie dropping the baby-turned-wolf-pup and scream out in fright.

“When you’re in the ambulance, Franny. Just wait.” He spoke firmly, as a pack sub-leader would, encouraging her but at the same time commanding her to do his bidding.

At the car, Debbie climbed into the backseat and pulled off the baby’s sopping wet pink fleece jumpsuit and wrapped her in a dry blanket, while Allan struggled to remove Franny’s wet clothes. She was shaking badly from the cold, which was better than if she wasn’t shivering at all, but her skin was ice white, her breathing abnormally slow.

Sirens in the distance told them the cavalry was coming. Thank God. He just hoped it was their ambulance and not the regular one.

“What happened?” Allan asked Franny. He had to keep her talking and alert, keep her from shifting unexpectedly.

“Red car—no accident.”

Allan paused as he was trying to get a wool ski hat on her head, but she kept removing the blanket. She was either thoroughly confused or she really wanted to shift. Maybe a little of both.

Franny looked on the verge of collapse as he pulled the wool knit cap over her head and removed the rest of her wet clothes. Then he wrapped her tightly in the blanket, lifted her into his arms, and set her inside the hatchback. At least inside the vehicle, she was protected from the bitter wind. Debbie was holding the baby close. Both he and Debbie were suffering from hypothermia also. He felt his speech slurring, and he was having a time concentrating on what he needed to do next. But he had enough presence of mind to know not to shift.

“Your daughter’s breathing and her heartbeat’s steady,” Allan reassured Franny, though he couldn’t know for sure about her overall condition until the EMTs took her to the clinic and had her checked out.

Debbie frowned a little at him, and he realized he’d made another mistake. The problem was his wolf hearing was enhanced enough that he could hear, smell, and see things that humans couldn’t. She probably figured he was just soothing the mother over with a story. The truth was he could hear the baby’s heartbeat, and it was steady, which gave him a modicum of relief.

The ambulance pulled up and the medics took over from there. Allan should have asked Franny more particulars about the accident, but he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he normally did in an emergency. Not that Franny could have responded with any real mental clarity, but it was something he should have done in a case like this.

He and Debbie were shaking as hard from the cold, but the EMTs had already given them blankets too.

“My…purse,” Franny said, her teeth chattering.

“Anything else you need from the car?” Allan wished he could put on his wolf coat or his wet suit. He was afraid she had something damning in her purse with regard to being lupus garous, though he couldn’t imagine what. He didn’t want to jeopardize their situation if anyone else were to get it for her later. So he made the decision to get it for her, despite how chilled he was.

“Just…purse,” she managed to get out. “Front…seat.”

“I’ll get it for you,” he reassured her.

Debbie took hold of his arm. “You’re already suffering from hypothermia. Let someone else do it.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m already wet. We’ll get warm and dry real soon.” Their wolf pack didn’t have wolves working for the sheriff’s department, except for Paul and Allan as contracted divers. So they had to take care of their own. Not that he could let on to Debbie why that was so.

At the edge of the culvert, he dropped the blanket on top of the snow.

Despite already being soaking wet and chilled to the marrow of his bones, he felt even colder when he entered the water. But his faster wolf healing abilities would help him overcome this more quickly, than if any human responders had to deal with it.

He waded out, then dove into the submerged SUV, glad Debbie had returned to the hatchback to protect herself from the chilling wind. He pulled his flashlight out, just in case he needed it and to ensure no one would question how he could find the purse in the dark if anyone happened to be watching. He was certain Debbie would be, to ensure he would return safely.

He located the black leather bag resting on the roof of the upside-down SUV and pulled it out. Clutching the purse against his chest, fearful he wouldn’t be able to hold on to it in the fast-moving water, he waded through it until he reached the shore. On the shore, he grabbed up the blanket and wrapped it around himself, then trudged slowly up the slope to the waiting ambulance. He felt as if he were wearing wet cement shoes.

“Thank you,” Franny said, taking her sopping wet bag and holding it tightly to her body, as if it was her baby too.

With the ambulance doors now shut, but before the ambulance took off for the clinic, a bark came from inside. Then with its lights flashing and siren blaring, the ambulance headed for the clinic as some of the sheriff’s men arrived at the scene.

Debbie was staring at the ambulance as it drove away. “Did you hear a dog bark inside the ambulance?”

“No.” A wolf, yes. Dog? No.

“You should have let someone else get her bag, Allan. You’re not invincible,” she said, shaking hard as they sat inside the vehicle with the heat blasting, a cold north wind sweeping across the area as they waited to speak to the police officers who had arrived.

“Well,” said Rowdy Sanderson, a homicide detective, his blue eyes considering the two of them, “why don’t you get into something warm and dry before both of you need hospitalization too. I’ll handle this until you can file a report.”

“What the hell are you doing here? No dead bodies,” Allan said. He knew Rowdy was here because Debbie was.

“Could have been,” Rowdy said, glancing at Debbie.

“Thanks, we’re out of here,” Allan said. They had to get into dry clothes pronto.

Allan and Debbie were always on call if something came up. They had been finishing up some paperwork on a murder case—a car buried in water in one of the area lakes. The driver had contusions that were probably not due to the car accident. More likely, the victim had been beaten and the car accident had been staged. He and Debbie were just on their way to get some lunch when they had seen the SUV upside down in the culvert.

“I want to drop by the clinic as soon as we can change and get warmed up.” Debbie leaned down to pull off a boot, and then the other. She slid off a wet sock, dropping it on the floor, then struggled to get the other off.