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The little cabin practically shook as someone pounded on the door. Michael stopped chopping vegetables. He looked over at me from the open kitchen with his eyebrows raised.
“What the fuck?” I muttered. Ben would have just walked in.
The door swung open before I could reach for the handle, and the scent of lavender hit me like a slap. I didn’t have time to process it before the gorgeous woman on the threshold started speaking in rapid bursts.
“I’m with the park. I need your help with an injured man. He has hypothermia. We need to get him inside.”
Her tone left no room for discussion. It had been a while since I’d done search and rescue, but I was back in that mindset in an instant.
I nodded and followed the woman out to her truck, thankful I’d left my boots on. Michael was right behind me.
All the air left my lungs when I saw who was in the passenger seat, shivering and way too pale.
“Ben.”
Without another word, I slipped my arms under his knees and around his back and lifted him out. Ben was my size, not a lightweight guy, but I didn’t falter. All my focus was on getting him inside.
Michael ran ahead and opened the door wide. I turned sideways to get through the doorway, then brought Ben to the couch and sat him there. The woman came in behind me and closed the door, sealing us off from the worsening weather outside.
I immediately started taking off Ben’s wet shoes and socks. The woman spoke to Michael.
“I’ll go get blankets. Can you heat water? There’s cocoa mix in the cupboard next to the pantry.”
“On it,” Michael said. I heard him filling a pan and turning on the stove.
She appeared next to me again a minute later, just as I was taking off the last of Ben’s clothes. Together we covered him with blankets. His eyes were open, but glassy.
A small fire was already going in the fireplace across from the couch. I crossed to the stack of wood leaning against the wall, pulled out a few logs, and added them to the flames to build ithigher.
When I turned back, the woman was taking off her clothes.
“Body heat.” She didn’t pause her movements. “I’m Tracy, by the way.”
“Griffin.” I faced the fire again to give her privacy, but not before I caught a glimpse of an amazing pair of breasts covered by a lacy pink bra.
Not. The. Time.
The low growl I heard from the kitchen told me Michael wasn’t being as discreet about looking at her. Unexpected protectiveness flared in my chest, and I glared at him. But when he met my eyes, I recognized the look of hunger I saw. It was exactly what I was feeling.
Shaking my head to clear it, I kneeled in front of the fireplace and added more logs. The cabin had some amenities, like running water and electricity, but it wasn’t well insulated. Most of the heat came from the fire. We’d need to keep Ben in the living room, where it was the warmest.
The brown couch he sat on was worn, with frayed edges and sagging cushions, but it was comfortable and deep. Sure enough, when I turned back around, Tracy had already tucked herself in next to him just fine. Only her head poked above the blankets, and I could tell she’d wrapped her arms around his shoulders and chest from the side. I tried not to imagine any lower than that.
Ben’s chin tipped forward and his eyes started to close. She brought her hand to his face.
“Ah, ah, ah. Stay awake, big guy. You need to drink a little hot chocolate, then you can rest.”
Michael appeared with a steaming mug, as if on cue. He glanced at Tracy, but when he saw how badly Ben was doing, he shifted into professional mode. He’d trained for this kind of thing, like I had.
I worried for a moment that this was too much for Michael. That seeing Ben like this would set him back. Getting away from the life-and-death trauma of fighting wildfires was the whole reason he gave it up, became a chef.
It had been almost two years, and he was only just starting to heal from those emotional wounds.
I could sense something shifting in him as I watched. Michael would do whatever he could to help our packmate, that was never in question. But a calm had settled over him. Confidence, even.
Maybe the omega had something to do with it.
Because that’s what Tracy was. She had to be. Her scent was too potent. Her very presence in the room was too weighted for her to be anything else.
