Page 31 of Valentine's Day Treasure

“Sure,” she said, feeling a little more awake now. She took her pendant and fastened it around her neck. “Is Ella wearing hers?”

“She still won’t touch it, so Cerise has it.”

“Oh good, that’s smart.”

Ella wouldn’t touch her pendant because in the past, it had ‘traveled’ her to dangerous places. Cerise didn’t have a pendant because it had been stolen, but she could hold Ella’s without any problems, and since Heather had been able to do some powerful things with Ella’s pendant when they’d needed it, they thought Cerise probably could, too.

Crew held up a stack of clothes topped with a white and purple snowmobile suit.

“We’re really going by snowmobile?” she asked.

“You, Cerise and Ella are, plus Mac and Bruin. The rest of us are running there as wolves.”

Dahlia was surprised. The males rarely went anywhere as wolves, and never together in a group that she’d seen so far.

“Trevor thinks it’ll be fine because of the snowfall. The roads’re closed and no one’s out and about. Serenity’s shut down.”

“But the hotel’s open?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Dahlia said. She went into the bathroom to get ready. When she was finished, Crew was waiting for her.

“Hey, Doll,” he said, looking impossibly sexy, moving in close, wrapping his arms around her and whispering in her ear. “You look pretty in that snowsuit.”

She smiled sweetly at him and kissed him on the cheek. He held out his hand and she took it.

“Wait!” she said. “I have to get your Valentine’s Day gift.”

He grinned and dug in the bag, then held it up. She’d gotten him a signed book from one of his favorite authors and thank goodness she’d wrapped it days ago.

“I found it with your notebooks and figured you’d want me to bring it.”

They made their way downstairs to the living room, which was empty, but, through the sliding glass door, they could see the team was clustered on the back porch, where they were protected from the snow. Trevor was talking, while Ella, Cerise, Beckett, Trent, and Troy were listening.

“If there’re any issues at all, switch to route B. Got it?”

Troy barked and Beckett said, “Yessir.” Ella, Cerise and Trent nodded. Dahlia slid open the door and Cerise saw her right away. Cerise was dressed in an adorable yellow snowsuit and she waved enthusiastically at Dahlia and then grabbed Beckett’s hand, pointing at his identical snowsuit.

Dahlia grinned. “Twinsies.”

Cerise ran down the porch steps, motioning for Dahlia to follow. “You’re with me,” she said, heading for the snowmobiles which were parked under a tarp. Dahlia and Crew followed.

Cerise got on one, patting the seat behind her, but before Dahlia could move, Trevor stepped in front of them, obviously wanting to tell her and Crew the plan. Behind Trevor, Ella also got on her snowmobile and waved at Dahlia. Dahlia waved back, then paid attention to Trevor.

“Everyone on snowmobiles will cut across the property,” he was saying. “then follow the fence line of the neighbor’s cornfield. Once you hit the old highway, stick close to the road. The rest of us are going to stay inside the tree line. When we have to cross the highway, we’ll do it in spaced intervals.”

The sound of a snowmobile engine caught Dahlia’s attention and she looked around. A third snowmobile came around the side of the house and zoomed by them, with Bruin driving and Mac behind him. They went up a snowdrift and caught air, Mac whooping, and Bruin steering for dear life—and then they hit a tree. The snowmobile’s engine cut off, the machine stopped short and crashed to the ground, sending a mini avalanche of snow from the tree’s branches, which covered Mac, Bruin, and the snowmobile completely.

CRACK.

The unmistakable sound of a tree branch breaking made Dahlia’s breath catch. It was a thick branch on the tree they’d just hit, and looked to be falling directly toward the two males and the snowmobile.

Dahlia clapped her hands to her mouth and Cerise covered her eyes. Trevor yelled and ran that way, even though there was no way he could reach them in time.

Beckett and Crew both said, “Oh shit,” in unison.

Ella, on her snowmobile, shouted and thrust both her hands straight out at the falling branch. Power flew past Cerise, rocking her in her seat. The branch splintered, making twigs fly deep into the forest, and in the eerily quiet aftermath, snow continued to fall like nothing had happened. Ella dropped her hands to her belly, her eyes on the tree.

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