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“Yeah, that’s true.” Which wasn’t good news.

“I’ll go make dinner.” She headed into the kitchen and brought a couple of cans of chicken and rice soup. She searched through the drawers and pulled out a handheld can opener.

Andy followed her into the kitchen and opened the soup cans for her. “Why don’t you lie down? I have two good hands and can manage a lot better.”

He could walk on his injured ankle much better now, and she needed to rest her strained back.

“All right. Thanks.”

He rummaged through the freezer and found an ice pack. “Here, use this on your back.”

She carried it into the living room, lay down on her stomach, and put the ice pack on her back.

Once he had prepared the dinner, he released one of Helen’s hands so she could eat. Then he sat down with Monica at the dining room table.

“What about me?” Denny said angrily.

“After we eat.” Andy didn’t trust him not to cause trouble, so he released only one of the perps at a time.

“Do you think your boss will send out more troopers to look for you?” Monica asked Andy.

“Yeah, once I don’t check in or return home. My family and friends could also be. We might get lucky, and your fellow agents could end up at this cabin by mistake.” Andy bit into a soda cracker.

“That would sure be welcome.”

“At least the agents in your office would know where Denny’s grandparents’ cabin is and that it’s probably fairly close to this one. With my officers, they won’t have any idea. They could assume we had trekked through the woods to search for a cabin to wait out the weather. Because of the blizzard, our tracks will be gone when anyone begins searching for us.”

“And our scents will be gone too.”

6

The fire was dwindling as Andy cleaned up the dishes after they had soup and crackers, and the room was beginning to turn chillier already. Only two more logs were sitting in the big brass box next to the fireplace, which wouldn’t get them through the night.

Outside, the whiteout condition persisted.

“I’m going to get us some more firewood.” Andy didn’t want to wait any longer.

Denny should be helping. But Andy didn’t trust him to uncuff him, and he didn’t believe he could get any logs loose, either.

"Are you sure? I can do it." Monica was getting ready to leave the couch where she’d been resting her back.

"No. I'm feeling much better." Andy didn't want her to hurt her back further; his ankle was nearly normal.

Walking in deep snow might be an issue, but he could do all right as long as he could follow the trail she had made earlier while in her bear coat. He went outside, shut the door, and stripped off his clothes. Then he shifted into his bear, glanced back at the window, and saw her watching him.

Unfortunately, the path she had created was nearly obliterated by all the fresh snow. He lumbered toward the woodpile, rose on his hind legs, and swiped at the top layer of snow. Then he slammed his paw into the logs, something he'd never done before. Hell, it hurt!

He hated that she’d had to do that earlier. She’d made it look so easy.

He knocked two logs free from the frozen woodpile. Now he knew what she had gone through! He knocked four more logs free. While he was at it, he wanted to get as many as possible. He certainly didn’t want Monica to have to get any more.

The heavier polar bear’s weight on his injured ankle was starting to bother him though. He still had to carry all the wood back to the cabin. He freed four more logs and began carrying them back to the house. At least Helen and Denny were confined so they couldn’t see him shifting into a polar bear, or thatthatwas how he was getting the logs loose.

Once he began bringing the individual logs to the house, Monica came out to get them. He wanted to tell her to stay in the cabin. He would carry them in after he moved them to the front porch. He had carried more than half of them to the porch when he heard something coming through the woods. A cougar? Wolf? Maybe some of his people or Monica's?

As shifters, they could see better at night than humans. But then flashlights headed their way up the drive. He considered the distance to the cabin. Could he make it in time to shift and dress before anyone saw him shifting? He didn't want to risk it. None of their kind could shift in front of non-shifters without having to turn them or eliminate them, depending on who had seen them.

If they were fellow law enforcement officers, he couldn't kill them. He headed around to the side of the house to see what washappening. Monica was watching him. She looked sharply in the direction of the road covered in snow.