Page 6 of Cold Foot Croc (Wreck’s Mountains #3)

Raynah’s phone dinged from beside her.

At first she thought she’d dreamed it, but when she lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and heard the second ding of a text message notification, she knew she wasn’t. Raynah sat up in the small space she’d made for a nest, grabbed her phone off the charging cord, and read the text message. It was from an unfamiliar number.

It said, Is this Raynah?

Who is this ? She typed out. Send.

I think this has to be Raynah. My dumbass brother saved you as Hot Croc in his phone.

She was so confused. She read the text a couple more times, then rubbed her bleary eyes, sat up straighter, and typed out, Say who this is right now, or I’m blocking you.

Dylan Hoffman. I’m Garret’s brother. Can we talk?

Holy shit. The baby was rolling in her stomach, and she rested her hand on him and said, “It’s okay, baby boy. Everything is okay.” Her eyes were adjusting quickly to the pitch-dark, and out the window beside her, she could see the snowfall. It looked blue in the half-moon light.

Is Garret okay? Send.

Can I call you?

Sure. Send.

Her heart was pounding. Was he about to tell her bad news? Was Garret hurt? Had he hurt someone else?

Dylan called her, and she picked it up on the first ring. “Is he hurt?”

“No. Well…I don’t know.” He cleared his throat. “This is weird, calling you. I know it. I don’t even know you…shit.”

“Can you just tell me he’s okay? Please? Or if not, can you drop me your location and I’ll come help?”

“You’re pregnant.”

“And?”

“You can’t be driving all over creation in the middle of the night, lady. No. Just…” He inhaled deeply. “What do you want from him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you messing with him? Are you playing head-games? Are you looking for some man to support you and your kid? What is it? Do you need money or protection or something?”

A wave of rage washed through her, and the baby rolled again. She blew out a shaking breath. “I’m going to need just a few moments so I don’t cuss you up and down.”

“You gotta thick accent. Are you from the south?”

“Ask your brother—who I’m not toying with, or seeking money from, or trying to take advantage of. I’m not a charity case, you absolute hamburger. I can take care of myself.”

Dylan snorted, and then cleared his throat, and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Did you just call me a hamburger?”

“Sure did. I’m trying not to cuss as much lately. I’ve got a kid on the way.”

He cleared his throat again. “So to you, Garret is…”

“Garret is my friend.”

“Is he more?”

She stood and padded across the floor for the light switch as she told him, “I don’t know yet. I’m kind of in a weird place, and I don’t really want to put that on him.”

He inhaled deeply again, and she could hear the static of wind hitting the phone. “He told me someone told him to eat more steak and hunt as the animal. Was that advice from you?”

“Yes. Listen, Dylan? I just need to know if he’s okay. I’m already up and can be out the door in two minutes. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Are you a shifter?”

“Dylan!”

“Please. Just…a couple more questions. I don’t trust anyone around him. Someone did this to him, and then Farrah happened, and I don’t want any more storm on him, do you know what I mean?”

And that was very telling. Raynah’s shoulders relaxed. His brother cared about him, and any ally of Garret’s could be an ally of hers.

As she made her way down the stairs, she told him, “I wouldn’t ever try to hurt him. Garret has been very kind to me.”

Her phone vibrated, and she frowned down at the glowing screen. Dylan had sent her a video.

“Please don’t show that to anyone,” he said softly. “Delete it after you watch it. Please.”

She put him on speakerphone and then opened the video. It didn’t have any volume and the image was grainy, taken from up above the snowy forest. It was of Garret. He was lying in the snow, writhing in pain. The snow around him was red, and he seemed to be stuck in a horrifying in-between state. Patches of his skin were missing, and others were covered in the fur of his grizzly. His face was elongated. He bucked and threw his head back, seizing.

She couldn’t watch any more.

“Oh my gosh,” she whispered, her heart tearing for him.

“Can you help him?” Dylan asked.

“How did you get this video?”

“I follow him with a drone at least part of the time, to make sure he isn’t going to turn around and come right to camp and go after me again, or head to town. It’s always like this.”

“Geez,” she whispered, staring at the frozen frame of the video. “Why is he fighting it so hard?”

“I don’t know. I do know I’m not helping as much as I want to. I brought him here thinking we could teamwork this and figure it out together, like we always figured everything out when we were younger, but there’s no improvement. I was cocky. I thought I could get him through this, and functioning, and acting normal, but…”

“But you’re human,” she murmured, finishing his thought.

“I’m human,” he agreed.

“Is he still Changed?”

“Yeah. He stays bear for a while.”

“Because he isn’t Changing enough. Suppressing the animal will just piss it off. It’s not supposed to be like this.”

“Yeah, well, we’re doing the best we can.” There was a defensiveness to his voice that she understood. He’d tried. He was still trying, and there was no road map on this stuff for humans. There was no How To Be A Shifter for Beginners book out there.

“Can you drop a pin to your location?”

“You shouldn’t be—”

“You don’t know me well enough to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.”

“I know what you did to get into Cold Foot Prison.”

That sentence froze her in place. She was just a still frame of shock, reaching for her jacket by the front door, fingers barely touching the sherpa lining of the collar. “What did you say?”

“Garret told me what you did to get into prison.”

“Well, Garret doesn’t know,” she gritted out, fire racing up her spine.

“I’m just saying, if you come here thinking you’re going to kill me out here in the wilderness, it ain’t gonna happen.”

“Do you beat women?”

“No.” Truth.

“Then I guess you’re pretty fuckin’ safe. Send me your location.”

And then she hung up.

As she shouldered her jacket on and shoved her sock-clad feet into her snow boots, her mind raced around what he’d said. Garret knew? Garret knew ? He must’ve found the reports online. Why hadn’t he told her that?

And even more curious, why hadn’t he treated her any differently?

As she waited for her truck to warm up, she thought back on all of their conversations, but she couldn’t remember a single moment he had even hinted that he knew she’d killed Harold Price.

She should still be rotting in Cold Foot Prison. If Harold had been a shifter, she would’ve gotten four years, maybe. Humans didn’t care as much if shifters were killing off other shifters, but Harold, like her adoptive mother, was human, and so Raynah had been sentenced to life in Cold Foot Prison.

Yet here she was…free.

She didn’t know if she deserved freedom or not, but she did know one thing—if she had it all to do again, she would do it just the same.