He picked up his pace a bit, and as he approached the battered Toyota, he saw why Sherwood had his crutch out. One jean-covered leg ended in a boot, and the other ended in an empty space. The prosthesis that gave Sherwood the ability to walk like everyone else was missing.
Like the girl, Sherwood’s face was battered. There was a lot of blood on the front of his shirt where his jacket was open. Warren was pretty sure that some of the stains on Sherwood’s pants were blood, too.
Sherwood raised his head, and his wolf stared at Warren. Before Warren could figure out whether to meet his gaze—Sherwood had called him for help—or to look away, Sherwood closed his eyes.
Freed from that dilemma, Warren looked away and saw something odd with the tracks on the ground next to the Mercedes. He dropped to one knee so he could get a better look at the marks in the snow where someone had pulled—not pushed—the two interlocked cars off the track.
He’d grown up in a time and place when tracking was part of a survival skill set. The marks told him a story as clearly as if he’d been here to see it. The places where Sherwood’s good foot had slipped, unable to gain purchase on the icy ground. The round mark made by something like a pipe that had no trouble breaking through the ice to the ground beneath it.
“Break your prosthesis in the accident, or did you do it deliberately so you could get the cars off the track?”
“Deliberately,” Sherwood said tightly.
“Hey, you, werewolf!”
Both Warren and Sherwood looked over to see the young officer striding toward them.
Warren fished his key fob out of his back pocket and tossed it at Sherwood.
“Why don’t you go sit in my car and warm up,” Warren said, walking toward the cop to intercept him.
Warren didn’t mind facing off with the angry cop, especially when the other officer was an ally of sorts. Tony was on his way—and if all else failed, he could threaten them with Kyle. Kyle’s specialty was family law, but that didn’t hurt his reputation as a shark at all.
Moreover, Warren hadn’t been injured in a car accident and forced to expose his greatest weakness in front of an enemy. He had a lot better chance of holding on to his temper than Sherwood did.
Sherwood caught the fob and carefully started to cross the icy road using his crutch. It wasn’t graceful.
With another pack member, Warren would have carried them over to the car—or given them his arm or escort. Sherwood wouldn’t be able to accept that right now. Warren wasn’t worried about Sherwood—much—but his wolf was old and dangerous. The last thing that their pack needed was for him and Sherwood to get in a real fight out where a scared cop and some people with cell phones could watch.
The cop tried to angle after Sherwood, but Warren got in the way.
“I’m Warren Smith,” he drawled with a big old friendly smile. “My friend Sherwood is hurt, and he’s going to take a time-out over there in my car. He ain’t gonna take off. What did ya need him for?”
The cop wasn’t completely stupid. He stopped well short of Warren and regarded him with suspicion. “I need his license, registration, and insurance, and his story about what happened.”
Warren looked at him. “I hope that you ain’t plannin’ on giving tickets to two drivers who were stopped at an active railroad cross’n. Because even a stupid hick like me knows that it’s the lady who hits the stopped cars who gets the ticket.”
“Hey, Warren,” said the other officer before the angry one had a chance to respond. “Good to see you. That lawyer of yours did some righteous maneuvers for my friend whose ex tried to take his kids back. I understand that it was some of your work that made that case go the way it should.”
Hell, he’d almost forgotten that he had a little more pull with the KPD this week than he’d had before. In his defense, most of his work on that case had been completed a couple of months ago. “Your cop friend needs to have better taste in his next wife,” he said.
“That’s what I told him.” The friendly officer stepped casually in front of his angry coworker and held out his hand. “We never met officially.” Which explained why Warren couldn’t come up with his name. “I’m Trent Oliver.”
Warren shook it. “Good to meet you, Trent.”
Across the street, Warren’s Subaru started up.
“He’s getting away,” said the other cop, turning as if he planned on running in front of the car to stop it.
Trent caught his arm and said, “Stand down,” at the same time that Warren said, “No such thing, Officer.”
To be sure he was speaking the truth, Warren looked at Sherwood, who was sitting in the driver’s seat—which he had to, in order to start the car. Warren couldn’t quite read the expression on the old wolf’s face, but it wasn’t the expression of someone who was about to drive away. Sherwood saw Warren watching him, and grinned.
“He’s been sitting out in the cold for a while,” Warren continued warily. He’d never seen that exact expression on Sherwood’s face before. “I told him to go get warm.”
Apparently satisfied that his charge wasn’t going to go do something dumb, Trent released the other cop. Warren firmly turned his attention back to where it belonged.
“Warren, this officer is Cam Hochstetler. He’s new to Kennewick and doesn’t know how we do things here. Cam, Warren Smith is the best private detective in the Tri-Cities and third in our local wolf pack. What he’s trying to tell you is that he has the right and obligation to step in when he thinks that someone is getting into trouble with one of his wolves.”
Everything calmed down quite a bit after that. Warren collected Sherwood’s insurance and registration from the Toyota’s jockey box—and Sherwood’s license, too. Apparently, he kept it in his car.
Tony arrived. The drunk girl was properly cited and sent home with the aid of Officer Hochstetler—who Warren could tell was going to give the pack some trouble down the road. The driver of the first car asked Warren to thank Sherwood for saving his life because he’d still been sitting stunned in the front seat when Sherwood pulled them out of danger. The train had been going past his window by the time he’d had the presence of mind to get out of his car.
Warren tucked the accident report number in his back pocket and strolled to his car.
Sherwood saw him coming and opened his door.
And that was when Warren realized that he’d been close enough that the car’s audio had paired with his phone and started the audiobook he’d been listening to. He had a tendency to turn them off when the sex scenes started because having some stranger read about sex to him was just…uncomfortable. This was the first time it occurred to him that maybe that wasn’t the wisest thing to do.
He was today-years-old when he realized that he could still blush like a schoolgirl.
“Ah, damn it all,” he said.
“Are you embarrassed that your audiobook started in the middle of a very hot sex scene between three men in a swimming pool?” asked Sherwood politely. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about that.”
“Get out of the driver’s seat,” said Warren. “I’m taking you home.”
Getting Sherwood into the passenger seat took a while longer than it normally would have. Between the crutch and his laughing fits, Sherwood had some trouble on the ice.
The first thing Warren did when he got behind the steering wheel was turn the sound system off.
“Saddest thing in the world is listening to nineteen minutes of a twenty-minute sex scene,” said Sherwood in a mock-mournful voice.
“They all die horribly in five more minutes, their efforts unfulfilled,” said Warren, “victims of the shapeshifting shark lurking in the deep end.”