Free Allister, J. Rose - Disowned Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Rose J. Allister Page B

two males that came up behind her.
    “I got chased by a wolf and got lost,” she said.
    He blinked. “A wolf? It wasn’t even nighttime. Wolves aren’t active during the day.”
    She shrugged. “I know what I saw. After it chased me up the mountain, it ran off. I lost my bearings trying to find my way back and wound up deeper in the forest instead. I sheltered overnight in a cave when the storm came.” She twisted around to gesture to Kyle and Dillon, whose gazes were both locked on David. “These two men offered to guide me to the ranger station for help.”
    “Did they?” David asked, his eyes wary. Nevertheless, he thrust out his hand, which was covered by a thick, nylon glove. “Then I owe you both a debt for bringing back my fiancée.”
    The word twisted sideways in her stomach, and she saw Dillon go rigid. His eyes narrowed a fraction. Kyle’s face was stoic as ever, and combined with the slash of scar along his face, it gave him an even more dangerous appearance than the man who’d had to be chained up in a cave the night before.
    She could feel Dillon’s eyes on her, challenging her to refute David’s assumption. For a moment, she wondered whether she’d been better off lost in the woods with a strange wolf and a wild redhead with a gun.
    David seemed to notice that the other men were a rather intimidating sight, too, because he looked back and forth between them and then turned to Aimee with a frown. “So, is everything all right?”
    Aimee nodded, adding a smile for good measure.
    “You’re a mess, poor thing,” he went on, reaching into her hair and pulling a leaf from the short curls. He lifted her hand with a tiny smile. “I see you still have your ring. All crusted with dirt now, though.”
    She felt, more than saw, Dillon’s smart-ass grin. “I’m sorry. A little too much communing with nature, I guess.”
    David shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m much happier having you back with me where you belong. I just meant that you must have had such a rough time of it.”
    She flinched when Dillon opened his mouth to reply, but two rangers walked up and interrupted the conversation. They took Aimee aside to ask all sorts of questions about her night lost on the mountain and urged her to let them call medics to check her vitals and take her to a hospital if need be. Hypothermia was nothing to mess with, they warned.
    Aimee tried to nod and appear as though she was listening when she was busy keeping a close watch on the men staring each other down nearby. There were things on this mountain that were even less wise to mess with than frostbite.
    “You’re probably dehydrated, too,” a narrow-faced ranger, whose hat appeared just a little too large, said to her. “Doesn’t take long, especially with the exertion of hiking in the mountains.”
    “I drank rainwater,” she said, wishing they’d be quiet so she could hear what Dillon was saying to David. “There wasn’t exactly a shortage of it during the storm.”
    His reply was drowned out by the question David, who stood with his arms folded, was posing to the two cowboys.
    “So, exactly where and when did you meet up with my Aimee?”
    She bolted forward with a nervous laugh. “Okay, I think we’re good here now.” Her eyes met David’s. “I don’t need a hospital. I promise to take a hot bath and drink plenty of fluids and never get lost again. Can we go?”
    He gave her a curious look. “I suppose so. Been a long night for us both.”
    “That it was,” Dillon said, and she did her best to smite him with a warning look.
    His own fired right back as he put his hands on his hips. “So that’s it, then?”
    What she wouldn’t have given to avoid the accusation in that fiery stare, but it would have looked dubious to keep her eyes averted from her supposed rescuer. Instead, she offered him a smile. “Of course that’s not it. I’m so very grateful to you both for helping me.” She stuck out the hand that felt oddly