Didn’t follow her openly. That would have spoiled their fun, and truth be told it would have spoiled Lainey’s, too. These wolves weren’t tame dogs to run behind anyone’s cart. She liked them better still for it, and was hard put to keep her smile from bursting out. Not quite time for that yet. Not when hide-and-seek was still the nature of the game. And it wouldn’t last forever. The closer she got to home, the bolder they grew. Testing her, teasing her. They knew she knew. Every so often she saw a peek of a wolf’s noble head and strong muzzle through the wheat stalks; every now and again she got a glimpse of a man’s strong, bare leg crouching before, in a blink, a wolf ran from where the man had been. Whenever that happened, the smaller wolf had to rush to keep up. Hard as hell to keep a straight face, yes ma’am. Harder still not to linger on the images left behind in her mind’s eye of the bare male bodies she only saw snatches of as the wolves -- men -- ran through the wheat.
