The Mane Squeeze

CHAPTER 15

“Gwennnnnnnnie! Gwennnnnnnnie! Gwennnnnnnnnnnie!”

Gwen tried to cover her ears, but something had her hands trapped. She started kicking and fighting but something was on her, holding her down.

“Gwen! Wake up!”

Gwen’s eyes opened and she stared into a face she knew all too well.

“You idiot!”

“And an excellent afternoon to you, too, lazy head!” Mitch, still holding her hands, leaned down and breathed in her face.

“Jesus Christ!” she screamed.

“That’s right! Just got up myself and haven’t brushed my teeth yet!”

“You asshole! Get off me!”

He started slapping her in the face with her own hands, something she’d hated when she was six and, twenty years later, she still hated.

“Why are you hitting yourself, Gwen? Why are you hitting yourself?” he demanded while laughing maniacally.

“Get off!”

“I’m taking Sissy to Philly with me today,” he said, still slapping her with her own hands. “You’ll come, too. Mom says you haven’t been home in weeks. Not okay.”

“Can’t. I have plans!” she yelled, trying to kick him off her.

“With who exactly? It’s not Blayne, because I already checked in with her and she’s spending the day with her dad, or as I like to call him, Petty Officer Thorpe, Master of the Sea.” He took her hands and pulled them down her face. “Now look at you, Gwen! You’re trying to scratch your own eyes out! This is a cry for help!”

“Stop it!”

“A cry for help that only Ma and someone else’s apple pie—” because Christ knows Ma can’t bake “—can fix.” He released her, but when she went to slap the living hell out of him, he leaped neatly away. “And pack a bag. We’re staying a couple of days.”

Quickly sitting up so he couldn’t pin her to the bed again, Gwen scowled at her brother. “I said I can’t. I have plans.”

“If it’s not Blayne, then who? It’s not like you have any other friends.”

Gwen’s hands balled into fists. “You are such an asshole.”

“But an honest asshole, baby sister. Painfully honest. Now let’s get going.”

He was determined to get her back to Philly and she knew why. The O’Neill Family Pile-On. It was a horrifying event where every O’Neill aunt, uncle, and cousin in a hundred mile radius would be at her mother’s house for dinner so they could spend the entire time telling Gwen what a fuck-up she was.

They’d had their chance to do this before she left, but none of them had taken her very seriously, figuring she’d be home after a week or two.

But Gwen didn’t want to go home…wait. She briefly closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go back to Philly. She was already home. True, she didn’t have an apartment of her own yet, but she would. The business was doing well, their client list was healthy, and the wild dogs had cut her and Blayne an unbelievable deal on their office space.

And the family is testing you.

Yeah. She knew that. Although not as purely evil as a cult, Prides had their pull on a lioness. There was no denying that, and Gwen would be no different. But she wasn’t ready yet, and her mother knew it.

“I accepted another invitation for tonight. Sorry.”

Mitch crossed his arm over his chest. “Uh-huh. An invitation with…?”

“What do you care?”

He chuckled. “Look, the rest of the Philly cops may believe your line of bullshit, but I’m your brother. I know better. So stop fooling around, get your shit, and let’s go.”

He turned to walk out, completely dismissing her and pissing her off so badly that she lied like she hadn’t lied since Philly P.D. found her ex-boyfriend’s gun on her in the tenth grade.

“I’ve been invited to Jersey to spend time with Lock MacRyrie’s family. They’re expecting me for dinner and no way I’m not going.”

Mitch slowly faced her. “The bear? You’ve made dinner plans with a family of bears? You sure you’re not just dinner, Goldilocks?”

“That’s very funny,” she replied flatly. “Hilarious. But yeah. Plans to spend time with the family. They like me.” She hoped. She liked them and they seemed to like her, but who the hell knew and she was having such a bad day already. “Tell Ma I’ll see her at Thanksgiving, when I plan to be back in Philly. Not before.”

She was expecting her brother to throw one of his lion-male hissy fits, but it seemed Mitch was in as much of a game-playing mood as Gwen. Smiling, he said, “Even better…why don’t we drop you off in Jersey on our way home?”

“That’s not necessary. It’s out of your way.”

“Not by much, I’m sure,” he said easily. “And it’s no big deal. We’ll drop you off, I can meet the family, and even apologize to your bear. I think Bren and I might have startled him last night…after seeing you two making out in front of the hotel.”

Don’t you dare cringe, Gwendolyn O’Neill!

And drop her off? Meet the family? Oh, he was good. Gotten better in fact. She’d bet money he’d picked up tips from that damn ho-billy girlfriend of his! Manipulative canines!

Yet the one thing Gwen knew, she couldn’t back down now. “Sounds good.”

“Excellent.”

He turned away from her and Gwen reached for her phone to call Lock, but Mitch spun back around so fast, she immediately moved her hand away, trying to appear as if she hadn’t moved at all.

“And, to make it really interesting—” he walked over to her bedside table and picked up her cell phone “—why don’t I keep your phone, so you’re not tempted to let your bear know I’m coming? It’ll be a surprise! Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

Bastard! “Surprising a bear? That sounds like fun to you?”

“Oh, come on. He knows me now. I’m sure it’ll be great. I can’t wait!” He grabbed the in-room phone and yanked it off the table, ripping the cord from the wall.

This had quickly gotten out of hand. And Gwen knew why. Because Mitch expected Gwen to do what she always did when it came to her family. Take the path of least resistance. If it kept them quiet, Gwen usually did it simply to keep the peace and to avoid the whining, complaining, and roaring.

But not this time. This time she was going to play this out. Even if it blew up in her face—and she kind of knew it would—she had no intention of backing down. None!

“You better get ready,” Mitch said cheerily. “We’ll be leaving soon.”

“Fine,” she said, also with a cheeriness that could kill a twenty-foot boa constrictor. “Sounds good.”

She kept smiling until he walked out of the room, then she went to her closet and grabbed the high school football jersey Mitch had kept at their mother’s house. Gwen had taken it, because she liked to wear it even though she knew her brother would lose his mind if he found out. She dropped it to the floor, unleashed her front and back claws, and proceeded to rip the living shit out of it!

When she was done, she put the shreds in a paper bag and stuck it in the back of her closet. When the time was right, she’d hand it right back to him. Maybe with a bow on it.

Lock had his nephew on his lap and one of his nieces hanging from around his neck. His mother was in the kitchen arguing with his sister, and his oldest niece, the seven-year-old, was learning how to flirt on Ric.

Ric had an open invitation to the monthly MacRyrie meal, even attending when Lock was in the Marines and didn’t come home for over a year. And Lock didn’t begrudge Ric a moment of that time, either. Because he knew it was one of the few times Ric truly felt like he was part of a family as opposed to just part of a Pack.

Tragically, however, Iona had also brought a friend. For the first time in ages, she’d dragged that unhealthy looking carcass over, Judy Bennington. A one-time supermodel and now an agent, Judy was a sun bear who needed to eat more. No bear, boar or sow, should be that thin. Even worse…she apparently still had a thing for Lock, and she’d had that thing since he was a senior in high school. Yet unlike most predator males, Lock’s libido was actually attached to his brain and nothing about this woman had ever gotten him hard or even made him smile. She was a shifter who’d walked into his parents’ house wearing real mink, for Christ sakes!

Lock was also smart enough to know that Judy’s current interest in him was more about the fact that, at least in modeling terms, she’d passed her prime. She wanted a man to take care of her as she grew older. Not that he’d begrudge her that, but he wasn’t that man. She was so busy being “fabulous” that she was never very interesting. Lock liked interesting.

I like Gwen, he thought with a smile. And if there was nothing else he could say about that woman, he could sure say she was interesting.

“So how have things been going with you, Lock?”

His real smile faded and he forced on a fake one. “Fine, Judy. And you?”

And that, as he knew it would, sent Judy off on a good ten minutes of talking about herself. At the seven-minute mark, he looked across the dining table at Ric, who crossed his eyes and tried not to fall out of his chair with boredom. If Lock were more of a predator and less of a bear, he’d toss Ric to Judy and hope for the best. But Judy detested wolves and Lock couldn’t do that to any man.

Iona placed two large bowls of berries on the table, swiped up the empty cheese and crackers tray, slapped her son’s hand away from the berries, and said to Lock, “Did Judy tell you about her newest client?”

“She’s in Paris,” Judy said, gripping her glass of chardonnay. “For a photo shoot. She’s gorgeous and I snagged her young. Thirteen.”

Lock glanced over at his young niece and could only think of one response. “Eew.”

Ric snorted and looked away, but his sister cuffed him in the back of the head. A skill she’d picked up from their mother.

“Lachlan!”

“Sorry, but she’s thirteen! She should be dealing with zits and telling boys ‘no.’ Not whoring herself out to European designers so Judy can make her twenty percent.” And before his sister could yell at him, Lock snarled to Ric, “And are you going to answer that phone or am I going to break it?” The wolf had it on vibrate and the sound of it was driving Lock insane.

“I know it’s my father. We had one of our…disagreements earlier today.”

“Then either turn that phone off—” Lock said, standing when he heard the front door bell “—or throw it out the window. But do something.”

Lock walked through the house and had his hand on the doorknob when he heard his parent’s home phone ringing and Ric urgently whispering at him, “Don’t look surprised!”

Jumping a little, Lock glared back at him. The wolf had his phone to his ear and was watching him. “What?”

“Don’t look surprised.” He was still whispering. “Whatever you do.”

“Okay.” Shaking his head, wondering when everyone around him had lost their minds, Lock pulled the front door open—and stared.

Gwen gazed up at Lock, her eyes wide. What a nightmare this had all been! First, her brother had to drag her into the car. Not because she’d been fighting him on going—oh no, she was more than ready to take this stupid, ridiculous sibling fight all the way to its stupid, ridiculous conclusion if it killed them both!—but because Ronnie Lee felt the need to come along and Gwen had refused to get in to the car with her. In the end, Gwen had sat up front while Bren, Sissy, and Ronnie Lee got the back. Although any time Gwen had heard any strange noises from the backseat, she’d look at them—and while Sissy was busy texting someone from her cell, Ronnie and Bren just looked horrified. Gwen didn’t know why, though. She was just looking at them over her shoulder…or maybe more her spine. But so what?

Tragically, that wasn’t the end of the evening…it was only the beginning. Now she was trapped on the MacRyrie porch with Mitch behind her, his hand gripping her shoulder. He’d insisted on walking up to the house with her, and Bren had insisted on coming with Mitch because, “They’re bears, dumb ass…they kill.” And that had meant Ronnie insisted on coming with Bren because, “The Lord knows I gotta protect that pretty face from those bear claws,” and of course that meant Sissy had tagged along, “’Cause I don’t wanna be left out, y’all!”

Really? Has my life come to this? Really?

Now here they all stood, the grizzly gazing down at her, then at Mitch, Bren, Ronnie, Sissy, and finally back at her. Gwen was seconds from giving up and saying, “Fine. Take me back to Philly,” when Lock said, “You’re late.”

She almost collapsed right there, at his feet. She fought the urge.

“Traffic,” she managed to get out.

“Lucky for you that when it comes to dinner parties, my mother is always running late.” He stepped back and held the door open for her. “You have time for a drink before dinner.”

“Great!” Mitch said, pushing past his sister and walking inside, the rest of the psychopaths following.

Panicked, Gwen turned to Lock, and he shrugged.

Acting like the King of the Jungle Idiots that he and Bren were, the brothers walked right through the MacRyrie house like they owned it until reaching the dining room.

Gwen rushed in behind them, skirting around Ronnie to get to her brother. “I thought you were just dropping me off.”

“We’ll leave in a minute. What’s the rush?”

“Hi, Gwen.”

Gwen forced a smile at Ric Van Holtz—because why should she keep her embarrassment between her family and the bear? She shouldn’t. Everyone should know!—“Hi, Ric.”

Grinning, Ric smiled at Bren. “Brendon Shaw. Nice to see you again.”

“Ulrich.”

“Did you get the payout from the Board for the territory encroachment and the attack on your sister?”

Uh-oh.

Bren’s eyes grew wide in panic and Mitch asked, “Someone attacked Marissa?”

“Uh…”

“No,” Ric answered, probably trying to be helpful. Maybe. “Gwen. And Blayne. By the McNelly Pack out of Staten Island.” It was a toss-up of who Mitch would go after first—but he went with Brendon.

“My sister was attacked on your territory, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I can explain—”

“My baby sister!” Mitch threw his arm around Gwen’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. So tight, she was positive bones were breaking. “The most important woman in my life—”

“Hey!” Sissy snapped.

“—and you don’t tell me this?”

“Ronnie said not to.”

Outraged, Ronnie snapped, “No you didn’t just toss me under the bus!”

“I was going to call him from the medical center, but you said not to.”

“Medical center?” Mitch glared at Gwen. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d been attacked?”

“I was too weak…you know, with dying and all.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding, Mitch. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Like hell it wasn’t! And what exactly did you or Blayne do to start this fight?”

Gwen pushed away from her brother. “Blayne and I didn’t do a goddamn thing! It was an assault!”

“Yeah. Right. You and Blayne—the innocents. When did that happen? Did hell freeze over, too?”

“You are an asshole. And you know what else?” she hissed “You’re getting split ends!”

Mitch gasped and stepped back while Sissy shook her head and said, “Low blow, Gwenie. Low blow.”

Lock leaned in, studying Mitch’s hair. “Kind of accurate, though.”

Eyes narrowed to slits, Mitch scowled at the bear. Lock leaned back, shaking his silver-tipped hair out of his face. “I’ve never had that problem. It must be genetic.” He glanced at Brendon. “On your father’s side.”

Gwen snorted before quickly covering her mouth, which was around the same time Lock’s sister, Iona, came out of the kitchen, three children behind her. She stopped and stared at Gwen. “Why are you here?”

But before Gwen could reply with an adequate lie, Alla burst from the kitchen, her arms wide.

“Gwendolyn!”

Shocked, Gwen stumbled back, but Lock stood behind her, keeping her from panicking and running. Alla smothered her in a warm hug, the embrace only lasting a few seconds, but Gwen could feel the strength running through Alla and she had to admit—it humbled her.

“Hello, Alla.”

“You’re late,” she said with a wink, “but that’s okay.” Gwen smiled at the She-bear, adoring her for eternity in that instant. “And who do we have here, dear?”

“This is Mitch, Brendon, Sissy, and Ronnie.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Baranova-MacRyrie.”

“Doctor?” Mitch asked, raising his brows to his sister.

“A Ph.D.,” Gwen happily tossed back, as if she’d spend more than two seconds with an actual butcher.

“And this is my daughter, Iona, my husband, Brody. You all know my wonderful son Lock, his friend, Ric, and the always-emaciated Judy.”

That’s when they all noticed the weak-looking sow sitting at the table.

Glaring at Alla, her mouth briefly twisting in hatred, the too-thin She-bear said, “Nice to meet you all. I’m Lock’s date.”

Alla’s mouth dropped open and Iona’s blinked wide in confusion while the silence in the room grew oppressive as everyone waited for Lock’s response. But he was too busy staring out the window. Then, as if he’d suddenly heard her, Lock glanced down at Judy. “Since when?”

“Oh, Lock,” she giggled and Gwen thought about strangling the bitch. “I’m sure Iona told you I was here to be your date.”

“Not that I remember.”

What kind of answer was that? And if she was lying, why wasn’t he livid? Gwen was used to men who got livid over not having enough maple syrup for their pancakes, much less some heifer lying about being their date while standing in front of their date for the following day.

Lock shook his head, “I’m pretty sure I’d remember that conversation with my sister.”

“Oh, my God!” Gwen suddenly burst out, startling the bears in the room, which made the rest of the predators nervous. She grabbed Lock’s arm in order to drag him outside so she could slap some sense into his big bear head, but he didn’t actually move when she tugged, pulled, and yanked. He simply kept looking at her with those big, innocent bear eyes.

His mother tapped Lock’s shoulder. “Son, remember when I taught you how to give the smaller, weaker ones the illusion they’re dragging you places? This is one of those times.”

“Oh. Right.” He smiled and let Gwen drag him out to the backyard.

“She’s your date?”

Lock stared at Gwen, wondering what she was going on about. Why was she here? Why were her brothers here? Why did his mother and Ric seem to know what was going on? When had Judy Bennington lost her mind and started thinking they were dating? And how could Gwen be even prettier than the last time he saw her? Not a spot of makeup, wearing only jeans, a T-shirt, jacket, and sneakers—and she easily outshined all the overpaid Judys of the world.

“Not that I’m aware,” he answered.

“Not that you’re—” She gritted her teeth together, her hands curling into fists. “You’re not getting this, are you?”

“Not really.”

Pacing in a circle, Gwen snarled, “Are you fucking her?”

Shocked and hurt, Lock said, “I’m not fucking her. Or anybody,” he rushed to add. But especially Judy—skin and bones does not a good time in bed make.

“Is that why you walked away last night? Is that why you couldn’t see me today? Because of her? Because you were planning to be busy fucking her while you’re busy turning me down? Is that what’s going on here, Jersey?”

It suddenly occurred to Lock that Gwen’s scent had changed, but it wasn’t a new scent. No. It was the same one she had when she’d slammed her fist into that She-wolf’s face and spit blood in her eye.

So Gwen having that scent now…probably not a good thing.

While Sissy unknowingly kept the bears busy by rambling—and Christ knew, the woman could ramble—Mitch slipped into the bears’ kitchen. No matter what his baby sister thought, he wasn’t stupid. Someone had tipped off that grizzly, but he had no idea who. Who among his friends would betray him? Who among his friends would risk the wrath of the mighty lion in order to help out a frickin’ bear?

He didn’t know, but he was determined to find out. Determined to know who was getting between him and his ultimate goal of getting Gwen back to her Pride and her family. New York was no place for someone so sweet and delicate and vulnerable as his Gwenie. And he definitely wouldn’t leave her in the hands of some…some…bear.

Oversized, larvae-eating, easily startled, toe-playing, carcass-stealing bears! His sister deserved a nice, solid lion…well, maybe not a lion. A tiger? No. He detested tigers. A mountain lion? Eh. Perhaps a full-human? He rolled his eyes at the thought, but at least a full-human was easily controlled. Unlike those bears.

Moving over to the landline phone attached to the wall, Mitch eased the receiver out of the cradle and hit star six nine. Less than a full ring later, the other end was picked up and he heard a female voice ask, “Alla? Did it go okay?”

His eyes narrowed. He knew that voice. Where did he know that voice from? He was waiting for the voice to speak again so he could narrow it down, when a very large arm reached around him and disconnected the call. Swallowing, the scent of She-bear nearly choking him, Mitch turned and looked directly into large brown eyes.

The She-bear took the phone from Mitch’s hand and placed it back in the cradle. He watched her closely, refusing to cower in the face of an old bear. Sure, she was his height—and wider—but she was older and the intellectual type. Nothing to be worried about.

“You and your sister have the same cheekbones…and eye color. But you look more much more like your brother.” She gently placed big hands on Mitch’s shoulders. “She had so many funny stories about growing up in Philly with you and her mother’s Pride.”

“Her Pride,” Mitch was quick to correct. “Gwen’s Pride.”

The sow’s head tilted to the side. “Really?” She blinked, then said, “Anyway, while we were exchanging stories, I did tell her about a family vacation we had in Alaska one year. A bison bull, about seventeen hundred pounds or so, came out of nowhere and I guess I just panicked, but…” she shrugged, her gaze drifting up to the ceiling “…it did provide a lot of meat for the rest of the camping trip.”

That’s when Mitch tried to walk away, but she gripped his shoulders tight, and it took all of his strength not to drop to his knees from the pressure of it. “I guess I just felt my cubs were being threatened by that bison. Silly, huh? They do say that the most dangerous place anyone could be caught is between a bear sow and her cubs, but both Lock and Iona were adults when this happened, so I thought I’d be over all that by then.” Her hands briefly tightened again and Mitch was sure he heard something “pop” in his shoulders. “But I discovered that one is never too old to feel protective of their cubs and to destroy whatever may be threatening the life and happiness of their offspring. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Not waiting for an answer, she put her arm around Mitch and steered him back out to the dining room.

“Well,” the sow said sweetly to everyone in the room, “it looks as if it’s time for us to get our dinner under way.” She smiled over at Van Holtz. “I think it’s time to get that steak in the oven, Ric.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As the wolf passed, she added, “And remember, very rare.”

“As if I’d cook it any other way.”

She focused back on Mitch and the rest of the interlopers. “I’m so glad I had a chance to meet and chat with Gwen’s friends, and I’m sure we’ll all be seeing each other again soon.” Her arm still around Mitch, she ushered them out of the dining room, briefly pausing by the way-too-thin She-bear. “You, too, Judy. Time to go.”

“Yes, but I was invited—”

“Not by me, and I don’t like you.” Her daughter started to disagree, but when her mother jerked her hand up, the younger sow quickly moved behind her father. And Mitch didn’t blame that female one bit.

“But it’s been great having all of you over!” the older sow said cheerily. “It’s so rare for us to have so many wonderful breeds in our house at one time. For some reason, only bears ever come here.”