The Mane Squeeze

CHAPTER 22

Lock was still arguing with Gwen at his front door. “Let me take you home.”

“I’ll catch a cab.”

Leaning against the door frame, Lock gripped her denim jacket by the lapels and tugged her closer until she was flush against him. “It’s polite to see a woman to her door—and then make out with her.”

“Yeah, exactly. I have a job today, so I can’t afford to let you get me confused and horny when I’m dealing with a sewer line.”

“Eew.”

“Wuss,” she teased. “Besides, not all of us are artists.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“You’re so friggin’ cute when you blush.”

She went up on her toes and Lock came down so she could kiss him. “I’ll call you later today. Okay?”

“Yeah. But remember what we talked about…be careful.”

“I always am.”

Lock watched her walk down the hallway and disappear into the elevator. He wished he could have taken her home, but she was right. He would have been forced to try out that Kingston Arms bed, and she’d have lost a whole day of work. The last thing he ever wanted to do was get in Gwen’s way, but he also wanted to make sure she built time in for him.

He closed the front door and walked into his living room, retrieving the jacket he’d thrown at his couch the night before so he could hang it up. His phone went off and he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the text message from Sabina.

WHEN WILL I GET MY CHAIR, JERSEY BEAR?

DON’T MAKE ME WAIT.

How long exactly before she got on his nerves? She was always pushy, always demanding the software jobs sooner than they were contracted for. But this wasn’t some software job and he sure as hell wouldn’t let her bully him when it came to his…Oh, God.

He’d been about to say “his art.” What had the feline done to him?

Flipping his phone so he had access to the extended keyboard, Lock focused on typing and retyping his reply. He hated these keyboards. The were simply too small for his thumbs. He ended up hitting three to four keys instead of the one.

Lock was seriously starting to get frustrated when he glanced up and saw the She-wolf standing in the middle of his living room.

The phone went flying, he roared, and before he even realized it, his claws were swinging for her face.

She caught his arm with her left hand and pressed her gun to his throat with the right.

“Easy, boy,” she said. “Easy.”

It took Lock a minute, but then he let out a breath and his claws retracted. As soon as he was calm again, she lowered her weapon—and smiled. “Miss me, hoss?”

“You crazy little—” Lock grabbed her around the waist and hugged her right off her feet.

“Dee-Ann Smith,” he snarled against her neck. “Where the hell have you been?”

Gwen eased the hotel door open and stuck her head in. The room was dark, the drawn curtains keeping the seven A.M. sun out. But she didn’t need light to see. She was nocturnal, after all. Searching carefully, her brother nowhere in sight, she quickly but silently eased inside. Closing the door, Gwen tiptoed to her room to get fresh clothes.

She closed the door behind her and tossed her bag onto the bed. Moving to her closet to grab a pair of her work boots, Gwen opened the door as her mind debated on a headband or stubby ponytail for her hair. Perhaps the ponytail in case baby rattlesnakes fell into her hair. Ick! Snakes! How she would manage going back into that snake farm—which is what she and Blayne kept calling the home of that poor couple with the snake infestation—Gwen didn’t know. But if she could just keep—

“Ahhhhhhhhhh haaaaaaaaa!”

Gwen yowled and spun up, her claws digging into the ceiling and holding her there as her brother stormed out of the closet.

“Where the hell have you been?” he screamed up at her.

And Gwen screamed down, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Don’t try and change the subject on me, missy! You’ve been gone all goddamn weekend and didn’t even let me know if you were alive or dead!”

Gwen retracted her claws and dropped from the ceiling, landing on her hands and feet.

“I want you to learn a new phrase,” she said as she stood up and shoved him with both hands. “None of your business!”

Mitch waved his hand in front of his nose. “Christ almighty! What is that funk on you?”

Gwen smirked. “Eau de Grizzly.”

“I knew it!” Mitch threw his hands up. “And you’re crazy if you think I’m lettin’ this go. I’m not letting my little sister hook up with some idiot bear!”

“You can’t stop me!” she yelled at him as he stormed out of the room. “But maybe you can call Ma and rat me out again, you overgrown tattletale!”

Gwen slammed her door shut, but she could still hear the window-rattling yell of a pissed-off She-wolf, “Would you two shut the fuck up? Some of us are trying to sleep off a hangover!”

Lock was still laughing when he opened his front door. “Hey!” he slapped Ric on the back and ushered him in.

“Should I assume the weekend went well with the lovely Gwen?”

“It went great. But remember when I told you about the van that had been following me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, now I know why. It wasn’t me they were interested in.”

“Aw, little bear. I’m sure someone, somewhere is interested in you.”

“Very funny. Come on.” He motioned to the living room. “I want you to meet somebody.”

Ric stopped walking, head lifting, nostrils flaring. “You have another woman here.”

“Yeah. That’s who I want you to—”

“Why do you have another woman in your house?” Ric demanded, turning on him. “What if Gwen came back over? You know women do that all the time. What if she wanted to surprise you and you, imbecile, have another woman in your house? Did you not see how she reacted to Peggy?”

“You mean Judy?”

“Does it matter? Don’t be an idiot!”

Before Lock could ask Ric when he’d gone completely off the rails, Dee-Ann sauntered out of his living room. “I could eat. You hungry?”

“Yeah, uh…” Ric suddenly gripped Lock’s bicep, cutting off Lock’s words and the flow of blood. “Ow! Do you mind, Van Holtz? I’m rather attached to that arm!”

Dee-Ann smiled, sauntered a little closer. “Who’s your friend, MacRyrie?”

Lock pried Ric’s fingers off his arm. “This is Ulrich Van Holtz. Ric.”

“Oh, yeah. Lock talked about you all the time.”

“And, Ric, this is Dee-Ann Smith. My old Marine buddy. We were in the Unit together.”

“Nice to meetcha,” Dee said, grasping Ric’s hand and shaking it.

Lock didn’t even realize he was waiting for Ric’s return greeting until it never came.

He watched his friend continue to shake Dee’s hand while he gawked at her, his mouth open a little.

“Ric?”

“Huh?” Ric mumbled, his eyes still on Dee, his hand still holding hers.

“You’re embarrassing me.”

Dee laughed and pulled her hand back. “Leave him alone, MacRyrie. Now you boys want to go out and get some breakfast or not?”

“No!” Ric snapped and Lock, startled, growled.

Dee’s smile faded. “No one’s twistin’ your arm, hoss.”

“What I mean is,” Ric said quickly, staring directly into her eyes because they were both the same six-two height—in fact they could probably share each other’s clothes—“I’ll make you breakfast.”

Dee’s smile returned, bigger this time. “Now, darlin’, you don’t have to make me breakfast. A breakfast that don’t come out of a packet is like a dream to me.”

“But a fresh, hot breakfast is what you deserve.”

Dee shrugged. “Well, if you really want—”

“I want. Oh, God do I want.”

She laughed. “Have it your way. Lock, you don’t mind if I use your bathroom, do ya? Figure I’ll get showered and changed before I see the cousins and since I’m gettin’ my very own Van Holtz-made breakfast.”

“Sure. Down the hall and to the left.”

“Thanks, hoss.” She picked up the duffel bag she’d left by the door and ambled off to use Lock’s bathroom.

Once gone, Ric turned on him, gripping his shirt and yanking. But instead of yanking Lock toward him, he only managed to pull himself closer to Lock.

“Who. Is. She?”

“That’s Dee. Remember? I’ve told you about her.”

“No one told me she was a goddess.”

“A…” Ignoring the strange way Ric phrased that, Lock studied the hardwood hallway floor where Dee had stood, leaving scuff marks from those damn boots of hers. “Dee? A goddess? Really?”

It wasn’t that Lock didn’t find Dee attractive but…well…hmm.

“Yes. Really.” He pushed Lock away—or tried—and began to pace. “You’ll need to run down to the store for a few ingredients.”

“What for? I’m sure I’ve got everything you—”

“Don’t argue with me!” Ric dug cash out of his front pocket and shoved it into Lock’s hand. He stared at the amount for a moment, which had to be several hundred dollars, and then grabbed his wallet from his back pocket, pulling out a credit card and placing that on top. “I’ll give you a list. And everything must be of the freshest quality. I insist on that.”

The freshest quality for Dee-Ann Smith? Who’d been living the last ten years on whatever rations the Marines gave her and whatever she could take down on her own?

Lock watched as his best friend jotted a list in the small notepad Ric always kept in his back pocket.

The bear debated. Tell his friend now he didn’t stand a chance with Dee-Ann or let Ric learn it for himself? Lock flinched, remembering the ways Dee-Ann had of letting a guy down when she was done with him. Nope. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

“Hey, Ric…look, uh…”

Dee-Ann came back in the hallway and both men stopped and stared at her.

“Just came back to get some water out of the fridge.” When neither man said anything to her, she asked, “Somethin’ wrong?”

Ric stepped forward. “How many children do you want?”

Lock grabbed Ric by his hair and yanked him back, slamming him into the front door. “Ow!”

Dee-Ann smirked. “What’s going on, MacRyrie?”

“Nothing.”

Arms crossed over her chest, her foot tapping, Gwen asked Blayne, “And you said we’d do this…why?”

She shrugged. “Because it’s a nice thing to do.”

“And because you have no concept of shame?”

“Come on, Gwenie. It’s not a big deal. They like you.”

“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean to me.”

“It means they don’t trust just anybody with this task.”

Gwen stared down at the panting, slobbering animals at her feet.

“I don’t buy it, Blayne. Not even from you. There has to be a reason we’re doing this. And not ’cause today’s job was postponed.”

Hands on her hips, sweet Blayne left the room and direct, father’sa-Navy-man Blayne stepped in. “What? You think we got such a great rate on this place due to my big grin and your implacable charm? We had to make concessions.”

“So we’re walking their dogs? We’re a plumbing-and-dog-walking service now?”

“We walk ’em when we can.”

“Couldn’t you have offered them sex, blow jobs…something?”

“That’s less humiliating than dog walking?”

“In my world.”

“Gwen!”

“All right, all right. But if we’re going to do this, we might as well get something out of it…”

“So what are you doing here?”

Dee reached for the bowl of warm maple syrup. “Thinking about joining my cousin’s Pack. If the mood grips me.”

“You’ll work in his company, too?”

“Don’t know about all that.” She shrugged. “Don’t like feeling hemmed in.”

“Yeah. I remember that.”

Lock smiled easily, like he used to when she’d first met him and he was just another raw recruit from the wilds of New Jersey. To be honest, Dee didn’t know how she’d find her old friend faring. Staying in the Unit wasn’t an easy thing and those in charge had to cycle the Unit’s team members out to protect not only the other team members but the Corps itself. The Unit’s assignments took their toll and sometimes, when it got too much, shifters “broke”—the unofficial term for going rabid without actually having the disease. So, ten years was the max unless you were an officer, although some didn’t even last that long. Lock hadn’t. He’d made it through seven years before he looked at Dee one day, his eyes dead, his soul deader and said, “I missed my mother’s birthday.”

That was all he said in a thirty-hour stretch and Dee knew, knew it was time for her best friend to go. Go before he did something they’d be forced to put him down for. And now that she’d seen him again, spent time with him, she knew she’d made the right decision that day three years ago…when she told Lock MacRyrie that he had to leave not only the Unit but the Corps. It had been the right call for both her team and for Lock. She was sure of that now.

“So if you don’t work for him, what will you do?”

“I’ve got some lines on things.”

“If you need anything, just let me know.”

“Thanks, darlin’. Much appreciate it. Do have a question, though.”

“Sure.”

She leaned in a bit and asked, “He gonna keep starin’ at me?”

The Van Holtz wolf smiled at her when she glanced his way. Funny, she’d been raised that Van Holtzes were nothing but stuck-up rich boys. Although her daddy always added that they weren’t as easy to kill as they looked.

“We’re going to ignore Ric, because he’s lost his mind. Temporarily, I’m sure.”

“We all need to do that from time to time.” She winked at the wolf, and he let out a breath.

“Marry—”

“You know—” Lock said loudly, cutting the wolf a hard glare “—um, you know lots of Pack gossip, right?”

“Not of my own doing to find out, but I hear things. Why?”

“You know anything about the McNelly Pack?”

Chewing her bacon nice and slow, Dee asked, “Now why would you bring them up?”

“My girlfriend has been having problems with them, but from what I can tell she hasn’t had any past problems with that Pack. So I’m thinking it’s some old problem come up, ya know?”

Dee knew well enough because the Smiths were all about holding grudges. It was one of the reasons they were so feared, they didn’t forget anything. Of course, she was far more interested in something else. “That feline you were talking to earlier is your girlfriend?”

Lock’s grin grew, revealing pure male satisfaction. “Damn right she is.”

“All right then. Who’s your girlfriend connected to?” When Lock gave a small frown, she added, “You mentioned her first name but not her kin connections.”

“Oh. She’s an O’Neill.”

“An O’Neill?” Oh, Lord.

“Yeah. From Philly.”

“And she’s been having problems with a McNelly?”

“Yeah.”

Dee put down her fork and focused on her friend. “She an O’Neill through her momma or daddy?”

“Her mother. Roxy O’Neill.”

The laughter poured out of her before she could stop it and then she couldn’t stop at all.

“What? What’s so funny?”

But Dee was laughing too hard to even answer.

“What I can’t believe is how he acted, Blayne!” Gwen yelled, her hold on the leashes tightening as the three dogs tore down the Manhattan sidewalk. “Like he had the right to be jumping out at me from closets, demanding to know where I’d been!”

“You know how your brother is!” Blayne yelled back. “He’s always been superprotective! He doesn’t know any better!” She had four dogs pulling her and was doing much better than Gwen would have hoped.

Actually…they both were.

“And then I was lying to him on Saturday! Like a child! What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing! He took you by surprise and he did it for that reason! I’m glad you lied!”

So was Gwen. It had led to the best weekend of her entire life.

“What I want to know is—” Gwen let out a brief squeal when she hit a rough patch of sidewalk and almost fell on her ass, but she caught herself and kept going “—how the hell did Lock know?”

“Know what?”

“That I was coming over. He wasn’t surprised at all. Nobody was! They all can’t be such good liars.”

“Uh…it was Jess.”

“What do you mean it was Jess?”

“She told me Sissy called to complain to Smitty that Mitch had lost his mind. Smitty told Jess, and she called Ric.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Uh…she knew Ric was going over there?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Look, woman! All I know is that Ric, Jess, and Lock are good friends.”

“Yeah,” Gwen muttered. “I know.”

“Truck!” Blayne called out cheerfully before she easily maneuvered herself and the dogs around an eighteen-wheeler that had backed into a loading dock. The loading dock’s entrance cut through the sidewalk and Gwen tried to halt the dogs by pulling on their leashes the way she saw people in movies pull on a horse’s rein. Sadly it didn’t work; the dogs kept going. But, thankfully, they went off the sidewalk and into the street—causing Gwen to screech like a full-human—went around the truck, and then back on the sidewalk. Gwen jumped the curb, all her preteen training coming back to her during that forty-five-second nightmare. The dogs she held followed behind Blayne and the others, making a right onto a main avenue. And wasn’t that wonderful? More people yelling at them to “slow the fuck down!” or “get off the fuckin’ sidewalk!” or a myriad of other suggestions, some of which involved Gwen’s mother.

Her phone rang and Gwen called out, “Phone! Need to get phone!”

“Okay!” Blayne happily yelled back. She easily stopped her dogs and Gwen’s dogs automatically followed suit. Gwen rolled to a stop until she was standing right in front of Blayne.

Panting, Gwen asked her friend, “How much do we rock?”

“Like gods.”

Laughing, Gwen answered her phone. “It’s Gwen.”

“It’s Lock.”

She bit her lip and rolled away from Blayne. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Hey. Um, an old Marine buddy of mine showed up this morning. She’s in the Smith Pack—”

“She?”

“Yeah. And I mentioned McNelly to see if there was any Pack gossip that she may know that we don’t.”

“Yeah?”

“And…uh…”

“What, Lock? Spit it out.”

“You’re going to be mad.”

Gwen shrugged. “Tell me anyway.”

“Okay, but…”

“But what, Lock?”

“It involves your mother.”

Blayne held the leashes for all seven dogs while Gwen took her call. She crouched down and petted them, adoring each one. They were all so cute. Every one of them mutts, rescues that the Kuznetsov Pack had picked up over the years, and every one happy and healthy and adorable.

As was Gwen at this moment. Sure, she was pissed at Mitch, but few days went by where she wasn’t. But this…this was amazing. Gwen exuberant, Gwen happy…Gwen satisfied. Blayne felt like buffing her nails against her T-shirt because she was that damn good. She’d known Gwen and Lock were perfect for each other the second she saw them together.

Even better was how amazing everyone was at helping out! She didn’t think they’d come through like they had, but wow. Everyday she learned to love the Kuznetsov Pack more and more. And Ric? What a great guy!

Mitch, however, was still a problem, but Blayne had her surprise ace in the hole. A sneaky She-wolf who knew how to text message. No, no. She hadn’t lied to Gwen…officially. It was more about massaging the truth to help her friend. And that was okay, wasn’t it? Of course it was! Because it was all coming together and Blayne couldn’t be happier!

Really, could the day get any better?

“Goddamnit!” Gwen yelled out, making the dogs bark and Blayne realize the day apparently would not be getting any better. “That woman will be the death of me!”

Blayne knew “that woman” could only be one woman and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear the rest of it.