The Mane Squeeze

CHAPTER 6

Gwen sat on the top stair of the porch, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting in the palm of her hands. She stared off into the woods.

She stared and she sulked. She hated when she sulked.

As it grew later, finally drawing to a close this hellish day, Blayne sat down beside her, resting her elbows on her knees, her chin in the palm of her hands. She stayed silent a good five minutes, which for Blayne was pretty much a record.

“What’s wrong?” Blayne finally asked.

“Nothing,” Gwen answered. “I’m just sitting here. Staring.” Maybe hoping a bear would wander out of the woods to say “hi and I’m sorry I broke my promise.”

“How’s the leg?”

“Healing.” Although it did feel like rats were inside her calf, tearing the flesh apart with their teeth and then sewing it back together with a giant needle and some thread.

“Hurts like a bitch, huh?”

“I haven’t started screaming yet, have I?”

“You have a point.” Blayne took a deep, satisfied breath. “It’s really beautiful here, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Beautiful house,” she sighed. “Great weather.”

“Yep and yep.”

“And that grizzly—”

“Left me!” Gwen screamed out, startling the birds from the trees.

Lock brushed the attacking bees off his face and dug into the hive again, pulling out the honeycomb. He shook off the clinging bees and broke off a piece. Ric sat down against a tree opposite from Lock that was close enough so they didn’t have to scream at each other, but far enough away to help Ric avoid the rampaging bees.

Once he seemed comfortable, he observed, “You’ve stripped the trees of their bark quite nicely.”

“Yeah,” Lock mumbled around the honeycomb. “Sorry about that.”

Ric shrugged. “My father had them imported from Japan for a tidy seven-figure sum, had them featured in that Vanity Fair article on him and the Van Holtz dynasty, and got an award from the Tree Rescue Foundation for his efforts to resurrect nearly extinct trees—but I’m sure he won’t be too upset.”

Lock winced. “Now I feel bad.”

“Don’t,” Ric said good-naturedly. “Now—” Ric cringed when Lock bit into a honeycomb and spit out a bee he’d started to chew on “—Adelle is going to make her honey-glazed chicken. Unless you’re all honeyed out.”

Lock stared at his friend, and Ric nodded. “As I thought. So dinner is set. But before we go back, perhaps you can fill me in on why you’re sitting out here, tearing the bark off trees and abusing bees.”

Ric cringed again when Lock spit out another bee.

“What?” Lock demanded, tired of being judged for his eating habits. “Would you prefer I eat them?”

“No, no. You keep doing whatever it is you enjoy doing. No matter how vile.”

Lock stared down at the remnants of the hive and admitted what was bothering him. Something that even honey wasn’t curing. “I should never have left her.”

“Did you have a choice?”

“If I wanted to fight a polar.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me that when it comes to bears—bigger wins?”

“Yeah.” And Toots was definitely bigger. “But I promised her I wouldn’t leave her. I guess I just feel like I let her down by not being there when she woke up fully.”

“Okay, so maybe you did let her down a little. But I’m sure when she calls, you can explain—”

“Calls?”

“To thank you, of course. It’s proper etiquette to send a thank-you note or call after someone saves you from a violent Pack, Pride, or Clan attack.”

“I’m sensing she didn’t get much shifter etiquette training in Philly. Or, now that I think about it, any etiquette training in Philly.”

“But you did give her your number? Or you got hers?”

Lock stared at his friend. “My number?”

“You didn’t give her your phone number?”

“She was wounded. It didn’t occur to me.” When Ric sighed, his disappointment clear, Lock threw in, “And I’m sure that cat wouldn’t have let me leave anything for her anyway.”

“What did the cat look like?”

“I don’t know. He was a little thing. Tiny. Lion…I think. You know, the breed with all the hair.”

“Tiny. Right. The world is filled with tiny lion males. And the only tiny lion I know of this close to my territory is Brendon Shaw. And, if I remember what you told me correctly, he’s the one you beat up at Jess Ward’s wedding. Something I’m sure he did not forget since last you two met.”

“He didn’t. But I didn’t beat him up,” Lock quickly added. “I…I simply threw him five…or maybe it was fifty feet into a tree.”

The two friends gazed at each other for a long moment.

Finally, Lock shrugged. “That does make it all kind of awkward, doesn’t it?”

And that’s when Ric started laughing.

“You don’t want to talk about the bear?” Blayne asked.

“No.”

“But you just yelled about him. So maybe we need to discuss—”

“No.”

“Okay.” The sun began to slowly set and that’s when Blayne abruptly turned to Gwen and spewed out in one, never-ending sentence, “My father wants to retire and he wants me to take over his business and I’m moving to New York and I want you to move with me so we can be partners and run the business together, preferably in Manhattan rather than Queens, because you’re my best friend and I love you and it’ll be great!”

Gwen continued to watch the sun go down behind some trees. “Only you, Blayne,” she said calmly, “would spit out life-changing decisions like bullets from a tommy gun.”

“Is that a yes?” Blayne asked, with that hopeful eagerness that never seemed to die a humane death.

“No. That’s not a yes. And what makes you think you need a partner to run your dad’s business? You’re smart, Blayne, no matter what Sister Mary Rose told you. You’ll be fine.”

“In business terms, I’m a big-picture thinker. I have big plans for this business. But details, Gwenie, are not my friends. You’re the one who handles details beautifully. To sort of quote my dad, I’m the fuck-up with big ideas and you’re the stabilizer.”

Gwen chuckled. “You’re not a fuck-up.”

“Maybe not. But I don’t want to do this on my own.”

And Gwen knew why. Because Gwen had all the confidence but none of the courage to see her dreams through, while Blayne had all the courage but none of the confidence. In many ways…they were a perfect team to run a business. If only Gwen could walk away from her family. Walk away from Philly. But she couldn’t.

“Why make me a partner, Blayne? In a year you’ll have everything running fine and you’ll resent me taking part of your profits. And I will take part of the profits if I’m a partner.”

Blayne stared down at her feet. They were too small for her size and definitely too small for the She-wolf in her. Some days she could do amazing things with those feet, other days she could barely manage to make it down flights of stairs, escalators, or simply walk from one room to another without falling on her face. “Other than my dad, I don’t have anybody but you, Gwenie. You’re my Pack.”

“A Pack of two? That’s awfully sad.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Not if we do something with it. By myself I can keep the business going. Maybe for the next forty years. But together…we can really do something with it, and enjoy ourselves.”

Gwen was fighting really hard not to get caught up in Blayne’s excitement. She’d done it before, gotten caught up. And that way laid madness…and jail time. Yet the thought of their own business…just the two of them. No Pride or Pack to answer to, no decisions made that were not theirs and theirs alone. “Yeah. Maybe that’s true.”

“I know you’ve got a lot invested in Cally’s business—”

Gwen barely stopped herself from snorting at that one.

“—and that it will be hard to walk away from that—and from your mom. But if you just give me a chance—”

“Stop.” Gwen wanted to rub her calf. Actually, she wanted to shift, rip off the bandage, and lick her calf until the pain went away.

Blayne winced a bit. “Your mom at it again?”

“She wants me running the business.” Roxy’s business. The one Gwen had absolutely no interest in.

“Well…if it’s your business, I guess that’s the same as the two of us…” Her words died off as Gwen let out a bitter laugh.

“I said she wants me running the business. Not that she’d give me the business. That business belongs to the Pride.”

“You’re part of the Pride.”

“No, Blayne.” Gwen looked her friend in the eyes and said what they’d both known for a very long time but neither had ever said out loud. “I’ll always be an outsider.”

“But they don’t treat you like—”

“They treat me like family. But where they go, what they do as a Pride—I’m never part of that. I never will be part of that.”

Blayne’s jaw clenched in frustration. “That doesn’t seem fair, Gwen.”

“Sweetie, haven’t I taught you there is no fair among predators?”

“Then nothing should be holding you back. You should come with me. Screw ’em all.”

“She’s still my mother, Blayne.”

“And?”

“I can’t leave Roxy on her own. I’m her only daughter.”

“And she’s got a whole Pride watching out for her. A Pride you’re not even a part of.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah, but what? Instead of spending your whole life worrying about family who love you but not enough to give you as much power as the rest of them, maybe you should think about yourself for a change. About what you want.”

“Because it’s that easy?”

“No. It’s not that easy. It wasn’t easy for my dad to walk away from his Pack. But he did it anyway. For me. Because they wouldn’t take us both and he wasn’t giving me up. He made choices to benefit me and…”

“And now you need to be there when he needs you.”

“Because of me he doesn’t have anybody else. Your mom can’t make the same claim.”

Blayne put her arm around Gwen’s shoulder and hugged her. She’d always been affectionate, even though Gwen wasn’t. But she was Blayne and she would always do things her own way.

“Just think about it before you say no, okay?”

Lie to her. Tell her what she wants to hear so you both can pretend you have a choice. “Okay.”

After another quick hug, Blayne left her and Gwen sat there. She didn’t know for how long, but the entire time her mind kept jumping back and forth between what her life would be like if she left Philly—from the best possibility to the absolute worst—to what her life would be like if she stayed. And although she loved her mother for never giving her up and making sure the family never turned on her, forcing her out, Gwen couldn’t shake the feeling that her future was not meant to be in Philly. It wasn’t meant to be with the O’Neill Pride. She’d always be an O’Neill, but would her future cubs be raised by the Pride, her life dedicated to the Pride? No. She didn’t see that. She didn’t see that at all.

Eventually, as if she’d somehow summoned her out of sheer will alone, the phone rang, and it was Roxy, checking in with Gwen as she liked to do when they were apart. As her mother rambled about the wonderful spa experience she was having with her sisters and wishing Gwen was there with her, Gwen suddenly heard herself say something she never thought she’d hear.

“Ma?”

“Yeah, baby-girl?”

Gwen closed her eyes, swallowed, and took that step off the ledge, “I’m moving to New York with Blayne.”

Lock tossed aside the empty beehive and scratched at a few of the bee stings on his arms and neck. “Who am I kidding? What am I going to do with a girl like her?”

“We had this talk when we were fourteen. I even brought my brother’s Hustler for visual assistance.”

“I don’t mean that, you dweeb. You didn’t see this girl. Not so much today, ’cause we were both naked, but at the wedding. She’s high maintenance.”

“I thought you said she was an average Philly girl?”

“Average Philly girl does not automatically translate into easy maintenance. She probably wants a lot of jewelry and a nice car.”

“All of which you can now afford.”

“That’s not the point. I don’t want somebody I have to buy.”

“You don’t even know this woman and already you’re accusing her of being available for purchase?”

“Because it makes me feel better that I’ll never get her!” Lock dropped listlessly against the tree. “She uses that shampoo,” he sighed.

“What shampoo?”

“The one with honey in it.”

Ric’s eyes crossed. “Oh, my God.”

“She was sitting in that tree, her leg bleeding out, and all I could think about was how good her hair smelled.”

“Why was she sitting in a tree?”

“She was hiding from the organ thieves.”

Ric blinked. “Sorry?”

“Do you really want me to explain it?”

“Not particularly.”

Lock stood, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I need to get her out of my head. That’s the bottom line.”

Ric got to his feet and gave a quick all-over shake to get the dust and dirt off. “Think you can?”

Lock shrugged and headed back toward the Van Holtz summerhouse. “Not really.”

Gwen continued to rub her forehead and seriously considered mixing the heavy-duty pain meds with some tequila. Dangerous to her system? Yes. Able to temporarily wipe out the conversation she’d just had with her mother? Possibly.

She should have waited. She should have waited until she was back home, her mother was back from that spa, and everyone was relaxed and calm. That’s what she should have done, but she also knew she couldn’t wait. If Gwen waited, she’d talk herself out of it. And, for the first time in a very long time, this was something she wanted more than her next breath.

Hell. It was a future. Her future. And she was going to build it herself. How could she walk away from that?

She couldn’t. Not now, not ever. But Gwen forgot how much damage her mother could do simply with words. The woman didn’t need claws or fangs, she had her mouth and the ability to wield Irish-Catholic guilt like a ninja sword.

Sticking her cell phone in the back pocket of her denim shorts, Gwen thought again about getting those pain pills, but without the tequila. Debating on calling for assistance or actually getting off her ass, she was relieved when someone came out of the house—until Brendon stomped down the steps and faced her.

He held up his cell phone. “Why did your mother just spend ten minutes yelling at me?”

“Oh, my God.” Gwen dropped her head into her hands.

“You’re moving to New York?”

“Look, Brendon, I’m really sorry about—”

“You’ll stay at my hotel.”

Gwen stared up at him. Did he have to look so much like Mitch? And did he realize that looking like Mitch only made him a giant, big-maned target? Especially when he was giving her orders the way Mitch tried to do.

“I appreciate the offer—”

“It wasn’t an offer,” Brendon told her flatly. “If your mother is going to blame me for this—and my God, the yelling—then you’re staying at my hotel until we find you an acceptable place to live, in a neighborhood I’ve researched and approved.”

That he’d researched and…“Actually, I’m gonna stay with Blayne.”

“After Blayne finished squealing in joy about you moving, because apparently she didn’t know—and breaking her cell phone in half when your mother called her—she told me there was no way you two would ever room together after what happened on your senior class trip.”

Gwen would kill that wolfdog if she weren’t her new business partner.

“Brendon—”

“I won’t have my little sister living in some rat-infested hellhole that I wouldn’t put my worst enemy in.”

All right. That was it. “First off, I am not your little—”

The front door banged open again, cutting off Gwen’s pointed but brutal words.

“Hey, darlin’?” Gwen rolled her eyes in frustration as Brendon’s backwoods mate came out on the porch. “Where’s that fire extinguisher?”

“Fire extinguisher?”

“Dogs. Oven. You do the math.”

“Again? Goddamnit! I can’t trust those dogs alone for two minutes.” He jogged up the porch stairs, patting Gwen on the shoulder as he passed her. “I’ll be right back.”

As Brendon dashed inside, the screen door slamming shut behind him, Ronnie Lee sat down next to Gwen.

After a full minute of silent seething, Gwen looked over at Ronnie. The She-wolf gave her that warm smile that always set Gwen’s teeth on edge. At some point in her life, Gwen would admit it wasn’t fair to take out her personal rage and anger on some helpless She-wolf, but she was cat and the canine was in her space. What exactly did the hillbilly expect to happen?

“What the hell you lookin’ at?” Gwen snapped.

Ronnie’s smile didn’t fade, although, it did become a tad brittle. “Now, I know it ain’t been easy puttin’ up with my Brendon. He can be a bossy so-and-so as only a male lion can be, but he’s doing what he thinks is best and he does that because he likes you so much and sees you as his little sister.”

“I’m not his little sister. I’m not related to him. We have no blood ties. And I think it’s time he learned that. In fact, I think it’s time I explained it to him—directly.”

“Now, darlin’, I’m gonna ask you not to do that. Don’t think for a second I don’t understand what you’ve been going through. I have three big brothers of my own. And Lord knows some days I just wanna kill ’em while they sleep. But it’s about family, and family is all that matters. You’ve got a man here who will protect you and care for you like he does his own twin. Like he does Mitch. So I’m gonna ask you, real nice, to take his offer for, let’s say, a month. You’ll get free room service, anything you could ever need with one phone call to that concierge guy, and free room and board in a suite that important and very wealthy dignitaries pay thousands and thousands of dollars for each night they stay. Now how that be?”

Gwen remained silent a moment, let out a breath, and almost giddily replied, “No.” She didn’t say the word often unless medical personnel were involved, but holy shit was it liberating! Could she tattoo it on her forehead? Could she legally change her name to No O’Neill? This was great! This was wonderful!

The She-wolf blinked. “No?”

“Yeah. No. N. O. That spells no, in case you weren’t clear. And you wanna know why? ’Cause I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you. I’m tired of your hillbilly, down-home bullshit. I’m tired of your Brendon trying to be like Mitch. I’m tired of Mitch. I’m tired of my mother, her sisters, my uncles, the cousins. I’m tired of all of it. And that’s why this shit ends here. And you know what the first step in my new life’s gonna be? It’s gonna be me going inside and telling your Brendon to shove that hotel up his fuckin’ ass. Because I don’t need him or his rich-boy hotel or his country-ass girlfriend who doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word ‘shoes.’ So how that be, Deputy Dawg?”

It happened fast. That linebacker-sized human body slamming into Gwen’s, the weight and force of it pinning her to the stair railing. Then Ronnie forced her left forearm against Gwen’s neck and slapped her left hand over Gwen’s mouth at the same time, stifling Gwen’s screams as Ronnie’s right hand reached down and gripped the back of Gwen’s wounded and still-healing leg.

Gwen struggled to fight her off, but the She-wolf had pinned her in such a way she couldn’t move her arms and she had no leverage.

“Stop squirming,” Ronnie Lee warned, “or I’ll—” the hand tightened on her calf again and Gwen screamed behind the hand covering her mouth. She also stopped moving.

“Much better,” Ronnie said, cheery as ever. “Darlin’, I know from personal experience that changing your life is never easy. Especially when your family cares so much it smothers you. Trust me, I understand. But you need to understand that I want to keep Brendon Shaw happy. Because when he’s happy, I’m happy. And—” her smile never wavered, never lessened “—if you think for a New York second that I’m going to let some little half-breed, gutter cat get between me and my happiness, you are sadly mistaken. So when my Brendon comes back out here and offers you the room, you’re gonna take it. You’re gonna take it, you’re gonna say thank you—like a lady—and you’re gonna be damn happy about it. And if you don’t…I will sneak in to your room, hack your leg off in the middle of the night, and use it as a putter for when I go drunk-golfing with Sissy. Now do we understand each other?”

Gwen’s answer was to scream again because the hillbilly bitch tightened her grip on Gwen’s leg.

“I didn’t hear you, darlin’. What was that?”

Ronnie squeezed again, but this time Gwen screamed out “Yes!”

“Good.” Ronnie released her and stood, quickly and easily moving out of the way as Bren came back outside.

“They’re unbelievable,” he grumbled, trotting back down the stairs. “‘What fire?’ he says. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says. Canines.” He blinked when he saw Gwen bent over at the waist, holding her leg and crying.

“Gwenie? Sweetie? What’s the matter?”

“Her leg flared up,” Ronnie offered, sounding all sorts of concerned. “But the doctor warned that would happen throughout the day. Didn’t she, Gwenie?”

Gwen nodded, gritting her teeth against the brutal pain.

“I’ll get the pain pills.”

“I’ll get ’em,” Ronnie offered before Brendon could step away. “You two talk.” She winked at Gwen and sauntered back into the house.

Brendon crouched in front of Gwen, his big hand reaching up and gently brushing the tears from her face. “You poor thing. Maybe I should take you back to the medical center?”

Christ! That was almost worse than the hillbilly! Almost. Gwen shook her head.

“All right, all right. Don’t panic. We’ll get you your pills and let you rest on the couch. You’ll even have control of the TV remote.” He winked. “And then we’ll talk about you staying at the hotel when you move to New York. I promise it’ll be temporary but I know I’ll feel better if—”

“I’ll take it,” Gwen said quickly, too quickly.

“You will?”

“Yeah. I’ll take it.” She nodded, desperately. “It’s fine. I’ll take it.”

Surprised, Brendon grinned. “Wow. Okay.” He carefully reached under her legs and behind her back, easily lifting her off the porch stairs so he could carry her inside. “I have to say, though, Gwen,” he teased, “I definitely thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

The male wolfdog fell to his back, the jaws clamped tight around his neck, the heavier animal holding him down against the blood-encrusted dirt floor. He slammed his claws into the throat of his opponent, tearing at the flesh, hoping to hit the arteries, but it didn’t seem to do any good. His opponent only squeezed harder until, with his windpipe crushed, he could no longer breathe. As he struggled, his body was swung back and forth, and from side to side until it was tossed across the floor and into the low wall surrounding the pit.

As his life drained out onto the floor beneath him, he heard the roar of the crowd…