He didn’t answer and instead asked, “Who are the alley cats?”

“Some boys we met when I was on vacation in Smithville. You ever been there?”

“No. I’ve heard about it, though. It’s supposed to be fun.”

“If you like fighting bears and tigers and hyenas for your zebra dinner, it’s a blast. I love going there, but I haven’t been in a while.”

“Is it true they have seals there?”

Sissy shrugged. “Yeah.” She lowered her voice. “Only during the winter, though. They’re for the polar bears. They just sit by this saltwater lake and wait for those seals to come close enough.”

“You have moral issues with that, don’t you?”

“At least my dinners can run fast.”

Mitch turned a few more pages. “Uh…Sissy?”

“Hhhmm?”

“Why are most of the pictures in this section missing half?”

“Oh, yeah. That.”

Mitch chuckled. “Ex-boyfriend?”

“Yup. My first boyfriend. Actually…my only boyfriend. The males I’ve been with since I would never call boyfriends.”

“Bad breakup?”

“Something like that.” She rubbed her forehead and yawned. “What about you? Did you have a girlfriend back when you were sixteen?”

“Yup. A She-wolf. See…I’m the United Nations of the shifter world. Willing to take all comers.”

“A She-wolf, huh? Do I remind you of her?”

“No.” Mitch flipped through a few more pages. “She was really nice.” Sissy slammed her fist into his left shoulder. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Are you saying I’m not nice?”

Mitch chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. No, you don’t remind me of her, and she was really nice. Not that you don’t remind me of her because she was really nice.”

“That better be what you meant.” Sissy rested her chin on her raised knees. “What happened to her?”

“She dumped me for a tiger with a Mustang.”

“I can say that I’ve never dumped a man over a car. I have, however, gotten shot at over a car.”

“That somehow does not surprise me.” He looked around her room. “You do have a thing about muscle cars, Sissy.”

“Yeah, I do. Me and Ronnie Lee used to rebuild them. We haven’t in ages.”

“Were you good?”

“Yeah.” She studied him for a moment, briefly debating with herself. Eh. What the hell? “I can take you to see one tomorrow. It’s over at my brother’s house. Sammy’s house.” She wouldn’t trust any of the others to hold on to something so important to her.

“I’d love to. I never get tired of cars.”

“Good. We’ll do that after we go hunting in the morning.”

“You mean after you go hunting in the morning.”

“You’re coming with me. We’ll hunt down a hog for breakfast. It’ll be fun.”

“It doesn’t sound like fun. It sounds like I’m working for my meal. How is that fair?” He touched his wounded shoulder and gave her big cat eyes. He looked like one of those velvet paintings. “Painful.”

“It’ll be more painful if you don’t start pulling your weight around here, hoss. Besides, you need the exercise to get your strength back.”

“You’re not taking very good care of me.”

“Have I put a pillow over your head while you’ve slept?”

“Uh…no.”

“Have I thrown anything heavy and deadly at you?”

“No.”

“Then I’ve taken care of you.”

“Nice.” He flipped through a few more pages, but she could see he was fighting to stay awake. Good. The more he slept, the better he’d get. “Can I ask you a strange question?”

“No, I won’t have sex with you in my childhood bed.”

Mitch chuckled. “That’s not a problem. I’m more a take you up against the wall kind of guy anyway.” And she almost swallowed her tongue. “But that’s not my question.”

“So ask.”

“Why does this house have so many doors? You’ve got one in the family room, the kitchen, the living room, and the one behind the stairs.”

“Revenuers,” she said simply.

Mitch frowned. “Revenuers?”

“Yeah. That’s what my granddaddy called them. He built this house, and he wanted to be able to run when he had to run. Bobby Ray never told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Darlin’, the Smith empire—”

“Empire?”

“—is built on moonshine money. Many doors mean many exits. And Granddaddy did like his exits. If he didn’t like somebody—and I mean, you could be the queen of England—the man would just get up and walk out.”

Mitch examined the walls again. “That explains the car fetish.”

“Yup. In this family, you’re born knowing two things. How to rebuild a carburetor and how to outrun the revenuers.”

“Built into your DNA strain, is it?”

“Yup. The ’Shiner strain, they call it.”

Sissy took the photo album from his hands. “We’ll look at the rest tomorrow.”

“Any nude pictures? Maybe you and Ronnie and some oil?”