The woman’s eyes caught sight of her, and instead of making a run for it, she walked over, a backpack slung over her shoulder. She wore loose khaki pants with lots of pockets and a tight white T-shirt. Paula Jo also smelled gun oil coming from her.

This female was armed.

Paula Jo glanced back at Lucy, and her little sister slipped out the back door to get the men. Other than breeding, the only use the big bastards had was for protection. Right now, their lazy asses were asleep under one of the trees out back after Karen Jane had gotten them fed.

If they would only get a day job, Paula Jo wouldn’t mind them staying, but lazy was lazy. And Paula Jo had no time or patience for it.

The woman stopped in front of her. “You run this place?” she asked. And she wasn’t talking about the bar. Nor was she talking like a true Southerner. A Yankee. Eww.

“I do. What can I do for ya…before you leave?”

“How’d you like to make some money?”

Paula Jo slowly sat up straight, dropping her legs to the floor as Lucy came back into the bar, the males right behind her, yawning and rubbing their eyes. Yup, they’d been asleep again.

Lazy!

A thud on the table had Paula Jo glancing back at the female and then down at the table. She’d dropped a wad of cash on that old wood, big enough to choke a buffalo.

“This is the first half. Help me out, and there’s another half.”

Karen Jane, always good with numbers after her stint as a stripper, grabbed the stack and quickly flipped through it.

“At least ten thousand,” she said to Paula Jo.

Lord, who do we have to kill for twenty thousand?

“What do you want?”

“All I need is for you to be a”—and the lioness grinned, showing fangs—“distraction.”

“You need to go!”

Startled, Sissy looked up into Travis’s face. He stood right in front of her, not even looking at the gaggle of females she had surrounding her who’d come to check out the Smithtown Team hotties, including Mitch. “Why?”

“You’re distracting him, and this is our last practice before the game tomorrow. So you need to go.”

“He’s fumbled the ball a few times, but how was that my fault?”

“He’s handling that ball as bad as his brother.”

“Hey!” Ronnie piped in, insulted for her mate.

“You can’t be here.”

Sissy really didn’t have a problem leaving, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t torture her brother a little. “But where can I go? What will I do while he’s here?”

“Are you trying to piss me off? Is that your goal here?”

Sissy smiled. “Maybe.”

Travis scowled, but before Sissy could make him good and frothy, Patty Roseinterceded. She always did. The possibility of Sissy kicking Travis’s ass all over the football field was too real and too much to risk their “rise to power” as Ronnie liked to call it.

“Now y’all, cut it out. Brothers and sisters shouldn’t act like this.”

Sissy stared at her brother’s mate. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

Travis growled, “Sissy Mae!”

Patty Rose reached into her bag and pulled out her wallet. “Why don’t you go on down to your uncle’s bar and have a few drinks on me and Travis? I know a few of these ladies here”—she motioned to the females who’d been sitting behind Sissy—“would love to spend some time getting to know y’all.”

“Especially if the drinks are already paid for,” Ronnie muttered under her breath.

“I swear,” Patty Rose went on, ignoring Ronnie like she always did, “as soon as Mitch is done here, we’ll send him right over. Won’t we, hon?”

“Whatever.” Travis stormed back to the field.

Now that her brother was gone…“Patty Rose, you don’t have to pay for our drinks.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” She placed a small wad of cash in Sissy’s hand. “Y’all go on now, and I’ll let Mitch know where you’re off to.”

Sissy shrugged. “Okay. Thanks.”

With Dee, Ronnie Lee, and a handful of the young She-wolves in tow, they headed down to the bar.

Mitch pulled his helmet off and watched as Travis ran back to the field. “What’s going on?”

“She’ll be back. She’s going to the bar with Ronnie and Dee.”

“Why?”

“Because she was distracting you, and it was pissing me off.”

Mitch wished he could honestly tell Travis he was wrong, but he’d not been playing his best game today. Not with the memories of last night constantly flooding his brain.

Christ, he loved her. Not a little either. Not something he’d get over one day. He loved Sissy Mae, and absolutely no one else would do for him. But he always came back to the same thing: he couldn’t take her away from this. He couldn’t part her from her family or her Pack. Sure, if her only brother was Travis, he’d ask her to come with him in a heartbeat. But she had Bobby Ray, and the two relied on each other the way Marissa and Bren did.

Knowing he’d have to leave her soon was breaking his heart. Thinking of her a few years from now with some wolf as a mate was making him homicidal.

“Hey, golden boy.” Mitch ground his teeth together. He hated when Travis called him that. “She’ll be back. So you think you can give the team a few minutes of your precious cat time?”