“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 bringthem 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.”