same mold—even heavily pregnant as she was now, her features were delicate, her arms slimly fragile.
Emmett stayed very carefully in the chair where he’d been ordered to sit. He was afraid he’d break one of them if he accidentally touched them. Now Ria, Ria he wanted to
“Drink!” Something slammed in front of him.
He looked down at the puddle of jasmine tea around his little cup and decided not to mention Alex’s temper. “Thanks.”
“You think I don’t see it?” She poked him in the shoulder. “You, the way you look at my baby?”
Nobody dared attack Emmett. He wasn’t one of the more volatile leopards in DarkRiver, but he was beyond dangerous when riled. And wouldn’t all his trainees just love to see him now, not daring to lift a finger for fear of bruising Alex. “How do I look at her?”
Alex narrowed her eyes. “Like a big cat with its food.” She hooked her hands into claws and made as if she was shoving others aside. “Like that.”
“You have a problem with that?”
“I have a problem with every man who wants to date my daughter.” With that, Alex turned and walked back to the counter. “And her father, he has twice the problem.”
Emmett wondered if Alex expected that to scare him off. “I grew up in a pack.” He was used to nosy packmates, snarling fathers, ferally protective mothers.
Amber smiled when Alex sniffed and turned away. “They have problems with women, too,” she said in a mock-whisper. “When I started dating Jet, Alex told me if I broke his heart, she’d beat me with a rolling pin.”
Alex waved the very same implement in Amber’s direction. “Don’t you forget it.”
Laughing, Amber hugged Alex. “She’s okay, Mom. Ria will bounce back—better than you or I ever would.”
That was when Ria’s male relatives returned. Her father’s first question was, “Who the hell is
TWO
Ria sat back in the bubble bath her grandmother had drawn and sighed.
A light knock came moments later.
“It’s okay,
Her grandmother came in. Though tiny, with a face that bore the million marks of a life well-lived, her stride was steady and her eyes clear. Miaoling Olivier had a whole heap of decades left in her yet, as she liked to say. Now, she walked in and took a seat on the closed lid of the toilet as Ria’s father began yelling in the kitchen.
“Here we go,” Miaoling said, rolling her eyes. “Sometimes, I think we accidentally opened our home to the inmates of an insane asylum.”
Ria felt her lips twitch, her eyes water. “They’re just angry and scared for me.”
“Smart girl.” Reaching over, her grandmother took one of Ria’s ravaged palms and brought it to her mouth.
The kiss was soft, loving. It healed Ria from the inside out. “I love you,
“Do you know,” Miaoling said, “you’re the only one who calls me that. Ken and Jet both say nana.”
“That’s why they’re not your favorites and I am.”
“Shh.” Miaoling’s eyes twinkled as she put Ria’s hand back down on the edge of the bath. “Did you thank the young man who found you? Maybe you should bake him a cake.”
That made Ria smile. “Not interested,” she told her ever-hopeful grandmother. “He’s a little too beautiful for me.” The blond DarkRiver male was clearly a highly trained member of the pack, but slender, looked more like a teenage surfer than a grown man. Emmett on the other hand . . .
Her grandmother sighed. “You go on like this, your female parts will dry up.”
Ria snorted with laughter.
“What? I say only the truth.” Miaoling’s speech shifted, going from Harvard-perfect English to a rhythm she only ever used with those she was comfortable with. “Your age, I had your mother on the way.”
“Times have changed—and I’m twenty-two, hardly shriveled up.” She rested her head against the wall. “Tell me how you met Grandfather.”
“Why? You know that already.”
“Please.” The story comforted her, and right now, she needed comforting.
“Alright, for my Ri-ri.” A deep breath. “I was living on a farm in Henan Province and my family was trying to arrange my marriage. But,
“They let you get away with that?”
“I was only girl after three boys. I was spoiled.” Said with a fond smile. “Then one day, my father comes home and says, Miaoling, today you dress nice, American doctor is coming to the village to check old people’s eyes.”
“Cataracts.”
“Yes. My father says, maybe crazy American will want crazy Chinese wife who doesn’t listen to anyone. Of course, that makes me want to not like American at all.”
Ria giggled, as drawn into the story as she’d been as a child. “Then Grandfather came to the house for dinner.”
“And I wore brown dress, ugly brown dress, with ugly brown shoes.” Her grandmother’s hand stroked over Ria’s hair, hair that Miaoling had once said held the silk of China but the lush chocolate shade of an entirely different culture. “But he’s so handsome. Pretty green eyes, yellow hair. And he’s nice. He laughs at me silently all night across the dinner table. He knows what I’m up to.”
“But he asked you to marry him anyway.”
“After one week. And crazy Miaoling said yes, and we came to America.”
“So quick,” Ria said, shaking her head. “Weren’t you scared?”
“Pah, why scared? When in love, no scared. Only impatient.”
“Don’t say it,
But it was too late. “Impatient to use woman parts!”
Emmett hid his grin in his jasmine tea. His hearing was leopard-acute. He could hear everything Ria’s grandmother was saying—and damn if he wasn’t half in love with the lady already. No wonder Ria’s grandfather had married her.
Glancing up, he caught Alex’s expression as her husband folded her into his arms. All her bluster aside, Alex really was worried about Ria. “No one will hurt your daughter again,” he said quietly, rising to his feet.
They all looked at him for long minutes, until finally, Simon, Ria’s father, nodded. But when he spoke, it was to say, “She’s not for you. She’s taken.”
Emmett raised an eyebrow. “She’s not wearing a ring.” And if some moron had been stupid enough not to claim her when he’d had the chance, that wasn’t Emmett’s problem.
“She will,” Simon said. “We’ve been friends with Tom’s family, the Clarks, for years. The marriage proposal is a formality.”
Emmett could hear Ria and her grandmother even now, giggling in the bathroom. Neither of them had mentioned this Tom in their discussion of utilizing “woman parts.” The leopard gave a feline grin of satisfaction, though the man kept his face expressionless. “I have a feeling that nothing is a given with your daughter—she’ll make her own choices.” Of course, he had every intention of making sure she chose him, but no need to tell her parents that. Not yet.
Two hours later, after a quick meeting with the DarkRiver alpha and a number of other soldiers, Emmett rubbed at gritty eyes as he accepted the beer Nathan threw him. “I’ve got to head home, get
