“Plus, it’s not loaded—Jesus!”
She used that moment of inattention to drive her toes—clad in her second-favorite pair of steel-toed shoes—straight and hard into his ankle and, when he reflexively bent, Lila dropped the (empty) .380 and shoved him with both hands, hard. He toppled backward through the open basement door
(shouldn’t have been in such a rush to get into the living room, pal)
and she slammed it shut. And shot the bolt. It wouldn’t hold him for long, which was fine.
She rushed into the living room, intent on her phone, only to pull up short when she realized
“God damn it!”
the girl–cub was gone.
Chapter 4
His own goddamned fault. He’d taken it easy on her. He’d been too interested in how she looked and smelled to pay attention to business. “I deserved to be pitched into a dark spooky basement,” Oz Adway announced to the air, then sat up and stifled a groan. “Ass first.”
And everything had been going so…so…what was the opposite of “well”?
After he tamped down his suddenly raging hormones and shifted, he’d tracked the cub and the yummy Stable to the wrong house, of course, and it was the Curs(ed) House, of course, and time wasn’t on his side, of course, so he had to drop everything (literally—the box of files had landed on his foot in his rush to strip) to rescue the cub and contain the situation.
Plus his shoulder hurt from where she’d clipped him with the ambulance she drove for some reason.
(Also she now smelled like honey and gun oil. Sweet and lethal. She’d take such good care of his cubs! Which wasn’t relevant to anything, so you’d think he could focus on the cub.)
And he had to do all of it without scaring the Stable in question more than she already was, because Oz would sooner take on a raging werebear than a Stable backed into a corner. When Stables got scared, they thought up A-bombs and poisonous gas and reality TV. (To be fair, if he couldn’t shift, he’d probably be scared and grumpy and want to watch terrible people get kicked off a terrible island all the time, too.) So scaring a Stable in general was a terrible idea, never mind one who smelled like high summer in the country.
Needless to say, in keeping with the entire goddamned day, nothing had gone right from the moment she’d nailed him like roadkill. More alarming/interesting, when he broke in, this particular Stable hadn’t been afraid, she’d been pissed. She hadn’t lost her head, she’d followed through on her plan. She hadn’t run, she’d met him in the doorway with a gun.
Fantastic.
Then he got a closer look at her.
Fantastic. Curves, curls, glasses showcasing blue eyes that were lovely even when they were narrowed into slits. Short-sleeved red T-shirt and black denim shorts, though it was spring. Sharks on her socks. No shoes.
Her curly hair had been his downfall. Not wavy. Curls that if you took one (gently!) and stretched it out (gently!) it would spring right back: pa-toing! And he’d been imagining exactly that when she introduced him to her basement. Ass first. With her foot. All he could do was watch the stairwell flip a one-eighty around him and then the cement floor jumped up and slammed into his back, which woke up his bad shoulder that hadn’t shut up since.
You should apologize. And ask her out. And sire cubs on her.
Whoa.
What?
He shook off the primitive thought which had come out of nowhere with such force it was like it wasn’t his thought at all, more like God yelling at him to hook up and make babies already, and tried to focus. Basement. Ass first. Cub in the wind. Stable in the NRA (probably). His sorta-sister, Annette, would laugh herself into a coronary when she heard. Which was the cherry on the sundae of the crap day that was today.
He bounced to his feet with only the smallest of groans
“Ag.”
and limped upstairs, then paused at the door and listened, nostrils flaring as he tried to take in anything but moldy basement. Nothing, which meant she’d fled or was standing really, really still. Waiting. Probably upwind with the gun. Or worse, a lecture. Either way, he couldn’t exactly live in her basement, could he? (Nope.) Had to get back to the job at hand, right? (Yep.) Had to earn enough money to buy a good-sized house in the country for their cubs to romp and what the hell was that now?
It took longer than he’d thought to break the lock—had to make it look like a Stable broke it—which made sense because it was that kind of day. She and the cub had both left by the time he made it back into the living room.
Of course.
Chapter 5
In the end, there was nothing for it but to go back. “Because home is where you go to find solace from the ever-changing chaos, to find love within the confines of a heartless world, and to be reminded that no matter how far you wander, there will always be something waiting when you return.”
“Not gonna lie.” Lila handed over a backpack bulging with toilet paper and heavy-duty trash bags. “That’s some real insight you’ve got.”
“Not mine.” Rob blinked rheumy eyes while he pondered. He was slightly built, in a worn sweater, jeans so faded they were gray, and new running shoes. His hair was the color of his jeans, pulled back and secured with twist ties. He shoved up his sleeves, exposing bony wrists. “It’s Kendal Rob’s.”
“Yeah, I don’t know who that is. He’s right, though. I’ve gotta go home. Well, technically it’s not my home yet. I mean, I only just signed the lease.” To the landlord’s instant and almost overwhelming delight. Which bore thinking about, but not right this second. “All my underwear’s still in boxes.” If that wasn’t “ever-changing chaos,” she didn’t know what qualified. “Anyway. Bye.”
“Thanks for the stuff.”
“Welcome.”
Moving: pain in the ass. Figuring
