The Mane Squeeze

by Shelly Laurenston

  “It’s a skill.”

  “Out of the way, boy.” Calum pushed him back. “We need to teach sweet little Gwen here how to play poker.”

  “I’m not sure you want to—”

  “Don’t argue with me, boy.”

  Hamish shoved a racing form in Lock’s hand, then grabbed his arm. “While they do that, I need to talk to you outside for a minute.” He smiled and winked at Gwen. “We’ll be right back, gorgeous.”

  She giggled—giggled!—and focused back on the rest of his uncles. “So…um…how does this game work?” she asked sweetly.

  While the rest of his uncles practically fell over each other in an attempt to “assist” Gwen, Hamish pulled Lock out the back door that led to the alley behind their bar. More than once, his uncles had used this door to get out during police raids. The fact that none of his father’s brothers were in prison still amazed the entire MacRyrie family. Lock loved each and every one, but the only difference between his uncles and the average felon was that the MacRyrie brothers had never done any hard time.

  “What’cha bring the girl for?” Hamish asked once he’d closed the thick metal door.

  “Why wouldn’t I bring Gwen?”

  “Why do you always answer a question with a question?”

  “Why are you always upset when I do?”

  Hamish gritted his teeth and briefly closed his eyes. “I swear, some days you are just like your old man.”

  “I no longer find that an insult.” Lock shrugged. “So what’s going on?” He knew something must be up, because his uncles had never cared before when he brought a girl over…of course it had been more than ten or twelve years since he had. And then he’d only brought the girls to impress them with his bad-boy side—important since he didn’t really have a bad-boy side—but he’d brought Gwen because he hadn’t been ready to let her go. And he wasn’t sure when he would be.

  His uncle motioned him farther into the alley. It was one of the few in New York that didn’t have a few people living in it—even before they’d “cleaned up” the city—but that was because who’d be crazy enough to set up house near bears? Even full-humans who didn’t know the MacRyries were bears knew better.

  Hamish crouched down and pulled back a large piece of cardboard. Heart sinking, Lock crouched beside him.

  “How long?”

  “We found it this morning.”

  “Is this the first?”

  “No. The third one in the last five months. Always male…always a mixed breed.”

  This one was a wolf-coyote mix. Lock leaned in closer. “He hasn’t been shot.”

  “No. I’m thinking he died from the bites.” Hamish let out a breath. “This isn’t hunters, is it?”

  “No. They sometimes use dogs for tracking, but these bites are too deep for dog bites. And they wouldn’t go for such lethal spots. Hunting dogs only track the prey, corner them, but these wounds are to kill.” Lock sat back on his heels. “These are fight marks.”

  “The first two, we got rid of the bodies ourselves. But third time’s the charm, ya know?”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “You gonna take care of it?”

  “No. I don’t have any connections any more. No authorization to do anything. And lately the Unit has been watching me, I’m still not sure why.”

  “’Cause of this?”

  “Doubt it. We were never sent out on assignment over a hybrid.” Mostly because the other breeds didn’t care about the hybrids.

  “So we should just get rid of the body, then?”

  “No. Don’t touch anything.” Lock pulled out his cell phone and hit his speed dial. “There’s someone who does have connections.” By the second ring, Lock heard that familiar voice through the phone. “Ric…we’ve got a problem.”

  Gwen set up her cash into little piles based on denomination. The MacRyrie bears glowered as she did, since all that money she was organizing had been theirs.

  “You certainly did pick up the game real quick,” Nevin observed.

  She smiled and kept piling and counting.

  “You said you’re an O’Neill?” Calum asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And exactly who is your mother, sweetheart? Maria? Mary Patrice?”

  “Roxy.”

  And, as she expected, the four males turned and now glowered at their nephew.

  “You idiot!” Hamish yelled.

  Lock looked up from the racing form he’d been studying and marking for the last two hours. Whatever he and his Uncle Hamish had discussed while they were gone, it had bothered the bear, but he was doing a good job of hiding it. She didn’t think it had anything to do with her, because his uncles seemed to like her…and Ric was outside that back door. She’d scented him and a few others nearly ninety minutes ago. Since the wolf didn’t come inside and Lock didn’t mention him or go out to greet him, she knew they were hiding something. Did they really think she wouldn’t notice? Or did they think that their metal door and thick concrete walls blocked her senses? Well, whatever. She’d just get it out of the grizzly later.

  “What did I do?” Lock demanded.

  “Roxy O’Neill is her mother? You could have warned us!”

  “Warn you?” Lock frowned. “Why?”

  “You bring a baby shark into our den and it doesn’t occur to you to mention the baby shark’s mother?”

  “That analogy makes no sense to me.”

  “Anybody have something I can carry all this money in?” The bears returned their glares to Gwen. “What did I say?” she asked, attempting to keep it innocent.

  “Here.” Calum slammed a bank-deposit bag on the table. “Take your winnings and go, feline.”

  “Where did the love go?” Gwen pouted.

  “It went with our money,” Nevin muttered.

  Duff snatched the racing form out of Lock’s hand, scowled, and turned accusing brown bear eyes on his nephew. “What is this?”

  “Uh…”

  “You were supposed to mark winners and times and everything else we need on the races.”

  “What did he write?” Hamish looked over his brother’s shoulder, easy for him since Duff was only about seven-one. “A door? You drew a door?”

  “For Dad’s birthday.”

  Gwen stopped putting her money in the bag. “You’re giving your father a picture of a door for his birthday?” And she’d thought Mitch marking up pages in her copy of Vogue and telling her, “This is what I’d get you for your birthday if I had money” had been cheap.

  “I’m not giving him a drawing of a door.”

  “Then what are you giving him?” Gwen liked Brody and she wouldn’t have Lock give him some half-ass birthday gift.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But I do worry about it. Because you’re male and instinctively lame.”

  “There are those claws she’s been hiding,” Duff chuckled.

  “Well?” Gwen pushed, ignoring Lock’s uncles.

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  Hamish folded his arms over his chest. Or, perhaps it was more like his massive arms over that massive chest. Huge didn’t even begin to describe the size of these men. She knew she should feel uncomfortable around them, but she didn’t. Not anymore. And honestly? She’d never felt safer in her life. “You haven’t told her?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Told me what?”

  Calum grinned. “What Mr. Sensitive Bear does in his spare time.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Which is what exactly?” Gwen pushed.

  “It’s nothing.” Lock motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  Gwen rested her hands on the table and began to tap her fingers. She tapped and she stared.

  “You can stop that right now,” Lock said. “Because there’s nothing to tell.”

  Gwen kept tapping. Gwen kept staring.

  “It’s not going to work.”

  Tap. Stare. Tap. Stare.

  “I don’t
have to tell you anything. I don’t owe you an explanation. So let it go.”

  Gwen never changed her expression, she never said a word, and she never stopped tapping her nails.

  With a short roar, Lock snatched the racing form back from Duff. “Fine! This will allow me to take care of something tonight anyway. Now move your skinny butt!”

  Gwen shoved the rest of the money in the pouch and headed toward the door. Lock stopped her.

  “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  He raised a brow—and she now knew where he’d gotten that particular expression from—and Gwen gave a short snort of disgust before handing him the small wad of money. Small compared to what she now had.

  “This better be all of it.”

  “Like that guy would know one way or the other.” He probably didn’t even know Gwen had taken his money, and she wouldn’t have thought about giving it back to him if it wasn’t for Lock. To her way of thinking, the guy owed Lock big for being so gracious.

  Lock opened the door and motioned her out.

  “We’ll see you soon, Lovely Gwen.”

  She turned to wave at the MacRyrie bears, but the door had already slammed closed and Lock stood in front of her, glaring.

  “What?” she demanded. “I like them.”

  “Figures.” He spun her around and pushed her. “Come on. If we’re going to do this, let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER 20

  It was bad enough he let his uncles goad him into things he didn’t want to do, but now he was letting Gwen do it, too. And all she did was stare at him with those gold eyes.

  Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to show Gwen. That he wanted to let her in to the part of his life that only a chosen few had access to.

  Lock pulled into one of two parking spaces at the warehouse and shut off the motor. They sat in silence for several minutes until Gwen asked, “So what exactly was going on behind your uncles’ bar?”

  Surprised by her question, Lock could only stare at her.

  “What?” she demanded. “You think I’m stupid? You disappear with your uncle, then Ric shows up, but he never comes inside. No one discusses what’s going on out there, and even though everyone is trying to be quiet, I can still hear ’em all out there. And I know I smelled something dead in that alley.”

  Realizing that trying to get anything over on Gwen would be futile, Lock shrugged and said, “They found a shifter corpse behind the bar. And before you ask,” he said when she opened her mouth, “no, my uncles didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Someone sending them a message?”

  “Doubtful. It’s no one they know and it’s happened randomly over the last five or six months. Chances are it’s just a good dumping ground.”

  “For what?”

  “So far it’s been hybrids. Male wolf mixes.”

  “Hunted?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You worried?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Why bring in Ric?”

  “It’s the kind of thing that gets him all up in arms. He’s a big believer in protecting all shifters, full-blood or mixed.” He took her hand. “That being said, I want you to be careful. At least until we know what’s going on. You and Blayne.”

  “No worries there. We’re always careful. We have no choice. I’m an O’Neill and she’s the best friend of an O’Neill. Now are we going inside to see what your uncles were talking about or are you hoping I’ll completely forget and you can totally puss out?”

  Dropping her hand, Lock snarled, “Fine. Get out.”

  Lock stepped from the SUV and slammed his door. He walked to the warehouse and unlocked the door, shutting off his alarm system and heading inside, assuming Gwen would follow.

  Gwen stood in the doorway and gazed up at the high ceiling. The place was an old warehouse, but even in New Jersey it couldn’t be cheap to own or rent a place like this, even for storage. Which she was sure it was with all the furniture lying around.

  And nice furniture, too. Really nice.

  Captivated by the first thing that caught her eye, Gwen wandered over to a sweet little side table. It was made entirely of wood, and she was amazed at the craftsmanship. Gwen crouched down in front of it and ran her hand over the smooth wood.

  “Well?”

  She heard tone from the bear behind her, but she chose to ignore it. Besides, the more she touched the end table, the more she wanted it. “Where did you get this from?” When he didn’t answer right away, Gwen glanced over her shoulder and was surprised by how uptight he looked. “What’s wrong?” She stood, gently placing her hand on his forearm. “What’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugged and admitted, “I made it.”

  Gwen looked down at the table and back at the bear. “No, seriously.”

  “I am serious. I made it. And I was drawing a front door for the house. Dad’s been wanting a new one.”

  Gwen reached into Lock’s back pocket and pulled out the racing form. She’d grown up looking at these and helping her own uncles with their winnings and losses. It surprised her that she and Lock had that much in common. It surprised her even more what was drawn on that racing form.

  It wasn’t simply a door, as the MacRyrie bears had put it. The design was intricate, beautiful. As someone who worked with carpenters and construction people most of her life, Gwen knew when she was looking at something amazing. But could he actually create this?

  Gwen stepped closer to the end table and examined it again. Straightening, she walked down to the next piece. A rolltop desk that looked like something out of the nineteenth century but had been kept in impeccable shape. She pushed the rolltop up and then down. She studied every inch carefully.

  “You did this?” she pushed, really not sure she believed him, but he looked so nervous and embarrassed, she was beginning to realize he wasn’t lying. And if he could do this, then she doubted the door would be much of a challenge for him.

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “This is your hobby? The woodworking you like to do?”

  “Yeah.”

  Momentarily speechless, she stepped to another piece. This one a long dining table that she knew her mother would kill for.

  “Hobby?”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  She whirled on him. “Because hobby means whittling. Or birdhouses. Remember the birdhouses?

  “You said birdhouses. I never said birdhouses.”

  “It means,” she went on, ignoring him, “a badly put-together table that your friends only pull out of the garage when they know you’re coming over. This—” she gestured around the room at all the amazing pieces surrounding her “—this isn’t that.”

  Without waiting for him to say anything else, she ran her hand over the dining table. It looked similar to the table in his parents’ house. No wonder he’d gotten so weird when she’d asked about it. He’d made it! And although this table had a similar style, she could see a marked difference in skill level between the two. He was growing, getting better, becoming a true artisan at his craft.

  “Okay, so how much for the table?”

  Lock’s head tilted to the side. “How much?”

  “Yeah. Ma would love this and Christmas is coming up.”

  “Uh…”

  “And don’t try and out-haggle me. I’ve learned from the best.”

  “I don’t haggle.”

  “All right. How much then?” She gestured to herself with her hands. “Hit me with it. I can handle it.”

  “Gwen…” he seemed so confused “…you can have it.”

  “Have it?” Gwen looked at the table that was slowly going from Christmas gift to her mother to Christmas gift to Gwenie.

  “Lock, I can’t take this. I mean you’ll lose what? Four, five grand for it? Okay, it’s true, the sex is great and all but four or five grand? That’s a lot of money for the sex to live up to.”

>   “I don’t mean…” He dropped his head but she saw the smile. He wasn’t laughing at her, it was a surprised smile. A smile of pure pleasure. “What I mean is I don’t sell my work. At least not yet.”

  It took her a moment to understand him. “You don’t sell your work? At all?”

  “No.”

  “Why? What are you waiting for?”

  He shrugged. “I’m waiting for it to be…better.”

  “Better?” Wow. The man had higher standards than she realized. “Lock, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but…you’re an idiot.”

  “How do you mean that in the nicest way possible?” Lock demanded, never knowing which direction Gwen would come from.

  “I mean, you’re an idiot if you’re not selling this stuff. And I don’t mean at yard sales. I’m talking about selling it to a furniture specialist shop. Where rich people go. You want rich people to buy your shit because they tell their rich friends and they tell their rich friends and on and on.”

  “None of these are ready for sale,” he argued. “These are all just…drafts.”

  “Drafts?”

  “Right. Because I’m still learning.”

  “Okay. So you’re saying everything isn’t perfect yet.”

  “It doesn’t need to be perfect.” Just as close as humanly possible. “But I have to be comfortable getting money for it.”

  “Fair enough.” She pointed at the dining table. “So what needs work on this?”

  Lock walked over and refreshed his memory on the dining table he’d made a year ago. “Um…this.” He crouched down and pointed. “See those crossrails? They’re slightly…off.”

  “Off?”

  “Uh-huh.” He stood up. “I’ll make another one and try and fix that.”

  “Right. Okay. And you said you had to take care of something here, right? What was that?”

  “Since my uncles goaded me into coming here, I figured I could grab a chair I made for Jess, and we could drop it off at her place. If I give her the chair now, she can’t guilt me into going to her baby shower later…and she’ll try.” Oh, she would try.

  “Can I see the chair?”

  “Sure.” He walked her over to the chair and took off the drop cloth he kept over it to protect the wood.