A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (free romance novels TXT) 📗

does this Lila person know?” Annette said. “And how best to find out?”

“No, let’s not go back to that, let’s deal with this other thing. Why’s she mad at us?” Oz asked, and he definitely didn’t sound hurt. “We’re the ones who want her to be safe now that she’s an orphan.”

Annette just looked at him. He could practically read her thoughts: I warned you it was a thankless job.

“That’s the problem, duh!” Dev practically yelled. “She doesn’t believe you. She’s never gonna believe you!”

“Simmer, boy.” This from Mama Mac, who was standing over all of them in an unconscious protective pose.

“I understand she doesn’t believe us. But what does she think our motive is? Why would we lie about her parents’ deaths?” Annette asked.

“She’s ten. She has no clue about motive, but the alternative is, y’know, totally unthinkable to her.” Dev looked around at the adults. “C’mon! It’s obvious. In her mind, her parents can’t be dead, ergo they’re alive, ergo you guys are lying like you’re getting paid. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense to you.”

“So how to make it make sense to a cub in denial?” Mama asked.

“Well, there’s the small matter of the crash site and corresponding DNA,” Annette pointed out quietly.

“So then.” When no one said anything, Caro added impatiently, “Show her.”

“We can’t.”

“Maybe we can,” Oz said, and everything stopped.

Chapter 11

Lila had loaded the last box of body parts when she glanced up to see Ox and a woman she didn’t know striding up her driveway. She mentally rolled her eyes and turned to meet them, squashing the giddy excitement that had risen when she spotted him.

Ox waved like he was on a parade float. He looked unfairly handsome and worriedly cheerful this early in the day. “Hiya, Lila! Hey, that rhymes.”

“Barely.”

For some reason, her knee-jerk churlishness made his companion smile as she extended a hand. “I’m Annette Garsea. I used to live down the street.”

“Lila Kai. I used to go longer than twenty minutes without a pop-in.”

This time Garsea laughed out loud, and to her annoyance, Lila found herself warming up to the other woman. Tall—only a few inches shorter than Ox—with a mussed mane of thick, shoulder-length reddish-brown hair with loads of creamy highlights. Her eyes were a startling reddish brown (maybe they only looked reddish because she was wearing a cherry-colored sweater?), as well as pale “oh God it’s been a long winter” skin and a wide, generous mouth. “Yes, sorry about all that. I’ve heard you had some excitement and you haven’t even been here seventy-two hours.”

“My,” Lila replied. “What a hotbed of gossip I’m living in.”

Garsea didn’t demur. “Small towns.”

“So anyway,” Ox put in brightly, “I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch. Or dinner.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Y’know…as a thank you.”

“For…”

“Well, more as an apology,” Ox clarified.

“For…”

“All the trouble Sally put you through,” he finished, like this was a sensible neighborhood and he was a sensible man with a sensible plan.

“Oh. That.” Lila shrugged. “No biggie.”

“That’s kind of you,” Garsea put in, “but my understanding is she broke into your house.”

“No.”

Garsea’s brow furrowed. “Pardon?”

“She didn’t break in.”

“Oh.”

Silence, glorious silence. Too many people didn’t like silence; they’d rush to fill it and trip themselves up. Cops, lawyers, and loan officers banked on it.

Not Lila. Awkward silences could be useful. And she’d long perfected her less-is-more Q&A system. The person peppering her with questions would eventually get impatient (and slip up) or bored (and slip up) or frustrated (and slip up) or hungry (and leave to eat). Nine times out of ten, “yes—no—I dunno” was good for a favorable outcome.

Ox cleared his throat. “So, lunch? Today? C’mon, say yes.”

But one in ten was revealed to be a persistent bastard with piercing green eyes and a tailored suit with a black duster that should have made him look like a Matrix wannabe but didn’t, and here she was already getting distracted, fuck.

Incredibly, she heard herself say, “I work in downtown Saint Paul. The Hamm Building. If you wanted to meet there. Or not. I don’t care.” Even as she heard the words gushing out of her mouth, she couldn’t believe she just warmly agreed to lunch with a near stranger and gave that same near stranger her work address. Clearly a week for firsts.

“Meritage!” Garsea practically shouted. Lila gave thanks for leaving the Beretta in the bathroom, otherwise Ox’s lady friend might have had to deal with a bullet in her knee.

“Sorry?”

Ox leaned in. “Annette was a foodie before ‘foodie’ was code for ‘pretentious jackoff.’ She knows every restaurant in town. She’s memorized every menu, interviewed every chef, intimidated every maître d’, grilled every line cook, and harangued every sommelier.”

“Oh, I have not!”

“Grown men weep when she walks through the door. Food critics go to her for suggestions. Also, Meritage is a restaurant if that wasn’t already clear in context.”

Garsea clapped a hand over her eyes. “Good God. You’re making me sound like someone abnormally, even obsessively, interested in foo—well, that’s fair.” To Lila: “You’ve got to try it, their chilled seafood platter is astounding and the profiteroles will make you think you’ve seen God. But avoid the salade Niçoise. Not enough tuna.”

Let’s zero in a bit, shall we? Because what the hell is happening right now? “So lunch would be on IPA?”

Ox’s smile slipped a bit. “Yeah. Business, not personal.” A short silence, broken when he added, “So don’t worry.”

“Whenever someone has told me not to worry, there’s been something to worry about. Every single time.”

The smile slipped the rest of the way off. “Oh.” The big lug’s shoulders slumped a little. “Well, if you don’t want—”

“Meet you there at noon.”

“What?” Up came the shoulders. Like magic! “I mean, great!”

“But I have to go to work now,” Lila added, hoping they would notice they were blocking her driveway. She shut the back doors with a decisive slam. “So I’ll see you at noon.”

“If I may ask,” Garsea said, eyeing the vehicle, “are you an EMT?”

“No.”

“Oh. But then why…never mind.”

Lila