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

be long dead if you were bent that way. No question.”

“Okay.”

“Wait. That made you feel better?”

Devoss ignored Oz’s surprised squawk and pulled back from Macropi with the self-conscious air of a child embarrassed to be seen acting like a child. “Um. Sorry. I guess I didn’t sleep very well. And there’s all the stuff with Sally, so.”

“Speaking of Sally,” Lila said briskly, “is anyone wondering if the fire was an attempt to either harm her or shunt the rest of you away from her?”

Devoss, clearly relieved that Lila had deliberately moved the group’s focus away from his outburst, nodded. Garsea exchanged glances with Oz and Macropi, then replied, “The thought had crossed our minds.”

“Leaving us with the possibility that my house is now at risk. So what’s the plan? Does your IPA have some kind of protocol here that you have to follow?”

“Uh. Lila. It’s beyond decent of you to take us in—”

“I took Daniels, Macropi, Smalls, and Devoss in, but don’t let that get in the way of your revisionist history.”

“What’s ‘shunt’?” From Devoss, who then read the quick note Caro scribbled and nodded. “Oh. Thanks, Caro, I never heard that word before.”

“—but this really isn’t your problem.”

She just looked at him. Orphaned bear cubs who might not be orphaned. A dead father calling his kid. Spontaneous house fire, possibly to harm the aforementioned orphan who might not be an orphan. Devoss sound asleep in the guest room with a stranglehold on his stuffed bear. Macropi staring out the living room window and still there at 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. Oz on her couch for the foreseeable future, too tired and worried to take five minutes to unfold the thing into a vague approximation of a bed before lapsing into a snore coma.

“Were you gonna say something?” Devoss asked. “You’re just sort of staring intently at Oz.”

“I’m in,” she replied. “I’m helping you well-meaning but possibly incompetent dopes with this until Sally’s safe and we know what started the fire so the neighborhood is safe and you can all go back to your lives and my house is no longer at risk so I can go back to my herb garden and that’s how it’s going to be, so just be resigned.”

“But—”

“That shit isn’t funny, Oz. Kids could’ve died.”

Garsea spoke up. “No one here thinks arson is funny.”

“Excellent, glad we’re all on the same page.” For a change. “So what now? Wait for Sally’s dead dad to call again?”

Monorail! Monorail!

“Turn it down, please,” Macropi called.

“Monorailllllllll!”

“Not exactly.” Garsea excused herself, then returned to the kitchen with Smalls in tow. “We need to talk about that phone call from your father again, Sally.”

“Which?”

“Wait, what?” From Oz. “How many have you gotten?”

“And why,” Lila asked sweetly, “are you guys only now asking that?”

“Hey!” he replied sharply. “Do we come over to your house and tell you how to—never mind, I just heard myself.”

“I told you.” Sally sounded as put-upon as any child hauled away from the television. “Daddy called and we talked about Lila—”

Lila blinked. “Uh, what?”

“—and Daddy said he was coming, but it would take time, so watch out for Maggie.”

Caro scribbled: Well, at least that doesn’t sound incredibly ominous.

“You don’t even need a sarcasm font,” Lila observed.

Oz was frowning. “When you say you and your dad talked about Lila, what does that mean?”

“Well. Daddy wanted me safe. But not with CPA.”

“Unless you’re talking about accountants, which we shouldn’t rule out,” Oz continued, “you mean IPA, right, hon?”

She nodded. “He said I had to stay in Switzerland until he could come. But not really Switzerland, just—a place that—that doesn’t pick sides? Where I could be safe? But IPA couldn’t be that.”

“So, instead a stranger?” Macropi asked. Then to Lila, “No offense, dear.”

“None taken.”

“Daddy said it was okay once I told him about the Stable who found me. You tried to help me, even ’cuz you thought I was a wild animal. And when I wasn’t, when you knew I was a Shifter, you kept my secret. And you didn’t kick me out when I came back.”

“So you’re all in my house because I’m not enough of a heartless wench?” Lila snorted. “Noted.”

“Anyways. Daddy said to go to you. And I figured he was right. ’Cuz it’s not just that you don’t have a side. It’s that you don’t care!” The girl beamed like she’d been given a grand gift. “At all!”

“So you’re all in my house because I’m not enough of an indifferent heartless wench. Got it.”

“Lila, you’re the first one of your kind I’ve spent any real time with,” Sally added.

“Yeah, you told me that.”

“I can’t wait to tell my folks! They’ll be so surprised.”

“Sally, did he give you any kind of time line? Did he tell you how long you’d have to stay? Or where he was? Or what happened?” Macropi leaned forward, almost vibrating in protective urgency. “And what about your mother? Was she—”

“Whoa, back up.” Oz held up his hands like he was being mugged at gunpoint. Which was tempting to contemplate and she might try it later. “Sorry, Mama, but I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

“Agreed.” From Garsea. “How did you even know it was your dad?”

“Because.” At the silence, she added impatiently, “He’s my dad. I know his voice.”

“Even if it was someone pretending?”

“But why would someone pre—oh.” Small shoulders slumped. “You still think he’s dead-for-real, not just playing.”

Garsea and Oz exchanged glances, and then Oz gently said, “We’re just trying to put the puzzle together.”

Sure. The puzzle analogy. Except they were trying to put it together in the dark with half the pieces missing and an arsonist waiting in the wings to torch it the moment they made even the smallest amount of progress.

Sally, meanwhile, had sidled over to Lila’s chair. Like any child trying to get out of an unpleasant conversation, she was anxious to change the subject. “Dev told me you’re a teddy bear doctor. Cubs send you their broken bears, and you get to fix them?”

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