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

must have felt Lila staring because she looked up, grabbed her pad, scribbled.

These are great #!#??# books.

“Huh. You swear like a cartoon character.”

She’d seen the teenager flipping through them—Lila had her books out of boxes in the living room, but not yet on shelves—and had tucked a couple of volumes into Sally’s shopping bag. And it was nice to see a teen reading an actual paper book. Lila loved her Kindle while acknowledging it had spoiled her. Last week she tapped an unfamiliar word (diffident, which she always confused with indifference), and when the definition didn’t obligingly pop up, tossed the book aside and sulked. Five seconds later, she realized it was a paperback.

“I’ll think about the shed thing,” Lila promised. “But you guys know this is a stopgap measure at best, right? Sooner or later, you’ll have to face the combined wrath of Macropi, Garsea, and Oz.6 I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Which you might end up being; we’ve only known each other a few days.”

“How come you call everyone by their last names except Oz?”

She blinked. “I…don’t know.” Huh. Was that something she should worry about? Was it ponder-worthy? Was there some sort of hidden meaning in her unconscious need to call Oz Oz?

Naw.

“He’s into you,” Devoss added. “Just so y’know.”

“You mentioned that.”

“Are you guys going out?”

“No.” And why did saying that make her chest hurt? Actual, physical pain, like someone had slugged her in the sternum? “And no to this.”

“This?”

“Whatever this convo leads to. We’re not in some TV show where the precociously adorable kids overstep with the matchmaking. This is real life, where grown women don’t discuss their love life with random kiddos.”

“You think we’re precociously adorable?”

“It’s kind of annoying how that’s the only part you picked up on.” Then, because she was a moron who couldn’t help herself, she undid what she had just declared. “Why would you even ask that?”

“Because he’s acting weird.” Daniels was shaking her head at Devoss, who ignored the warning. “Even for Oz.”

Lila blinked as she considered his words. “I don’t have a baseline for him, so I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

“Yeah, we figured.”

“We”? Leave me out of this, Dev. Leave yourself out of it, too!

“That’s good advice, Daniels,” Lila said. “And even if he’s ‘acting weird,’ why would I discuss any of this with you two?”

“We don’t have a baseline, either,” Devoss replied pertly. “So how can we answer that?”

“Are you aware of the phrase ‘too clever by half’? And speaking of too clever, did you guys find some fake mistletoe when you were rooting around?” Their perfectly blank expressions (and silence) were all the answer she needed. “I don’t even want to know why your first instinct after finding fake mistletoe was to plant it under Oz’s pillow.”

“Why did you buy an ovulation kit?”

She clenched her teeth so hard, she almost bit her tongue. Because of course he’d found it. And she couldn’t even accuse him of snooping. She hadn’t wanted to wonder what it meant, this sudden urge out of nowhere, multiple trips to the drugstore where she struggled not to buy the thing, finally giving in, and then the fire happened, so it had all gone right out of her head. Small wonder—she’d determinedly not thought about what she had done and what it could mean. So her subconscious obliged and let her bury it.

She hadn’t even really hidden it. Just stuffed it beneath the bathroom sink along with her tampons, extra toilet paper, and an EZ-OUT ladder.

IDIOT

“Well put,” Lila said dryly as Daniels smacked him on the shoulder with her notepad.

“Well, I’m in for it now, so I might as well go all the way,” Devoss said, because he was stubborn and maybe a demon. “You just bought it. The receipt was in the bathroom garbage can. I’ll bet you didn’t care about ovulating before this week.”

“Nope. Not doing this.”

SERIOUSLY STOP NOW, DEV

“Okay, okay. It’s just, we’re here if you want to talk.”

DEV ISN’T SPEAKING FOR ME I AM NOT HERE IF YOU WANT TO TALK

Lila snickered. “Your frantic efforts to distance yourself have been noted. Now. Change of subject.”

“Okay.” Dev sulked for half a second before his default sunny disposition rebooted. “You said we’ll eventually have to deal with Net and Mama, and you’re right. We’ll show throat eventually. But we’re gonna try and put it off. That whole ‘get something unpleasant out of the way ASAP’ sounds like a trick grown-ups use to get kids to cop to their shit right away.”

“How are you naïve and cynical at the same time?”

“Dunno. Anyways, with Magnus Berne in town and everyone running around looking for Sally’s dad, they’ll probably forget all about us.”

“There is no way in hell this crew is ever going to forget all about you.”

Dev beamed like he’d won the lottery. “Yeah. They wouldn’t. We’re gonna try and sleep out here anyway. So if they ask, would you tell ’em that we seemed super sad and contrite?”

“I could, but then they’d laugh themselves into hernias.”

“Maybe it’ll work anyway. Mama Mac’s a big fan of letting kids sleep uninterrupted. Sometimes she’ll put off a lecture if she thinks you’re asleep.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure no one’s tried that before and she’s totally oblivious to your sophisticated mind games.” That earned her a raspberry from Daniels, which Lila was far too mature to return. She looked down at sleeping Sally, who hadn’t so much as twitched during their chat. Who knew werebears could hibernate for two-hour stretches? “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for her to spend the night out here, though.”

“She could do it. But Mama Mac won’t have it. She’s got this nutty idea that if she’s not watching Sally, the cub’ll just up and vanish.”

“What a fanciful notion!”

Devoss grinned, showing his sharp little teeth. Not for the first time, Lila thought he’d make a formidable adult. “She won’t run anymore. She’s like me: Why would she leave the place she wants to be? They’ll put