“There’s no need to get nasty, you big baby! Take your bear-mauling like a man!”
Once again glad he’d never had brothers, Lock headed down the street, leaving the Shaws to beat the crap out of each other in front of their five-star hotel like ten-year-olds.
He’d only gone a couple of blocks, debating about getting a taxi, when he saw the dark-blue van behind him. He stopped and studied it closely. The van rolled to a stop, those inside not even trying to pretend they weren’t following him. So Lock didn’t pretend that it didn’t bother him. Instead, he charged the van, flat out, slamming his body into the side and putting most of the power in his shoulder. He heard roars and yelping from inside as he shoved the van over.
It landed with a loud crash and Lock stepped back, grinning. They must be new. And apparently no one had warned them about how to handle the “difficult and highly emotional” bears as per the Unit’s breed breakdown.
Hands in his pockets, still thinking about Gwen and humming to himself, Lock headed on home.
CHAPTER 15
“Gwennnnnnnnie! Gwennnnnnnnie! Gwennnnnnnnnnnie!”
Gwen tried to cover her ears, but something had her hands trapped. She started kicking and fighting but something was on her, holding her down.
“Gwen! Wake up!”
Gwen’s eyes opened and she stared into a face she knew all too well.
“You idiot!”
“And an excellent afternoon to you, too, lazy head!” Mitch, still holding her hands, leaned down and breathed in her face.
“Jesus Christ!” she screamed.
“That’s right! Just got up myself and haven’t brushed my teeth yet!”
“You asshole! Get off me!”
He started slapping her in the face with her own hands, something she’d hated when she was six and, twenty years later, she still hated.
“Why are you hitting yourself, Gwen? Why are you hitting yourself?” he demanded while laughing maniacally.
“Get off!”
“I’m taking Sissy to Philly with me today,” he said, still slapping her with her own hands. “You’ll come, too. Mom says you haven’t been home in weeks. Not okay.”
“Can’t. I have plans!” she yelled, trying to kick him off her.
“With who exactly? It’s not Blayne, because I already checked in with her and she’s spending the day with her dad, or as I like to call him, Petty Officer Thorpe, Master of the Sea.” He took her hands and pulled them down her face. “Now look at you, Gwen! You’re trying to scratch your own eyes out! This is a cry for help!”
“Stop it!”
“A cry for help that only Ma and someone else’s apple pie—” because Christ knows Ma can’t bake “—can fix.” He released her, but when she went to slap the living hell out of him, he leaped neatly away. “And pack a bag. We’re staying a couple of days.”
Quickly sitting up so he couldn’t pin her to the bed again, Gwen scowled at her brother. “I said I can’t. I have plans.”
“If it’s not Blayne, then who? It’s not like you have any other friends.”
Gwen’s hands balled into fists. “You are such an asshole.”
“But an honest asshole, baby sister. Painfully honest. Now let’s get going.”
He was determined to get her back to Philly and she knew why. The O’Neill Family Pile-On. It was a horrifying event where every O’Neill aunt, uncle, and cousin in a hundred mile radius would be at her mother’s house for dinner so they could spend the entire time telling Gwen what a fuck-up she was.
They’d had their chance to do this before she left, but none of them had taken her very seriously, figuring she’d be home after a week or two.
But Gwen didn’t want to go home…wait. She briefly closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go back to Philly. She was already home. True, she didn’t have an apartment of her own yet, but she would. The business was doing well, their client list was healthy, and the wild dogs had cut her and Blayne an unbelievable deal on their office space.
And the family is testing you.
Yeah. She knew that. Although not as purely evil as a cult, Prides had their pull on a lioness. There was no denying that, and Gwen would be no different. But she wasn’t ready yet, and her mother knew it.
“I accepted another invitation for tonight. Sorry.”
Mitch crossed his arm over his chest. “Uh-huh. An invitation with…?”
“What do you care?”
He chuckled. “Look, the rest of the Philly cops may believe your line of bullshit, but I’m your brother. I know better. So stop fooling around, get your shit, and let’s go.”
He turned to walk out, completely dismissing her and pissing her off so badly that she lied like she hadn’t lied since Philly P.D. found her ex-boyfriend’s gun on her in the tenth grade.
“I’ve been invited to Jersey to spend time with Lock MacRyrie’s family. They’re expecting me for dinner and no way I’m not going.”
Mitch slowly faced her. “The bear? You’ve made dinner plans with a family of bears? You sure you’re not just dinner, Goldilocks?”
“That’s very funny,” she replied flatly. “Hilarious. But yeah. Plans to spend time with the family. They like me.” She hoped. She liked them and they seemed to like her, but who the hell knew and she was having such a bad day already. “Tell Ma I’ll see her at Thanksgiving, when I plan to be back in Philly. Not before.”
She was expecting her brother to throw one of his lion-male hissy fits, but it seemed Mitch was in as much of a game-playing mood as Gwen. Smiling, he said, “Even better…why don’t we drop you off in Jersey on our way home?”
“That’s not necessary. It’s out of your way.”
“Not by much, I’m sure,” he said easily. “And it’s no big deal. We’ll drop you off, I can meet the family, and even apologize to your bear. I think Bren and I might have startled him last night…after seeing you two making out in front of the hotel.”
Don’t you dare cringe, Gwendolyn O’Neill!
And drop her off? Meet the family? Oh, he was good. Gotten better in fact. She’d bet money he’d picked up tips from that damn ho-billy girlfriend of his! Manipulative canines!
Yet the one thing Gwen knew, she couldn’t back down now. “Sounds good.”
“Excellent.”
He turned away from her and Gwen reached for her phone to call Lock, but Mitch spun back around so fast, she immediately moved her hand away, trying to appear as if she hadn’t moved at all.
“And, to make it really interesting—” he walked over to her bedside table and picked up her cell phone “—why don’t I keep your phone, so you’re not tempted to let your bear know I’m coming? It’ll be a surprise! Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
Bastard! “Surprising a bear? That sounds like fun to you?”
“Oh, come on. He knows me now. I’m sure it’ll be great. I can’t wait!” He grabbed the in-room phone and yanked it off the table, ripping the cord from the wall.
This had quickly gotten out of hand. And Gwen knew why. Because Mitch expected Gwen to do what she always did when it came to her family. Take the path of least resistance. If it kept them quiet, Gwen usually did it simply to keep the peace and to avoid the whining, complaining, and roaring.
But not this time. This time she was going to play this out. Even if it blew up in her face—and she kind of knew it would—she had no intention of backing down. None!
“You better get ready,” Mitch said cheerily. “We’ll be leaving soon.”
“Fine,” she said, also with a cheeriness that could kill a twenty-foot boa constrictor. “Sounds good.”