Cracking her neck and letting out a breath, Dee followed after Blayne, almost crashing into her on the corner when it turned out the wolfdog had gone down the wrong street—again. Of course, Blayne didn’t even see Dee. Didn’t scent her. Didn’t know she was being followed. She was blissfully oblivious as always.

“Useless teacup poodle,” Dee snarled, watching the idiot skate off through the busy city crowd.

Then, resigned to what she had to do, Dee followed after her.

CHAPTER 5

Blayne skated into the office. Sitting on her desk was an enormous cup from her favorite smoothie place and a cardboard box most likely filled with her favorite nonsugar donuts from the Healthy Eating Bakery two doors down. A place Gwen said she wouldn’t go into with a gun to her head because she hated, “All those damn hippies.” In Gwen’s mind, anyone who didn’t eat meat was a hippie. But Blayne went to the bakery for yummy treats made without sugar.

It hadn’t taken Blayne long to figure out that sugar and/or caffeine in her system was a one-way ticket to a night in jail. For most people it was liquor or hard drugs, but Blayne had additional issues, so she avoided all of them as much as possible, especially on workdays.

Gwen sat at her desk, and Mitch, half awake and probably not happy about having to be at their office so early, sat in the only other guest chair they could fit in the room.

“Hi, Blayne.” Gwen smiled at her. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” she muttered, keeping her head down. Was Blayne milking the fact her friend felt awful about what she said for all it was worth? Um . . . yeah!

“Look, Blayne.” Gwen stood and walked over to her while Blayne dropped her bag to the floor and began digging through it to get out her work clothes. “I’m really sorry about yesterday. Of course the Babes aren’t trading you or removing you or replacing you or anything. Cherry won’t hear of it.”

Blayne shrugged—pathetically, she thought—and kept pulling out clothes trying to find her cargo pants.

“And Mitch is sorry, too. Right, Mitchell?” Gwen asked through clenched teeth.

“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry, Blayne. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“It’s no big deal,” Blayne said, standing.

“It is,” Gwen said. “You know I’m loyal to you, Blayne. And I think if we train together until the championships, outside team trainings, it’ll be fine. It’ll be better than fine. It’ll be great.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Come on, Blayne. You know I don’t mind and it’ll be good for me, too. We can practice before work in the mornings.”

Stealing from Novikov, Blayne said, “I’m not sure I can fit that into my currentschedule.”

“Schedule? What schedule? When have you ever had a schedule except the work one I give you every morning?”

“I’m talking about the schedule I now have that allows me to train with Bo Novikov. In the mornings, before work. You know, to help toughen me up so I’m not such a weak link for the team.”

Feeling smug but working really hard not to show it, Blayne stood, her work clothes in her hand. Gwen blinked at her, confused, while Mitch had his mouth open, his eyes wide. “I’ve gotta change. Got that job over at that barbershop on Twenty-eighth. Backed up sinks, I think.” She nodded, looked between the two siblings, and said, “Okay. See ya.”

She skated out of the office and to the first-floor bathrooms. By the time she’d changed into her work clothes, Blayne was grinning ear to ear. She simply couldn’t help it. She hadn’t had that much fun in a while.

Giggling to herself, Blayne walked out of the bathroom, squealing a little when Mitch latched on to her arm and dragged her into one of the first-floor conference rooms. They weren’t alone, though. Now the wild dogs were involved. Of course, it was their building that B&G Plumbing had their offices in but, more important, she loved when the wild dogs were involved. Everything took on a whole new level of crazy when they were!

Mitch dragged her to the front of the room before he released her. “Have you lost your mind?” he demanded.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

Jess, the only one sitting, her large belly keeping her far back from the conference table, ducked her head and began to rub her nose.

“Mitch—” Gwen said, trying to end this quickly, but Mitch was on a roll and it wasn’t even nine a.m. yet. He held his hand up to cut his sister off.

“Blayne.” And he said her name with all types of concern. “This is Bo Novikov we’re talking about here. The Marauder. He doesn’t train anyone.”

“Except me.”

“Yeah, sweetie.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, and a small part of her—a small part she had control of after lots of anger management classes—wanted to bite his fingers clean off. “But at what price?”

“I’m going to help him.”

“Help him with what? Orgasms?”

Blayne curled her hand into a fist under the sweat clothes she still held. She made sure to dig her fingers into her palm so that she didn’t laugh. When she knew she had control, she asked, “He didn’t say that specifically, but there was some mention of a morning protein drink. I said, ‘I hope you like strawberry!’”

“Blayne!”

She waved away his concern. “Look, he’s actually really nice.”