“You’re right. That was a hell of a drop, though, for a little dog.” Still gripping the beam, Bert leaned over. “You all right, little dog? Can you hear me?”

Ric muttered something, but Lock couldn’t really understand him with his face smashed into the floor like that, so he lifted him up.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I hate all of you.”

“Why? We didn’t toss you up there.”

“Exactly,” Bert agreed as he came down the beam. He took his bag back from Lock. “We were the ones who helped you. We could have left you up there.”

“Yep. You should be grateful.”

Ric limped away, muttering something about “bastard bears.”

“Canines are so moody,” Bert commented as they walked toward the team locker room.

“And totally ungrateful.”

Practice ended early, most likely because the team captain kept going on and on about how his face hurt from that thirty-foot drop he’d taken. Whiner. And with the team gone, Bo once again had the ice to himself.

Using his stick, he kept the puck in front of him and skated a figure-eight pattern, looping around and behind the goals, picking up speed as he went along. To be honest, he never tired of this. He could stay on the ice for days at a time and he’d be happy.

Speeding into the goal crease, seconds from sending the puck down to the opposite end, Bo almost rammed into the net when he saw Blayne skate through the doors. She had on her helmet, elbow and knee pads, and fingerless leather gloves. The kind Bo used when he did weight training.

Forgetting the puck—perhaps for the first time in his life—Bo skated over to her.

“Hi. What happened to your face?” She had a cut open on the side of her head and a line of blood trickling down her jaw.

“Huh?” She touched her face. “Oh. That. It’s nothing. I got it during team practice.”

“Not paying attention again?”

“Can we talk about that later?”

“Okay. So what’s up?”

“Uh . . . there’s a strong possibility lion males may be coming to kill you. Okay . . . bye!” She turned to skate off, and Bo grabbed the back of her sweatshirt. She kept skating for about a minute before she gave up completely, arms falling limply at her sides.

“Are you going to tell me why lion males are trying to kill me?”

“I didn’t say are. I said maybe.” She faced him. “For them to rally up enough energy to get off their lazy asses and drive up here . . . I’d be more concerned if it were the females. Then I’d just tell ya to get out of town.”

“Blayne.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s going on?”

That’s when sheexploded with, “I’m sorry!”

“Okay.”

“I am so, so, so sorry!”

The workings of the Blayne Thorpe mind. If he wanted a straight answer, he’d have to ask her for one. “Maybe you should tell me what happened first before you apologize any more, otherwise I’m sensing we’ll be here all night.”

“It’s Mitch’s fault,” she began.

“Okay.” He waited a few seconds, then asked, “Who’s Mitch again?”

“Gwen’s brother.”

“Okay.”

“He’s a big fan.”

“Okay.”

“Except that year you were with Dallas. He hated you that year.”

“He wouldn’t be the first from Philly to feel that way. And so Mitch . . .” he pushed when she remained silent.

“Oh. Right. See, this is what happened. I was over at Jess’s house and she’s pregnant and kinda feeling down because you know it’s never easy and I think she’s just really tired and feels left out and this is her first pup so I’m sure it’ll be better when she has a few more, which apparently she and Smitty are planning to do and anyway, I was trying to make her feel better, which is a definite problem of mine, not the making feel better thing but what I do to make people feel better, which is talk . . . a lot . . . and before I knew it I told her and the rest of her Pack about us having breakfast this morning with Bernie and they immediately began to think we were going out and I was telling them that you are not one of my gentleman callers but they didn’t believe me and while I was trying to explain that no, you weren’t, in comes Mitch and he hears just enough to blow it all out of proportion and I tried to stop him before he came over here and got himself killed, and I had him in my jaws of death hold but he’s a male lion and it wasn’t as effective on him as it is on his sister and I told him to keep his mouth shut but he didn’t and now everyone in Philly thinks you’re taking advantage of me and all the O’Neill males are in a rage because I’m like family, and I’m really sorry about all this.”

Nope. He’d never heard anyone talk that fast while creating the longest run-on sentence in human history—and doing it all in one breath. Bo was fascinated.

“You’re not saying anything,” she observed.

“After all that, what is there to say—”

“I understand.”

“—other than . . . exactly how many gentlemen callers do you have that I’m not actually one of them?”

“Currently, I don’t have any gentlemen callers, but I could at any moment. However, it is not a title given out lightly.”