No, she was all he had and that meant something to her still. He was hers, for better or for worse, and she’d haul his ass out of trouble again, if only so she could give it a swift kick.

Double checking to be sure she’d locked the doors—as if that could stop a werewolf—she shrugged and reached back to grab the shotgun and headed for bed.

* * * * *

Lex pulled his Harley into the garage and walked up the back stairs into the main house. For the first time since he’d left earlier that day, he felt relaxed. Their home was one he’d designed to serve as a refuge from Pack business. The Pack did not come to their big wooden home in the woods. There was a Pack house in town where Lex and Cade spent several nights a week but this house was theirs and theirs alone. They’d watched Pack business take over every part of their father’s life and eat at their parents’ marriage. Neither Cade nor Lex wanted to make that same mistake.

Lex walked down the grand hallway and heard his brother, the Alpha of the Pack, clicking on the keyboard, working as usual. He walked into the home office that looked out over the lake and flopped onto the couch. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. Did you find him?” Cade spun in his chair to look at his brother.

Lex sighed. “No. But I met his sister.”

Cade raised a brow. “Oh yeah? And? I’m guessing you charmed her into bed and she told you where he was?”

Lex barked a laugh. “Try again. She f**king pointed a shotgun at my balls and told me to get lost.”

Cade looked at him wide eyed and then burst out laughing. “No shit?”

“She looks like a librarian. Comes to the door in some prim and proper outfit, hair so tightly bound up she probably got a headache, and gives me the evil eye. Mouth puckered up like she’d been sucking lemons. The chick has Sunday school teacher written all over her.

“First she poked me in the chest! Then she told me that Rey showed up at her place—said he was being threatened by the Pack who wanted to kill him, grabbed some cash and took off. Then she told me to get out of there or she’d shoot me. I look down and she’s got a shotgun planted in my crotch and the meanest look I’ve ever seen on a human on her face. She called me wolf boy, slammed the door in my face. Oh! And flipped me off when I was driving away,” Lex said, unable to keep the admiration out of his voice.

Cade wiped a tear of mirth from his eye. “The most feared wolf in North America and a Sunday school teacher got the jump on you? Damn, I wish I could have seen it with my own eyes. You must be slipping, Lex. Clearly getting shot at and running after Rogue wolves isn’t enough to keep your edge.” He put his hand to his chin and pretended to think carefully. “Perhaps this woman should be our new Enforcer. Should we ask her, Lex? You can teach her kids and she can handle the firearms and take down the bad guys.”

Lex shot his brother a dirty look. “Make fun while you can, dickweed. I’m telling you, despite her general level of homeliness and uptightness, she was fierce. It’s kinda admirable.”

“Admirable? And she’s related to Rey? How come he’s such a weasel then?”

“There’s a messed up weasel in every family. Look at you.” Lex smirked at his brother as he heaved himself off the couch and headed down the hall to the kitchen. He bent to grab a beer from the fridge and tossed one to Cade.

“Ha ha, very funny. Call me Alpha when you say that,” Cade growled. “What’s your plan, then, oh scary Enforcer?” Cade asked, tossing the beer cap into the recycling and leaning back against the wall.

Shoving past Cade, Lex moved to sit down at the table. “We watch the sister. You know Rey will need help. He’s going to screw up sooner or later. Hell, she admitted that she’d cleaned up after him his whole life. When he comes to her, we’ll grab him.” Lex took a sip of the beer and shrugged his shoulders. “We have to find out what he saw.”

“Well, we’d better hope we get to him before the Rogues do,” Cade said.

“For his sake and ours. We have to find out what’s going on. Until we do, no one can be trusted, and you can’t run a Pack that way.”

* * * * *

The next morning, as Nina walked to her car, she noticed the steel-gray Mercedes parked across the street. Upon closer examination, she saw Lex Warden sitting inside and sighed—partly in annoyance and partly at the picture he made there. He looked cool and dangerous and undeniably sexy with his carnal lips curled up at the corner into a smug smile. Pushing her attraction down as far as she could, she pulled out of her driveway and drove to work. He made no bones about following her and did so openly, probably to rattle her a bit. It didn’t matter. She’d kept her cool under much scarier circumstances than some guy watching her. As long as Gabriel listened to her advice and had hightailed it out of town and kept his head low, everything would be all right.

She snorted to herself at that. Of course he wouldn’t. He’d mess up because it was simply part of his nature. No, she could only hope when it did happen that it wasn’t too catastrophic and that she got to him before the bad guys did.

With a sigh, she pulled into her space behind the florist shop and went inside to begin to prepare for the day. This was her realm. She’d built this business from the ground up and it was totally hers. Hers to make or break, and damn it, she’d made it through a heck of a lot of hard work and sixteen-hour days.

On her way through to the employee kitchen she took the place in, loving the little details. The antique pots and containers she picked up in little shops and garage and estate sales. The potted plants and lush greenery that made the shop seem like an oasis in the middle of a metropolitan area. The stained glass panes that she’d found last year were hung in the high windows and now morning light jeweled through them and across the floor and walls.