“So how’s the business?” Adelle Van Holtz asked as she handed a waiter two plates of food.

“It’s okay. We’re getting more clients. Had a big job last night that worked out well.”

“Good. Good. I told my brother about you guys. He may have some work for you.” She reached around him and grabbed a bottle of water. “As you know, the Van Holtz Pack doesn’t like to sully our fingers with common wolf activities.”

“The Smiths are all about the common wolf activities. And being sullied. So we’re more than happy to help. Especially if it involves my favorite restaurant,” he finished with a wink.

The Van Holtz Steakhouse restaurant chain had been neutral ground for shifters for years, although cats didn’t come by very often. Yet every breed of wolf or canine could come and indulge their need for rare steak and hang with the other wolves. Only problem, the Van Holtz Steakhouse was in no way cheap. So Smiths didn’t come very often since they didn’t exactly roll in money like the Van Holtz and Magnus Packs did.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Adelle said with a smile. “Now tell me what’s wrong, baby boy?”

Smitty liked Adelle a lot, the two of them becoming impossibly tight after she’d hired Smitty to beef up her restaurant’s security and figure out which of her staff had been stealing from her. It turned out to be the arctic fox busboy.

At least twenty years older than him, Adelle wasn’t as snobby as most Van Holtzs, and she really knew how to cook up a steak. She had a mothering streak a mile long, and she loved to baby Smitty. With his momma in Tennessee and his sister a pain in the ass, he sometimes needed that.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?”

She reached up and stroked his cheek. “You know you can’t hide anything from me. Is it a She-wolf problem?”

“Nah.” He kind of wished it was. She-wolves were real simple to understand if you followed three simple rules: Don’t irritate them, don’t stare them down unless you’ve got a death wish or you’re sure you can take them, and don’t irritate them. You followed that simple logic, you’d do just fine. But Jessie Ann wasn’t a She-wolf, and there was nothing simple about that woman. Not a damn thing. “Just met an old friend last night and she acted like she didn’t even know me.”

“Well—”

“And how could she not?” he continued. “I’m amazing.”

Adelle patted his chest. “That you are.”

After the job and breakfast with Mace, Smitty didn’t get back to his apartment until well after six A.M. He’d stripped and dropped into bed, expecting to be asleep within seconds. Instead, he’d stared up at his ceiling for a good hour wondering how Jessie could so easily forget him. True, it wasn’t like they spent every hour of every daytogether when they both lived in Smithtown, but he was closer to her than he was to most anybody else except his sister. He’d even listened to her when she’d go on and on about some book she read. The fact that he’d endure conversations about elves and dragons and guys with swords still amazed him. But he’d done it for Jessie Ann.

Hell, maybe she was still mad. He knew females could hold a grudge like no other. Especially predators. Maybe she hadn’t forgiven him for walking away, for leaving her alone in Smithtown. But what else could he do? It’s not like the Navy would have let him bring a sixteen-year-old girl with him because “my sister and her friends use her like a chew toy.”

What annoyed Smitty even more? That he cared. He cared whether Jessie remembered him. He cared that she might have been hurt when he left. Why the hell should he? But dammit he did, and he could hear his daddy as if the man were standing right next to him: “You always were a big pussy, boy.”

A waiter stopped in front of Adelle and she quickly examined the tray full of food. She nodded and sent him on his way. “So you hot for this little chickie?”

Rearing back, Smitty shook his head. “Lord, no. She’s just a friend. Someone I used to be close to, but I could never... we could never... ” He shook his head. “No way.”

“Huh. Flustered. I’ve never seen you flustered before.”

“I am not flustered. You took me by surprise is all.”

“Of course. That must be it.” Adelle patted his shoulder. “You want another steak? It’ll make you feel better.” He’d already had two.

“I could eat again.”

She smiled and grabbed a plate off the tray of a passing waiter.

The waiter stopped. “That’s for table ten.”

“So?”

“They’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes.” Saturday nights were the busiest nights for the Van Holtz restaurants, yet Adelle didn’t move any faster or do any more than she did on the slowest night of the year.

“Are they important?”

Now Smitty laughed. “Adelle.”

“What? It’s a valid question.”

The waiter leaned close to Adelle and whispered, “It’s Jessica Ward, boss.”

Smitty blinked in surprise. “Jessica Ann Ward?”

“Yeah.” The waiter grinned. “Another one of her first dates if I’m guessing right.”

Pushing past the two females, Smitty opened the door and glared across the restaurant.

“I really don’t know why the woman bothers,” Adelle sighed behind him. “She has to be the pickiest canine on the planet. She’s had some hottie-hots in here and she leaves ’em standing at the corner—alone—every time.”