“This is Clyde’s house?”

“Nope. This is my brother’s house.”

Mitch smirked. “Which one? You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Aunt Sissy!” a young voice screeched, then Sissy was besieged by five kids who looked barely a year apart. What his mom would call Catholic Twins.

Sissy picked up the smallest one and swung her around while the others surrounded her.

“How are my favorite little terrors?” she asked.

“Fine,” they said in unison before inundating their aunt with…well, who knew. Mitch couldn’t understand them as each yelled to be heard over the other.

The kids were a dirty mess, but that was to be expected since Mitch doubted they’d spent more then ten minutes in the house all day. And shifter kids played rough instinctively. The way they played today would be the way they hunted down dinner tomorrow.

“Where’s your momma?” Sissy finally asked after amazing Mitch with the way she’d been able to follow what each child said and comment on it so no one felt left out.

“In the house,” they all said…or yelled, depending on your perspective.

“Y’all tell her to meet us at the barn. Okay?”

She placed the smallest child on her feet, and the five children ran for the house. “Sammy has five more kids somewhere around here.”

“Wow.”

Sissy gave him a small smile. “I sure do love kids,” she said before heading off to the back of the house and the barn. But he heard the last thing she said quite clearly, “As long as they ain’t mine.”

They walked toward the barn, and Mitch asked, “Is Clyde a cow?”

“No. You know we can’t have cows around here. They stampede so easy.”

Sissy grabbed the handles on the barn door and pushed them in opposite directions.

“This is Clyde,” she said with real pride. But Mitch barely heard her. He was too busy wondering if a man could come without actually ejaculating. Because nothing, absolutely nothing had ever been so beautiful before. So sexy. So…so…

So goddamn hot!

“Hey, Sissy Mae.” A pretty She-wolf with bright blue eyes walked up to them. “Haven’t seen you in an age.”

“Hey, Violet. This is Mitch Shaw.”

She gave him a friendly nod. “Hey.” Mitch managed a sort of half-ass wave.

“Where’s my brother?”

“Where else? At the diner. Gotta make sure we can feed this pack of rabid dogs.”

Sissy held her hand out. “Gimme.”

Violet shook her head and laughed. “You ain’t never gonna change, Sissy Mae Smith.”

“Not unless it’s court ordered.”

Violet slapped a set of keys into Sissy’s hand andwalked off, leaving them alone.

“Where did you get this?” Mitch finally asked, moving slowly around the beauty before him.

“We built it,” she said simply, but Mitch couldn’t help but stare at her in shock.

“This is it? This is the car you talked about rebuilding?”

“Yeah.” She walked up to the 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu and ran her hand lovingly down the hood. “When me and Ronnie Lee were about fifteen, our fathers gave us enough money to buy our own cars. And let me tell you, it was not a lot of money. But they’d gotten real tired of us stealing their cars, and the sheriff at the time said if he caught us hot-wiring another car, he’d definitely throw us in jail. Anyway, they figured we’d get some piece of shit car that would tool us around town. You know, something your grandmother would drive. Instead, we went to the junkyard and found the battered husks for this Malibu and another for a ’71 Plymouth Barracuda. Ronnie wanted that one cause she always did love that song by Heart. What money we had left, we started buying parts. When we ran out of money, we started working around town. And we are talking some shitty jobs until we got something steady at Travis’s gas station. He taught us a lot about cars and engines. And we put some others together, like the Camaro Dee-Ann’s got.”

Using the tips of her fingers, she ran her hands along the roof. “It took us over two years to build this one and Ronnie’s, but damn if it wasn’t worth it.”

“Why is it here?”

“When we left the country, we left the cars in the safest places we could think of. I left mine with Sammy Ray ’cause next to Smitty, I knew I could trust him not to sell it or do anything to it. Ronnie left hers at her momma’s ’cause she knew that woman wouldn’t let anyone near that car. She’d never admit it, but she was real proud of Ronnie Lee doing such a good job.”

“They should be proud of both of you. This is amazing.”

Sissy grinned. “This is Clyde. I haven’t taken him out in ages, but I dream about it a lot.”

Mitch laughed. “Hence the groaning his name?”

“Pretty much. But can you blame me?”

“Not a bit.” He was moaning now.

“Come on, Mitchell. Let’s go for a drive.”

Mitch shook his head. “Forget it, Smith. I’m not ready to have any gray hairs in my tawny mane, thank you very much.”

“To quote my daddy, don’t be such a pussy.”

“But I am a pussy.”

She folded her hands together as if praying. “How about I make you a promise to stay in the speed limit? I’ll take you around town for a bit.” She leaned forward, those pretty eyes wicked. “Come on, pretty kitty. You know you want to.”