“That analogy makes no sense to me.”

“Anybody have something I can carry all this money in?” The bears returned their glares to Gwen. “What did I say?” she asked, attempting to keep it innocent.

“Here.” Calum slammed a bank-deposit bag on the table. “Take your winnings and go, feline.”

“Where did the love go?” Gwen pouted.

“It went with our money,” Nevin muttered.

Duff snatched the racing form out of Lock’s hand, scowled, and turned accusing brown bear eyes on his nephew. “What is this?”

“Uh…”

“You were supposed to mark winners and times and everything else we need on the races.”

“What did he write?” Hamish looked over his brother’s shoulder, easy for him since Duff was only about seven-one. “A door? You drew a door?”

“For Dad’s birthday.”

Gwen stopped putting her money in the bag. “You’re giving your father a picture of a door for his birthday?” And she’d thought Mitch marking up pages in her copy of Vogue and telling her, “This is what I’d get you for your birthday if I had money” had been cheap.

“I’m not giving him a drawing of a door.”

“Then what are you giving him?” Gwen liked Brody and she wouldn’t have Lock give him some half-ass birthday gift.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do worry about it. Because you’re male and instinctively lame.”

“There are those claws she’s been hiding,” Duff chuckled.

“Well?” Gwen pushed, ignoring Lock’s uncles.

“I’ve got it covered.”

Hamish folded his arms over his chest. Or, perhaps it was more like his massive arms over that massive chest. Huge didn’t even begin to describe the size of these men. She knew she should feel uncomfortable around them, but she didn’t. Not anymore. And honestly? She’d never felt safer in her life. “You haven’t told her?”

“Quiet.”

“Told me what?”

Calum grinned. “What Mr. Sensitive Bear does in his spare time.”

“Shut up.”

“Which is what exactly?” Gwen pushed.

“It’s nothing.” Lock motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Gwen rested her hands on the table and began to tap her fingers. She tapped and she stared.

“You can stop that right now,” Lock said. “Because there’s nothing to tell.”

Gwen kept tapping. Gwen kept staring.

“It’s not going to work.”

Tap. Stare. Tap. Stare.

“I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t owe you an explanation. So let it go.”

Gwen neverchanged her expression, she never said a word, and she never stopped tapping her nails.

With a short roar, Lock snatched the racing form back from Duff. “Fine! This will allow me to take care of something tonight anyway. Now move your skinny butt!”

Gwen shoved the rest of the money in the pouch and headed toward the door. Lock stopped her.

“Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

He raised a brow—and she now knew where he’d gotten that particular expression from—and Gwen gave a short snort of disgust before handing him the small wad of money. Small compared to what she now had.

“This better be all of it.”

“Like that guy would know one way or the other.” He probably didn’t even know Gwen had taken his money, and she wouldn’t have thought about giving it back to him if it wasn’t for Lock. To her way of thinking, the guy owed Lock big for being so gracious.

Lock opened the door and motioned her out.

“We’ll see you soon, Lovely Gwen.”

She turned to wave at the MacRyrie bears, but the door had already slammed closed and Lock stood in front of her, glaring.

“What?” she demanded. “I like them.”

“Figures.” He spun her around and pushed her. “Come on. If we’re going to do this, let’s do this.”

CHAPTER 20

It was bad enough he let his uncles goad him into things he didn’t want to do, but now he was letting Gwen do it, too. And all she did was stare at him with those gold eyes.

Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to show Gwen. That he wanted to let her in to the part of his life that only a chosen few had access to.

Lock pulled into one of two parking spaces at the warehouse and shut off the motor. They sat in silence for several minutes until Gwen asked, “So what exactly was going on behind your uncles’ bar?”

Surprised by her question, Lock could only stare at her.

“What?” she demanded. “You think I’m stupid? You disappear with your uncle, then Ric shows up, but he never comes inside. No one discusses what’s going on out there, and even though everyone is trying to be quiet, I can still hear ’em all out there. And I know I smelled something dead in that alley.”

Realizing that trying to get anything over on Gwen would be futile, Lock shrugged and said, “They found a shifter corpse behind the bar. And before you ask,” he said when she opened her mouth, “no, my uncles didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Someone sending them a message?”

“Doubtful. It’s no one they know and it’s happened randomly over the last five or six months. Chances are it’s just a good dumping ground.”