With eyes just like her father’s—cold yellow like many full-blooded wolves—she gazed down at Ricky. “Shame’s not a big thing in your family, is it?”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

She motioned to the dog kennel in the middle of his hotel room. The Pack had taken rooms at the Kingston Arms hotel, a shifter-run establishment, when they’d first moved to Manhattan with Bobby Ray Smith. A few of the Packmates had gotten their own apartments but most stayed at the five-star hotel. Why? Because Ricky Lee’s sister was mated to the lion male who owned the place. So even though their rooms usually went for several hundred to several thousand dollars a night for the general public, the Pack got their rooms for much, much cheaper.

“You put your own brother in a dog kennel,” she said.

“He wouldn’t calm down. Kept trying to rip the front door open. Look at this . . .” He lifted the arm that currently held a can of Coke and showed it to her. “Tried to take my dang arm off at the shoulder. I only got two, Dee-Ann.”

“You’re whining about that scratch?”

“I wouldn’t call it whining . . .”

Dee-Ann stepped onto his couch, resting her butt on the seatback, her hands clasped in front of her. “Did you hear from Sissy Mae?” Sissy Mae Smith, the Alpha Female of their Pack, Bobby Ray Smith’s baby sister, and Ronnie Lee’s best friend.

“Nope. Why?”

“Cousin Laura Jane is coming to town. To visit.”

“And?”

“Everyone knows how she broke your heart.”

Startled, Ricky looked at Dee-Ann. “Yeah . . . when I was eighteen. I’m pretty sure I’ve recovered since then.”

“I don’t know. Your sister and Sissy sure are worried.”

“Great. Just what I need. The pity of the idiots.”

Dee-Ann chuckled. “They do seem to be making a big deal out of it.”

“Because that’s what they do. Make a big deal out of absolutely nothing.”

“Yep.”

Ricky offered his can of Coke to Dee-Ann. She took it, took a sip, and handed it back. That’s when Ricky asked, “Is Laura Jane coming here tonight? Is that why you’re here? To give me a heads-up?”

“No. She’s not coming tonight.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Dee-Ann paused a moment, then added, “But your sister and Sissy Mae are coming here to talk—”

Ricky leaped off the couch and faced the She-wolf. “What do you mean they’re coming here? I thought they were still out of town.”

“Got in earlier today. Figured they didn’t call you because they wanted to make sure you’d stick around so they could sit down and have a real heart-to-heart about Laura Jane and how you really feel about—where are yougoing?”

“I don’t do heart-to-hearts, Dee-Ann,” Ricky told her as he grabbed his backpack from the floor and headed toward the door.

“What about your brother?”

“Babysit him until they get here. Ronnie Lee can handle him. He’s almost through the worst of it.”

Studying his brother, Dee-Ann’s head tipped to the side. “He’s trying to chew through the gate . . . with his human teeth.”

“Just deal with it!”

Ricky slammed the door behind him and started toward the elevators. But the doors were opening and he could scent his sister and Sissy Mae. Panicking, Ricky charged the other way and into the nearest emergency stairwell. The heavy metal door was nearly closed when he heard his sister yell from his room, “Reece Lee Reed! What the holy hell are you doing in a damn dog kennel?”

As Ricky headed down the stairs, he knew he was running away. Not from an ex-girlfriend that to this day his brothers still called, “Good Lady Self-Obsessed,” but from his sister and her best friend. He loved Ronnie Lee. Loved Sissy, too. But that didn’t mean he wanted to sit around with them all night talking about feelings. It would be worse now, too, because the word was out that Ronnie Lee was pregnant. That meant no more liquor for his baby sister, and, knowing Ronnie, she wasn’t about to let anyone drink around her when she couldn’t. She hated that.

A long conversation with a sober Sissy and Ronnie Lee was too horrifying for words. So when Ricky Lee finally made it out onto the street from one of the hotel’s side doors, he was simply relieved.

Ricky headed down the street, crossing in front of the hotel. He stopped when he saw an older She-wolf walking toward the hotel doors. She wasn’t from a Pack he recognized, but his momma had raised him right. So he pulled open one of the swinging doors, smiling at her as she passed, and tipped his baseball cap.

She grinned back and nodded at him, flashing a bit of fang as the universal shifter sign of, “I know what you are!”

Once the She-wolf had made her way inside, Ricky was about to release the door when another female caught it and held it open.

“Sorry about—hey!” He smiled in surprise at the She-jackal he’d met at the rink. Uh . . . Toni! That was it.

She looked up at him. “Oh . . . hey.”

“Look at that. Meeting each other again. Kind of random. Granny Reed would call that Karma. Actually what she’d call it is the devil’s work, but whatever.”

“Okay.”

He saw that she held the hand of another little boy. He raised a brow. “You sure have been busy.”

That’s when she smirked and gave a little shake of the boy’s hand. With big brown eyes, the boy asked, “Are you my daddy?”