Charlie went back into the house while Shay’s daughter made “tsk-tsk-tsk” sounds and shook her head, all the while staring at her father with dark brown eyes.
When Charlie returned, she had a thick book. “Here.” She handed the book to Dani. “Read this. It’s a helpful book on how to care for your dog from birth to the end. You read it and you tell your father what you learned.”
“Shouldn’t he read it?” Dani asked; Tock was barely able to choke back her laugh at the haughtiness she heard in the kid’s tone.
“But we both know he won’t. So you read it and tell him what he needs to know. Okay? But first, take these puppies to the vet and get them checked out. You have a vet, right, Shay?”
“Uhhh . . .”
“Oh . . . Daddy.”
There was that unequivocal sound of disappointment again. Tock loved it. Especially when Shay tossed his arms out wide and said, “What?”
Dani looked the book over. “Thank you so much, Miss—”
“Just Charlie, sweetie. Now why don’t you get a bathing suit and go swimming? You might fit in one of Stevie’s bathing suits.”
“Because Stevie has the body of a ten-year-old?” Tock asked.
Tock ducked the back of the hand coming for her face by leaning into Shay, and Dani told Charlie, “I have a suit in my dad’s car. I’ll go get it.” She held the book to her chest. “And I’ll make sure my dad gets up to speed on taking care of Princess’s puppies.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
After another look of disappointment directed at her father—“What?” Shay demanded again—Dani held her hand out so her father could give her the car keys and ran off toward the car parked down the street.
“Really?” Charlie said with a chuckle once the kid was gone. “You didn’t want to take your dogs’ balls?”
Shay shrugged. “I wouldn’t want anyone to do that to me.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, laughing and picking up the crate filled with puppies. “You’re an idiot.”
She disappeared back into the house, Princess following right behind her, while one of the bears growled, “Why are you bringing those puppies in here?” as soon as the screen door slammed shut.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Shay noted.
“You can thank your daughter for that,” Tock told him. “She was so upset, she completely diffused the Charlie Rage.” Turning her upper body to look directly at Shay, she pointed a finger and said, “And just so you know, you and your brothers never want to trigger the Charlie Rage.”
Shay gazed at her. “Why?”
“Because”—she stood, vacating his lap and leaving it cold and lonely—“I don’t feel like digging the size graves you three cats would need. I’ve done enough of that in my life.”
“Wait . . . what?”
Tock didn’t bother answering him, because Mads had walked out onto the porch and the pair stood there, staring at each other. Well, Tock was staring. Mads was glaring as she looked her teammate up and down.
“Really?” Mads asked.
“What? I thought you’d want to get a little practice in, so I changed my clothes.”
“To that?” Mads’s eyes narrowed and she took a step forward, bumping her shoulder against Tock’s. And Tock bumped her back.
“Uh . . . ladies?” Shay weakly called out. But it was too late.
“Let’s do this, Isiah,” Mads sneered.
“Okay, Michael.”
Mads spun around and marched back into the house. Tock picked up the red-and-blue basketball, but just as quickly as Mads was gone, she came back, snatching the ball from Tock’s hands. She imbedded her unleashed claws in the ball, deflating it while staring Tock right in the eyes. When she’d made her ridiculous point, she tossed the useless piece of leather aside and walked back into the house.
Once the screen door shut behind her, Tock started laughing. That’s why she liked Mads. Her teammate entertained her in ways no one else ever had. She was ridiculous! Who loved basketball this much? Except maybe Michael Jordan himself! And even he liked golf and baseball, too. Mads could not say the same.
“I don’t have to worry about you two, do I?” she heard Shay ask from behind her. He was standing up now. Thankfully, the house the MacKilligan sisters were renting had been built for bear shifters, so Shay’s head didn’t scrape against the ceiling of the open porch.
“Worry about what?” she asked, truly confused.
“You two fighting it out like at the hospital.”
“Mads and I don’t fight.”
He pointed at the leather on the floor. “She punctured your basketball with her claws.”
“And?”
Shay threw up his hands. “Okay. Maybe I just don’t understand how your relationship with Mads works, but—”
Shay landed face-first at Tock’s feet with Finn on his back after his brother had leaped over the banister to attack him from behind.
Grabbing Shay by the back of the neck with his hand, Finn announced, “We’re going swimming before dinner. Let’s go.” With that, he lifted his brother high enough to toss him over the banister and into the yard.
“Ow!” Shay complained.
“Stop whining!” Finn grinned at Tock. “Nice outfit. It’s like you’re trying to start a fight with Mads.”
“We don’t fight.”
Finn shook his head and muttered, “Whatever,” before heading out the way he came in. Over the banister and onto his brother’s back. By the time they both were on their feet, they’d shifted to cats and were in the midst of a battle involving claws and fangs.
“The Malones sure do fight a lot,” she said to herself just as her head jerked forward. Forced by the power of the basketball that hit her in the back of the head.
Snarling, she glared at Mads over her shoulder.
“Ready, bitch?” the psychotic Viking demanded.
*
Shay thought the whole dog discussion with Charlie was over, which was good. He wanted to focus on the absolutely brutal one-on-one game taking place on the half-court across from the pool he was lounging in with his daughter and three siblings. But he knew he couldn’t relax just yet when Charlie, sitting on the ground near him, asked, “So you’re not going to breed her again, right?” She pointed to Princess. The dog seemed to have attached herself to Charlie, even when Charlie didn’t have the puppies with her—although at the moment, there was a large pup splayed across the top of Charlie’s head, fast asleep. Maybe Princess was making sure the little fella didn’t fall off its perch.
“I didn’t breed her in the first place,” Shay explained. “She breeded herself.”
“The word is ‘bred,’ and you allowed her to breed.”
“Not on purpose.”
“Oh . . . Daddy.”
“Stop saying that,” he told his daughter as she swam around behind him. From the corner of his eye, he watched Dani lift her hands out of the water and sign to Natalie, “He is pitiful.”
“I know,” Nat signed back. “We all know.”
It had been a mistake, teaching his daughter to sign before she could walk and then enrolling her in ASL classes from the time she was three. He knew that now. Because Nat was a bad influence.
“It was an accident,” Shay insisted. “And now I plan to read that book you gave Dani and learn all I need to know about dogs.”