Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(119)

“I’m Dani.”

“Well, hello, Dani. I’m your Uncle Cally and this is your Auntie Muriel. She can introduce you to our grandchildren, which would be your cousins. Would you like that?”

“Yes! But first, I need to get my dogs out of the car and into the house.”

It was as if Dani had suddenly screamed “Death to the Irish!” while swinging a musket. Everyone stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped eating and drinking.

“Dogs . . . ?” Cally repeated.

“Yes. My dogs. My daddy’s dogs, actually,” she amended.

Cally looked up at Shay. “You have dogs?”

“Yes, my brother has dogs,” Keane said, leaning down so he could glower right into their uncle’s eyes. “It’s absolutely okay for my brother to have dogs.”

“It is?” both Dani and Shay asked him.

“It is now,” Keane snarled through clenched teeth.

“Why don’t we get the dogs, as Dani suggested,” Finn offered, “and get them settled in the house. We’ll be right back. You guys just stay here and do what you’ve been doing and, um . . . wait for the police!”

“Oh, darlin’, they’ve already been and gone,” their Aunt Muriel said.

“They have? And?”

Muriel shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“It’s fine?”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Finn walked back to the SUV and the rest of them followed. They took out the dogs and the puppies and walked them back to the house; everyone watched in disbelief as they moved past.

Once in the house, they put the dogs in Dani’s room and left his daughter with them. She had a way of making the puppies and Princess comfortable. The last thing she wanted was her father or uncles involved in that complex process.

Returning to the kitchen, Keane said, “Okay, what is going on? Why are they here?”

“I have no idea,” Finn said. “Maybe because of what happened in Manhattan?”

“What if they want something? Money? Our cars?” Keane gasped. “The dogs?”

“Okay, you’re snapping,” Finn warned.

“Then what do you suggest? That we just hand over our organs?”

“How did we get to organs?” Shay asked. “Why would they want our organs?”

“It’s big business. And we have super organs. Imagine all the full-humans who’d love to get our organs when theirs fail. I’m sure all of them would be willing to pay top dollar for a tiger liver.”

“So you think our family came here to steal our livers and sell them to full-humans?”

“It’s possible, Finn. And stop looking at me like that. I’m not insane.”

“Of course not! This is a completely rational reaction to a visit from our cousins.”

“We could just talk to them,” Shay suggested.

“All right,” Keane said. “But they can’t have my kidneys.”

Shay nodded at his brother. “That’s completely reasonable.”

*

Tock wasn’t sure she would ever want to travel commercial again because traveling in one of Nelle’s family jets was the best. Fresh food, impeccable service, and tons of legroom. Plus, no one ever took a swing at her or tried to open the emergency doors because they were having visions.

But when they arrived back at the house Charlie had rented on a bear-only street and Tock had put her travel bag down on the floor, she immediately felt disappointed. Which was weird, because simply returning to the States alive and with all four limbs still attached had seemed like a win. Yet at this moment, just standing alone in the middle of the MacKilligan sisters’ living room, she didn’t feel that way. She felt as if she was missing something.

That’s when it hit her: she wanted to see Shay. The fact that she wanted to see anyone after a long flight—yes, even on a private jet—simply because she wanted to spend more time with them was shocking. Usually, Tock just found an empty bed and dropped face-first into it or curled up in a cabinet. Maybe she’d take a nap or have some food delivered. She didn’t need to be greeted at an airport terminal with hugs and kisses by family and friends when she returned from far away. Yet, it would have been nice to see Shay at the terminal waiting for her.

Tock pulled out her phone, about to text Shay to see if she could stop by his house later, when a tug on her T-shirt had her turning around and smiling.

“Hi.”

“Hi!” Dani grinned up at her and waved, even though they were just standing in the middle of that long, not very wide living room.

“What are you doing here?” Tock asked.

“Daddy wanted to pick you up and bring you to our house.”

“Oh, did he?”

“So he texted Mads because he was afraid if he asked you, you’d say no.”

“What made him think that?”

She shrugged in reply. “But Mads told him she would drop you off later because she wanted to get in a practice today.”

Tock began to rub the back of her neck. That’s where all her tension went. “We just got off a long flight. We are not practicing today.”

“That’s what Daddy said you’d say. So he decided to ignore Mads and drive over here with Uncle Finn and me.”