“Let’s just say”—the kid ran by again going the opposite direction. And, yes, still squealing—“it’s a good guess.”
*
Shay reached over and took Tock’s hand into his. “I missed you,” he admitted.
Okay. Finn was probably right, and he was moving too fast, but Shay didn’t want to hold back or lie about his feelings just to keep from freaking Tock out. If she really liked him, was comfortable with him, telling her how he felt shouldn’t freak her out. And he had no doubt that if she wanted him to back off, she’d tell him that in no uncertain terms.
“I was gone three days,” she pointed out.
“I know. But I still missed you.”
“I—”
Dani jumped in front of one of the living room windows, still screeching about her new watch. They gazed at his daughter until she ran off into the yard and then looked back at each other.
Tock cleared her throat and finally said, “I missed you, too.” She gave a small smile. “I also missed the kid. I have five new notebooks filled with equations for her to work on.”
“That’s great because she already went through the ones you left for her. She tried to work with Stevie, but Stevie was really busy and when she did try to help Dani, she overwhelmed her, I think.”
“Overwhelmed her how?”
“Something about time and space and the probability of asteroids crashing into the planet and wiping out all of life as we know it.
“Oh, my God.” Tock closed her eyes. “Yeah. I’ll . . . uh . . . I’ll work with Dani.”
“Thank you.”
They were still holding hands, but Tock intertwined their fingers. Shay decided to take that as a good sign.
“Did you get home okay after you left the Hamptons?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Shay blew out a breath. That conversation with the Malones had been interesting. Uncle Cally and the others never admitted to anything. They never said, “We’re here to do this. Or we’re here to do that.” They never said, “We’re here to protect you because we feel bad about how shitty we were to you after your father died.” Or even, “We’re vengeful tigers, too, and pissed someone shot at us. We’ll get even together!” Instead, they drank Irish beer, made jokes, and promised to hang around until, one day, as Shay and his brothers knew, they’d all be gone. Off to torture another street in another neighborhood.
Their next-door neighbor had stormed out of his house to complain about all the noise and the strangers on “his” street, but one roar from Uncle Cally had sent the idiot fleeing back to his house. They hadn’t seen him since. More upsetting was the interest that a few of his dad’s cousins were showing in Shay’s mother. Something Keane, Finn, and Shay weren’t going to let get any further than general flirting. Because . . . just . . . no! Absolutely not!
Dani had been happy, though, getting to meet her younger cousins and playing with them. But Tock had been absolutely right. When Dani had had enough socializing, she walked off. When a young male cousin tried to follow to keep the fun going, she slammed him into a wall, told him “No means no, Michael Patrick!” and returned to her room. The dogs were the only ones she didn’t seem to need time away from.
“But what?” Tock asked.
Telling Tock all that stuff could wait. Instead, he asked, “Would you like to go out to dinner tonight? With me? Just the two of us,” he added before she could suggest her friends or Dani, who had been bugging him on the drive over about spending the night with Nat again.
“Do you mean, like, a . . . date?”
Shay grinned. “Yes, Tock. I mean, like, a date. A normal, average dinner date between a Siberian tiger and an African honey badger.”
“Israeli-Jamaican honey badger and, yes, I’d love that.”
She moved close and wrapped her arms around his chest because she was wearing sneakers and couldn’t reach his neck.
Leaning down, Shay kissed her. Nothing, except the birth of his daughter, had ever been so perfect.
When he pulled back, he told her, “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me, too.”
“Did you have a good trip?”
“Uh . . . yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Good trip.”
Shay gazed down at her and, after letting out a breath, asked, “What did you guys do?”
“No, no.” She stepped back and took his hand, tugging him toward the front door. “Not tonight, Shay. Tonight is date night. And we are going to have a nice, normal dinner before the shit storm we started in Italy comes crashing down all around us. Sound good?”
“Yeah, sure.” Shay stopped cold. “Wait . . . what?”
*
“So, Charlie MacKilligan killed Giuseppe de Medici?”
Mira shrugged. “Yes.”
How many times did she have to say it to these people? What were they not understanding?
“And she really didn’t ask him anything? She just killed him?” the wolf asked again.
“Right.”
“In other words, Paolo de Medici is now in charge.”
“Right.”
“Oh, this just gets fucking better,” the house cat snarled.
“And to get all the bad news out now,” Mira said, “the two older MacKilligan sisters dragged my granddaughter and her friends to Italy on a private jet.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
“Why?” the older Van Holtz asked.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Great. Just great.”
“And I’ve lost track of Rutowski and her friends.”
“In other words,” Bayla Ben-Zeev said, “you have no control over your people.”
“Those three MacKilligan sisters and Rutowski and her friends are not my people, and they are not badgers. They’re insane rodents, running around, chewing through wires, and burning down the world. And they’re dragging my beautiful granddaughter with them!”
“Maybe if you didn’t call them rodents, Mira, they’d listen to you more.”
“Shut. Up. Bayla.”
“If the MacKilligans have slipped their leashes,” the cat suggested, “perhaps we should have them—”
“Killed?” Bayla asked. “Because that worked out so well the first time.”
“That was not the first time someone tried to kill the MacKilligans,” Mira said with a headshake.
“Not killed. Managed.”
“Have you ever tried to lock up a honey badger?” Mira turned to look directly at the cat. “Even Stalin’s Siberian gulags couldn’t hold them.”
“I know of several badgers locked away in full-human prisons,” she countered.
“Because they want to be there! Either they’re hiding from something far worse or they’re making money. And, when they’ve finally gotten what they want or the threat has gone away, those badgers will get themselves out. And the ones who locked them up? They’ll wake up one day to find badgers in the walls and one of them pissing in their bed.”
“Then what do we do?”
“I’d normally say we should try to reason with them before this gets out of hand.”