Wolf With Benefits

  “From a thrown-out shoulder?”

  “It could happen. My brother got the fever last night. But that was from the crushed jaw and nicked artery. He’s probably still passed out at the hotel.”

  “If your brother got the fever, why are you here?”

  “I had to escape. My sister wanted to talk to me.”

  “Good God,” she said flatly. “What was she thinking?”

  Ricky heard the sarcasm but chose to ignore it. “Exactly! What was she thinking?”

  Toni tried to move away again, but Ricky held her a little tighter.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he promised. “We hang out together today so I can make sure you’re really all right. And if we get along . . . you go out with me.”

  “For sex?”

  “Hopefully, but I was thinking dinner to start.”

  “And if we don’t get along?”

  “You can hit me in the nose if you’re still inclined.”

  Toni gave a little snort. “Something tells me I will be.”

  “You forgot your dog outside,” a black female standing in the kitchen doorway stated. Toni looked to see the thirty-pound dog she’d yanked from in front of that truck sliding to a stop by the cabinet she was on. He tried to leap onto the top of it but couldn’t quite make it, so he seemed to take pleasure in grabbing Toni’s foot between his two front legs and trying to chew her running shoes off.

  “Oh,” Toni replied. “Yeah. My dog.”

  The female snorted a little and held up a strip of cloth. “I have your sling.”

  “Thank you, uh . . .” Although she could kind of guess who this was.

  “Toni,” Ricky said from behind her, “this is Jessie Ann Ward-Smith.”

  “And you’re the daughter of my son’s stalker,” the wild dog shot back.

  “Uh-oh,” Ricky softly muttered against her ear. “Watch yourself, darlin’.”

  Now it was true that Toni didn’t need to involve herself in any of this. It was her mother’s thing, not Toni’s. But if Toni didn’t get involved, then she’d be forced to hear about this situation all goddamn summer. It would involve scheme after wacky scheme until her mother got what she wanted. Like most geniuses at Jackie’s level, she could focus on a problem and work it until her last breath. There was no getting bored for Jackie Jean-Louis. No “getting over it.”

  So Toni did what she had to do.

  She looked the wild dog over, quickly sized her up, and went right for the superior but straightforward approach.

  “Let me tell you something”—and Toni felt the wolf behind her tense at her high-handed tone—“you’ve got two choices. You can let your son settle happily into life as a second chair in the Ice Capades orchestra, or you can let my mother work with him for the summer and open the door to not only first chair with the New York Philharmonic but more likely a solo career. My mother,” Toni went on, “is internationally worshipped. She doesn’t waste time with artists she thinks are really nice or cute or will stroke her ego. If anything, that’s what my dad is for. So what you need to know is that, yes, your son is talented. I know this not because I’ve heard him play but because my mother wouldn’t waste time with him if he didn’t have a substantial amount of talent. Substantial. There are people who’d do bodily harm to others just to have a quarter of the chance she’s offering your son. And, lady, if you don’t think having my mother’s name on your son’s résumé as his teacher, his mentor, is going to help him achieve unimaginable heights—then you’re an idiot.”

  The wild dog stared at Toni and Toni stared back. When that went on for a bit, it seemed Ricky Lee began to get uncomfortable.

  But as soon as Toni heard him begin, “What I think she means, Jessie Ann—”, she cut him right off.

  “I don’t need you to clarify my statements for me, wolf, thank you very much.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I don’t even know you,” she reminded him.

  Toni refocused on Jess Ward. “Look, if you really want to find out how my mother will deal with your son on a regular basis, you might as well go upstairs and check it out, because even I can hear he stopped practicing and I highly doubt she left your house.”

  “Dammit.” Jess Ward spun around and faced the kitchen door. She started to go through it, realized she still had the sling in her hand, and stopped long enough to toss it across the room. The white cloth hit Toni in the face and sort of hung there, blinding her.

  She didn’t bother taking it off.

  Ricky Lee finally released his hold on the little She-jackal and slipped off the counter. He stood in front of her and pulled the sling off her face.

  She had her eyes closed, and he left her that way while he fashioned the cloth into a proper sling for her.

  After a minute or so, she eased one eye open and leaned around him to see if Jessie Ann had actually left the room. Once she knew they were completely alone, she leaned back, looked at him, and said something that Ricky Lee had never heard from a shifter female before. Not ever. Not once.

  “I am so sorry,” she whispered.

  Ricky froze, thought he’d misheard her.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said I’m sorry.” She continued to whisper, although with wild dogs and their oversized ears, they could hear anything they wanted to in their house. It made it impossible for their kids to get away with any of the crap that Smith pups managed to pull off back in Smithtown. “You know, for snapping at you.”

  Ricky Lee looked the female over. She seemed sincere. And he didn’t see a weapon on her that would suggest she intended to cut his throat or anything when he turned around.

  “Um . . . that’s okay.” He began to fit the sling on her, careful not to move her shoulder too much since he knew it still hurt her. “You do know,” he felt the need to point out, “that what just happened could have easily blown up in your face.”

  “Yeah. It could have. But I didn’t think it would. She was already waiting for me to try to relate to her on her level. You know, talk about the Lord of the Rings movies or how my little brother Freddy is a baby hacker. This Pack might live in the lap of luxury now, but they had some rough years on the streets when they were younger. I had to go with a straightforward approach.”

  “And how did you know all that about Jessie Ann’s past?” he asked.

  “Oh,” she said while Ricky leaned in a bit and reached around her to tie the sling at the back of her neck. “There are these things called comp-poo-tors and when you ask the comp-poo-tors questions, the box gives you answers!”

  Ricky stepped back and saw her wicked little smile.

  “Look at you, darlin’,” he teased back. “Flirtin’ with me.”

  She laughed and Ricky knew then he’d just been charmed by a She-jackal. And the good Lord knew it had been a long time since Ricky had been charmed by anyone.

  Jess Ward peeked around the open door to, she’d admit, spy on her adopted son and that jackal. In the relatively short time she’d had Johnny in her home, she’d fired two music teachers, punched another one in the face, and threatened to set another on fire. The last two her mate, Bobby Ray Smith, had handled paying off himself because he refused to visit her in prison. But some of these teachers were just rude! She got it. Okay? She understood. This was a tough business and one needed a thick skin. Blah blah blah.

  Yes, she understood all that. But what these teachers didn’t get was that Johnny had already had a hard life. His biological mother had died when he was thirteen. Then he was bounced around from foster home to foster home until he landed with Jess’s Pack. So yeah, she was protective of him. And although she’d appreciated the honesty of the damaged-shouldered She-jackal in her kitchen who had one of the Reed boys wrapped around her like a boa constrictor, that still did not mean Jess was okay with Toni’s mother. Especially when she was pretty damn sure the woman only got that dog to finagle her way into Jess’s good graces.

  Jess hated tricky shit like that.

&nb
sp; So yes, she was spying. And sure, Johnny was eighteen now so she should be able to trust his judgment. But boys were stupid, something she’d learned at a very young age.

  Jess could see the pair sitting on the floor of Johnny’s practice room. For a fifty-something internationally known musician who’d played on the Tonight Show, and before the Queen of England, Jacqueline Jean-Louis sure was casual. She had on ripped jeans and a band T-shirt . . . oooh. The B-52s. Okay. So she had good musical taste outside of the classical stuff. That was nice to see. She also wore sneakers that had seen better days. She sat Indian style, her elbows resting on her knees while Johnny stared at her like Marilyn Monroe was in the room.

  “When did you first start playing?” the She-jackal asked Johnny.

  “My mom got me my first violin when I was five.”

  “Why? Did she just want you to learn an instrument?”

  “No. I asked for it. I saw Itzhak Perlman play on PBS and I wanted to learn to play like that.”

  “How often do you practice?”

  “Every day. This used to be my mom’s bedroom. My adopted mom, I mean. Jess. But when she mated with Smitty, she took one of the rooms downstairs and turned this into a practice room for me so I could practice whenever I want rather than worrying about booking time in practice rooms away from the house.”

  “This Pack, your Pack, has been super supportive of your music, haven’t they?”

  A small smile curled the corners of Johnny’s mouth. “Yeah. They have.”

  “What if they hadn’t been?”

  He shrugged. “I’d play anyway. I got thrown out of one of my foster homes because I practiced too much. Well . . . that and I snarled at one of the other kids when he was trying to take my Twinkie, but my God, it was my Twinkie.”

  She laughed. “Don’t feel bad. I was performing with a quartet in Australia once and I ended up hitting the cello player with another player’s flute because his nose was making this high-pitched whistling sound. Full-humans have no idea how those kinds of noises irritate sensitive dog ears. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”

  “Can I ask you something, Miss Jean-Louis?”

  “If you call me Jackie, you can ask me.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I know you’re starting Juilliard in the fall and I thought maybe I could work with you this summer. Get you ready. You’ll be dealing with some serious competition at Juilliard. And those full-humans can be mean. I get that they are competitive, but telling me I have birthing hips? Who says that to a woman? I mean, I do have birthing hips but that’s not the point. What I want to do with you is teach you to control your natural and correct instinct to tear out the arteries of someone who says you have birthing hips and instead, calmly blow them away with your talent. Because let me tell you—the full-humans hate that.”

  Johnny leaned back a bit, big brown eyes blinking. Jess saw him swallow before he asked, “You want to work with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me?”

  The She-jackal grinned. “Yes. You. Is that really so hard to believe?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “Johnny, you’re good.”

  “I know I’m good. But you’re . . . you’re . . . you’re friggin’ Jacqueline Jean-Louis. The Jacqueline Jean-Louis. I have all your CDs. I’ve watched every documentary PBS has ever had on you and your CBS Christmas special three years back.”

  “And I’ve heard you play,” she said, keeping it simple. Jess liked that.

  Jacqueline got to her feet and Johnny scrambled up to his own. Now he towered over the jackal, like the big wolf he was growing into.

  “Look,” she told him, “think about it. Talk it over with your mom. I’m right across the street for the rest of the summer.” Something Jess had argued against. But her Pack wouldn’t let her ignore the amount of money the Jean-Louis Parkers were willing to pay to rent the place across the street. Although, to be honest, Jess couldn’t ignore it, either. It was truly a shitload of money.

  “And I’m talking a casual thing,” the jackal went on. “We get together, we play, we talk. We exchange ideas. I listen.”

  “Well . . . um . . . I’ll talk to my mom.”

  “That should be easy enough since she’s standing right outside the room, along with a good chunk of your Pack.”

  Jess spun around and yes, at least ten of her Pack, including Sabina, May, Danny, and Phil, were standing right behind her.

  “You guys!” Jess snarled.

  They all shrugged and Jess rolled her eyes, then slowly eased into her old bedroom. Johnny lifted his hands and dropped them. “Ma.”

  “Don’t be mad at her.” The She-jackal smiled. “She loves you. She’s just watching out for you. I’m like that with my own kids—oh, my God!” she suddenly burst out, startling every canine in the room and the hallway. “My daughter! I completely forgot. And she takes it so personally when I do.” She turned and rushed toward the door. “She’s gonna kill me!”

  While the jackal ran downstairs, Jess walked over to Johnny. “Sorry if we embarrassed you.”

  “What’s this ‘we’ shit?” came from the hallway.

  “Shut up, Phil!” Jess yelled back.

  “She wants to work with me,” Johnny whispered to Jess. He gripped her hands tight. “Me.”

  Jess still didn’t know if she trusted that jackal—although because of her honesty, she did trust the jackal’s daughter—but none of that mattered. Because she wasn’t about to destroy her son’s obvious happiness and excitement. It was something he seemed to experience so rarely that Jess knew in her heart this was an important moment for him. One of those life-changing ones.

  So if Johnny was happy about this, then Jess would be happy for him.

  Grinning, Jess asked, “Now can I get you that Stradivarius violin they’re going to auction in Milan?”

  Laughing, Johnny dropped her hands. “Ma, no!”

  “Stop talking to me, Mom.”

  “I said I was sorry!” Jackie told Toni. “What made you go diving in front of a truck anyway? The dog had cleared it.”

  Ignoring her mother, Toni marched up the stairs of their rental home toward her bedroom. Coming down the stairs, her father stopped and stared at her. “Baby, what happened to your arm?”

  “Ask your mate.”

  “How can you blame me for this?” her mother called up.

  “Still not talking to you!”

  “I see you met your mother’s surprise.”

  Toni glanced down and realized that the dog her mother had gotten was following Toni up the stairs.

  “Why is this dog following me?” she called down the stairs.

  “If you don’t want her, I’ll just take her back to the pound,” her mother replied. “Of course . . . they were about to put her down. But that shouldn’t bother you.”

  “Oh! You are just . . . Oh!” Toni began up the stairs again. As she moved, her siblings were coming down, but one look at her face and they all glanced away and kept going. When she got to her bedroom, she stopped and turned. “Why are you following me?” she finally asked the wolf behind her.

  “Because we agreed. I’m hanging with you today.”

  “My father just let you come up here to my room?”

  “Yeah. I think it was my charm.”

  “More like Coop ran over here and told my dad about you.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever works. So what are we doing today?”

  “I’ve got to get ready for an interview at ten.”

  “Okay.”

  She stepped into her room but faced him once more before he could invite himself in.

  “Why don’t you go downstairs and wait until I’m done.”

  “Okay.” He stared at her a moment, and asked, “Any chance your momma is making waffles for breakfast?”

  With great relish, Toni replied, “Not a chance in hell.”

  Then she closed the door on his disappointed face and got ready for her interview.
/>
  CHAPTER FIVE

  Toni had been waiting forty-five minutes for her interview, but she didn’t mind. She had a book. As long as she had something to read, Toni could self-entertain for hours. It was a gift she had.

  Still, she did wonder if there really was some sort of problem going on that kept Ulrich Van Holtz and the hockey team’s coach too busy to meet with her. Or were they just trying to find a way to break it to her nicely that they didn’t even think she could manage the office copier? Not that she blamed them. Except for the occasional volunteer position, she’d never had a real job. Not anything she could put on a résumé.

  Then again, she was probably just being paranoid and insecure. They couldn’t all be away trying to figure out what to do with her, and even the snooty bobcat receptionist wasn’t around.

  She glanced over to her right.

  The wolf, though, was still sitting there. Quietly. Staring at the wall across from them. He didn’t look bored. Or annoyed. Or angry. Just . . . calm.

  She hadn’t said a word to him. Not because she was upset with him but because she was curious to see how long he could go without talking to her. She’d thought he would have gotten fed up by now and found a very nice way to leave. She couldn’t see him storming out in a huff. That didn’t seem to be his way. But politely finding an exit strategy? Yeah. That seemed more his style.

  She finally had to ask, “You’re not bored?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve found that if you wait long enough . . . the entertainment often comes to you. You just have to be patient.”

  “Okay, but it may be awhile. I don’t know when—”

  “That’s fine. I’ll just keep on sittin’ here . . . lookin’ pretty.” He grinned at her, showing those perfect white teeth. “Enticing you with my charm.”

  At that point, all Toni could do was cross her eyes and go back to her book. But just as she’d settled in, the bobcat receptionist returned. He charged in through the glass door, barely glancing at her or the wolf as he passed.