Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,72
Right now!”
They stopped screaming, but they kept glowering at each other. So, to keep the distraction going, Max shoved Stevie and Stevie shoved her back, and then the mutual headlocks began.
By the time Charlie had yanked them apart, Max had a bloody nose and Stevie a split lip.
Charlie shoved them in separate directions and raised her hands, pointing a finger at each of her sisters.
“That’s enough. Stevie, don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“As a matter of fact . . . I do! Because I have a life!” She made that sound Max always equated with the British ladies who starred in movies made from Jane Austen novels, before she stormed back to her room. All she was missing was a full skirt that she could lift when she made her exit.
Instead of laying into Max about giving Stevie “a break,” Charlie walked away from her sister and started pulling out what she needed to make her honey buns.
She was putting the supplies on the small counter under the window that looked out over the backyard when she suddenly leaned down and gave a low chuckle.
“You have to see this,” she said, motioning to Max.
Max came over to the counter and leaned down next to her sister so that both of them were resting their arms on the wood top. But when she looked outside, all she saw was Shen hanging from the big tree in the yard, which wasn’t exactly shocking. He did that most mornings and nights. He hung there with his knees over the lowest limb so his arms could easily reach the bag of bamboo that he placed under it.
“It’s Shen,” Max said. “So what?”
“Look into the leaves.”
Max raised her gaze and studied the higher parts of the tree but still didn’t see anything. At first. Then she noticed a slight movement. She tilted her head and leaned forward.
“Oh, my God. That’s the cat.”
Charlie rested her head on her arm and laughed.
“He’s climbing trees now?” Max asked. “Seriously?” Then she laughed so hard she had to lean against her sister so she didn’t fall to the floor.
“How did you even see him?”
Charlie gave a small shrug. “When I’ve got my contacts in, it’s like I have wolf eyes.”
They watched Zé for a few minutes, and Max loved that he was really starting to embrace “the cat within” as Dutch liked to say about cat shifters in general.
But just as Max was about to turn away to pour some orange juice before getting ready to head out, Charlie asked, “So what are you and Stevie hiding from me?”
Max forced herself not to react to her sister’s question. She kept moving, even as she asked, “What makes you think we’re hiding anything?”
“Instinct. Stevie seemed truly angry, but you . . . you were just trying to distract her. And you only distract her when you want her to keep her mouth shut about something. What’s she keeping her mouth shut about, Max?”
Max continued to stare at the tree, where Zé was easily moving around among the leaves. After a moment, she asked her sister, “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”
From the corner of her eye, Max saw her sister open her mouth . . . close it . . . open it again . . .
Finally, Charlie returned her gaze to the tree. “Not really.”
They stood there like that for quite a bit until a male head suddenly appeared between them. “What are we staring at?”
Max had scented the kid coming. Felt his light footsteps coming through the floor. Heard the way he rubbed his nose sometimes instead of twitching it like a normal jackal. So when he put himself between her and Charlie, Max wasn’t bothered or surprised.
Charlie, however . . .
“Jesus Christ, Kyle! ” she practically screamed, her entire body leaping backward so that she slammed into the oven. “What the fuck, man?”
Kyle Jean-Louis Parker blinked a few times as he stared at Charlie.
“Sorry you’re so unobservant . . . ?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.” Charlie brushed her jeans off for no reason Max could see, then did that thing she did when she was startled. Barking at the person who’d scared her just like a dog startled from its sleep. “And where the fuck have you been? You’ve been gone for days. For all we knew, you could have been dead!”
“Would you have cared?” Kyle wisely asked.
“That’s not the point!”
“I was with my family. Not on purpose, my mother made me.”