A Wolf After My Own Heart MaryJanice Davidson (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

So he wouldn’t have to eat bacon and scrambled eggs in his underwear (not that she would have objected…exactly…), Lila had lent him her robe, a knee-length thing that was once blue but was now a ratty gray. Repeated washings had left it softer than velvet. She’d been half-kidding, but he immediately shrugged into it and then walked around sniffing the lapels and smiling, which was equal parts endearing and off-putting.

Get laid, get focused, get whatever you need to GET IT TOGETHER. And stop finding Oz endearing when he’s shuffling around in your robe. A shorty robe and hairy knees should not be erotic. Neither should the memory of betrayal.

“Net’s here,” Devoss announced. “Who’s gonna break the bad news?”

Before anyone could answer, there was a quick knock at the kitchen door, followed by “Good God, something smells heavenly.”

“Smelled,” Devoss said. “Past tense. Okay, not really. But you’re not smelling actual bacon. You’re smelling ghost bacon.”

“All gone,” Sally said mournfully.

“Oh.”

Garsea’s shoulders bowed, and she looked like someone stomped on her puppy. While it was eating the last of the bacon.

“Easy,” Lila said, rising and going to the counter. She hit the Open button on the microwave and extracted a plate with half a dozen slices, which she handed over to Garsea. “Crisis averted.”

“Well, now it is. Ummm. Thank you!”

“I thought that last platter looked a little light,” Macropi mused.

“When’d you even do that?” Oz asked.

“The second I realized Garsea was coming.”

“Thanks again,” Garsea mumbled, chewing. “And look how easily fooled you all were!”

“I don’t know if it was easily,” Lila said. “You guys might have great sniffers, but apparently you can’t tell the diff between ghost bacon and actual bacon.”

And just like that, the fun was sucked out of the room.

“That. That!” From Devoss, who’d dropped his fork. “Are you saying you know we have preternatural smelling abilities—”

“Olfactory capabilities,” Garsea corrected.

“—sure, whatever, that we smell good? Or are you just generalizing us as ordinary people who don’t smell good? Wait, I said that wrong…”

“We went over this last night,” Lila said mildly as she sat at the head of the kitchen table because it was her table and her kitchen, thanks very much. “Oz will tell you.”

They all looked at Oz so quickly Lila fancied she could hear their eyeballs click.

“Uh…” Oz cleared his throat. “She reluctantly and vaguely acknowledged that maybe we were a little weird. On occasion. And she emphasized maybe.”

“That? That was the Big Talk?” Devoss asked. “The Confrontation?”

“Wow,” Lila marveled. “I can actually hear the capital letters.”

“No way,” the boy insisted. “That wasn’t it. It doesn’t settle anything! We still have questions!”

“Calm down,” Lila advised him. “We’ve got more important things to talk about.”

“We really don’t,” Devoss grumbled, but after a warning glare from Garsea and a raised eyebrow from Macropi, he ducked his head.

“Okay, so,” Oz said with forced breeziness. “Lots to talk about. But after, I gotta run home for clean clothes and toothbrush because my God, Lila, when the bristles are that raggedy you’re supposed to buy a new one!”

“Don’t you toothbrush-shame me.”

“But on my way back, any of you guys want me to pick up some of your stuff?”

“Macropi already went over.”

The older woman turned to look at her. “And how d’you know that, m’dear?”

“Are you kidding? Look at you. You’re wearing clothes that fit you perfectly but aren’t new, so are Daniels and Devoss. You went back, probably while I was in the shower. You also raided your kitchen, which I deduced when I remembered I didn’t have three dozen eggs and four pounds of bacon when I went to sleep last night.”

“Lucky it was a chilly night,” Macropi said. “Everything in my fridge and freezer was still okay.”

“Glad you were able to stock up. So I’m betting I shouldn’t open my freezer, right? Unless I want to risk getting crushed beneath the weight of all the meat you stuffed into it?”

“I’d never tell you what to do in your own house, m’dear, but…that’s right.”

Sally had finished eating first and had wandered into the living room a couple of minutes earlier. Lila had shown her how to work the On Demand and she was watching classic Simpsons, which was why they were all listening to the citizens of Springfield singing about the coming monorail.

Oz took advantage of the little girl’s absence to lower his voice. “Did the firem—the firefighters have any updates this morning?”

“I hear those things are awfully loud.”

“No, just that it started upstairs, and they’re researching the accelerants,” Macropi replied.

“It glides as softly as a cloud!”

“Oh, excellent.” At their stares, Garsea elaborated. “Well, there were all those candles and matches lying around because Dev had to scrub out the cupboards…”

“I didn’t do it!” he yelped. “I’d never, jamais, nunca!”

“Not on purpose. C’mere.” Devoss got up like he was on springs and nearly lunged at Macropi, who hugged him while leveling a death glare at Garsea, who just stared with her mouth open until Lila kicked her under the table.

“Ouch!” Garsea recovered and added, “Dev, I’m sorry. I said that all wrong.”

“I just got here,” the boy practically shouted. “There, I mean. I’d never burn up a house I wanted to be in!”

“Of course you’d never do anything to hurt us or Mama’s home.” Garsea spread her hands. “I thought that with the house being so old and matches and candles and paper being all over the kitchen, that a spontaneous combustion of sorts may have been the culprit. Not that you were the spontaneous culprit—never you. I expressed myself poorly, and I’m very sorry.”

An elegant and sincere apology. Didn’t know she had it in her. “Hey.” Lila cleared her throat. “Devoss. Nobody who’s spent more than five minutes with you would think that. You’re so smart and sneaky, you could’ve killed everyone in that house ten times over by now. You wouldn’t need to set a fire.”

There was a muffled sniff and the kid’s head came up. “Really?”

“Oh, definitely. Ten times over…maybe fifteen times over. Macropi, Garsea, Oz… They’d all