Page 50

Mack

This was Harper’s grandmother?

I had been rehearsing how this conversation would go the entire drive over.

What to say, how to convince what was apparently Harper’s favourite family member that I was worthy of her granddaughter.

I was prepared to answer questions about my life, my income, my job stability, but not this.

I looked back over my shoulder, cocking one eyebrow at my mate and, of course, she just grinned, throwing me a thumbs up.

“Ahh… I’m Mack, Mrs Quinn,” I replied, trying to retrieve my hand, but the old biddy held on fast. “And…” I could not believe I was gonna say this. “I’m a wolf shifter, so I have a knot.”

“A knot?” The woman looked past me to stare at Harper. “Is that like a penis with a G-spot attachment.”

“She’s not Mrs Quinn.” My mate didn’t need to tell me who the next woman appearing in the doorway was. Though her hair was silver, those eyes were all Harper. “I am. Let the man go, Sally.”

Sally did so reluctantly, only to mentally undressing me with her eyes.

“Nanna, this is Mack, Tor and Kieran,” Harper said, finally stepping forward. “Guys, this is my grandmother, Agnes.”

I’d dealt with some tough clients before, even guys that got aggressive at the pub, but never did I feel as nervous as when Agnes stared me down.

Those keen brown eyes seemed to see straight through me.

Her lips thinned, making me think she was going to leave us on the doorstep, right before she nodded and stepped back to usher us in.

“You better come in then.” She nodded as we stepped into what looked like a neat little apartment. “See if you’re worthy of my Harper.”

“Nanna!”

“Don’t you Nanna me.” Agnes waved her hand in irritation. “Not when there were reports on the news about some shifter man being shot dead by the police yesterday.”

Oh no.

“Apparently, he went tearing through the city on a motorbike.”

Shit.

“With a rifle on his back, of all things.”

Shit, shit, shit. I looked across at my packmates and they looked just as alarmed.

“The police were forced to shoot him when he kidnapped some human girl.”

“Right, so—” Harper started to say, looking so very pale.

“That’s not something you would get mixed up in, is it, Harper?” Her grandmother came to a stop in a kitchen that was filled with the savoury scent of roast lamb. The woman’s focussed switched back to me, her eyes narrowing. “Because this fella looks a lot like the mug shot they posted.”

Damage control , I thought. Answer Agnes’ questions, but without too many details. Fob her ? —

“That was Mack’s brother.” Dammit, Harper did not get the message at all, her feet shifting restlessly as she spilled the beans. “His twin brother.”

“Twin?” Another older woman stumped forward, peering owlishly at me.

“Evil twin,” Tor supplied.

So not helping.

“The guy riding the motorbike through town?” Harper continued. “That was Mack.” I raked a hand through my hair, wanting them all to shut the fuck up right now. “But he was doing that for me.”

“How does tearing through traffic, scaring law abiding citizens help you?”

Agnes put the question to me, not Harper.

“He—”

“My brother was a monster.” If we were going to tell this story, then I’d be the one to tell it.

“He made clear that he would hurt any woman I took as mate, which is why I tried to keep my distance from Harper.” Agnes’ brows jerked down.

“It didn’t work. I couldn’t keep away from your granddaughter because…

” I was screwing this up, so I may as well tell the truth.

“Because she’s the only woman I’ll ever want, ever need, even if she decided to try and confront my brother in his lair, alone. ”

“Harper—!” Agnes spluttered.

“That was you?” We all turned around to see another woman walk down the hallway, a large man at her back.

“Mum?” Harper said.

“You were involved in that shootout yesterday?” Female wolves were always ferocious when protecting their pups, but right now I saw they had nothing on Harper’s mother. “You were at the quarry, where that… animal was taken down by the police?”

OK, pretty sure Harper’s mum was not a fan of shifters.

“Susie—” the man with her said, but she waved him off.

“What the hell were you doing there in the first place?” the woman snapped, but before Harper could answer, she glared at me and the rest of my pack. “These three… whatever they are.” She waved her hand in our direction. “They dragged you?—”

“They didn’t drag me into anything, Mum.” Harper had been kinda chill since the shooting, but all that old fire came rushing back now. She turned and faced her mother down. “I confronted Dax.”

“You what?”

The mother and grandmother glanced at each other, having an identical spontaneous reaction.

“And I’m the one that shot him dead, not the police.” She glanced at her grandmother. “Those rifle lessons you gave me ended up being real useful.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Silence reigned supreme as each woman seemed to struggle to process that information. Agnes’ friends’ eyes went wide, their focus shifting from one to the other of us.

“Well, you better sit down then,” Harper’s grandmother said with a huff. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“A cup of tea isn’t going to resolve this,” Susie snapped. If I caught the fine tremor in her hand, then so did everyone else. She shoved it in her pocket and then forged on. “It’s no surprise something like this happened.”

Susie was going to look up at me, I just knew it, and sure enough, she did. Harper’s eyes had never looked so hard. This was all going to hell, and we’d barely even got in the door.

I’m sorry…

I looked across the crowd, all the noise fading away as I stared into Harper’s eyes.

Want me to get you out of here? I asked. I will. They can blame me for… I let out a sigh. Everything. Put it on me, beautiful. I can take it.

But you shouldn’t have to .

That determined look made clear that Harper was done submitting to this.

“Mum.”

“No, Harper.” Susie threw up a hand. “No. I’ve put up with this rubbish for long enough. You meet a perfectly nice man and you reject him in favour of what?” Each one of my packmates was on the receiving end of her death stare now. “Men that put you in danger.”

“No—” Harper said, but her mother cut her off.

“Men that will never be able to look after you, keep you safe.” Her nose wrinkled. “Men that become animals.”

“OK, we are fucking done here.” When Harper took a step towards the door, we moved with her, and for a moment I thought we’d leave, regroup and rethink meeting her family, but then my wild girl whirled around to confront her mother.

“Actually, maybe we’re not. The audacity of you critiquing my guys? ”

“Harper…” her grandmother growled.

“When I was forced to endure a revolving door of your boyfriends all through my childhood.”

“Harper, that’s enough,” the man with Susie said and right when we stepped forward to defend our mate, Harper whirled to confront him.

“You don’t get a say in this, Peter.” Right, his name was Peter. Introductions had been overlooked in the kerfuffle. “I’m glad Mum found you, that you’ve had a really solid relationship for lets face it, the longest period in her life.”

“You never let anything go.” Susie was on the verge of tears, I could hear them in her voice and that left me standing there, wondering what the fuck to do. “Always living in the past, bringing up my mistakes.”

“Because you let mine go and never bring up how I screwed up,” Harper shot back.

“I just want to stop you from making the same mistakes I did.” Susie peered past her daughter at us. “Or ones I’d never have even considered making.”

“That’s not how it works, Mum.” OK, now Harper was getting seriously upset.

The impulse to freeze until all this was over was shoved to one side.

When I moved closer, so did the rest of the pack.

We clustered around Harper, our hands going to her shoulders, her back, my fingers interlinking with hers and squeezing.

“You don’t get to hold me to higher standard than you did yourself and still have a relationship with me. ”

That shake of Harper’s head. Were all families toxic? Could we never stop hurting the people we care about?

“I’m getting you out of here,” I told Harper in a low voice, but the others caught every word.

“Let’s all just sit down—” Agnes said, but Susie stepped forward.

“You’re not going anywhere with my daughter!”

“And who’s gonna stop me?” Harper snapped. “Peter? I’m nearly thirty. Long past needing a stepfather.”

“Harper! Susan!” Agnes snapped and for a moment I thought she’d managed to establish a truce. Silence reigned for just a moment, broken by a knock on the door.

“Who the hell would that be?” Agnes asked with a frown.

“Ahh…” That was Tor making that sound and looking around the room awkwardly. “It might be my family.”

“What?”

Now all three women were speaking at the same time.

“Oh, this is getting good.”

Sally threw a peanut up in the air and caught it in her mouth, crunching it with glee.

“What the hell did you do?” I hissed at Tor.

“Mum and my grandma were hassling me about having everyone over.” His words came out in a great rush. “They wanted us at the restaurant for lunch. I told them I couldn’t, because we were going around to meet Harper’s grandmother?—”

“And they decided to invite themselves over,” Kieran finished, trying to smother a smile and failing.

“Your family is at the front door?” Agnes asked, staring at Tor.

“Um…” He consulted with his phone. “Yeah. They may or may not have brought some food as well.”

“ Some food…” Kieran coughed, trying to hide his smirk.

“Well, it’s usual practise to discuss inviting guests with the host, but if they’re waiting at the front door, it would be rude not to invite them in.” Agnes shot both her daughter and granddaughter a hard look. “I trust you two can put a pin in this.”

The woman didn’t wait for an answer, bustling up to the front door.

“Hi,” Anya said with a little wave. “I apologise for barging in like this. I’m Tor’s mother. We’ve been trying to catch up with the lot of them since the incident yesterday. Do you mind if we join you? We brought food.”

“Man, do we have a lot of food,” Dina muttered, hoisting a pile of plastic boxes higher in her arms.

This was a problem I could resolve. I walked over and took her burdens, then Mira’s as well.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I hissed at Tor. We were bringing up the rear as Agnes brought his family into house.

“That we could all be one big happy family?” he replied weakly.

“By forcing everyone together at short notice?” Kieran added, having taken the bags of stuff from Anya. “How the hell is that gonna work?”

We were about to find out.