Page 47 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Had the night of her engagement remained magical and just the two of them, Cass would have wanted a lazy Saturday morning: coffee in their PJs, cooking shows, and then maybe back to bed.

But having Tenny and Reese in the flat made all of that less desirable.

So she got up with first light, showered, and was making coffee when Raven texted that she was out on the sidewalk.

“I’m not even properly caffeinated yet,” Cass complained when she opened the door.

“You’re too young to need caffeine,” Raven said, whisking through the door in a green wool cape and gleaming back boots. “And since the first thing I saw this morning was Tenny’s text saying they’d arrived in the middle of the night , I thought it best to rush right over.”

“Ugh.”

“That bad?” Raven asked. She unfastened her cape and turned to hang it up on the rack beside the door, revealing a simple black dress beneath.

“Actually, no.” She went around the peninsula into the kitchen and lifted the coffee pot in offering. When Raven nodded, she got down another mug. “Or, well, it ended up okay. They did let themselves in at, like, three-thirty in the morning and scared the bejesus out of us.”

Raven’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Little bollocks.”

“Shep woke up first,” Cass explained, leaning to put her elbows on the counter and cradle her mug in both hands. “And then he woke me up, and he was sitting up in bed holding his gun, and saying someone was in the flat with us.”

“Good Christ. I’ll kill him.”

“But once we got over our heart attacks,” Cass continued, “and I told Tenny to get bent, things were quite pleasant.”

Raven smirked against the rim of her mug. “Nothing that involves Shep nor Tenny could ever be described as ‘pleasant.’”

“Hey,” Shep said, appearing in the doorway, dressed but still sleepy-faced, scrubbing at his hair in the back and standing it up in wild disarray.

He looked so good that Cass wanted to unwrap him like a fancy truffle.

“I’m pleasant.” He slumped onto a stool across the bar from them and Cass turned to get him a cup of coffee.

“You are perhaps the least pleasant person I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting,” Raven said, sweetly, “but I’m used to that sort of thing by now.”

“Unbelievable,” Shep muttered, but Cass could see a sleepy smirk threatening when she turned to slide him his mug. “Thanks, baby. You good?” His brows lifted meaningfully. Was she really good? After last night? Given what was still to come?

She nodded, and hoped her smile was reassuring.

“ Baby ,” Raven repeated, grimacing. “I’m not sure I’m ready to hear that.”

His smirk broke loose, full force and devastating (at least for Cass). “Be glad that’s all I called her in front of you.”

“Oh, God, Shep, no.” Raven waved a hand as though to dispel a bad odor. “That’s it. Approval rescinded.”

Shep’s brows jumped in a taunting way as he slurped down half his coffee in one go.

“Okay,” Cass said, still smiling, but feeling it dim.

“I know the two of you enjoy giving each other shit.” And they did.

Raven bickered with Shep the way she did with their brothers, and that truly warmed Cass’s heart, because it meant that Raven had already accepted him into the family.

“But, Raven, you can’t join in with the boys when they start giving Shep hell.

” She sent her sister a serious look. “I need you on our side.”

Raven’s expression was the one she always wore around Shep: nose subtly lifted, lips pressed flat, eyes half-lidded.

Superior in every way. It softened at once when Cass spoke.

“I know. I am on your side.” She glanced from Cass to Shep, and the look stayed soft.

“I had to get it out of my system before they get here.”

Shep snorted.

“Speaking of.” Cass’s stomach fluttered with nerves. “When are they getting here? When did you tell them to come?”

“Well…” She rapped her nails on the sides of her mug.

Shep set his own down with a sigh. “Since when is that word ever a good thing?”

Raven ignored him. “I made a host of calls last night. First to Maverick, who didn’t seem surprised in the slightest to hear the news.

” She cocked a brow at Shep, who glanced away and picked his coffee up again.

“Unsurprised, and very willing to host in Albany. He said he’d talk to Joanna the moment he got off the phone with me, and that they could be ready next Saturday. ”

Cass’s gaze flew to Shep’s, and she knew her brows mirrored his, the way they lifted. “Next Saturday?” they said in unison.

“That’s only a week!” Cass said.

“Too soon?” Raven asked, all innocence.

Cass traded a glance with Shep, whose brows slowly lowered, and he frowned in thought. He shrugged. “Your call, kiddo. I’m good with it.”

Of course he would say that. It was a version of what he’d been saying all along, from the very first kiss: he wanted whatever she wanted.

Oh God, she might tear up right here in the kitchen.

“Aw, that’s rather sweet,” Raven said.

Shep shot her a scowl. “Why don’t you can the insincerity, princess?”

“Because I’m the one who’s going to save your sorry hide from the rest of Devin Green’s offspring, all of whom should be arriving here on Thursday.”

“Shit,” Cass said. That seemed soon . Not too soon to marry her man, but much too soon to watch her brothers attempt to murder him before they even had a chance to get married.

“ Everyone’s coming,” Raven said, “including the girls and the kids. I think that’s a notch in our favor. King won’t do anything too awful in front of Violet.”

“What about Dad? Have you talked to him?”

“Not directly.” She sipped her coffee in a clear deflection.

“What does that mean? Is he already en route?”

“Not…exactly.” She winced delicately. “He’s currently out of the country.”

“Oh.” Cass had spent so much time worrying about how Devin would react to her relationship with Shep that she hadn’t stopped to consider he might not make the wedding.

Raven laid a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, darling. Charlie’s going to reach out. He’s pulled off plenty of miracles. Maybe he can make it.”

“Maybe,” Cass said, and leaned down lower over the counter. She caught Shep’s concerned frown in her periphery.

But if there was anything any of them knew about Devin, it was never to count him out, but never to count on him, either.

“Oh, well,” she said, with a smile she didn’t feel. “Why did Tenny and Reese come so far ahead?”

“To serve as human shields, you ungrateful brat,” Tenny called across the room.

His hair was still wet and spotting water onto the shoulders of his white waffle-weave henley.

He crossed the living room and climbed onto the stool next to Shep.

Cass expected Shep to protest, or at least shoot him a dirty look, but he didn’t.

If anything, the glance he slid to the side was thoughtful.

“I want coffee,” Tenny said, like a decree.

“And I want my daughter to sleep through the night,” Raven said. “Get it yourself.”

Tenny made a dramatic shocked face, but eventually slid off his stool and rounded the bar to rummage for mugs.

Shep looked pleased.

Cass took pity and pointed out the creamer and sugar for him. “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Human shield?’”

“It means .” Not one, but two mugs of coffee doctored, Tenny turned to lean alongside her at the bar and placed the much-paler, cream-heavy mug in front of the stool he’d abandoned, presumably for Reese.

“That if Fox, or Walsh, or hell, Tommy , decide to show up early, you’ll need someone with his head on straight to get between them and your ill-chosen mate. ”

“What the hell’s your skinny ass gonna shield me from?” Shep asked, affronted. “ Human shield . Kiss my ass.”

Cass leaned her shoulder against Tenny’s and said, saccharine, “Aw, Tenny!” She was touched, though. “But Raven’s here, and she’s in our corner.”

“Is Raven going to flying tackle Fox to the ground? Put Tommy in a headlock?” He lifted his brows.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d do that for Shep?”

“I’d do it for you,” he said, expression going serious. Sincere.

Cass put her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Hey, you’re spilling my coffee,” he griped, but slung an arm around her ribs and hugged her back, briefly.

“Not to step all over your tender family moment or whatever the hell,” Shep said, “but excuse the fuck outta me: I don’t need a human shield .”

Tenny drew back from Cass, winked at her, and turned a mild look to Shep. “It’s cute that you think that.”

Reese joined them, after crossing the room silently, and climbed onto the stool that Tenny had used. He reached for the mug, took a sip, and the resulting smile was small, but very pleased. He’d clearly slept on his right side, and his hair was snarled and flattened, cheek creased from the pillow.

When Cass checked, she saw Tenny gazing at him with tender fondness, and her chest warmed with the knowledge that things had turned out just as they were always meant to.

~*~

Raven only stayed long enough to finish her coffee and deliver a rapid-fire, dizzying list of everything she’d already decided about the wedding.

“I’ll of course provide a dress. You can come by the studio tomorrow and we’ll get you fitted.

Shep, I’m assuming, will wear his cut. I have a nice black shirt you can wear beneath, no hoodies.

Joanna says she can get some flowers together, and of course string lights.

There will be the usual clubhouse party accoutrements, I assume: bonfires, drinks, lawn games, etcetera.

“Cass, you’ll need to let me know by tonight if you have any special requests. Obviously, this isn’t a church wedding with the typical frills, but I have an excellent party planner on retainer and I’m sure she could obtain me a few things, up to a point.

“The beauty of the clubhouse is we already have music, accommodations for out-of-town guests, and plenty of seating. The two of you will need to obtain your marriage license at the courthouse.” She looked pointedly at Shep.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, as bewildered as the rest of them. “We can handle that.”

She gave a sharp, businesslike nod. “Next is rings.” A groove appeared between her brows. “I suppose not necessary, if you don’t want them.”

Cass held up her hand.

“Oh!” Shocked, pleased, Raven took her fingers and pulled her hand closer to inspect the ring. She pressed her thumb gently to the center of the stone, and Cass could tell that Raven was impressed. “It’s lovely, Shepherd.”

“That’s just rich-people speak for ‘you suck,’” Shep groused, but his cheeks had pinked.

Raven seemed to know that, and didn’t comment, merely gave Cass a subtle nod of approval.

“Wedding rings, then,” she said, turning back to the typed-up list she’d spread across the countertop between their four mugs.

“I’ll handle the cake. There’s a bakery in Albany who can put something together last minute, and Jo says she has an in with the owner.

Which leaves…” She trailed off, and turned to Cass. Her voice gentled. “Your mother.”

Raven might as well have slapped her. How—how on earth—had she not considered her mum in all of this?

She knew how, deep down: because Raven had always been more parental than her actual mother.

Because she lived here in America now, on Raven’s dime.

It was Raven she checked in with when she went out, and Raven she went to for advice.

She spoke over the phone and sometimes Facetimed with Mum, but standing here now, gobsmacked, she realized she hadn’t talked to her mum since she got together with Shep.

Before that, not since the fateful party that had kicked all of this into motion.

“Oh God, I totally forgot Mum,” she murmured, and then the cold horror of that—of forgetting to consider her own mother’s attendance at her wedding—sent a hard shudder through her and she almost spilled her coffee.

Tenny reached over her shoulder and plucked it neatly out of her hand.

Shep lowered his own mug and his face went blank, his eyes big. “Shit, your mom,” he said, flatly, like he hadn’t considered her either.

Raven sighed, but patiently. “She won’t be upset.”

“I know she won’t,” Cass said, that first cold spike of panic starting to fade to a duller, but no less troubling regret.

“She’ll be awkward, and fluttery, and she’ll cry, but she’ll be kind to Shep.

She won’t understand.” She shook her head.

“That doesn’t matter, but I just…I forgot . I never even considered her.”

“I didn’t tell my mum beforehand that I was getting married,” Raven said with a shrug. “I showed up at our Paris rendezvous with Toly in tow and said, ‘Hello, Mum, meet your son-in-law.’”

Cass had heard that story in all its gory, hilarious detail, and had laughed over it for ten minutes. (Tenny grinned now and said, “You didn’t,” delighted.) But it wasn’t the same.

“Yeah, but you considered her. You chose not to tell her beforehand.”

Raven sighed again, this time less patiently. “Things have been mad around here lately. You didn’t forget her. You’ve been preoccupied.”

“Uh,” Shep said, and they both glanced toward him. His forehead was stacked with lines, mouth partially open, dark gaze pinging between them. “She’s not one of those, like…” He made claws with his fingers. “Angry, scary moms, right?”

“No,” Cass said.

“Decidedly not,” Raven said, and then cocked her head, and smiled wickedly. “At least, she never has been. But who knows what might happen when she meets the old man who stole her daughter away.”

“Aw, come on .”