Page 55 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)
The day before Cassandra’s wedding dawned clear, and unseasonably warm, and a caravan of vehicles assembled along the curb in front of her building. Four black Range Rovers to transport all the out-of-town guests, and the bikes of the local boys: Toly, Topino, Pongo, and Shep.
Cass stowed her bag in the back of Raven’s Rover and ducked inside the strap of a lightweight cross-body bag so she could ride with Shep.
As she approached the bike, buckling on her helmet, she spotted a familiar head of blonde hair.
Instead of a blazer and badge, Melissa wore a leather riding jacket and matching harness boots. Smoked aviator shades.
Cass grinned at her. “You’re coming?”
“It’s a family wedding, so.” She shrugged, and her head tipped in a way Cass knew meant she was rolling her eyes. But then she smiled. “I’m overdue some days off. Rob said he could get one of the junior detectives to cover for me if he needs backup.”
Likewise, the Dogs had asked Prince’s crew to keep an eye on the Simpsons, though, so far, there’d been no further signs of the Tres Diablos skulking around.
Shep cranked his bike with a muted roar, and twisted around to shout, “Baby, let’s go!”
“Coming!”
Melissa climbed on behind Pongo, and Cass took her place on the little bump seat behind Shep, arms tight around his waist. A vibration moved through her that had nothing to do with the idling of the engine.
Shep was the officer here, the sergeant-at-arms, and so he was riding point, the other Dogs flanking him, the Rovers lined up behind.
Cass was the baby of her family, always kept back, screened from harm, positioned at the rear.
But this morning, she was in the front. She couldn’t say she wanted to be the center of attention, because she didn’t…
but there was something heady about taking the lead like this.
My man’s important, she thought. He’s in charge of things .
She was grinning like a loon when Shep pulled away from the curb, and they led her family, blood and club, toward their wedding.
~*~
Raven wasn’t sure she’d ever feel quite at home at the Albany clubhouse.
The old ladies were hospitable, and the house itself was sprawling and cozy, and she felt safe here, because it was a large piece of property nestled deep in the woods, crawling with Lean Dogs, and what could have been safer?
But she always felt a little wrong-footed, a little like she didn’t belong.
Tonight, the point was driven home as she sat around a bonfire with her brothers’ old ladies and watched Cass from a distance.
She realized just how much time Cass had spent here, traveling to and from the city on the back of Shep’s bike, hiding out here when things got dicey in Manhattan, when Raven and Toly went out of town for her work, when she wanted to know that Cass was safe and looked after when she couldn’t do it herself.
It shouldn’t have surprised her at all that Cass would end up with Shep. Of course she had. He’d become the most constant and dependable figure in her life, the man she could count on when she couldn’t count on anyone else, and he adored her, wholly and fiercely.
Across the grass, beneath strung-up party lights, Shep and Cass were currently playing beer pong against two of the newer members, Crash and Elrod.
Cass didn’t like beer, so Shep was chugging the cups she won, and getting louder, and rowdier, and Raven thought she’d have to walk over at some point and prevent him from getting fall-down drunk the night before his wedding, but so far, the two of them seemed to be having fun.
Cass grinned, picked up the ping-pong ball, and Shep shouted, “Crush him, babe! Smoke his ass!”
Raven raised her glass to her lips, and realized she was smiling.
Eden sat in the nearest chair, and she hummed thoughtfully. “When you said he was that much older than her, I wasn’t quite picturing…this.” She gestured with her own glass toward the beer pong crew, where Cass neatly sunk the ball, and Shep whooped and smacked a kiss to the side of her head.
Raven’s smile went wry. “I married someone even more reserved than our brothers. Cass has decided to go the other way.”
Eden’s voice was shrewd, professional. “He’s been her security detail?”
“Yes. Three years now. Since the bratva problem.”
“I think he’s hot,” Axelle piped in.
Eden uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “The important thing is: is he committed?”
Raven frowned and swirled her wine around in her glass.
She wasn’t going to tell anyone from Tennessee that she’d shouted, and cried a little bit, and thought seriously about slapping Shep when he told her.
Because it had broken her heart, a sudden burst of pain, a fear realized—how many times had she said to herself please not Shep, anyone but him —but once the first shock was past, she’d been able to look at his face, fierce and fired up, ready to shout right back at her, unwilling to back down, her anger had collapsed like a house of matchsticks.
She’d spent three years watching the two of them grow closer; watching Shep fall wildly in love with her, patient, content to wait, resigned to never get her if her gaze never softened in invitation.
She took a sip and said, “Shep is an asshole. But he’s an honest one. He doesn’t have very close relationships within the club. The day he came to my office to tell me that he and Cass were involved, he told me that she was his best friend. Cass has said the same, independently.”
Eden nodded, slowly, watching as Shep downed another few swallows of beer and chucked the cup onto the grass. Cass grabbed his arm and said something to him, and he nodded, and then waved off Crash when he lifted the ball in invitation to continue.
“Nah,” Shep said. “We creamed your asses. Take the L.”
Cass’s laughter floated across the field, high and musical.
“She looks happy,” Emmie said. A glance revealed she was smiling: a quiet, introspective sort of smile. “Every time I’ve been around her, she’s always looking around, taking everything in, listening to everyone. I’ve not ever seen her so…vibrant. Like this.”
Raven nodded. “Exactly.”
~*~
Fox squeezed a lime wedge into his G had seen her carefully snip through some of those threads.
All the little-girl love she’d once felt for Devin had been transformed and was now directed at Frank Shepherd.
Speaking of…the beer pong game came to an end, and Shep reeled Cass in by both hands to kiss her like nobody was watching.
“Ooh,” Fox said, flatly. “We might have to kill him.”
“Yeah,” Walsh agreed.
Cass, arms around Shep’s neck and standing up on her tiptoes, dropped back down, smiling so wide Walsh barely recognized her. Shep turned her around, patted her on the hip, and she went to join the women where they’d set up camp around one of the bonfires.
Shep headed for the porch.
“Cass will be angry,” Fox said. “But she’s young. She can find someone else.”
At the bottom of the porch steps, Shep paused, hand on the rail, and glanced back over his shoulder toward Cass, where she’d gone to perch on the arm of Raven’s Adirondack chair. Walsh wanted the look on his face to be proprietary, or predatory; a nasty leer, a pulse of personal satisfaction.
Instead, it was sickeningly fond.
“Oh, puke,” Fox muttered, which meant he’d seen it, too.
Shep’s chest and shoulders lifted on a big breath, and slow exhale. Then he turned, finally, and trooped up the stairs. He started past their alcove, either without noticing them, or without acknowledging them.
Fox put thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled, a trick they’d both inherited from Devin. It was so loud and sharp that people down on the lawn twisted around to peer at the house.
Shep froze mid-step, and glanced over, brows lifted.
“Where are you headed?” Fox asked, casually. He even grinned, though it didn’t touch his eyes.
Shep’s expression was a flat challenge. “To get something real to drink. That dipshit Elrod put Heineken in the Solo cups.”
Fox scooted to one side of the wicker bench and patted the other. “Grab yourself something and come join us.” It was clearly not an invitation, but an order.
Shep’s lips compressed, and he turned and continued into the house.
“Bet you a tenner he’s running out the front,” Fox said.