chapter TWENTY-NINE
Max tied up the last of the trash bags and tossed it on the massive pile before heading into the house. Stevie and the seventeen-year-old who had been too young to drink but weirdly didn’t complain about that had made themselves scarce as soon as the party wound down and Britta began forcing wolverines and She-wolves to start cleaning.
Not surprising. Stevie hated cleaning in general. She always expected someone else to do it for her.
The luxury life of the prodigy, Max supposed.
Once in the kitchen—every last morsel of Charlie’s baking had disappeared along with the bears—Max found Britta pouring herself a glass of water.
“Hey, Max, my brother took Charlie back to our house. I’m almost positive they’re having sex, which is not a problem for me, but if I find any evidence of that outside his bedroom, I’m going to lose my shit. So can I stay the night here so he has a chance to clean up the place before I get home?”
Max loved Britta. She was a six-foot-seven nut, but she was a hilarious nut. Max enjoyed that in any woman.
“Absolutely. There are extra bedrooms down the hall. And tons of fresh bedding that suddenly appeared in the closet yesterday.”
“Thanks. Dag already nabbed the couch. It’s for black bears, though,” she said, “so he’s all scrunched up on it.”
They both laughed at that until they heard it. Not Dag. He was snoring loudly in a cute drunken stupor. This sound was soft. And they’d both noticed it.
Britta lifted her nose, scented the air. She pointed up.
Max reached under the table and grabbed two .45s, tossing one to Britta.
Moving quickly but silently, they went up the stairs and down the hall, stopping outside Stevie’s bedroom.
Britta was about to kick the door in, but Max stopped her with a raised hand. She put her forefinger to her lips.
Max eased the door open. While her baby sister slept soundly in the bed—blissfully unaware, probably zonked out on her nighttime meds—their father was busy going through a pile of notebooks that had arrived earlier that day from Switzerland.
He was so intent on whatever he was doing, he didn’t even know that his other daughter and a goddamn bear were watching him.
Biting back a snarl, Max marched into Stevie’s room, wrapped her hand around her father’s mouth from behind and pressed her gun against the side of his neck.
“Not a sound. Not a word.” She started to drag him to the door, but Britta was suddenly there, grabbing Freddy’s legs and lifting them off the floor. Together, they carried him out into the hallway.
That’s where they met a shirtless Shen. He had his own .45 out and he was ready for whatever.
Max motioned at Stevie’s door. “Close it,” she said low. “Then go back to bed. We’ve got this.”
* * *
Britta never expected the MacKilligan sisters’ idiot father would dare come back to New York, much less his daughters’ house in the middle of bear territory. But here they were.
They carried the honey badger out into the yard and threw him into the garage wall.
When he tried to get up, Britta rammed her foot against his shoulder, pinning him there.
Max crouched next to Freddy MacKilligan.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Nothing. I just needed a place to—”
Max grabbed her father by the throat with one hand and squeezed. He began choking, slapping at her hand, trying to get her to release him. She did. Just when he started to turn blue.
While he coughed and took in big gulps of air, she asked again, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
He gazed at his daughter with bloodshot eyes. “Go to hell.”
Calmly, Max let out a breath. “I will have this She-bear break your windpipe for me and then I’ll hold your nose closed until you suffocate. And we all know that I am the crazy MacKilligan to do it and not lose a moment of sleep. So are you really going to make me ask you again . . . or are you just going to tell me? Because we both know you’re not brave.”
Freddy looked up at Britta and she balled up one fist, knowing her knuckles would crack. An irritating sound that drove her brothers crazy but was so effective on others.
Swallowing, Freddy looked at his daughter and said, “Please . . . please don’t hurt—”
The damn badger suddenly slipped out from under Britta’s foot and with a surprising amount of that hidden strength badgers were known for, he tossed his daughter at Britta.
Britta caught Max, but when she put her down on the ground, one of the worst fathers Britta had ever known was long gone.
When they were back in the kitchen, coffee brewing and open jars of honey out on the table, Britta asked, “Are you going to tell Charlie?”
“I don’t hide anything from Charlie. I just delay. So let her have her night with Berg, and we’ll tell her in the morning.”
“She’s gonna be mad, huh?”
“When it comes to my father, Charlie always ends up mad. Not because she’s irrational but because he’s an asshole.”
“What do you think he really wanted?”
“I have no idea. But the good news is, although it has to do with Stevie, it’s not Stevie herself. Honestly, that’s the first bit of good news we’ve gotten in a long time.”
Britta ran her finger over the rim of her still-empty mug. “Are you guys going to run?”
“No,” Stevie said from the kitchen doorway.
“Go back to bed, Stevie,” Max said gently.
“I’m up now.” Stevie walked over to the double coffeemaker, pulling off one of the carafes and coming back to the kitchen table. She filled up Britta’s and Max’s cups before getting her own from the cabinet and pouring coffee for herself. Once she put the carafe back, she asked, “When did we get a coffeemaker?”
“I think that’s from Mrs. Fitzbaer,” Britta offered. “A thank-you for the cinnamon buns.”
Stevie sat down at the table, across from her sister. “We’re not running,” Stevie told Max. “I’m tired of running. Besides,” she added, “Charlie’s happy here.” She thought a moment. “I’m happy here.” Another pause. “Kyle’s happy here. And he’s not happy anywhere.”
“You do know we can’t adopt that kid, right?” Max asked.
“Of course we can’t. He already has a family that loves him. He just makes them insane, so they need a break from him. I’m happy to help.” She peeked up at Max. “Do you want to run?”
“Me?” Max grinned. “I’m a honey badger, bitch. I wanna stand my ground and beat the fuck out of anybody who crosses my path. But if something happened to you . . .”
“Nothing is going to happen to me. I’ve got you and Charlie.” She leaned in a bit and, after glancing at Britta, she whispered, “And I’m surrounded by man-eating bears.”
“Says the man-eating tiger.”
Eyes narrowing on Britta, Stevie barked, “Stop freaking me out with that!”