The Mane Attraction (30 page)

Authors: Shelly Laurenston

BOOK: The Mane Attraction

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Chapter 25

P
aula Jo Barron, head lioness of the Barron Pride, read her newspaper and drank her beer. Some days she was so bored. Like today. It was too hot and muggy outside to do anything but sit around and sweat. And although her bar was nice and cold from the air conditioning, there wasn’t much to do here. She’d already done payroll, and she wasn’t in the mood to beat one of her sisters yet again at pool. And the football game in Smithtown didn’t start until three o’clock tomorrow. Hell, to watch those bears kick the Smith Pack’s collective ass for another year in a row, Paula Jo would risk life and limb crossing territorial lines.

But really, it was days like these where Paula Jo thought about leaving. What would it be like to leave her little town behind and find a new place? To move to a big city like Nashville or a whole other state like Texas? What would it be like to not always be here?

But as soon as the thoughts came in her head, they went right back out again. How could she leave? She didn’t trust either of her sisters to run the Pride. She definitely didn’t trust her crazy aunts. The current pair of males they had probably wouldn’t last much longer, and Paula Jo knew Karen Jane would only choose the replacements by following whatever her crotch told her to do and Lucy would be suckered by the first pretty face and sweet talker who came along.

Besides, if she left, what would she do for money? The Barrons were not wealthy and probably never would be. True, they weren’t dirt poor either, but last month when the roof nearly caved in, they’d had to put in for a loan to fix it. It’s not like they had the money simply sitting around waiting to be used.

Must be nice
, she thought with only a little less bitterness than usual.

And that’s when she walked in.

Definitely a lioness. It wasn’t only her scent that gave her away, but also the way she moved. The way her gold eyes sized up the entire room. And even though she’d cut her hair so it was short and up around her ears, it couldn’t be mistaken for anything but the gold mane of hair that it was. True, it would never be like the males’ manes, but in Paula’s estimation, every predator female had a little butch in her.

The problem at the moment, however, was that this was not a lioness of Paula Jo’s Pride. She was an outsider, and Paula Jo ran outsiders off.

The woman’s eyes caught sight of her, and instead of making a run for it, she walked over, a backpack slung over her shoulder. She wore loose khaki pants with lots of pockets and a tight white T-shirt. Paula Jo also smelled gun oil coming from her.

This female was armed.

Paula Jo glanced back at Lucy, and her little sister slipped out the back door to get the men. Other than breeding, the only use the big bastards had was for protection. Right now, their lazy asses were asleep under one of the trees out back after Karen Jane had gotten them fed.

If they would only get a day job, Paula Jo wouldn’t mind them staying, but lazy was lazy. And Paula Jo had no time or patience for it.

The woman stopped in front of her. “You run this place?” she asked. And she wasn’t talking about the bar. Nor was she talking like a true Southerner. A Yankee.
Eww.

“I do. What can I do for ya ... before you leave?”

“How’d you like to make some money?”

Paula Jo slowly sat up straight, dropping her legs to the floor as Lucy came back into the bar, the males right behind her, yawning and rubbing their eyes. Yup, they’d been asleep again.

Lazy!

A thud on the table had Paula Jo glancing back at the female and then down at the table. She’d dropped a wad of cash on that old wood, big enough to choke a buffalo.

“This is the first half. Help me out, and there’s another half.”

Karen Jane, always good with numbers after her stint as a stripper, grabbed the stack and quickly flipped through it.

“At least ten thousand,” she said to Paula Jo.

Lord, who do we have to kill for twenty thousand?

“What do you want?”

“All I need is for you to be a”—and the lioness grinned, showing fangs—“distraction.”

“You need to go!”

Startled, Sissy looked up into Travis’s face. He stood right in front of her, not even looking at the gaggle of females she had surrounding her who’d come to check out the Smithtown Team hotties, including Mitch. “Why?”

“You’re distracting him, and this is our last practice before the game tomorrow. So you need to go.”

“He’s fumbled the ball a few times, but how was that my fault?”

“He’s handling that ball as bad as his brother.”

“Hey!” Ronnie piped in, insulted for her mate.

“You can’t be here.”

Sissy really didn’t have a problem leaving, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t torture her brother a little. “But where can I go? What will I do while he’s here?”

“Are you trying to piss me off? Is that your goal here?”

Sissy smiled. “Maybe.”

Travis scowled, but before Sissy could make him good and frothy, Patty Rose interceded. She always did. The possibility of Sissy kicking Travis’s ass all over the football field was too real and too much to risk their “rise to power” as Ronnie liked to call it.

“Now y’all, cut it out. Brothers and sisters shouldn’t act like this.”

Sissy stared at her brother’s mate. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

Travis growled, “Sissy Mae!”

Patty Rose reached into her bag and pulled out her wallet. “Why don’t you go on down to your uncle’s bar and have a few drinks on me and Travis? I know a few of these ladies here”—she motioned to the females who’d been sitting behind Sissy—“would love to spend some time getting to know y’all.”

“Especially if the drinks are already paid for,” Ronnie muttered under her breath.

“I swear,” Patty Rose went on, ignoring Ronnie like she always did, “as soon as Mitch is done here, we’ll send him right over. Won’t we, hon?”

“Whatever.” Travis stormed back to the field.

Now that her brother was gone ... “Patty Rose, you don’t have to pay for our drinks.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” She placed a small wad of cash in Sissy’s hand. “Y’all go on now, and I’ll let Mitch know where you’re off to.”

Sissy shrugged. “Okay. Thanks.”

With Dee, Ronnie Lee, and a handful of the young She-wolves in tow, they headed down to the bar.

Mitch pulled his helmet off and watched as Travis ran back to the field. “What’s going on?”

“She’ll be back. She’s going to the bar with Ronnie and Dee.”

“Why?”

“Because she was distracting you, and it was pissing me off.”

Mitch wished he could honestly tell Travis he was wrong, but he’d not been playing his best game today. Not with the memories of last night constantly flooding his brain.

Christ, he loved her. Not a little either. Not something he’d get over one day. He loved Sissy Mae, and absolutely no one else would do for him. But he always came back to the same thing: he couldn’t take her away from this. He couldn’t part her from her family or her Pack. Sure, if her only brother was Travis, he’d ask her to come with him in a heartbeat. But she had Bobby Ray, and the two relied on each other the way Marissa and Bren did.

Knowing he’d have to leave her soon was breaking his heart. Thinking of her a few years from now with some wolf as a mate was making him homicidal.

“Hey, golden boy.” Mitch ground his teeth together. He hated when Travis called him that. “She’ll be back. So you think you can give the team a few minutes of your precious cat time?”

He started to say something, and Bren grabbed his arm, pulling Mitch back. “We’ve got it,” he said before Mitch could start the Pride–Pack war of the century.

Sissy wasn’t enjoying herself. And not simply because she missed Mitch, which she did. Or because it was hitting her in no uncertain terms that she’d fallen head over boots in love with the big goofball, and she had no idea how to handle that. Or how to handle it when she lost him forever into the government system.

True, all those things were bothering her, but that wasn’t what was nagging at her like an uncomfortable itch.

Something wasn’t right, and Sissy couldn’t quite put her finger on it. There was a tension among their group of young She-wolves that had her nursing her one beer. Dee had settled for a Coke, and Ronnie Lee nothing.

The fact that Dee hadn’t disappeared by now told her a lot. Dee bored easily and always simply up and left, but this time, she hadn’t. She stayed. And she watched.

What was it that bothered the three friends? The girls. Why they’d followed them to the bar, Sissy had no idea, but she was ready to split. The three of them could hang at their aunts’ pie shop rather than here with girls she didn’t trust.

Sissy glanced at Ronnie and Dee, giving them a small tilt of her head to indicate she was more than ready to go.

Ronnie nodded and leaned forward to make some bullshit excuse about why they were leaving when one of the girls—Shayla ... or something?—slapped her hand against the table.

“How come you’re not Alpha here?” she asked with a sneer Sissy didn’t much appreciate.

“Because my momma is Alpha.”

“She ain’t gonna live forever. You think you’re coming back then?”

“No.”

“I bet you’re scared. Scared you’re not strong enough.”

Sissy shrugged. “You’re right. I’m scared. Too scared to be Alpha here.” She motioned to Ronnie and her cousin, and all three stood. Sissy dug into her front pocket for a couple of twenties to cover their drinks and tossed them on the table.

“Ladies,” she said and stepped around the table toward the exit. But Sissy barely stepped back in time before a bottle of tequila exploded at her feet. Her bare feet.

Sissy took a deep breath, turning just her head to look at the one who had thrown the bottle. “Little girl, have you lost your mind?”

“They say you’re so scary tough. I call bullshit.”

“You can call anything you want, but I’m walking out of here and you’re backing off.”

In answer, the girl slammed another bottle of tequila to the floor, this time close to Ronnie. Too close in Sissy’s estimation.

Sissy pushed her friend back and moved around the table toward the girl. The girl, like an idiot, charged forward—and right into Sissy’s grip. Sissy held her by her throat and stared into her eyes.

“Take it out back, Sissy Mae,” the bartender ordered her. Since this bar belonged to her uncle, she nodded and dragged the girl toward the back exit.

As one mass of She-wolves, they burst through the back door, and Sissy flung the girl to the ground. Planting her foot on the back of her neck, Sissy pressed down simply to keep her in place, not to snap anything. She didn’t want to do any permanent damage to her; she just wanted the pup to learn where she fell in the big scheme of things.

But the girl scratched at the ground and desperately begged, “Get her off me. Please! Get her off me!” Surprised her bravado had left so quickly, Sissy looked over her shoulder at Ronnie and Dee. Four She-wolves were holding Ronnie back, and two males had Dee. She looked at her cousin, and Sissy knew Dee was moments from killing anyone and everyone in that alley.

What the hell was going on?

And that’s when Sissy heard him.

“Hey, baby,” Gil said softly, his sister and two cousins standing behind him. “I didn’t think little Shayla would ever get your cute ass back here.”

Ronnie started to shift, but Sissy held her hand up, halting her. Sissy was Alpha, and Ronnie had to follow her lead.

Sissy lifted her foot off the younger She-wolf’s neck, kicking her out of her way.

“What is this, Gil? What do you want?”