She nodded but didn’t speak.

Raising a brow at him—Benji’s way of saying, “Good luck with that one, little brother”—his older brother left, finally leaving Eggie and Darla alone.

Realizing he still had his arms around her waist, Eggie released her.

He felt bad. It had never been his intention to get between the sisters.

“Darla Mae—” he began, but she cut him off.

“I need to get dressed.” She looked around until her eyes settled on a red bag covered in stickers from several different countries. She walked over to it and lifted it. “Do you have a pickup truck or only that car?”

“I have a pickup.” Everyone in Smithtown had a pickup.

“Good. We need to get this horrid couch out of your house and we need to go food shopping.” She marched past him. “I need to bake.”

Eggie didn’t know if that word meant something else but he wasn’t about to ask. Not when she was in this mood. So he just nodded and watched her head up the stairs. She stopped halfway up, though, and looked back at him.

“I am so sorry for what my sister said to you, Egbert Ray.”

He shrugged. “She ain’t my problem. She’s Bubba’s. Didn’t mean to cause you any problems, though, Darla.”

“You didn’t do anything. But I won’t let anyone talk to you like that.. I don’t care who they are.”

“You ready to fight the whole town then, darlin’?”

She pursed her lips and said without even a bit of hesitation, “If I have to.”

CHAPTER SIX

Considering the mood Darla had been in when they left the house, Eggie expected a confrontation with his Aunt Daphne, but Darla had walked into Daphne’s furniture store with a big smile and even two hours later, she’d lost it only when convenient for her to do so. How she’d managed that, though, he still didn’t know.

“Look,” Daphne had sighed, “I just can’t be running around, taking back furniture willy-nilly.”

“Oh, I know,” Darla had said with what Eggie now called her deeply concerned expression. “I know.” Her smile had suddenly returned and Eggie had felt like the whole store lit up. “But that’s why we brought the furniture back in Eggie’s truck. That way you don’t have to worry about having it picked up. We’ve taken care of all that. It’s all wrapped up nice and clean.”

“I’ll have to sell it at a loss.”

Back to deep concern. “Oh, I know. I know,” she repeated yet again. It had been her favorite phrase the entire time they were at the store. “But think of the benefit of showing how important family is to you.”

Daphne’s eyes had flickered over to Eggie and back to Darla. “Family?”

Andthat had been the first time since they’d walked into the store that Eggie had seen something other than a smile or deep concern . . . he saw anger. Real. Raw. But she had hidden it just as quick and repeated, “Family. Let me tell ya, I’ve been livin’ ’round those Yankees in San Francisco for a while now and those people do not know about family. And it affects their business even in a big ol’ city like that.” She leaned in and said low, “So you could imagine how it would go over here in Smithtown. But that won’t matter to you because when I start telling everybody from here to North Carolina what a wonderful store you have and how loyal a Smith you are to your kin, you won’t be able to keep the wolf Packs out of here.”

Daphne had sucked air between her teeth and looked back at her mate. He’d only shrugged, leaving it up to her.

“All right,” Daphne had finally said, shocking Eggie because that woman didn’t care if you were blood, Alpha of the Pack, or the president of the United States . . . she didn’t give nothing away. “Fine. You know what you want to replace—”

“That set.” Darla had pointed across the showroom to a dark brown couch, a couple of matching king chairs, a coffee table, three side tables in mahogany, and a matching dining set.

Normally Eggie didn’t care about furniture. He spent most of his life in trees with a high-powered rifle and scope, so whether he had chairs in a house he was rarely in or not didn’t really matter. But he had to admit . . . when he did come home, it would be nice to come home to this.

But now, after Benji and Frankie had helped him with the heavy lifting, Eggie sat on all that fancy furniture and felt a little . . . out of place. And anxious. Sitting like this, doing nothing, was not really his way. He’d go into his kitchen if he didn’t have a still-angry She-wolf baking in there. Although he would say that whatever she was whipping up smelled delicious.

Eggie glanced at his watch again. New furniture, grocery shopping, a family fight, and not even four yet.

“What are you doing?”

Eggie dropped his arm to his lap and looked at the She-wolf glaring at him from the entryway.

“Uh—”

“Your nervous energy is making me tense.”

He was making her tense?

“Well—”

“What would you normally do if I wasn’t here, baking delicious goods?”

“Uh . . . huntin’.”

“Then go hunt.”

“Can’t leave you alone.”

“If I need you, I’ll howl.”

“As far as we know, you’re still in dang—”

“Out!” She pointed at the front door. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”