“Jessica! Hello!”

Jessie smiled and it had to be the fakest thing Smitty had seen since he went to Los Angeles on a business trip. “Sherman. Hi!”

Her forced cheeriness made Smitty’s back teeth ache, but the dog seemed to buy it.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be hard at work as always?”

“Oh, I was. I was.” Jessie waved her hand dismissively. “But I was just taking a little break with my... uh... friend here.”

“Now, Jessie Ann, don’t play coy.” Smitty nuzzled her neck. “You know I’m your boyfriend now.”

As Jessie went tense all over, the male dog went from big and dumb to resentful in a heartbeat—like Smitty had dug up his favorite bone from the backyard. Didn’t he get that Jessie had no interest in him? How could she? The woman deserved better than some scrawny dog. Unfortunately for the dog, he wasn’t “getting it,” forcing Smitty to make it clear as crystal. So when that resentful doggy gaze moved from Smitty teasing Jessie’s neck to his hand, Smitty let his hand drop—right on Jessie’s breast.

Jessie let out a sharp breath, and the dog asked, “Well, Jessica. Why don’t you introduce me to your boyfriend?”

“Of course.” Jessie casually took the hand lying on her breast with hers and when she curled her fingers into his palm, she unleashed her claws.

Smitty grunted, but that was all. He’d kind of seen that one coming. But, dammit, it had been for her own good. And he’d go to his grave saying that.

“Sherman Landry, this is Bobby Ray Smith. Bobby Ray, this is Sherman Landry.”

The dog already had his hand out for Smitty to shake, but it fell back at his side as he stared at him. Smitty had seen it before. That look. A look of fear and panic. And he knew the next words that would come out of the dog’s mouth.

“You’re a Smith?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of the Smith... Pack?”

And there it was. A Smith could be any ol’ body. But a member of the Smith Pack, one of the direct bloodline, brought out all sorts of reactions from other shifters. Some looked down on them and others looked horrified. That one small phrase, “Of the Smith Pack?” followed Smitty around like stink on a pig.

“Yes, sir, I surely am of the Smith Pack. The Tennessee Smiths.”

“I see. Well, it’s very nice to meet you. Jessica, can I speak with you for a second?”

“Well, as you see—”

“Now.”

This had been what she’d been trying to avoid—time alone with Sherman Landry. Like most obsessive dogs that chased the same car every day, went after the same cat, slammed into the same mirror because they didn’t seem to grasp the only other dog in the room was themselves, Sherman wouldn’t quite give up on her.She really wished he would. He’d sent flowers to the office that morning, even though she’d told him about her allergies. How could Smitty remember sixteen years after the fact, but this idiot forget after two days?

He grabbed her hand and pulled her outside Starbucks into the cold, completely oblivious to the fact that she had no coat in ten-degree weather. Then he started rambling and she had a hard time focusing. Not merely because of the cold, but really because a tit grab had never felt so good before and Smitty hadn’t even squeezed.

“I’m not sure what the problem is, Sherman,” she snapped, too cold to bother being polite any longer.

“Jessica, do you know who you’re sitting with?”

“Well, since I just introduced him to you, I have a vague idea.”

“I don’t mean who he is. I mean who he is.” A physicist with several government contracts under his belt and a tenured position complete with his own lab at the local, blindingly expensive small university, Sherman still had the amazing ability of sounding like a complete idiot.

“And who is he?”

“He’s a Smith. I thought he was just a wolf, but he’s a Smith. What are you thinking?”

I’m thinking the man can palm my breast anytime. “I’m not sure what you mean. What am I thinking about what?”

“Jessica”—to her great annoyance, he took her elbow and led her farther away from the coffeehouse—“Smiths are, at the very least, not good for a woman’s reputation.”

“My reputation?” Had she actually portaled to another time and dimension? Where women actually had to worry about their reputations.

“I know. I know. You don’t think about those things, but you need to. Smiths are infamous womanizers.”

She’d never call Smith males “womanizers.” Although she would call them whores.

“I see.”

“And,” Sherman said in all doglike seriousness, “they’re dangerous, Jessica. Unstable. Even other wolves avoid them.”

“I had no clue.” Sure, she could explain to Sherman how she’d grown up around Smiths and knew them better than most. She could also explain how Smitty and she used to be friends. But all that would require her to spend more time with the man, seconds of her life she’d never get back.

Forcing herself not to glance impatiently down at her watch, she said, “I’ll talk to my Pack about it.”

“Of course. Because God forbid you should move without their permission.”

It was the venom with which he made that statement that had her eyes narrowing to slits. Her Pack only wanted her to be happy. For instance, they sure as fuck wouldn’t let her stand out in the cold so they could lecture her.