“Well…uh…um…would you like some coffee, my dear?”

Gwen grinned. “I’d love some.”

By the time they were finished installing the new water heater, hauling out the old one—helped along by Lock being able to simply pick it up and carry it out—and ensuring the basement was dry, it was late. Nearly seven o’clock.

Gwen sat on the curb behind the MacRyrie family home. She watched the company truck driven by one of her employees head off down the street while she checked in with Blayne.

“How did your job go?” Blayne asked after complaining for nearly ten minutes about her own.

“New waterless water heater installed and working fine.”

“Water heater installation. Ka-ching!”

“You’re not going to believe whose house this is, though.”

“Whose?”

She smiled, thinking of Lock keeping his father busy and out of her hair anytime the man even glanced toward the basement. “The bear’s.”

“What bear?”

“The one from the infamous Labor Day weekend fiasco. The one who left me at the whim of organ thieves.”

“Stop saying that! I told you what happened.”

“Yeah. Whatever. He apologized, anyway.”

“You made that man apologize?”

“Yes! As a matter of fact, I did.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I was owed an apology.”

“I’m not arguing with you on this. I’ve gotta go.”

Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “Oh? Where to?”

“To…uh…”

Gwen’s eyes narrowed more until they were nothing but slits. The wolfdog was up to something, had been for weeks, and Gwen was determined to find out what. “To…” she prompted.

“To the hospital.”

Gwen’s back went straight. “What the—”

“As a volunteer.”

“A volunteer?”

“Uh-huh.”

Blayne was lying and they both knew it. “That’s where you’ve been going after work the last few weeks?”

“Uh…huh.”

“To a hospital?”

“Yuppers!”

“As what? A therapy dog?”

Blayne’s gasp of outrage came through the phone. “Low blow, O’Neill!” Yeah. It was. But she hated when Blayne lied to her. Still, that was too low, even for Gwen.

“Blayne, wait. I’m sor—”

Not surprisingly, the phone call abruptly ended, leaving Gwen to stare at the “disconnected” message on her screen until she heard something breathing beside her.

“You’re supposed to lumber,” she accused softly, looking overat the grizzly quietly sitting next to her.

Poor full-humans. Without the same hearing as Gwen, they’d never know the bear was next to them until he said something or until the mauling started. She shuddered at the thought. “Because I can hear lumbering.”

“I do lumber. Since I was eight.”

“You need to lumber louder. No one wants to look up and see a bear sitting next to them. Breathing.”

“Gee, thanks.” He jerked his thumb toward his house. “My mother’s home. She wants to talk to you.”

“You’re not going to get a better deal from anyone else,” Gwen tossed out.

“Would you stop doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Arguing a point before anyone’s given you a reason to. Don’t preemptive argue. It’s annoying.” He stood up and so did Gwen. “The reason I’m talking to you now is that I need to warn you about my mother.”

Gwen put her hands on her hips. “Let me guess. She doesn’t like cats. She’s going to say snide remarks about climbing trees and hacking up hairballs, and you’re going to apologize now for whatever she says.

Right?”

“You’re doing it again,” he accused.

Shit. She was.

“If you’d let me talk for myself, I was going to say that my mother is a dyed-in-the-wool feminist and she’s dying to meet you because she’s completely in love with the idea of a female plumber putting in her new water heater. She also may ask to interview you for her monthly newsletter, but you’re not obliged to do that unless you want to.”

Gwen could say with all honesty she hadn’t been expecting any of that. “Oh. All right then.”

He leaned down until their noses almost touched. “Did you know that you’re very frustrating?”

“Maybe, once or twice, I’ve heard that before.”

His mother was in love. Lock knew it as soon as she set eyes on Gwen that she’d fallen head over heels in love.

First off, Gwen was dressed “correctly.” Sturdy work boots, no cute shoes. Curly hair held off her face with a headband, no cute hairstyle more concerned with glamour rather than functionality. Cargo pants with lots of pockets for easy access to often-used small tools or pen and paper, no cute jeans with a thong hanging out.

Long-sleeved Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt that had seen better days but still did the job, no “I’m your sexy plumber” cute T-shirt in pink.

But what made it perfection for Dr. Alla Baranova-MacRyrie was that Gwen had those nails, because in his mother’s mind that meant she embraced her femininity even while rejecting society’s standards for women.