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“Yes.” I tried to keep the duh, obviously I want to eat three birds in one bite out of my voice.
“Because we could get you some chicken tenders. Grilled cheese? A plain hamburger?”
“You just try to come between me and that meat pillow.”
Garrett speared the turducken with the meat fork and began to cut slices. “Yes, ma’am. You see, Winter, I have been well trained not to get between a she-wolf and her dinner.”
Cerys didn’t bristle at the mention of being a she-wolf. Instead, she just smiled at her husband and said, “No, you just shoot them.”“It was just that one time, Cerys. Just once,” he said indignantly.
“You shot her?” Jun asked with big eyes.
“Sterling hasn’t told you this story? Winter, did Sterling tell you at least?”
Sterling, who glanced out the windows before passing a plate to me, said, “I especially have not told her. She barely knows you, old man, and introducing you as the man who shot my mother might give her the wrong impression.”
“Smart boy.” Garrett looked at Cerys but waved the meat fork at Sterling. “He was always clever.”
Cerys winked at him, then told me, “It was winter. Sterling was seven, and we were scraping by in a tiny little mining town north of Pittsburgh. Middle of winter, end of the month, six days to payday.”
I nodded. I knew exactly what she was talking about.
Cerys paused a moment, weighing my reaction, then continued. “Wolf form out in the woods trying to catch something for dinner. Garrett was out as well and shot me. Right in the hip.”
“Her wolf form is large,” Garrett said in his own defense.
“It was a mistake.” Cerys agreed. “He dragged me back to his truck and bribed a local vet to fix me. A bullet in your pelvis, stitches, and staples is nothing you can shift from. And I’m in a vet’s office. The injury isn’t as bad as it could be, and the vet puts me out into a run. Garrett comes by a few days later and I scratched out a message in the stone dust. That got his attention.”
“One thing led to another and voila.” Garret gestured to the meat pillow. “Turducken.”
Jun leaned forward and spoke to Sterling. “Your family is as weird as mine. I just didn’t realize it at first ‘cause there ain’t as many of them!”
“I have so many questions,” I said. “But first, I need to have some of that meat pillow.”
Sterling chuckled. I kicked him under the table.
“How convenient for you I have stories,” Garrett said as he placed the first portion on Cerys’ plate. “I have so many stories, and I have been eagerly awaiting the time when I can use them to mortify my son.”
Snickers from the rest of the pack. Sterling just raised a good-natured brow at his father. “You do not have nearly as many stories as you want her to think.”
“You just think your mother and I don’t know what you got up to.” Garrett jabbed the fork at him.
More snickers.
“I was the perfect son and a paragon of virtue.”
I nearly snarfed wine out my nose.
Cerys, wine glass dangling from her elegant fingers, rolled her eyes at him. “Hmm.”
Jun howled with laughter.
Sterling refreshed his mother’s wine and told his father, “Then I am going to be the most imperfect of sons and inform you that I need you to look after my portfolio for a while. Winter and I are going to call in a favor that will keep me occupied through summer.”
“That depends. Are you going to be making me a grandkid with all that free time?”
Now I did snarf wine.
Garrett grinned as I patted at the spilled wine and coughed. “Worth it. Anyway, sure. I guess you’re close enough to a billion I can associate with you.”
