And it wasn’t him.

Of all the times for Darla Mae Smith’s boss to send her home for a “visit”—a visit he’d insisted on for some unknown reason—why did it have to be now?

Honestly, only a boss with his own Pack would insist on this sort of thing. Lord knew a full-human chef never would. If they had their way, they’d never give their lowly staff any kind of break. But Darla didn’t work for a full-human. No, she was an assistant pastry chef for a Van Holtz Steak House in San Francisco, and the Van Holtz wolves understood Pack life, so her boss—the executive chef and Alpha of the San Francisco Van Holtzes—had suddenly, out of the clear blue, insisted that Darla go home for a little “Pack time.” Something most She-wolves who were forced away from their kin for one reason or another enjoyed. Then again, none of them had to deal with the darn arguing!

When Darla had called her daddy two weeks ago, it had just been him, Darla’s momma, and her brothers. Her sisters were in Smithtown, Tennessee, dealing with the pain-in-the-butt Smith boys. So Darla had happily hitchhiked her way cross country, something she liked to do but didn’t necessarily mention to her parents. But by the time she had made it to her home in North Carolina, her dang sisters were back and in the middle of their dang arguments! Not with each other, which she could barely tolerate, but with those darn Smith wolves.

And it wasn’t even one argument, but several! Francie Mae, the oldest, was arguing with her mate, Benjamin Ray, about what Benji could and could not stick his big Smith nose into when it came to the Lewis family business. Roberta Mae and Frankie Ray were busy debating whether Robbie’s skirt was long enough—apparently it wasn’t—while Janette Mae and Nicky Ray were arguing about Nixon. Nixon, of all people!

But worse than all that was what was going on between Janie Mae and Bubba Ray Smith. The pair had been on-and-off-again for several years now. They played all sorts of games with each other, trying to make the other one jealous. When Janie had gotten pregnant with her first son, the family sort of sighed in relief, figuring the pair would finally become mates and end all the bickering.

That, unfortunately, did not happen. Instead, the bickering became worse. Much worse. Now, two sons later, with the third on the way, the pair traipsed back and forth between North Carolina and Tennessee, one usually following the other, stopping occasionally to argue in one of the midway rest stops that probably deserved better.

Was it really supposed to be this hard? Was love and caring supposed to be so ridiculously silly and demanding? Darla didn’t think so. Neither did her friends in San Francisco—a lovely mix of shifters and full-humans that she’d met when she’d left home at eighteen to start her internship at the Baltimore Van Holtz restaurant. Lord, it was 1974! Wonderful things were happening all around them. Times were changing. There was beautifulmusic and people were beginning to realize that war and violence didn’t answer all of life’s tough questions. It was a time to travel and see the world, discover new and interesting people, religions, and species.

But Darla’s kin was locked into a world Darla had no desire to be part of. One filled with jockeying for position in a Pack. Unlike their full-blood wolf counterparts, the shifters rarely settled for their position in life. They always wanted more or less or different, but never what they had. And anyone with a brain could see that what Janie wanted was to be Alpha Female of the Smithtown Pack. She couldn’t and wouldn’t settle for less, even if that meant booting Bubba’s momma out of her current position as Alpha. Of course, that was just Janie Mae’s way. And the rest of Darla’s sisters, although older, were the perfect Betas. They’d fight for Janie to get her what she wanted, even if it meant going head to head with their own mates about it.

The question, Darla guessed, became what did Bubba Ray want? A few years shy of thirty and male . . . he didn’t know what the hell he wanted. Especially if it meant running off his own parents. But like the true Alpha Male Bubba probably would be, he would decide what he wanted when he was dang good and ready. Something Janie Mae wasn’t happy about because even though she may not need to be Alpha today, at this moment, she wanted commitments that it would happen.

So the fighting went on. And on. And on.

If Darla had known this was going to be happening while she was here, she would have taken a break at a commune one of her friends had told her about. Or headed off to Europe and backpacked through France again. The Lord knew there was a world of fine pastries for Darla to experience and explore and learn to make in France. But she wasn’t in France, she was here.

Maybe, in a day or two, she could split. Head out after getting a little time in with her parents, especially her daddy, who hated this fighting as much as Darla did. Until then, though, she’d have to settle for walking away from all the unnecessary crap going on in the house.

Jumping down the stairs, Darla headed into the woods. She hadn’t gotten far, though, when she caught the scent of some unknown wolf on her parents’ territory, coming upwind of her.

She stopped, turned. Darla sniffed the air again, then called out, “Hello?”

A twig snapped behind her and Darla spun, her fangs instantly bursting from her gums at the sight of the gun pointed at her. The man holding that gun blinked in surprise. It was only a moment, though. Only a moment of stunned confusion at the sight of fangs on a young woman in the middle of nowhere. Then the full-human male aimed his weapon and Darla unleashed her claws, readying her body to shift and strike. Hoping the surprise at seeing her as wolf would give her the precious seconds she’d need to tear his throat out.