“You must be Dani.” Clarissa Berend was a broad-shouldered woman who gave Zed his gray eyes and dark hair. She eyed the newcomer up and down and extended her hand to Dani. “My Zed tells me you’re living out at the maison de fous, and that he stomped all over your shower.”

“He’s right on both counts. I’m Danica Teel, it’s nice to meet you.”

Dani cleared her throat and reached out to Clarissa, who gripped her hand so hard that Zed could see the ripple of discomfort on Dani’s face. Before he could tell his mother to back off, Dani squeezed right back and made a line appear between Clarissa’s steely gray eyebrows.

“Well, Miss Teel, do you cook at all?”

“Not much beyond salads and soups,” Dani admitted. “I’m more of baker.”

Clarissa nodded. “You like children?”

“Depends on the child.”

“Any genetic disorders in your family?”

“That strikes me as being none of your business,” Dani replied.

Clarissa’s lips quirked into a smile as Zed’s brows shot up to his hairline. “All right, then.”

“Zed, Lara mentioned she could give me a ride home,” said Dani. “She’s about to head out and I don’t want to—”

“Nope, I’ll be ready to go in a minute. I’m sober as a judge and ready to drive responsibly.”

Under his breath, Bael made a “whipping” noise. Zed shot him a poisonous look.

“All right, then,” said Dani. “I’m going to go say my goodbyes. Thank you, Miss Clarissa, for putting together an amazing welcome for us all. The food was delicious.”

Clarissa gave her what could only be described as a mama bear hug. “Aw, you’re welcome, sweetheart, you come back any time.”

“Goodnight, everybody.”

Dani walked away while everybody called their goodnights to her.

“I like that gal. Smart. Strong as hell.” Clarissa shook out her hand as if Dani’s grip was still stinging.

“So why were you giving her the third-degree?” asked Jillian.“I thought you wanted Zed to settle down with a nice girl and give you a passel of cubs to dote over? It would be smarter to give her the red carpet treatment.”

“That girl would make me some beautiful grandbabies. But I gotta test the girl’s mettle to make sure she’s tough enough to breed with a bear.”

Suddenly, Zed was struck with the image of Dani’s already luscious curves padded further with his cubs. And he got a little dizzy.

“That makes sense,” Mel told her. “We used to do something similar in my family. But it was more like a ‘princess and the pea’ test. We’d serve the prospective new family member a bowl of matsutake suimono soup, and if they didn’t know we’d given them plain old shimeji mushrooms instead of rare matsutake mushrooms, they weren’t sensitive enough to be a member of our family.”