“Do those kinds of lines ever really work?” Honey asked coolly, having gotten over her surprise. She glanced at Lucia and warmed her expression as she gave the rest of us a discreet nod. She wouldn’t talk about the jailbreak in front of anyone else. “Lucia, come with me, and I’ll get you set up.”

“What do you want me to do with Cookie?” When Honey looked blank, Lucia clarified. “With the dog?”

Honey looked at the battered dog, glanced at me, then went to her cupboard and pulled out a mixing bowl. “We’ll send someone out for dog food in the morning. There’s a bathroom off the bedroom you’ll be in, and we’ll fill this with water there.”

The two of them left, and I caught Gary by the arm before he could follow.

“You’d better cool your jets,” I told him, because although he might have interrupted her to stop her from blurting out where she’d last seen him, there had been real intent in his flirting—as there hadn’t been when he’d been messing around with Kyle and Zack. “Honey will wipe the floor with you.”

His eyes went half-mast, and his voice dropped in evident pleasure. “I know.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “You’ve been warned. Don’t come looking for sympathy here.”

The outside door opened, and Adam came in. He stomped the dirt off the bottom of his shoes on the mudroom mat with determined slowness. I recognized the careful movement as an attempt to keep his still-agitated wolf under control.

His calmness in the back of the SUV had been more of the same: my wolf didn’t like being helpless when someone he felt responsible for was in trouble. Joel had done some work for Adam, and that was enough to make him Adam’s responsibility.

I leaned against a counter and relaxed deliberately. Gary raised an eyebrow, looked toward the mudroom. Then he proved he was a lot better at reading people than he liked to pretend because he copied my position on the far side of the kitchen from the mudroom. He left a lot of space between me and him.

Adam came into the kitchen after he was satisfied with the state of his shoes. He saw Gary and me, and came over and leaned on the counter, too, close enough to me that his body pressed against my side.

He focused his gaze toward the opposite wall, where a cabinet displayed antique dishes, very carefully not looking at Gary on the other side of me.

I broke the silence. “Tad,” I said, because it should have occurred to me earlier to warn him.