Page 58 of Hunted

“Aww, sweetheart. I thought you were finally Team Fancy. Luna smiles whenever we play Auntie Hayden’s Fancy Prancy song at bedtime. And it’s going to be a little hard to rename the cat now considering she gives out barbecue recommendations on The Spoke’s website every #Caturday.”

“Do you think you’ll have to close the restaurant?” Lacey asked dryly, dodging out of the way when Dallas playfully smacked her butt.

“Okay, you’re up,” I stage whispered, nudging Ellie forward. “Remember how we talked about this?”

“I sort of thought you were kidding?” She fumbled in her purse.

“Yeah, I never kid when it comes to the feline artist formerly known as Godiva.” To make a long story short, Lacey had adopted the world’s most adorable black kitten after finding it in an alley behind Blair’s Bakery, and named it Godiva. My brother had started calling the thing Fancy Feast because cats liked cat food (shocker) and apparently he had a death wish. Guess which name stuck? “Rule one: always have an escape plan.”

“Hi, Luna,” Ellie said softly. “We brought something for you.” She held up the small gift bag with the big smiling pumpkin on it where Luna could see.

“Oh wow.” Dallas jiggled Luna on his hip. “Do you want to see what’s inside?” Luna buried her face in his shoulder. “She’s a little fussy today. Didn’t want to go down for her nap with all the excitement.” Dallas kissed his daughter’s head. “Do you want to see what Ellie and Uncle River brought you?”

He held up the bag so Luna could peer inside. She reached out one chubby fist to grasp the black cat stuffie Ellie had picked out, the one with the silver wizard’s hat.

“Who’s that?” Dallas asked in an excited voice. “Is that Fancy? Fancy all dazzled up in a sparkly hat? I think maybe we need to get Auntie Hayden to sing her special Prancy Fancy song. What do you think?”

“Maybe we save that for bedtime. Otherwise, Luna might never let her stop and I’m sure Auntie Hayden would like to eat rather than sing all eighty-seven verses.” Lacey reappeared at his side with a plate full of food. She forked up a bite of macaroni and sighed in obvious pleasure. “Babe, you’re killing it with this mac and cheese.”

“Nothing I love more than feeding my two best girls.” He leaned over to kiss Lacey.

“I’ll have you know, I get requests for that song at shows,” Hayden said from over by the cappuccino machine. “It’s unreal. I mean, I get that it went viral on social media as kind of a freak joke thing, but it’s a kid’s song about a cat.”

“Pretty sure the club crowd is more into the heavy metal version Daisy Addiction played as an encore a few months back that someone uploaded to TikTok,” Ethan said dryly. “Which, for the record, I told you before going back on stage was a bad idea.”

“Aren’t we all forgetting something?” West flicked his bangs out of his eyes a touch too innocently, completely ignoring the are you fucking kidding me death glare I was sending him. “I believe a vegetable challenge has been issued. I for one, have questions. Except I don’t think we need to resort to finding strangers off the street. We have in this very room, a vegetable resistant individual.”

“For the love of all that is fanged and holy,” Topher growled. “You just watched me eat an entire plate of carrot and celery sticks. And for the record, why am I always the innocent bystander forced to eat food experiments on command in these Caldwell Machiavellian plots? Doesn’t Cal look a little low on iron?”

“He does indeed.” Dallas nodded. “Cal, I’m making you a big steak.”

Topher glared.

Cal bit back a laugh. “Sorry, Toph. You’re on your own. I haven’t had a good steak in weeks.”

“Bite me.” Topher shot a dark look at West. “That goes double for you.”

“Oh, I hope so.”

Dallas continued, “How about this? I’ll make you both a steak. And you can both sit on the judging panel for whatever vegetable Ethan randomly selects.”

“I’m in,” Cal said. He leaned down to Jonah, who was scooping up mac and cheese and fruit salad. “Are you going to help me eat a steak?”

“Can I have more chicken fingers, please?”

“You got it, buddy.” Cal grabbed the tongs and dropped another chicken finger on Jonah’s plate. “What about Dallas’s vegetable challenge?”

Jonah wrinkled his nose.

“That’s one no vote,” I called, earning a dirty look from Dallas.

“Perhaps we should up the ante,” Guillermo mused from where he leaned against the doorframe.

“I’m listening.” Dallas folded his arms.

“Yes, do tell.” West looked on with keen interest.

“Oh, good God,” Lacey muttered under her breath. “Can someone please check and make sure all the backup fire extinguishers are in their assigned locations?”