The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(43)

She laughed. “No. And that’s why I’m not taking Tilly, either. She wouldn’t look good in prison orange.”

That, and she didn’t want her friends knowing all of the details, the whys of the bad blood between her and her father.

Not that she didn’t think they wouldn’t support her. She knew they would.

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want anyone knowing about it who didn’t need to know. It was the ugliest, most awful time of her life, and she preferred to keep it locked away in the dark.

She leaned against him and he put his arm around her shoulders. “Thank you for not giving up on me that morning. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d just turned around and left me lying there on the bathroom floor, took Laurel, and left.”

He kissed the top of her head, lingering, his face pressed into her hair. “I couldn’t have done that, sweetheart. For one, I love Laurel. For another, I love Leo, and I knew he wouldn’t want me to do that. And three, I wouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt if you had died and I could have saved you. Besides, now I love you, too.”

“Thank you. I love you, too, Jesse.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” He reached up and touched her necklace, the tag that matched to his. “You’re part of the pack. We take care of our own.”





They would have to drive to Tampa. Dinner was slated to start at six at her parents’ house.

Nate would pick her up around three thirty, giving them plenty of time to make the trip and allow for any traffic delays without stressing Eva out any more than she already was.

After they left her parents’ house, they’d go to Nate’s for the night. Not only did Eva not want to have to face Laurel immediately after dealing with her parents, she wanted time alone with Nate to process whatever might happen and her emotions.

Hopefully, nothing. Hopefully, her worrying was for naught.

Also, they needed to talk, and she didn’t want to do that before they got to her parents’ house.

When Nate arrived to pick her up, he walked in without knocking. He had a key to the house, just as Eva now had a key to his.

Laurel ran to greet him and Eva smiled as she watched Nate scoop her up and swing her around. Wouldn’t be much longer before she’d be too big for him to do that. It’d only been just recently that Leo had finally regained the strength to pick her up and carry her.

And holy crap, Laurel would be eight in less than a year.

Where did the time go?

Just yesterday, she and Leo were bringing her home from the hospital, Leo having put his foot down and pissed off her father when Leo told them they weren’t going to come down and stay with them for a few days to “help.”

Once Leo had known Eva’s secret, he’d transformed a previously borderline adversarial relationship with her father into a blatantly confrontational one, stopping just short of openly going after the man in front of others for what he’d done to Eva.

Eva had begged him not to, because her sisters hadn’t known what he did, and she didn’t want to drive a deeper wedge between them than her father already had throughout the years. Eva also didn’t want to totally cut Laurel off from all contact with her mother or sisters. Not to mention she didn’t want others knowing her pain.

Then her father had shown his ass when Leo was in the hospital, ordering her and Laurel to go with them and leave Leo there…

And that’s when something inside Eva had snapped. At the time, she’d been too shattered by the confluence of events to openly stand up to him, but Leo’s attorney and Tilly and Ross had given her the easy out and proposed a deal that to others had looked bad, but to her had been a godsend.

And it meant Laurel would forever be safe from Eva’s father, even if Eva wasn’t around to protect her.

I need to tell Nate.

That larger conversation would have to wait. Tonight, after surviving the ordeal with her family, she planned on talking with Nate about the baby plans. If he didn’t handle that news well, it would render a talk about her father and what he did moot, because Nate wouldn’t need to know.

Her pack would always come first, because they were the ones she knew she could absolutely trust in her darkest hour.

She hoped and prayed Nate would become part of their pack, too, and that he wouldn’t break her heart.

If he did break her heart…

She knew Leo and Jesse would be there to help her pick up the pieces and try again with someone else.

“We have to get going,” Eva finally said, interrupting her daughter’s nearly nonstop chatter with Nate.

“How come I can’t go?” Laurel asked.

Eva had prepared for this. “Remember how Grampa got upset in the hospital when Daddy had his accident?”

Laurel frowned as she nodded. “He tried to take me from Poppa.” Even back then, Laurel had loved Jesse.

“Exactly. Well, Grampa is…” Bigoted. Assholish.

Sexual predator. “Sometimes, Grampa says hurtful things. He doesn’t think before he speaks. And if he gets like that again, Nate and I will leave.”

“Okay.” Laurel jammed her hands on her hips and scowled up at Nate. “Will you take care of Mommy if Grampa acts like a butthead?”

Eva couldn’t bring herself to scold her daughter for that. Apparently, neither could Leo, because he stood there with one hand covering his mouth like he was trying not to laugh. Jesse wore a knowing smirk.