The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(49)

He reached over and took her hand. “This is my job,” he said, the British accent now faded from his tone. “Protecting you. Taking care of you. I know I told you I won’t ask you to tell me or force you to tell me, but obviously he is a threat, to you, and to Laurel. I need you to give me at least the information I need to keep both of you safe.”

“When we’re back at your place,” she said. “I want to be curled up in your arms when I tell it.” She stared out the passenger window. “Then I’ll tell you everything.”

“Including whatever it was he said to you in the house today?”

She nodded. “Yes, Sir.” She needed to tell him the other part first.

About the baby.

That would determine what else—if anything—she told him.

He squeezed her hand. “Fair enough, sweetheart.”





They stretched out on the couch, but fully clothed, her head in his lap and his feet on the coffee table. Clothed was by Nate’s choice, because he didn’t want her to feel any more vulnerable than she obviously already did.

He’d grabbed a box of tissues as well. “Where do you wish to start?” he gently asked.

“I need to talk to you about something else first.”

“What’s that?”

She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “It’s a two-part process. I need to see how you’re going to react to the first part before I can finish telling you everything else.”

“Very well.”

Whatever this was, it had weighed her down like an anchor on the Titanic. Her energy felt subdued, drained, weak. When she finally spoke several long moments later, he could barely hear her.

“Jesse and Leo already know about the second part. Jesse didn’t know at first. Not until after Leo’s accident and…something happened. And I realized as a result of all of that how much Jesse means to me. I love him. Like a brother and a friend, not romantically. But he saved my life.

“Until I can tell you all of it, some of this won’t make much sense. But because of Jesse, my family—my pack—is whole. There is always room for more people in it. You, Cherise, Wade. Another baby. You have to understand and accept on faith that Jesse is as important to me as Leo is. That I love Jesse as much as I love Leo.”

He nodded. “I know. I can see that. I also don’t question or begrudge it in the slightest.”

She took a deep breath. “Jesse’s always wanted to have a baby. Because of…things, Leo and I only had Laurel. I didn’t tell Leo everything before I was pregnant. But with Leo and Jesse, it’s okay. And I always wanted to have another baby. At least one more.”

He knew a lesser man might think she was being melodramatic.

But he’d just gone a round with her father and could afford to be patient and charitable. “Yes?”

“I told Jesse that I want to have a baby with him. With a doctor’s help,” she quickly added. “Artificial insemination, not…not sleeping together.”

He had not expected this and it took him a moment to process things. He realized she was waiting on him to respond. “When is this happening?”

“We’ve got an initial appointment to see a doctor in a couple of weeks.”

He slowly nodded, conflicted, processing. “May I ask questions of you about this?”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course.”

She had tensed in his lap to the point that she felt like a jagged ball of scrap metal, rusted, dull, trying to protect herself from what she surely thought would happen. She’d obviously expected a bad response from him.

He loved her too much for that.

No, this wasn’t something he’d expected to hear from her, but to be honest, he’d never expected to be in this situation in the first place.

To be in love with a woman who lived with her ex-husband and his husband and co-parented their child together.

Had he not known Jesse and Leo personally, this revelation might have struck him…well, might have pissed him off, actually.

But he had seen the love in both men, for each other, and for Eva and Laurel.

And to be fair, Jesse had known her first.

He carefully considered his next question before posing it. “Is this something you’re doing because you want to do it, or because he asked it of you?”

“Because I want to. It was my idea. I asked him about it. Him and Leo. Leo had to sign off on it.”

“Because Jesse is his slave?”

“No, because he’s his husband and it affects everyone in our pack.”

“How will Leo and Jesse feel about me being around and being in a relationship with you while you’re pregnant?”

“They like you a lot, Nate. They’ve signed off on you.” She snorted. “They keep asking me if we’ve talked yet and moved forward.” Her tone softened. “They worry about me.”

He worried about her, too. “You’re not being coerced in any way to have a child with him?”

“No! They would never do that.”

“Leo has full legal custody of Laurel. You can see why I would ask that.”

She hesitated. “No,” she said. “Nothing like that. That was…” She shuddered. “That was what happened to protect Laurel after Leo’s accident. And it was partly my idea, anyway. I wanted it that way.”