The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(67)

Damn middle age.

Well, sadly, she suspected this might effectively settle the question about whether or not she could be a surrogate for Jesse and Leo. Yes, she wanted to, but she would be over forty by the time she’d be in a position to have another baby, and that started jacking her risks—and risks to the baby—even higher.

They could still use a third-party surrogate with her eggs and Jesse’s sperm, which was something Jesse had brought up. That she’d readily do. Raising a third child…she would happily do that. With all four of them to pitch in, it wouldn’t be a hardship. Actually giving birth to that third child might be problematic, though, and she felt guilty as hell about it.

She stared down at her belly, barely hidden under one of Leo’s old shirts. “Let me tell you something, pumpkin,” she said. “You have no idea how much this pack loves you already, but you sure did throw a monkey wrench into more than a few plans. You little stinker.”

She felt a faint kick and smiled, stroking her belly with her free hand. Usually the baby kicked a lot early in the morning and then settled down until she did in the afternoon.

Then it was like a soccer match in her uterus.

Sorry, football.

Laurel had been the same way.

This morning, though, the pumpkin wasn’t quite as active.

It’s getting pretty big in there. Not much more room.

She was also growing increasingly uncomfortable thinking of the baby as “it.” Rethinking her decision to be surprised might not be a bad idea. Her instincts told her it was a boy, just like her instincts had told her Laurel was a girl, but then again, a sonogram and an amniocentesis had confirmed that.

Not knowing meant not being able to buy a lot of baby stuff yet beyond some generic either/or onesies and blankets and stuff.

Hell, she and Nate still hadn’t decided on names yet, and it was difficult for her to do that when she wasn’t even sure of her baby’s gender. She hadn’t been able to settle on Laurel’s name until she knew she was a girl.

Her cell phone rang, getting her attention. It was lying on the coffee table. Rather than trying to lean forward and grab it, she hooked her toes under the coffee table’s edge and dragged it close enough she could reach her phone.

Her mom.

Ugh.

She thumbed the accept button. “Hello?”

“Hi, sweetie. It’s Mom.”

She bit back the sarcasm she wanted to spit at the woman and decided to keep it civil. “What’s up?”

“Well, Gayle and Ann asked about throwing you a baby shower.”

Fuck.

Tilly and the rest had already thrown her one…a kinky one. That had been three weeks ago, at Lucas and Leigh’s house. She’d accidentally let the baby news slip to Ann a few weeks ago during a phone conversation and knew swearing her to secrecy was pointless without a long, drawn-out conversation about why.

“I’m not having one, Mom,” she lied without feeling the slightest bit guilty. “I don’t need anything, but tell them thanks.”

“But…they really want to.”

“If they want to come down here and the three of us can go to lunch or something, I’m okay with that. But seriously, no baby shower.”

Her mom was quiet for a moment. “You know, your father would really like to see you and Laurel.”

Oh, hell no.

“That’s not going to happen.” Not over her dead body, or the dead bodies of her three men.

“He feels really bad about…what happened.”

Eve was unable to hold it back any longer. It felt like a dam crumbled inside her. “Feels really bad about which time, Mom? Him acting like an ass at the hospital and scaring the crap out of my daughter while Leo was lying in a coma in the ICU? Acting like a shit-head at Ann’s graduation party? When he—and you—treated me like shit while I was growing up and always threatened that I’d turn out to be a loser like my birth mother? Or when Dad f*cking molested and raped me when I was a kid because I reminded him of Michelle, huh?”

Dead silence.

“Why didn’t you ever stop him, Mom?”

Silence.

Eva looked and saw the call was still connected.

“What…what are you talking about?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You had to know what was going on, or at least have a suspicion. I know he didn’t do it to Ann and Gayle, but he never got over Michelle, did he? And how convenient, I looked just like her. And you were too damned scared to stand up to him, right?”

“I…I…”

“Don’t bother. Listen, if you honestly had zero clue what he was doing all those nights he came to my room, fine, I forgive you. But no, it’ll be a bloody cold day in hell before that manky sot sets eyes on me or my children ever again.”

Wow, I went Brit on her. Yay, me.

“Eva, I—”

“Just stop, Mom. Stop right there.” Now she felt the twinges of a tension headache starting. “I need to go. Good-bye.” She ended the call and tossed her phone onto the couch.

What would Nate have called that conversation? A cock-up, isn’t it?

How could a day that had started out so well with her not peeing her panties before crawling out of bed have turned tits-up so fast?

Maybe that was the term he used.