The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(9)

Her job now was to keep working toward whatever that meant. To learn how to silence her past for good and try to focus on the future.

She’d survived a lot in her life.

She could survive this, too, with her family walking beside her.

Her pack.

And it did kind of feel like that. Sometimes the three of them would sit on the couch to watch TV, with her between the men and Laurel stretched out in their laps.

They were a pack.

It would be an exceptional man indeed who could not only make it through Tilly’s high standards but pass muster with Leo and Jesse as well.

Then, if all those barriers were successfully crossed, there would be the Typhoon Laurel test. With Laurel nearly seven, if whoever wanted to be a part of Eva’s life couldn’t deal with Laurel—or if Laurel hated them—it was finished. Eva would never have anyone in her life who couldn’t accept the complicated package deal that was her pack.

Oddly enough, she was finding herself okay with that admission. It no longer triggered panicked, what-if thoughts in her brain that maybe she’d spend the rest of her life alone.

Maybe what she needed to do was learn how to be alone a little more.

Leo had lovingly sheltered her in countless ways, without either of them even realizing it at the time. He’d been the calm, the oasis, the stalwart fortress that kept her nightmares away, both the real and the imaginary ones.

He still was, him and Jesse both, except they didn’t share a bed with her.

Tomorrow night, though, for the first time since Leo’s accident, she wouldn’t have a man in the house.

Tilly would be spending the night, but while scary in her own right, Tilly didn’t count as a man.

One of her men.

From when Leo was in the accident, until the men had permanently moved in with her, either Jesse or both men had been there at the house with her at night—if she wasn’t working a night shift, that was.

Tomorrow night, Jesse and Leo would spend their first night married at Lucas and Leigh’s, out in their pool house apartment. It would only be the one night, because Jesse and Eva both had to work Tuesday. Laurel would have to go to school Monday. Leo would need to handle stuff Monday at work, meaning Jesse would spend a chunk of his first day married in Leo’s welding shop, helping him with office work.

After the wedding tomorrow night, Tilly and a bunch of their friends were taking Eva and Laurel out to dinner and then coming back to the house with them to play all sorts of board games with Laurel, until the girl fell asleep.

Leo had arranged for Tilly to spend the night, not wanting Eva there alone.

Just in case.

She loved him for it, even though she knew she’d be okay. Would she cry?

Yes. Absolutely. Hardly a day had passed since Leo first moved out that she didn’t cry at least once between crawling out of bed in the morning and collapsing back into it at night. Even more so once Leo had the accident.

But…she felt herself slowly mending, little by little, from the inside out.

She had a lot of work to do on herself. With Leo, she’d thought she’d be okay and hadn’t bothered, shoving away any thoughts she didn’t like and focusing on him and then on Laurel.

It had taken all of this happening to realize she did want to change. She wasn’t happy with who she’d been for all these years.

Maybe, even with all the pain and tears, the kindest thing Leo had ever done for her was to divorce her.





Chapter Five


“ Mommy, it’s your turn!”

“Sorry.” Laurel had insisted on playing Hello Kitty Monopoly.

All.

Night.

Long.

Following the wedding, the lot of them ate dinner at a fondue restaurant, which had tickled Laurel to no end to realize she could play with her food. Now it was Laurel, Eva, Tilly, Loren, Leah, June, Eliza, Marcia, and Shayla crowded around their dining room table, keeping the girl occupied.

At least Laurel had started yawning, which boded well. With the time nearing nine o’clock, the little girl wouldn’t have much more stamina left.

Eva hoped.

Finally, by ten o’clock, Laurel was sound asleep in her bed and Eva and Tilly were saying good-night to everyone.

The women collapsed on the couch in front of the TV. “I never thought she’d go to sleep,” Eva said.

“It was all the caffeine from the chocolate at the fondue place,” Tilly said.

“And the sugar from the cake earlier.” The men had cut Laurel a large corner of wedding cake, making sure she got plenty of frosting on it.

She was definitely a daddy’s girl.

Or would that be a daddies’ girl, now?

Eva was too tired to contemplate proper grammar.

“You doing all right?” Tilly asked.

Eva took a long, slow, deep breath and let it out again. “I think I’m doing better than I thought I was going to. Thank you for spending the night.”

“No worries. You have cable and Internet. I’m good.” Tilly grinned. “Besides, it’s still early in Hollyweird.”

“Are you seriously working? I thought I heard Landry order you to take the weekend off?”

Tilly’s grin widened. “Puh-lease. He’s my husband, not my owner. He doesn’t get any say in my work. I get to decide that.” Her smile faded. “Okay, seriously. Are you okay?”