Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(97)

“Thanks, hon.” Lilli wrung out a small stack of hot towels and handed them to Adrienne. She took them and headed back to Shannon.

She could hear Joey screaming from the hallway. When she got into the room, Shannon was crying, Tasha had Joey, who was going off like a fire truck. Tasha was trying to get Shannon to calm down enough to get her top and bra all the way off. Then Lilli came in with the freshly warmed bottle, and Shannon sobbed harder. Millie, who’d been quietly dozing on Adrienne’s shoulder, began to fuss, too.

Lilli pushed through everybody and squatted in front of the chair Shannon sat on. “Shan! Get hold of yourself!”

“Lilli, come on. Back off.” Tasha got Shannon’s top off.

With a flashing glare at Tasha, Lilli said, “No.” She turned to her weeping friend. “Shannon. Pull it together. You’re not helping yourself or your kids. Take a breath and let us help. Come on. You can do it.

You’re not alone here.”

Adrienne watched as Shannon, her deep blue eyes—the eyes Adrienne had inherited—focused on Lilli, began to control her breathing. As Lilli held her hands and breathed with her, Tasha gave Joey the bottle. He took it readily, and Tasha turned to Adrienne.

“Can you lay a couple of these towels on her chest?”

Millie had settled to sleep as soon as the room began to quiet, so Adrienne went up and, with her one free hand, opened a couple of very warm, damp towels and laid them on her birth mother’s breasts.

Shannon sighed at the contact and calmed markedly.

“Good.” Tasha stepped up, still feeding Joey. “If you can, Shannon, try to massage your breasts over the towels.”

Shannon did, easing her hands from Lilli’s grip. After a few minutes, it was obvious that her milk had let down. Tasha handed Joey back to his mother, and he most enthusiastically returned to his preferred method of feeding.

Shannon looked up at the women around her, her eyes glittering with a calmer kind of tears. “Thank you.”

Adrienne’s heart felt squished and stretched. In the midst of what could be devastating trouble, these women—all of them, including Adrienne herself—had dropped their cares and come together to help one of them through a small, intimate crisis. Cory, too. Though she was not in the room with them, she was caring for all the other children, freeing Lilli to help her best friend. They were a team, united in time of trouble perhaps even more tightly than in time of gladness.

They really were a family.

Joey ate well. When Shannon turned him onto her shoulder, he gave a robust belch, and the women all laughed. Lilli took a sleepy boy from his mother, and Shannon got herself dressed. As she was buttoning her last buttons, Lilli’s phone rang. Then Tasha’s. Shannon’s. And Adrienne’s.

The women stared at each other. Then, as one, they answered their phones.



oOo



Even though Badger had called an hour earlier to let her know he was okay and would be home as soon as he could, Adrienne was sick with anxiety. Lilli, Shannon, and Tasha, all having gotten similar calls, looked no calmer than she did.

She guessed it was a holdover from those silent hours before. It was as if knowing they were coming home had released the terror they’d been fighting to keep at bay. Until the men were physically with them, none of them would find ease.

The children, though, had finally succumbed to their bodies’ demand for rest. The Hall had gone quiet, human and canine youths heavily slumbering. Millie and Joey, both fed and changed, slept peacefully in their matching carriers. The women and the Horde present all sat together at the bar and waited.

Finally, the front door opened, and the men came in. Isaac first, limping more heavily than Adrienne had seen before. Lilli stood immediately and went to him. He folded her up in his arms. Show was next, at the bar, pulling Shannon to him before she could even get up. Then Len. He took Tasha by the hand and pulled her to the side, and they held hands, staring at each other.

Badger came in last. Adrienne was on her feet, waiting, her heart in her mouth. He came straight for her and lifted her off the ground. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and he held her so tightly she thought she might bruise, but she didn’t care. She tucked her face against his beard and held him just as tightly.

Her eyes closed, absorbing as much of the feel and smell of her man as she could, she barely heard Isaac’s voice. But Badger turned and focused on him, and Adrienne lifted her head.

He sounded old. “We need to meet early. Since everybody’s here, let’s stay here. Reconnect, get a few hours’ rest. We’re in the Keep at nine. Thumper, get some women in here to cook breakfast in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, Isaac led Lilli down the side hallway toward his office, where Gia and Bo were already sleeping with Kodi. Badger, still holding Adrienne, walked them down the dorm hallway. He had not yet spoken.

“Are you okay, Badge?”

He shook his head. “I need. I—I need so bad. I need.”

That scared her a little. Badger could get pretty rough when he was feeling intense like this. But she understood his need, and that only she could help him. So she clutched him more tightly and put her lips to his ear. “Okay. Okay.”

He got her into his room and closed the door. As he set her down, he asked, “Is Hector here?”

“He fell asleep in the Hall, in a pile with Max and Penny.” Penny was Len and Tasha’s pup. “I think Kellen was going to sleep on the couch out there, so he could keep an eye on them.”