I shot her a quelling look.
“I’m kidding, Lennon,” she said, holding her hands up defensively. “The joint chiefs wouldn’t let me anyway.”
“Maybe you can start by talking to someone? Like a professional?” I asked.
My mother made a face. “Like a therapist? The president can’t have a therapist.”
“You ran a campaign on being pro-mental health,” I pointed out, rubbing at the headache between my eyebrows. “Besides, it’ll probably be good for you. Carter’s in therapy, I’m in therapy. Hells we can probably make it a family bonding time thing or something.”
That had her perking up.
“Like something on the books that we can do together?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I’d like that very much, and maybe McDaniels can spin the whole therapy thing in our favor too…”
I didn’t care how they spun it as long as she was getting the help she needed to let go of her guilt and learn how to cope with her grief.
“Come on,” I said, getting up from the bed. “The guys are waiting for me back in Dallas’s room and I’m sure they’d like to see you too.”
“I doubt that,” my mother shot back her expression turning sheepish. “They all seem scared of me.”
“They probably still think you’re going to send them to the Arctic or something. Maybe you can order food. They like food. And you know,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “With them here, your chances for a very cute grandbaby have just increasedexponentially.”
That stopped my mother in her tracks.
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve seen some of their baby pictures, courtesy of Brooks, and some of them were quite fat babies.”
Her gasp was full of delight. “Oh, you know I love a fat baby. You and your brother were so thin, I was worried that you weren’t getting enough from my breast milk and we were going to have to use formula, which I always say, fed is best, but I really wanted to…”
As she rambled on about my brother and me as babies, I felt myself smile a real smile for the first time in hours. I was pretty sure my mother was finally sold on the idea of the alphas who were a few floors down now.
“He’s out of surgery,” Maverick said, entering the new hospital room they had moved us into when my mother insisted they put Brooks into the same room once he was out of surgery. It was twice as large as Dallas’s old one and would be able to accommodate Brooks’ bed.
“And?” I asked from where I was perched next to Dallas, a plate of Italian food in my hand and a forkful of shrimp scampi halfway up to my mouth.
My mother had to return to the White House after ordering us food as promised and we were all watching pre-election news coverage as the country geared up to vote for their next president.
Normally I would be right there next to her, but she’d told me that there was nowhere else I should be other than right here with my pack, helping them recover.
“He’s going to be all right. The bullet nicked his spleen, so that’s gone now and he’s lost quite a bit of blood, so it’s good he’s got a twin brother in the house to donate…”
“Always happy to be of service,” Dallas said, giving a mock bow before melting into my side with relief.
“But he should make a full recovery.”
We cheered and I finally released the breath I’d been holding since Brooks began to bleed out after we took his vest off.
He was going to be okay and we were going to be okay.
And I was going to cry again, damn it, right into my shrimp scampi.
“Hey,” Dallas said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “It’s all going to be all right. We’re going to make it through all of this. Don’t cry into your food, it’s already salty enough.”
Despite the rush of emotions already washing through me, I laughed at his bad joke and speared a shrimp, shoving it into his mouth.
