“Finally, after a while, I started to come back to myself. To look around. I realized I was still living, and there was nothing to be gained by my acting otherwise. My children had lost their father, they didn’t need to lose their mother, too.”
She paused. “Jonas, would you mind fetching an old lady a beer?”
“Not a bit, Miss Latisha.” He brushed his lips over her cheek and hurried off.
“Oh, he’s a smooth one all right.”
“I don’t know, you’re the one who’s already made him fall in love with you,” Cindy pointed out with a grin.
Latisha just winked at her as Jonas returned with a beer for her and a hard lemonade for Cindy.
When she’d taken a couple of sips, Latisha sighed. “My kids were asking me to move in with them, or at least nearby. But they’d both joined other packs, one in Northern California and one in Florida. How was I supposed to choose?”
“No favorites, huh?” Jonas asked.
Latisha backhanded his arm lightly. “They’re both good kids. Both have good mates. Good packs. Well, one I had no interest in joining, truth be told, but the other…it’s a good pack, but it just wasn’t meant to be my new home. I knew it. Just like I knew it was time to move on. I didn’t want to be in the place we’d raised our family together. Be there alone, I mean. Even though my pack is great, and I have some family out there, it’s too easy to lose myself again, in the day-to-day habits I’m so used to.”
Jonas stiffened beside Cindy, enough that Latisha noticed and paused.
He looked at Cindy, who assumed that meant that Brenda had entered the room. How he’d known it was her, she couldn’t guess, but it didn’t matter.
She touched the other woman’s arm. “Please, we want to hear the rest.”
Latisha eyed them speculatively, then nodded. “Well, when I heard about this new pack, I thought why not come and take a look?”
“And what you do think so far?” Jonas asked.
“Well, so far I’ve really only talked to you two, so I’m not quite ready to judge yet.”
The twinkle in her eye said differently, and Jonas grinned. “Aw, come on, you know you want to join us. Let me introduce you to my parents. They’ll convince you to stay.”
“They don’t want the honor of being the oldest members of the pack?” Latisha guessed.
“Exactly.”
Cindy shook her head, amused at their byplay. “First, why don’t we check out the food table. There’s some good stuff there, if I do say so myself.”
“Jonas said you put this whole thing together,” Latisha said as they made their way to the food. “It’s beautifully done. So colorful and cheerful.”
“Thank you so much. I had help getting it all put up. And help with the food. You have to try these cranberry and brie crostini. They’re a new recipe I was trying and they turned out really well.”
She didn’t have to try to track Brenda through the house, all she needed to do was watch Jonas, as he kept an awareness of the woman. She tugged on his sleeve, then gave him an exasperated look. “Leave it alone.”
Bill and Joe came up to the table to get plates of food, and Cindy introduced them to Latisha. She needed to meet more people, and give the rest of the pack a chance to get to know the wonderful woman. She glanced around the room to see Adam and Thomas talking to two young ladies, and Olivia and Tasha talking to a woman who appeared to be about Cindy’s age. Candace and Robert were chatting with the Changs. Jen and Myra were talking to Brenda, so Cindy nudged Jonas. “Why don’t you go talk to her, see what you think? I’ll save her for later, and you can get an idea of her without me there to color it.”
He frowned at her, but didn’t reply. Trying to decide what was best for her, she knew.
“Seriously, I think that would be smartest. I’m going to go see who’s talking to Olivia and Tasha.”
“Fine.”
She pulled lightly at his shirt, drawing him down to her. “Open mind,” she whispered almost soundlessly.
He kissed her. “Fine.”
Letting him go, because this time he sounded like he meant it, mostly, Cindy headed over to the Keoghs.
They introduced her to Janet, a banker from outside of Boston. It only took about three minutes for Cindy to decide that Olivia and Tasha weren’t fans of Janet’s, and two more to decide she felt the same. But she determined to give it more time than that, to try to see past her instinctual dislike.
