“She’s our daughter,” Tom said.
“Which means what?” Cindy asked.
“Of course we’re proud of you.”
Cindy just waited. She wasn’t sure what had led Jonas to this path, but she trusted that he thought it would help. It certainly couldn’t make things worse, at this point.
Tom pulled in a deep breath. Cindy couldn’t tell if he had finally realized he’d made a mistake, or if he was considering his options. As Jonas had said, it wouldn’t be that difficult for them to drive to the city and get a motel. But Tom seemed hesitant to do that…so maybe there was some chance he was sorry for how things had gone.
“Your brother tells me that the business you’ve built is impressive. I don’t know much about that kind of website, but I know that building something like that from scratch takes a lot of hard work and skill. I’m proud of you.”
It shouldn’t still matter. Not when she’d just convinced herself that their opinions of her didn’t. And she wasn’t even sure how sincere he was. But, it did. Her throat tightened, but she managed to nod. “Thank you.” She wouldn’t give him more than that. He didn’t deserve it.
“This is just silly,” Dana said. She almost sounded like she might cry. “You’re our daughter, of course we’re proud of you. Why would you think otherwise?”
Cindy laughed. Actually laughed out loud, to the clear displeasure of her mother.
“Probably because you’ve done nothing in word or action to show her?” Jonas suggested. “Or, more likely, because your actions have actually shown her the opposite.”
“That’s not true at all. We’ve never told you we weren’t proud of you.”
“In a hundred different ways,” Cindy said.
“Of course we’re proud of you. You’re our daughter,” she repeated. “You were a good child, got good grades, and our alpha has mentioned more than once what a boon you are to your pack. I just don’t understand why you had to go away and do these things for another pack, instead of helping the pack that raised and supported you.”
Cindy couldn’t formulate an answer fast enough, and Dana kept going.
“You’ve always been too independent, even from a young age. You didn’t want or need our approval to do anything. You decided you were moving out of the pack and had all the arrangements made before you ever even said a word. You sent post cards from Europe before we ever heard you were going to go traveling.”
She could have mentioned that she’d stopped asking for advice or permission early on because she’d only received warnings about how her messing up would reflect poorly on the family. It was late, her parents had done as Jonas asked, and they all had a lot to process. She wasn’t going to try to fix their relationship standing in the living room right now.
“Why don’t you get your bags? We’ll make sure the guest room is ready,” she said.
They left without another word.
Jonas wrapped his arms around her and held on tight.
“I’m okay. Now, I’m okay. Better, even, because now I can finally just give them up as lost to me. Their opinion of me is no longer relevant to my life. Even if they manage to come back from this, I will never need their approval again. But it was nice to hear what they said, and sort of believe that they meant it.”
“I hate that you ever tried to make them proud of you. They’re disgusting.”
She smiled into his shoulder. “I don’t know if having you is helping me let go, or if I was just ready for it, but either way, this hug makes it all easier.”
The door opened again, but she wasn’t worried. She knew damn well the room was ready for guests. She showed them to it and bid them goodnight. It took her actually biting her lip, but she didn’t ask them if they wanted anything to eat or drink before she met Jonas in the hall and walked back to their bedroom.
Chapter Twelve
Jonas accepted a beer from Adam with a nod of thanks.
“Your in-laws are dicks,” Adam told him, continuing a conversation from earlier.
“Yeah. How they raised that sweet woman, I don’t know. And she swears her brother’s a good guy.”
He and Cindy had seen her parents off early the morning after their ambush, then Cindy had called Myra. Myra and Adam had arrived quickly, and they’d all tried to deconstruct what had happened. Jonas thought it was pretty simple. Brenda had screwed her parents over and they were too stupid to have realized it.
Adam’s question of why Brenda would want to join their pack still bothered him, but she wasn’t, so he figured it didn’t much matter anymore. Cindy considered the issue dealt with, and she and Myra had called the ladies of the pack and suggested a girls-only run. They’d picked a day and time when everyone was available, ditched the guys, gone out to a nice lunch, and then were driving to a new place, so they could explore. She’d texted just before he’d headed to Adam’s, to let him know that the exploring part was about to begin and she was turning off her phone.
Jonas was kind of bummed he hadn’t been invited. But there was football, and Bill was coming over to join them for the game, so that didn’t suck. Cindy had offered to make them some food, but he’d told her to plan a fun girls’ day and not worry, they could fend for themselves. He grabbed some frozen pizzas, Adam got the beer, and Bill said he’d bring chips and guacamole. They were set.
