“Our baby,” she whispered.
“Good thing we picked a four-bedroom house plan.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cindy snatched up her squealing niece as the toddler hurdled forwards, arms stretched wide. “Hello, my lovely Sara! I’ve missed you.” Danny, her older-by-eighteen-months nephew, bounced around, waiting for his turn. She dropped down to her knees and pulled him in to join the hug.
She heard Jonas introducing himself to Bill and Juanita. She kissed both faces several times, then stood back. “Guys, do you want to meet my mate, Jonas?” Danny nodded solemnly and Sara ducked her head.
Jonas knelt down next to her. “Hi,” he said. “You must be Danny.” He held out a hand and Danny shook it enthusiastically.
“And you must be Sara.” He held his hand out, but Sara leaned in and kissed his cheek, then buried her face in Cindy’s chest. Cindy picked her up and stood, finally turning to her brother and his mate.
“Hey, kid,” Bill said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m happy for you.”
“Just for me?” she asked with a grin.
“Both of you,” he assured her.
“How about all three of us?” she asked.
His eyes went wide, and then he hugged her again, causing Sara to shriek in laughter from between them.
“Congratulations,” Juanita told her when she finally managed to get her own hug. “That’s fantastic news.”
“We haven’t told anyone yet, it’s very early days, so keep it to yourselves for now.”
They went into the lovely adobe house. Bill had offered to pick them up from the airport, but Cindy had insisted it was easier for them to rent a car. She had agreed that they’d stay a couple of nights, though, so Jonas carried their bag in as well.
Sara ran off to get her doll to show them and Danny countered with his teddy bear. They took turns with Cindy and Jonas, bringing in different toys until there was a small pile on the table and Sara was falling asleep in Jonas’ arms, having long abandoned her initial shyness.
Bill took the kids in for a nap and Juanita brought snacks to the table.
“All right,” Bill said when he returned. “Tell me what’s going on with Mom and Dad.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think you should talk to them about that.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“If they wanted you to know, they’d tell you.” She paused. “Why, what do you know?”
“You guys are third of your pack,” Jonas interrupted. “And according to our alpha, your alpha knows everything. Seems like he’d share that, especially with the son and daughter-in-law of the two people most affected.”
Cindy scowled at her brother. “Yeah.”
Bill’s lips twitched at that, but he didn’t laugh so she didn’t have to hit him. “I wasn’t sure you were in on all of it, and I didn’t want to pass along privileged information just because you’re my sister.”
Cindy rolled her eyes. She couldn’t exactly disagree, but still. Since she believed him, she gave a quick summary.
“Has Mom or Dad said anything to you about the money?” she asked.
“No. I thought about going to talk to them, but wanted to wait since you were coming, see what you think.”
“Now that we know what we know,” Juanita said, “it’s easy to see that they were anxious and upset the last few years. But they never opened up to us.”
Cindy scoffed. “Well, if they didn’t open up to you guys, we know they weren’t going to talk to me about it. At least they weren’t until the Brenda thing happened and they felt they had a reason to yell at me and that would help them.”
Bill shook his head. “They were under a lot of stress, otherwise I can’t imagine them thinking that was okay to do.”
