"Can we really do that?" Sadie asked when the video held on our logo, my wolf's eyes staring at all of us.
Leo shrugged. "It'd cost a good bit to do it, but is it doable? Yeah, I called the county's building offices today and double-checked the zoning for the area. There's no one out there to complain, anyway, but you never know. Maybe the land next to us sells and they build right along the property boundaries."
Sadie blinked at him and smiled, then looked up at me for an explanation in plainer language.
Leo picked up on it before I could try to unwind what he'd said. "What I mean to say is, the zoning is fine. I'd just suggest staying a few acres off the property lines, just in case neighbors settle in next to us. Or, in the future, we may even buy that parcel, too." He paused, then gave her an anxious look. I could smell the worry roll off of him, like a boy who'd just picked a flower for a girl he had a crush on. All this time later and some of us were still in the honeymoon period.
"I think it's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard of and that you did an incredible job with that," Sadie said, pointing at the laptop. "I just don't understand all of it. There were a ton of figures in there and some of them didn't make sense to me. Could we review it tomorrow at work and get started on it? I think I've got more resources, calculators, and things like that, inside my desk."
He nodded, closing his laptop and destroying the link between it and the television. A football game popped up, some rerun from years ago. I dragged Sadie onto my lap and nipped the spot where I'd marked her. "Think we should distract him from work?"
The way the color worked its way from her neck and into her cheeks delighted me. I slid her shirt over her head and began work on her bra. "Gabe, I think Tommy could use a nap. Don't you?" I asked him.
Sadie shivered and wrapped her arms around my neck. "I think Tommy’s had a very long, hard day."
"And hurry back down here," I told my cousin. "Before we forget to save you a spot."
Xavion and Leo joined us on the couch as Gabe grabbed our kid and ran upstairs. I made a careful mental note to invest in a decent screwdriver. We'd probably be breaking the frame on a lot of the furniture in the coming months and I didn't want to have to replace all of it just because the pack had enjoyed a party on them. Couches just weren't made like they used to be.
I lowered my head and kissed the top of the split between her breasts. Her sweet scent engulfed me and I closed my eyes, letting my fingers travel south, headed to a wonderful oblivion.
Chapter 20
Sadie
It took the better part of a year to finalize every plan we had for the lodge's transformation, but once we settled in, we moved like lightning.
Only in the last month of my pregnancy I'd had to stop helping, my alphas looking after me and the rest of the rescue while I lounged and scratched Carrie Ann's head. We recovered together, her surgery and my impending explosion of puppies, mostly through watching re-runs of Animal Planet feel-good pet shows.
I tucked my infant pups into their cribs, one right after another. Two girls, two boys, and none of us cared who had fathered who; though Xavion's son, Norrin, was darker than the rest and Leo's daughter, Analise, had his eye color. Jenelle and Caleb looked too much like both Gabe and Hudson, who favored each other anyway, to tell them apart. As a pack, we'd voted on names and it had been much easier that way.
I mean, until I delivered, we hadn't known that multiple alphas could father a litter. Most werewolves had one or two pups, that was it. But I'd been an oddity in my family, which was filled with a dozen aunts and uncles on either side throughout the generations. Maybe it just ran in my blood.
"Mommy, when they gonna be big enough t'hunt with the pack?" Tommy asked.
My brows raised down at him. "Is that the kind of thing we ask when people are in the house?"
He pouted, but I crouched down and whispered to him, "They'll be out with us by your next birthday. And maybe we'll all have a big romp in the woods, then. Would you like that?"
Tommy's birthday was only six months away, deep in the heart of fall. He beamed up at me and ran off, as young children tend to do, to tell his father. I watched him go, following him at a much slower step. I was still recovering from giving birth, a process that was so much more complicated when you were a shapeshifter, apparently. How many puppies had I delivered from rescue dogs and kittens from rescue cats? I knew the process deeply, intimately.
But it was different when it was you trying to catch your breath and bringing life into the world. I loved my kids, but I was pretty certain we were only doing that whole parade once, especially when we'd soon have four pups scampering around the house and Tommy to keep up with, too.
Then again, if someone had told me eighteen months ago that I'd be a werewolf, have pups of my own, and a pack of men who loved me, I would have laughed myself sick. You can never count on
