A Grey Wolves Howliday (The Grey Wolves #14) - Quinn Loftis Page 0,1

innocence of youth. He wore the lines of worry on his brow, and he smiled less easily. But he was still her Fane. The boy who’d stolen her heart was now the man who held it captive. “We’re not cancelling Christmas or anything else,” she said, her hand gently patting his cheek. “We will all just walk on eggshells while we wait for Jen’s crazy retaliation plan to reveal itself. Then, in twenty years, we will think back and laugh.” Fane didn’t look convinced that he’d ever find anything Jen would do funny … ever.

“I’m going to have to order more eggnog and rum.” He stood more gracefully than a man his size should be able to.

“You and Costin are just going to have to man up,” Jacque told him and then laughed when he growled at her. “Put on your big boy wolf undies.”

“Thank you for giving me the image of Costin in his wolf form wearing a pair of boxers. Just what I wanted to picture this morning.”

“How do you know they’re boxers? He may be a briefs wolf, or even, gasp, a bikini brief.”

“If what you’re talking about wasn’t so disturbing, I might be angry that you’re thinking about Costin and his underwear,” Fane rumbled before heading to the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower and try to wash these images out of my head. Thank you, Luna, for the encouraging pep talk.”

Jacque laughed as the bathroom door closed a little harder than necessary. “Your daddy is afraid of whittle ol’ Aunt Jen.” She looked down at Slate. “To be fair, your Aunt Jen is bat-shniz crazy.” Slate just blinked, then grinned and patted her boob. Yes, Jacque would definitely be happy when only one male was once again laying claim to her girls.

*****

“Why in the ever-loving world would you and Fane dye Thia blue?” Sally asked as she helped Titus pick out his clothes for the day. Sally was excited to find out that her little man loved Christmas as much as she did, and he enjoyed wearing anything Christmas themed. She might have gone a little overboard on the festive sweaters and adorable Christmas plaid pants … and the red-and-green pajamas. Okay, she could be honest with herself. She’d gone past “oh, that’s kind of a lot,” to “you’ve got a holly jolly problem.”

“Why did you and Jacque steal her to begin with?” Costin challenged as he paced their suite. He’d been doing that since he’d gotten dressed an hour before.

“We were probably trying to rescue her from Jen’s craziness.” Sally stood back and looked at Titus and grinned. “I’m digging that ugly sweater, dude.”

He smiled up at her. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Bad enough to annoy Aunt Jen,” Sally said.

Titus held up a hand to give her a high five. It turned out her son had a little payback streak in him. He’d figured out a few things that really got on Jen’s nerves, and he exploited them ruthlessly. Sally and Costin probably shouldn’t encourage it, buuuut, Jen deserved it. They’d have to make up for this failure in other areas of parenting, like excellent hygiene. That’s a good thing to teach a kid, right? Sally nodded to herself. Totally makes up for encouraging him to annoy Jen.

“Are you listening to me, Sally-mine?” Costin’s voice pulled her from her parenting pat on the back.

“Yep, right here with you, um…”—her brow rose—“…and I totally agree.”

Costin stopped pacing and turned to look at her. “You agree we should go spend Christmas with your parents?”

“What? No. Are you crazy? Jen would skin us alive. Besides, my parents will probably come here on Christmas Day. They’ll want to see Titus open his presents.”

“I thought you were with me and totally agreed,” he said with a knowing smirk.

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t listening, I was thinking about what awesome parents we are.”

“And humble, too,” he added, his dimples making an appearance when he grinned at her. Man, did she love those dimples.

“Just wear an ugly Christmas sweater, daddy,” Titus offered. “Aunt Jen can’t stand to look at them. She’ll tell you to leave the room when she sees it. She said it was an insult to the awesomeness of Christmas.” He said this with so much glee that both Sally and Costin laughed.

Sally’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and saw a text from Jen. Celebration committee meeting in five minutes. Don’t be late. “There’s a celebration committee?” Sally said as she looked