The days stretched out and, despite their continued progress, they just couldn’t quite come up with a plan that would give them the advantage. It was finally Elizabeth who rerouted their thinking during a discussion between Aspen and Grant while she was nearby painting. It had become common knowledge by now that the two of them were a couple and even Amanda and Aspen had come to terms with it. They seemed to have gotten past their distrust of him, seeing perhaps how much he cared about Elizabeth, and finding no evidence to indicate he was crossing them.
Aspen was always present during his conversations on the phone with Saul. What he told the leader of the Dire Wolves was always very well planned, but he was growing impatient, not even wanting to wait the full six weeks he had given Grant to infiltrate the Silver Wolves. He had to slow them down, to buy time and that is what they were discussing when Elizabeth had piped up and suggested the one thing they hadn’t considered.
“Why not just blow them off the planet and be done with them?” she asked.
“What?”
“Blow them up. You know, explosives.”
Grant and Aspen looked at each other, even as Aspen shook his head from side to side.
“We don’t blow people up. No one here even knows anything about explosives.”
“Maybe not, but Grant has friends that know about them, I bet,” she said, looking at her lover knowingly.
“Do you?” Aspen asked, seeming to entertain the idea.
“Probably. I’d have to make some very careful calls, but that’s pretty major. There would be cops all over the place and they’d be snooping around here for answers. Can you really afford for them to be asking questions?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time they came here looking for explanations for something they can’t explain, but the fact that we’ve never been into anything like that might buy us a bit of credibility when they come around snooping.
“Reach out and see if you can get us an in with someone who can help us out with that. If you do, then we will work on how to even up the playing field by taking out some of them.”
“I don’t know, Aspen. I know we are desperate, but there are women and children in that clubhouse.”
Aspen frowned at him, considering this. For all his hardness, he wasn’t the kind of man that could put himself in the position of being responsible for the deaths of innocents.
“Just find out what you can. We’ll figure out if it is something we can do,” he told him as he stood and walked out.
Once he was gone, Grant glanced over at Elizabeth again. She was still painting, but there was something off about her. Though usually pale, today she seemed grayer than alabaster. He was worried about her.
“Are you okay, Elizabeth?”
“Yeah, I think so. I just feel a bit nauseous, like I’m going to . . .”
She didn’t finish her sentence, suddenly wracked over and heaving. Grant rushed over and pulled her hair back, holding it as she threw up in the trash can partly filled with sketches she had tossed out from where she had been drawing earlier before starting to paint from her final sketch.
“I didn’t think the sketches were that bad,” he teased as she finally seemed to ease up and sit back in her chair.
“Must be a stomach bug,” she told him.
“Could be. I would say it might be food poisoning, but I’d likely get slaughtered for suggesting such a thing about Aspen’s cooking.”
“Most likely,” she agreed.
“Come on. Let me get you to your room so you can lie down. Get some rest and maybe you will feel better.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Come lie down with me?”
“Sure. You know I will.”
The pair curled up for the night and Elizabeth seemed fine, with no more incidents of throwing up. Come morning, she seemed fine, but after attempting to eat breakfast, she was quickly back in one of the bathrooms letting it all back up again. Chalking it up to just a leftover from some sort of twenty-four-hour virus, she blew it off. However, when it continued the following day, she decided it was time to go get it checked out. Rather than going to see the family doctor, she just had Grant, flanked by several other members of the club escort her to the small clinic designed for quick in and out visits.
After some routine tests, the doctor called her back to his office. Grant went with her. Even in a doctor’s office, she was not considered safe and he had been just outside the door during her exam earlier. They sat, hand in hand, waiting for the doctor to take a seat and talk to them.
“Is this your husband?” he asked as he sat down.
Elizabeth blushed a little.
“No. He’s my boyfriend, but we aren’t married.”
“Well, you might want to consider that possibility as I’ve found the cause of your illness. You’re pregnant.”
“I’m what?” she shrieked, almost leaping to her feet in disbelief.
“Pregnant. About four weeks is my best guess. Of course, you’ll want to make an appointment with an obstetrician to confirm and set up routine visits during your pregnancy, but you are definitely expecting.”
Both Elizabeth and Grant sat there for a moment looking stunned. The doctor smiled at them and waved his hand.
“It’s okay, kids. Lots of folks have babies outside of marriage these days. It’s a shock to most of them when they find out. Maybe you were careful and are just in that tiny percentage that experienced a failure or maybe you weren’t careful enough. Your reactions tell me that you didn’t plan this. Whatever the case, this is where you are. So, make whatever decisions you need to and move forward.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Elizabeth said finally, shaking his hand as she stood to leave, pulling Grant to his feet since he seemed to still be in shock.
Outside the clinic and back in their car, away from the goons that were with them for protection, the couple discussed it a bit further.
“Aspen is going to kill us. No. Aspen is going to kill me.”
“No, he won’t. He likes you. And he will be happy that there is another Silver Wolf on the way.”
“Not a real Silver Wolf. You’re human and I’m a stray.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Regardless of originating clan, if you become a Silver Wolf then you are in it one hundred percent.”
“I guess we should have used protection.”
“Why? I didn’t think I could get pregnant. The curse didn’t just affect the blood born members of the pack. It affected anyone that was accepted by them. I didn’t think I could get pregnant either. Everyone thought that the curse was lifted when Amanda got pregnant, but then no one did so we thought it was just her.”
“I don’t know. A lot of variables in there. Neither of us is blood born into this pack.”
“I know what you are saying, but there are other couples just like us that have been going at it pretty hot and heavy in hopes they could get pregnant. Not one of them have.”
“I guess it is too late to worry about all of that now anyway. We did nothing to prevent it, so here we are.”
“Are you sorry?”
“I’m not.”
She looked at him and smiled. “Me either.” Elizabeth’s phone rang and she glanced down at it. “It’s Mom.” She said a few more words and then excitedly told him to turn around.
“What?”
“Turn around. Amanda is in labor. The doctor can’t get out to the clubhouse, so Aspen and some of the pack are taking her to him. We need to meet them there.”
Grant turned the car around and followed her directions to the doctor’s house. They were there before Aspen and Amanda, but it was only by a few moments. Aspen must have really been driving like a hell bound demon. No doubt it would slow down from there as they waited hours for the baby to be delivered.
What Grant learned though was that the Lowery family didn’t drag their heels in anything. Amanda spent less than an hour in the doctor’s private medical quarters before giving birth. Aspen emerged, all smiles, as he announced the birth of the newest Lowery.
“It’s a boy!” he said gleefully.