“Dani doesn’t know yet either,” Sly said.
“I’m going with her and Kate to the mall in a week or so. Should I give her the news?”
“She mentioned your get-together. But no, I’ll tell her. For now, let’s keep it to ourselves.”
Hiding the news from Dani wouldn’t be easy, but if he wanted it that way... “Okay, let’s agree not to share our secrets for a few more weeks.”
“Works for me. All I ask is for you to give me a heads-up when you’re ready to share the information. I don’t want my sister finding out from someone else. What about Sophie? Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet. I guess I should call her tonight.”
“What are you going to say?”
Lana wasn’t sure. “I’ll come up with something. By the way, Sunday night I went to my parents’ for dinner, expecting to see them and my sister and her family. But no, my mother invited someone else without any warning. Care to guess who came to dinner?”
“Tell me.”
“Your favorite person—Cousin Tim.”
Sly swore. “Must’ve been one hell of a rotten evening.”
Lana recalled her cousin’s negative attitude and the bad things he’d said about Sly. During dinner, she’d sat as far from her cousin as possible and had attempted to ignore him. But having him there put a real damper on the evening. She hadn’t been able to enjoy Connor or Emma, and Grandpa Jake’s ribs could have been dog meat for all she’d noticed. “It wasn’t fun,” she said.
“I’ll bet he called me a bunch of names.”
“Among other things. He claims he didn’t poison your livestock.”
“Which is more than he ever told me.”
“That’s why I suggested he sit down with you and talk about it instead of running you off his land with his shotgun.”
“You said that to him?” Sly sounded incredulous.
She’d wanted to bolt and run instead but wasn’t going to admit it. “Someone had to.”
“I’ll bet he loved that. Now you have a taste of what I’ve put up with all these months.”
“I wish you two would work it out,” she said.
“You sound like Dani.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. When she finds out about the baby, do you think she’ll be happy?”
“Probably. We had dinner last night and she kept mentioning you. She believes we belong together.” By his tone, he was smirking.
If only—but she and Sly were too far apart on what they wanted. “She mentioned you’d had dinner together when she called last night.”
“What else did she say?” he asked.
“Nothing much, except you weren’t your usual self.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still in shock. It didn’t help that she kept nagging me about you.”
Despite the grudging words, she detected a teasing smile in his voice. “What did you tell her?” she asked.
“To butt out.”
Picturing that, she grinned. “Hey, are you interested in coming to my next doctor’s appointment?”
