Quinlan: Foster’s Pride – Lion Shapeshifter Romance (Foster's Pride Book 3), Kathi Barton [management books to read TXT] 📗

needs to be seeing this place and thinking about the death that occurred here. Especially not those young boys. Who I like, by the way.”

“I’ve not met them yet.” She nodded and didn’t continue. Nor did she seem inclined to tell him anything else. “What are you not telling me? Just tell me, Parker. You look like you have a fart crosswise, and it’s paining you.”

“You Foster men. I do have something to tell you, but I think you might well be aware of it already. She’s your mate. Also, the kids are Robin’s. I’m assuming that was why you were coming out here.” Cass told her about one of the boys calling him. “They’re not speaking. Not to any of us. When asked how the man had gotten into the house, they clammed up tighter than you can be when you’re on a case.”

“Are you thinking they might have let him in and are feeling badly for it?” She said she knew that was what had happened. “Are they hurt? Where is Sarah? I know you said she was taken to the hospital, but the young cop told me she’d started to heal. I’m guessing either you did something to her, or it was me being her mate.”

“You. The kids were hurt, but not terribly. That is what I’ve been working up to. He’s been bullying them all along. Making them let him in the house when she’s not at home. Or worse yet, when she’s sleeping. I’ve heard of this happening before, but this guy would take pictures of her sleeping. The boys are sick with it, the worry that they caused their mother to nearly die. Which she did, by the way. They need to be sat down and told what the hell is going on. Also, they weren’t the least bit afraid of you showing up as a big badassed lion. I guess their mother told them what you were.”

“Yes. I’m assuming so too. The one that called me, he knew what I was. When I told him to hide with his brother, he just dropped the phone and bugged the hell out. I wonder how they knew to call me.” Parker said his phone number was by the phone when she’d gotten there. That Sarah must have written it down. “And they were supposed to talk about us coming to meet them.”

“Sounds about right.” She asked him where he was going now. “I’m guessing the hospital. If so, I’d like to ride along. I want to check on the boys as well as Sarah. You’ll have to talk to her soon, and I would like to be there in the event she has any questions about the magic I can only assume she got.”

“Why? I mean, other than mine, you’re assuming she got something from you as well?” Parker nodded but didn’t look very happy. “What happened, Parker? Am I going to be afraid of her when I go see her? To be honest with you, I’ve only ever seen a picture of her and the boys. Not to mention the one of her was slightly blurry, and the boys were just school pictures. Those never show what a child really looks like.”

They spoke all the way to the hospital. By the time they arrived, he was ready to go back to the house and wait. Nothing, he thought, could have prepared him for the shit Parker knew about his mate and children. Nothing that would have been on paper anyway.

“She had this good life—a wonderfully supportive family—and Robin took it all away by taking her from her date, who he killed, then raping her. The fucker then shot her three times in the chest and left her for dead. If not for the police being called when they were and them knowing about the death of Dennis, her then boyfriend, it might well have been too late for her.” Cass listened to Parker, but his mind was centered on the fact that she might well have died twice before he would have met her. “As it turned out, Robin found out that she was alive and tormented her for the next several months. When she found out she was going to have his child, they faked her suicide, and she moved out here to raise them on their own. I’m going to have someone notify her family that she’s safe now, as soon as we can get her and the boys together.”

He was as ready as he’d ever been, he supposed when he knocked on the door to her room. Even as he opened it, he could hear crying. The children were on the bed with her, and Robby was sitting in the chair. All four of them looked like they’d been talking and crying for some time now.

~*~

Quin watched his brother tangle with the pretty little blonde. She wasn’t like the other women in the family. She was outspoken, but it was tempered with her pain. The little boys, Toby and Mike, seemed to be watching them too. They looked like they were watching a tennis match with their blond heads going back and forth between the two of them.

“How about we go get some lunch?” The boys, who he was talking to, nearly leapt at him when he spoke. “I think we can do better than hospital food. How would some pizza or burgers sound? Or better yet, we can hit some of the kinds of places that cater to people with a larger range of tastes.” They both looked at him oddly. “Or not. What do you want?”

“Are you going to be our uncle?” Quin hadn’t thought of it but told them he was. “Okay, you might want to remember that we’re only kids. We don’t have a range of tastes. Just burgers is good. We had pizza last week, and neither of us liked it all that much.”

“Really? What did it have on it?” Toby, the one that seemed to