“Yeah?”
“She said that the girl at the bed-and-breakfast you stayed at is knocked up.” There was no missing the outright accusation in his sister’s tone.
A chill went down his spine. “What?”
“She called looking for you, because she said that the girl who works at the bed-and-breakfast ispregnant.” Elsie’s cheeks were bright pink, her eyes glittering with outrage.
Everything in Wolf went still. “What exactly did she say? And why did she tell you?”
“Oh, she’s fit to be tied. She said that Eli had to stop her from coming down here and castrating you. Because she’s sure it’s you.” Beneath Elsie’s rage, he could see fear. Like she didn’t want to believe it. And his stomach went sour.
“Whydid Sadie call?” he asked.
“She said she went over to the bed-and-breakfast this morning, and...the girl, Violet, was sick. And she won’t admit it. But Sadie thinks she’s pregnant.”
“So Violet didn’t say she was pregnant?”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
He could feel Hunter and Sawyer staring at him. He looked over at Sawyer. “Shut your fucking mouth,” he said. “You don’t have any right to make a comment to me.”
“I didn’t say a damn thing,” Sawyer said, raising his hands.
“I will,” Elsie said. “Sadie said she’s twenty-two.”
“I...”
“Is it yours?” Hunter asked. “I mean, did you sleep with her, Wolf?”
He looked at the round of judgmental glances he was getting. “Yes,” he said. The world was spinning now, and he couldn’t quite find the right of it. “But she should have called me. She would’ve called me.”
“Did you leave her your number?” Hunter asked.
“Theyhave it,” he said.
“So you went and stayed with our cousins,” Sawyer said, “who put you up in the bed-and-breakfast, and you went and got one of their friends pregnant.”
“She’s not really their friend. She works for them. And she... I don’t have to justify myself to you,” he said to Sawyer. “You knocked up some girl that you slept with at a bar, and had to find a wife to help raise your daughter, because you didn’t even know the girl well enough to make a relationship with her.”
“You have to go back,” Elsie said.
Everything in him denied it. Just for a moment. Because he couldn’t imagine...
She couldn’t be pregnant. It wasn’t true. That was what he landed on. That was what he decided.
“Sadie’s wrong,” he said.
“So there’s no way she could’ve gotten pregnant?” Hunter asked, his gaze direct.
“These things can always happen,” Wolf said, his tone flat. “But it’s unlikely.” And even as he said that, he was damn sure it was a lie. Because he’d done his best to have amnesia about some of the things that they’d gotten up to... But...the fact remained, he hadn’t been as responsible as he was with... Well, anyone else.
You were careless with her. You were careless with Violet Donnelly, even though you knew that you had to be extra careful with her. She was young, she was a virgin and you the hell know better.
“I’ll go. I’ll go and I’ll talk to her.” He wasn’t going to call. He wasn’t going to call and say that Sadie Garrett had called him in a fit of pique and told his sister on them. No, he sure as hell wasn’t going to say that.
“You better get your ass out of here right now,” Sawyer said.
He looked at Elsie, who was giving him a stubborn look. “Men are disgusting,” she said.