Marrying Her: The Keeping Her Christmas Wedding (The Keeping Her Series Book 5) by Kelly Lucille Page A

thing?

CHAPTER NINE
     
    Clytie did not expect
Thanksgiving to go off without a hitch.  Not with Essie, Eli, and Ben in the
same room.  You expected calm reason from Mac, or at least a calm silence, with
the occasionally scary or poignant statement from left field out of the
wolverine-shifter.  Demon liked to eat, even more so than most shape-shifters,
who it must be said could really put it away.  Roxy and Crow just seemed happy
to be clean and eating good food with people who were not going to make them
pay for it in some terrible way.  But put together the combination of Essie,
Eli, and especially Ben, and you knew it was likely to be a comedy of errors. 
It was guaranteed to be funny, true, but calm, not so much.  So it was with
some surprise that Clytie could look back on Thanksgiving as the last of the
truly calm days.  Before the coming of the Apocalypse. 
    With December well under
way, her energy dragging, and her body beginning to change, including strange
cravings, occasionally unexplained sickness, and bigger boobs, the pack
descended en masse.  And, while Demon was enjoying her slight weight gain and worried
that she was under too much stress if it was making her physically ill,
Cassandra was getting suspicious.
    The arrival of the rest
of the Lionsgate pack just one week from D-Day, except for Logan who a very
worried Miley said was still out hunting, had distracted Cassie somewhat, but
Clytie knew it couldn’t last.  If she didn’t tell her soon, she was liable to
guess and blurt it out at the worst possible moment anyway.  So with Miley at
her side, they took Cassie for a walk in the deep woods behind the house.  Eli
had the job of keeping everyone else away, and with so many shifters floating
about that was not an easy job.  To do it he called a meeting to discuss the
Logan situation, and Clytie asked Crow to help Roxy build a snowman in the
front yard.  Essie was taking a nap, so it was now or never. 
    December had hit with a
vengeance, and everywhere you looked everything was thickly painted white, and icy. 
The tromp of their snow boots sunk with a crunch even on the cleared paths, but
they persevered.  Cassie was vibrating in her pink cashmere sweater and thermal-lined
jeans.  Her boots came to the knee and looked amazing.  Whereas Clytie felt
frumpy in her work jeans, and over-large sweatshirt with the wax drips on it. 
Her boots were the kind you slipped on and came to just her calves.  They were
oversized and looked good on no one but the Eskimos, but Clytie loved them. 
They had fake fur inside that felt heavenly right about now.  Cassandra had to
be freezing, but Miley had on black snow pants that hugged her perfect ass and were
tucked into brown leather boots.  Her sweater was siren red and a soft wool
that fell to her hips in an artless way.  Her sense of style was just too much
to take sometimes.  She always looked part Hollywood star, part girl next door.
Walking between them was its own kind of torture when Clytie felt short and
dumpy and was retaining water.
    When they had tromped far
enough, they all turned and faced each other in a loose circle that looked like
the clandestine meeting that it was.
    “What is going on?  I
know you Clytie and you . . .”
    “I’m pregnant,” Clytie
threw it out there ,stopping her cousin’s tirade instantly.  She was just too
cold to draw this out.  “I’m keeping it a secret because I want to tell Demon
on Christmas morning.  I need your promise that you will not mention it to
anyone, even me until then.  I don’t want anyone overhearing and spilling the
beans.”  Clytie was getting it all out before the recriminations for not
telling her began.  She should have remembered who she was talking to.
    “You’re going to have a
baby?”  The shock was quickly replaced by joy and a hiccup of Cassie’s breath. 
Clytie watched her swallow with difficulty and lick her lips.  “When?”
    “End of