“I don’t know. Maybe just wait and see how late we end up being there. If it’s too long, we might want to just go home instead of driving all the way back out here for just one night.”
“Why don’t we just plan on staying there then? Otherwise, I may pack up all their stuff for nothing.”
“Okay, love. If that’s easier.”
She nodded and finished their bagels, slathering each with a healthy coating of the cream cheese. Though they had many of the things they needed for the girls here as well as home, other things had to be transported back and forth. It was easier to plan when you had the girls in tow. Their days of flying by the seat of their pants ended before she and he even began since she arrived with three children and almost immediately, there were two more on the way.
They finished their bagels and Tucker went to shower while she stuck the girls in the tub and got them washed up, putting them in a set of new spring dresses she had bought for them earlier in the week. They were all the same, but each was a different color. They looked pretty in pink, and blue, and yellow. Each wore the bracelets she had purchased for them, though her triplets were not identical and easily identifiable without them. The bigger problem was that there were so many children at the club these days, it was hard for others to remember their names. The bracelets helped quite a bit and she’d noted that several of the other families had followed her lead with similar jewelry of their own.
By the time Tucker returned from getting ready, she was sitting in the middle of the bed with them piled all around her, playing with the ragdolls he had given them as a surprise not too long ago. Each one had hair the same color as its owner. Ella had a brunette. Sable had a blonde and Hannah had a redhead. She understood the dark brown hair of Ella’s, which was much like Blane’s, and Sable had the same straw-colored blonde shade as herself. Where the red hair came from was a complete mystery, however. It was something she considered often while she was braiding their hair, like she was doing now.
“Do you need some help with them?” he asked.
“I think I’ve got this under control. You want to pack up their things in their room?”
“All over it.”
Finished with the girls’ hair, she sat them on a pallet in the floor with their dolls and finished getting dressed herself, pulling on a pair of maternity shorts and a smocked summer top before pulling her long hair up in a ponytail and dotting on the tiniest bit of makeup. Within the hour, they were ready to go. Tucker returned with the girls’ diaper bag and triple wide stroller to help her get them all out to the car. It was shaping up to be a lovely Sunday already.
“I’m so looking forward to this,” Tucker told her. “It will be the first day that everyone has truly come together as a pack and spent a day just enjoying each other’s company. This is what I always wanted our pack to be, not some motorcycle gang roaring around and showing off for the community but just a huge family with gatherings like this.”
“Well, you’ve made it that way. Perhaps this was your fate. All that time you took to get out and explore the world and get to know yourself was perhaps part of the journey to bring back to your home and make it what you’d always wanted it to be.”
“Maybe. I wish that I could somehow do that for you, give you that sense of family that you missed out on when you were younger.”
“You have. None of that matters anymore now that I’m with you. I hardly give it a second thought.”
“You are just as much a part of this pack as anyone else. Being born into a pack doesn’t always mean you belong there. Marshall is proof of that.”
Leslie smiled and put her hand on top of his, turning to look out the window as they drove the rest of the way to the clubhouse. She was looking forward to the day. It had taken her a while to warm up to the pack, especially after her initial encounters here, but with the bad seeds gone, the pack had since embraced her and, in turn, she had come to feel like a part of them and not just a part of Tucker that they tolerated because he was the Alpha.CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXThe place was already packed when they arrived. Tucker pulled out the stroller and began lifting the girls out of their car seats and placing them into the seats within it. They all giggled, reaching up to touch his face as he moved them. “Da! Da!” they screeched, wanting to be held, but he just kissed them on the noses and put them in the stroller anyway. They were beginning to pull up and walk on their own, but it was easier to get them into the play area of the club with the stroller and then let them play in one of the many walkers that were stacked in the large closet built for storage, or to let them crawl on the carpet and play with the other babies.