It seemed strange meeting in the Silver Hall when it was all decorated for Christmas. The business at hand seemed too onerous to suit the occasion.

Laurel and the white wolf were in the house, CJ figured when he didn’t see them. “I’m going to check on the women.”

“All right, CJ. We’ll wait while you ask them to join us,” Darien said.

CJ stalked out the door and headed along the path to the house. When he walked inside, calling out to Lelandi to let her know he was there, she replied, “We’re in the sunroom.”

He hadn’t made it two steps before Laurel ran out of the sunroom, raced across the living room, and threw herself into his arms. She was crying tears of joy. The only way he could tell was that she was smiling at him.

He hugged her tight, suspecting the white wolf was her aunt, and Laurel was glad to know Clarinda was alive and well. “She’s my aunt,” Laurel confirmed, choking on the words. “Ellie and Meghan are on the way.”

“Happy, I take it?”

“Ecstatic.”

“I figure she had hidden her identity from an abusive mate.”

“Yeah. John Wernicke.”

CJ’s brows lifted. “Warren’s brother?”

“Yeah. John really was Warren’s brother. They had a sister named Charity, but she died from a fever the year before Clarinda arrived. Charity had never lived with Warren, so no one knew that Clarinda wasn’t his sister. Warren and John had had a falling-out about his treatment of his mate—my aunt. When she managed to run away, she took refuge in Warren’s home, praying he would take her in and that John wouldn’t find her.”

“She left three young sons behind.”

Laurel frowned up at CJ. “What? Oh God, no.”

“She knew her husband would kill her if she took his sons with her, so doing the worst thing she could imagine, she left them behind and pretended to be Charity.”

“Stanton and his brothers…” Laurel looked ill.

CJ didn’t blame her. “Come on. Let’s get your aunt, and we’ll all go to the meeting Darien’s having.”

They headed for the sunroom, and Laurel said, “I don’t want them as my cousins.”

CJ chuckled. “To get into the Christmas spirit, I thought we could have them over for Christmas dinner.”

She scowled at him.

He smiled and kissed her lips. “We’ll do whatever you want to do.”

“I want my aunt to have Christmas dinner with us. My sisters. Your brothers. And your cousins and their mates.”

“Deal. But if your aunt wants her sons to have dinner with us?”

Laurel growled. “Under coercion, I’ll agree. But against my better judgment.”

He smiled at her and tucked her under his arm as they walked together to join her aunt and Lelandi.

When they reached the sunroom, Lelandi was talking about the pack Christmas celebration and New Year’s party they were having and how much they wanted Clarinda to be there.

They grew quiet when Laurel and CJ entered the room. “Lelandi, Aunt Clarinda, Darien wants us to go to the hall to discuss the Wernicke brothers’ situation,” Laurel said. “Are they really your sons?” she asked her aunt, sounding as if she still didn’t believe it.

“I didn’t know they were here looking for me.”

CJ didn’t believe the brothers had been either. They were here to get what they thought was theirs: the title to the hotel. Instead, it had belonged to John’s mate until the pack took it over.

“Why didn’t you tell us who you really were?” Laurel asked.

“I didn’t know John was dead. He was a brutal man. I was certain he wouldn’t have changed how he acted toward me. I couldn’t risk involving you or your sisters, or your mate either. It was just safer that way. Had I known he was dead, I would have told you the truth.”

“I’m so sorry for all that you’ve suffered,” Laurel said.

“It’s in the past. Now I’m reunited with my sons and my nieces, and I don’t want that ever to end.”

“Agreed.”

But CJ didn’t think it would be an entirely happy family reunion.

As soon as Meghan and Ellie arrived, they walked into the hall, where everyone turned to watch them. Darien joined Lelandi and pulled her into a hug, and Laurel loved how affectionate he was with his pack leader mate in front of the pack.

Clarinda took a seat, but everyone else remained standing, tense and alert as Darien said, “Ladies first. Clarinda O’Brien?”

“Wernicke,” Clarinda said. “I was mated to John Wernicke. He beat me so badly the last time, I miscarried our next set of twins. I did the only thing I could do. I abandoned my three four-year-old sons, whom John adored. I knew he’d never hurt them. I found refuge with John’s brother, Warren, knowing they were estranged. I assumed John would never look for me there. Warren loved me and wanted me for his mate, but we couldn’t be, not while John was still alive. Warren had a heart of gold. Elroy Summers was new to the area, and he thought to woo me, believing I was Warren’s sister.

“She had died in another city before I arrived in Silver Town, so I took on the role of his sister, pretending to have just arrived to help Warren by taking care of the household and budget. We made up this far-fetched story about how Clarinda O’Brien had lived there and run off. No one had ever ‘seen’ her, so we figured if John learned someone was living with Warren, he wouldn’t suspect it was me. Just their sister. As long as he didn’t come and see Warren and me. I wanted so badly to get in touch with my sons, but I was afraid John would learn of it and kill me for it.”

“What about Elroy Summers?” Darien asked.

“He made me the furniture—free of charge, which upset Warren since he loved me. He hated to pretend I was his sister. And he hated that I couldn’t mate him. Then Sheridan…” She glanced in CJ’s direction. “He somehow learned I wasn’t who I said I was. He sent me a blackmail note. I showed it to Warren, but I didn’t want him to pay Sheridan. I was certain Sheridan would keep asking for more money to maintain my secret. Then everything fell apart at once. Warren disappeared, and though I went in search of him, I couldn’t find him. I tried to manage the hotel, but then Sheridan sent me another blackmail note. I tucked it into the secret compartment in the highboy and ran.”

“Why would Elroy’s son think something was hidden in your chest that would cause problems for his dad?” Laurel asked.

“I suspect one of the two men—Elroy or John—killed Warren,” Clarinda said.

“Our father didn’t do it,” Stanton said. “You ran off and it had nothing to do with Dad being abusive. He never was abusive.”

“Not with you. But with me, he was,” Clarinda said gently.

“You lie. Dad said—”

“Your father told you what he wanted you to hear. That I was a bad mother. That I abandoned you because I didn’t want children. All lies. I loved you. Leaving you was the hardest thing for me to do. I wanted to die. But I wanted to live too, hopeful that someday I could hold you again in my arms as a mother would. I knew if I had taken you with me, I wouldn’t have gotten far. He would have killed me for sure.

“He adored the three of you. I knew he would raise you well. He poisoned you against me. I never could return to see you. And now he’s dead, but you’ve decided to believe what he said about me. I had hoped it would be otherwise. Despite not wanting to have to let you go, I’ve come to terms with this.”

“By rights, the hotel is still ours,” Stanton said.

“It would go to John’s mate, since he’s deceased, if she had paid the taxes, although we would have made arrangements to resolve the situation to everyone’s satisfaction if the MacTire sisters hadn’t already bought and renovated it,” Darien said. “That means Clarinda Wernicke would have owned it.”

“If I had owned it, I would gladly have given you the hotel, if my nieces hadn’t bought it with their hard-earned money and renovated it so beautifully. Not only that, but they had every intention of learning what had happened to me and bringing my murderer to justice. And so, the hotel is theirs. I didn’t know John had died recently or I would have already revealed who I was to them.”