Chapter 44
forty-four
LACHLAN
“Good, you’re still here.” Lachlan peeked her head around to the receptionist’s desk and made eye contact with Abagail. “You need to hear this.”
“Hear what?” Abagail stood up and followed Lachlan, ignoring the receptionist she’d just been giving the third degree to.
They walked straight to Lachlan’s office, and she shut the door, but she didn’t sit down. She was giddy with excitement. She’d never thought that she might actually be able to get an answer just by asking a question. She’d assumed that everyone had been avoiding them.
“I have a patient in room three right now, she was Nathalie’s patient, but I’m taking over her care for right now because of…” Lachlan paused. Was she allowed to tell Abagail that Nathalie was pregnant? She couldn’t even remember at this point. “Because Nathalie’s pregnant, and this patient was due very close to Nathalie and had a miscarriage. Anyway?—”
“Wait! Nathalie’s pregnant?” Abagail’s eyebrow lifted up in surprise. “Seriously?”
“Yes, the point is, she’s my patient now. And she made a comment about how she’d wanted to tell us how sweet Nathalie had been with her when she’d told her that she miscarried, but that the survey didn’t have any room for that.”
“What survey?” Abagail asked.
“Exactly what I asked.” Lachlan pressed her lips together sharply, wishing that Abagail would just shut up so that she could get this out. “Apparently, there was a phone survey that called her and asked for her to fill it out. In that survey, it asked a bunch of questions, all about Nathalie and not about anyone else in the office. For shits and grins, I have another patient in room 4 right now, my patient. I asked her if she’d gotten the survey, and she didn’t.”
“So only Nathalie’s patients, and it’s skewed.” Abagail clenched her fists. “I want to talk to this patient.”
“I thought you might, so I asked her if you could, and she agreed. She should be getting dressed right now.”
“Perfect.”
Lachlan stayed with Abagail for the rest of the day as much as she could, fitting pieces of information together as they finally figured out exactly what was going on. She was late getting home that night, but she’d texted everyone and told them to meet at Nathalie’s after dinner because she had some news to share. When she finally walked into Nathalie’s house, she was greeted with expectant faces and curious glances.
“Well, hello,” Lachlan said with a light chuckle. Everything that day had been stressful, but in a good way. She’d managed to lighten the entire load that had been weighing down her shoulders.
“You and I are going to need to have a meeting after this family meeting,” Lachlan pointed at Nathalie.
“We are?” Nathalie asked.
“We are.” Lachlan pulled out a chair. “Will one of you make me a drink? I’ve been dealing with Abagail all day and I think my brain is about to explode with the to-do list that she handed me.”
Ivy immediately stood up and headed toward the liquor cabinet. But the rest of them stayed right where they were, including Greer. Lachlan couldn’t be happier that she was now being included on these conversations.
“First, for anyone wondering, I know how Nathalie keeps getting complaints and the rest of us don’t.”
“You do?” Nathalie sat heavily down in the chair next to Greer, her hands on the table, and all of her attention on Lachlan. “How?”
“Our new receptionist? We’re firing her tomorrow when she comes in.” Lachlan brushed her hand over her face. “Abagail will be there to supervise it because this is going to end up being complicated in the long run for everyone.”
“Why are we firing her exactly?”
“I was in with your patient today, the one from a few weeks ago that miscarried.” Lachlan was trying to be vague because Ivy and Greer were there.
“Right. Okay. And?”
Ivy set a drink down in front of Lachlan, and she snagged Ivy’s hand and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Thanks.”
“Any time, especially if I get one of those.” Ivy’s lips quirked upward in a smile.
Lachlan grinned. She loved that they were able to be so free with each other here. “She mentioned that she received a phone survey after her last appointment with you.”
“What? We don’t have those.”
“No, we don’t.” Lachlan pointed at Nathalie. “So Abagail and I did some digging. It seems that Penny is paying our poor receptionist to feed her your patients and their appointments and their personal information, and then Penny is feeding that into this survey, which then routes the information to us. Now, the survey is geared toward slandering you and you only.”
“Motherfucker.” Nathalie sat back in her chair heavily. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since we hired her, nine months ago.”
“Fuck.” Nathalie pounded her fist onto the table, causing Greer to jump in response.
Lachlan was about to say something, but Nathalie stood up sharply and paced the kitchen, back and forth. “Tell me what Abagail’s plan is before I add to it.”
“Well, first we fire the receptionist. That should take care of the survey issues immediately since it’s an outside program that we don’t have access to anyway and required communication from her to Penny.”
“All right.” Nathalie spun around, hands in fists at her sides. “And then I sue her.”
“Yes. Then you countersue her.”
“Like hell she’ll take my practice from me.” Nathalie snagged her phone and walked out of the kitchen, calling over her shoulder. “I’m calling the lawyer!”
Lachlan smiled at Ivy and Greer, the two remaining. “I figured she’d want to jump on that one.”
“Seems like you’ve had a busy day,” Ivy said, canting her head to her side. “How does this help my divorce case?”
“Harassment.” Lachlan shrugged. “She’s harassing your inner circle of support and it honestly might just distract her long enough that you can finalize the divorce.”
“But if Nathalie’s going to countersue her, then we’re still going to be involved legally with her for a while.”
“Unless she drops the suit for the practice.” Lachlan looked at her pointedly. “I’m willing to bet that if she drops the suit, then Nathalie will also drop hers.”
“You have met Nathalie, right? She can be vindictive when she wants to be.”
“Nathalie will also be distracted soon enough.” Lachlan hoped she was right about that one. But Nathalie was midway through her second trimester and hadn’t seen any issues in at least six weeks beyond the ordinary ones. Sometimes Lachlan wished she’d gone into obstetrics so that she could be the one at those appointments with Nathalie. Instead, she was stuck working with her every day instead. Not that that was a bad thing.
“The pregnancy’s going well, then?” Ivy asked.
Lachlan pressed her lips together. Nathalie really needed to start talking about things to everyone instead of just one thing here to one person and another to the next. They should implement family meetings every week, if not more often, just so they could catch up on things like this.
“It is,” Greer answered. “She can feel the baby move.”
“What?” Ivy squeaked. “Really?”
Greer nodded. “I, uh…it was a happy accident that I got to feel it.”
“Her,” Lachlan supplied. “The baby is a girl.”
Ivy clapped her hands together excitedly. “Really?”
“Yes.”
Ivy jumped out of her chair and wrapped her arms around Greer’s shoulders and kissed her loudly. “I’m going to be an auntie again.”
Lachlan paused at that. They’d called each other aunts to all the kids for years, though they’d never said that word directly to the kids or asked the kids to call them that either. Perhaps because their relationship with the kids was always a little closer than aunt to child.
“What?” Ivy asked, eyeing Lachlan. “What did I say?”
“Aunt…” Lachlan looked directly at her. “It just doesn’t feel quite right anymore, does it?”
Ivy paused, pondering that one. But Greer seemed to already have the answer in hand, and Lachlan was curious what she was thinking. “Greer?”
“Mother. You’re all their mothers.”
“What, like sister wives?” Ivy wrinkled her nose, and Lachlan laughed.
“No.” Greer chuckled in response to that one, shaking her head. “No, just like a mother. You all discipline, scold, love, and celebrate the kids. There’s no other word for it than mother. They give you all the same amount of respect when it comes to who you are in their lives—at least for now. When they hit teen years, they won’t respect any of you, so there is that.”
“Oh God, don’t make me think about that.” Ivy plopped back down into her chair. “I only have a few more years before Leon hits that, and he’s already giving me attitude lately.”
“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” Greer chimed in. “But you’re their mothers.”
“So are you,” Lachlan added.
Greer frowned. “Not quite yet, and maybe not ever for the older boys. But I’m okay with that. Stepmom it can be for me. It’s a step up from nanny, that’s for sure.”
Lachlan’s lips curled upward. “That it is, but I still think you’re an excellent nanny.”
“Mom’s yelling at someone on the phone.” Alaric stepped into the kitchen and looked at them. His gaze moved from Greer to Ivy and then landed on Lachlan. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, actually.” Lachlan held her arms out for him to come sit on her lap. Alaric did exactly that. “She got some good news, and now she’s worked up about it.”
“She’s mad.”
“Yes and no.” Lachlan dropped a kiss into his hair. “She’ll be fine. Just ignore her for now. What are the other boys doing?”
Alaric scrunched his face up. “Shepherd has a stink butt again.”
“Ugh,” Ivy said, pulling herself to stand. “I really need to start potty training him.”
Lachlan knew that she’d started and given up several times, and it was all because of Penny. Because she refused to stick to the same method and practice that Ivy started, which meant Shepherd just ended up confused in the end and not knowing what to do or not do. Ivy held out her hand for Alaric and walked away with him.
Which left Lachlan with Greer. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Perfect. Why?” Greer’s brow furrowed slightly.
“Because you still seem like you want to separate yourself a bit from the rest of us.”
Greer wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just bad habits.”
“Right.” Lachlan got up and moved to sit next to Greer, right where Nathalie had been before. “But you do know that you’re part of this family, right? That we don’t see you as separate anymore.”
“I…” Greer stopped herself. “I mostly know that. But in situations like this, I don’t feel like it involves me that much.”
“Because you’re not part of the practice?”
“Because legal stuff is way beyond my understanding. Like I don’t get it. And I don’t understand what it means to sue someone, to countersue them. I get the basics, but that’s it.” Greer twisted her hands in her lap. “You three are very intelligent women, and here I can barely finish a master’s degree and I’m failing two classes.”
“Failing?” Lachlan’s voice rose up. “You didn’t mention anything.”
Greer shrugged. “Because what’s the point?”
“Do you want the degree?” Lachlan took Greer’s hands in her own and pulled them into her lap. She leaned over to make sure that Greer understood she had Lachlan’s entire attention. “Do you want it?”
“Not really, no.”
“Then why are you continuing to pursue it?” Lachlan frowned at her. Greer had come into their lives already registered for school that semester, so they’d worked with her to take the online classes and have time for studying, but she honestly hadn’t seen Greer do much of that lately.
“Because what am I supposed to do when I’m too old to be a nanny?”
“Oh.” Lachlan sighed, her heart thudding hard. “Well, I don’t know.”
“I don’t think you three are just going to keep popping out kids for me to watch. And I can find another family to nanny, but by the time this newest one is in school, I’m going to be forty and who wants a forty-year-old nanny?”
“I’m not entirely sure age matters as much on that front as you might think.”
“Lachlan.” Greer groaned and rolled her eyes. “If I can’t get down on the floor to play with the babies, then how am I supposed to be a good nanny?”
Lachlan squeezed her hands tightly.
“I built my life around being a live-in nanny. And if I can’t do that anymore…”
“Why wouldn’t you be able to, though? I mean the live-in part, sure, because we’d want you close to us and not with some other family hours away, but why can’t you continue to be exactly who you want to be?” Lachlan looked deeply into her eyes. “Who’s telling you that you can’t do it?”
Greer stopped. She closed her eyes and then shook her head. “No one that I should be listening to.”
“Exactly. So if you want your master’s degree, then get it. But if you don’t want it and it doesn’t change anything to help your future plans, then give it up. There’s no reason to put that added stress on your life if you aren’t going to end up using the degree.”
“Uh-oh, what did I just walk into?” Nathalie stepped back into the kitchen.
“And you…” Lachlan turned on her, a smile on her lips. “You really have to start telling everyone everything instead of just one of us. It’s hard enough to keep track of what information I can share outside of our little circle. I don’t want to have to remember what I can share inside of it.”
“Anything can be shared inside it.” Nathalie frowned. “What did I forget to share?”
“You can feel her move?” Lachlan’s face softened.
Nathalie’s face instantly bloomed into a smile. “Yeah. I can.”
“Also, girl?” Greer added, pointing at Nathalie.
“Right. The genetic testing came back late last week. I thought I told you that when we…” Nathalie stopped, flicking her gaze from Greer to Lachlan. “Fuck this, we’re all adults and in a relationship, when we were having sex the other night.”
“No, you didn’t mention that one. Just that you could feel her.”
Lachlan grinned from ear to ear. This was going to work out for them. She knew it would.