Page 53 of A Whisker in the Night

I sniff hard. “Your sweet son is quite possibly the most perfect baby I’ve ever seen,” I say and everyone in the room quickly agrees.

The little prince contentedly looks around at all of the curious faces. He’s a cutie pie with a shock of dark hair that clearly came from both sides of the family, bright curious eyes—straight from his mother—and cheeks that would make a cherub jealous.

I was one of the first that got to hold him and he weighs about as much as a feather and smells like heaven.

If I wasn’t already knocked up myself, I’d be craving to have my own baby posthaste. Nature has a way of doing that to people.

“So what are you going to name him?” Jasper asks, voicing what everyone else in the room is thinking.

“Well?” Leo’s mother practically bounces with anticipation. “Don’t keep us in suspense!”

Emmie and Leo exchange one of those looks that lets me know they can read each other’s minds in the way that couples do.

Emmie clears her throat. “Well, we thought about naming him Leo after his daddy.”

“But I thought there were enough Leos roaring around one house,” Leo says and we all give a little laugh. “We thought about naming him Emmet, a play on his mother’s name.”

“But I didn’t want that,” Emmie says. “So, we settled on something that played off of both of our names—or at least had a few of the same letters.” She holds the baby up a notch.

“Introducing Elliot Alexander Granger,” they announce in perfect unison.

The entire room erupts in coos and applause while the baby—Elliot—falls asleep through his first standing ovation.

Eventually, the crowd thins out, and soon it’s just Jasper and me in the room with the happy little family.

Emmie is busy snapping a few selfies with her sleeping son when she suddenly perks up.

“Oh, look,” she says as she pulls her phone close. “I just got a notification from that ancestry test we all took last week. They just sent the results. Now I get to learn all about my roots and the roots of my sweet new baby boy.” She clicks away while the rest of us pull out our phones as well.

“Nothing new here,” Leo says as he scrolls through his results. “Though I am more British than I realized.”

“No big surprises on my end either,” Jasper reports. “Lots of Eastern European, which we knew, and apparently, half of Maine is my distant cousin.”

“Ooh, good for you, Jasper,” Emmie coos, somehow managing to scroll one-handed while holding sweet little Elliot close to her chest. “It looks like we’re both expanding our families today. How about you, Bizzy? What’s yours say?”

My mouth opens and closes, but not a single word comes out. The baby gives a sharp kick as if trying to help me process what I’m seeing.

“Well?” Emmie prods. “Are you secretly British royalty? Do I need to brush up on my curtsey?”

“No,” I manage to squeak out.

“Finding a bunch of new cousins?” Jasper leans over, trying to peek at my screen.

“Not exactly.” I blow out a breath, still staring at the results that seem to have turned my entire world sideways. “But I did find one new relative.” I look up at their expectant faces. “It turns out, I don’t just haveonesister—I havetwo.”

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