Exton

Raina cruises by my table, grabs me by an ear and hauls my ass outside. I'm so stunned by this turn of events, I let her get away with it.

There's lightning in her eyes and her lips are drawn back from her teeth and it belatedly dawns on me that my sister is mad as hell. I have no clue why, but I'm about to find out.

"What did you do to her?" She spits the words out like venom.

"What?" Then I get it, and suddenly I'm angry too. "I didn't do anything!"

"That reaction is not the Star I know," she says. "If it wasn't you, then who upset her? I need to go inside and kick their ass a dozen times."

"It was Guunnar," I begin - and that's as far as I get.

"Guunnar? That oversize teddy bear? What the hell could he do to make her react like that?"

"Will you calm down, please? I'm trying to explain things here!"

"Make it quick, brother." Her eyes are hot and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see steam hissing out of her ears at this point.

"Look, you know how Guunnar is. He eats enough for Patton's Third Army and he thinks everyone else should, too. He kept pushing her to eat and suddenly she just snapped and went off like a rocket. She looked like she was feeling queasy and that might have something to do with it, too. But I think the main thing is that, if Guunnar's right, she's pregnant."

"Wha-a-a-t?"

I grimace. "Yeah. I don't know whether to trust him on this or not, but I haven't mentioned the possibility to her. You know how much she wants a child. What if I get her hopes up and he turns out to be wrong?"

Raina's face goes utterly still, just for the fraction of a second; then she looks shocked; and then that melts into a grin that stretches all the way across her face.

If she's not careful, she's going to get lipstick on her ears….

Then she explodes again, just as I'm catching my breath. "What do you mean, she doesn't know?"

I sigh… I can see this is going to be a long night….