"Where are my nephews at?" Zandra aasked when Justin answered his phone.
"They are still here. Where are you?" Justin asked.
"the hotel." Zandra answered like the answer was obvious. Justin looked up at the clock in surprised. There was no way she could have gotten to Iowa and back in four hours.
"Do you want us to the boys to the hotel or come pick you up so we can all hang out?" Justin asked and Zandra giggled.
"Come and hey me big boy. Duh." Zandra replied and hung up the phone.
Justin turned to adam and jonas. "Zandra is still in town. I'm going to go hey her."
Adam groaned and handed Matty two five dollar bills. Matty handed one of them to Zac.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Zac said pocketing the money. Justin laughed. The boys were always betting on something and he had a feeling Zac would loose the five dollars by the end of the night. Justin walked into the kitchen where Dog, Duane Lee and Leland were.
"I'm going to go get Zay at the hotel." Justin said with a yawn. "Any one want to tag along?"
Justin was looking at Duane Lee the whole time he asked. Duane Lee smiled and grabbed his coat. They left Dog and Leland behind. Leland looked down at the ground.
"Don't worry about it Le. She'll come around." Dog assured his son. Leland looked up at his dad and shook his head.
"I've apologized a million times." Leland said sadly. "I know I betrayed her trust, but she's changed so much around me since I started seeing Jesse. I mean we were never as close as she is with Lyssa and DL. Or even now Justin. All we seem to do any more is fight."
"Its because she liked you." Jesse said walking up to her boyfriend and giving him a hug. "She's just not one of those girls who goes out and gets what she wants."
"What do you mean she liked me?" Leland asked caught off guard.
"Well she had a crush on you. And well, she's scared of that fact." jesse said with a sigh. "So when we got together she backed off. She wants us to be happy. She figured if she's mad at you she won't hurt me."
"So she moved on to Duane Lee?" Leland asked and Jesse shook her head.
"I font think so. I keep asking her about that and she keeps yelling me tdat Duane Lee reminds her to much of her brother Shawn." Jesse said then took out her phone. She then handed it to Leland. On it was a family picture. "Thats her birth family. The tall one is Greg, Jonas's dad. Then Jonas. Thats Jonas's other brother Zavior. Zavior's mother Shantel. Zandra's sister Niku and her four kids, Hana, Biggie, Onho and Elisha and then Niku's step kids and husband Jany, Michael and Bigs. Then Zay and her birth mother Megs. The kid there is Joey, Shawn's son. Then Shawn's girlfriend Amy and her kids Mona and Mitch. Then there, that's Shawn."
Leland had to admit, Shawn looked a lot like Duane Lee with blonde hair. Showed the picture to his dad.
"She looks nothing like them." Dog noticed. "And where are the other boys?"
"Jonas is the only one blood related to her." Jesse explained. "The boys all have different dads. And Zandra doesn't look like her siblings because she has a different father. Her mother have her up so her father wouldn't try and take her. Apparently he's no good.
"All her life she's been given up on." Jonas said walking into the kitchen. He looked at the picture sadly. "She was so happy that day. The only ones he had met before that were me, her mom, and Shawn. She once told us that she fit in more with us than the family that raised her. She was only nineteen. Nineteen and going nowhere. She thought she'd never get out of her home town and now its the place she misses the most."
A year came to Jonas's eyes. "I'm the only family still talking to her after everything she did for them. She went out of her way to make every one happy. She even quit school after she got her CNA to help out her suck aunt. All she ever wanted to do was become a nurse. Then travel the world to help sick kids living in poverty. She never did any then for herself. Thats why it was a surprise to every one when she just left. They didn't even know she was gone till she called her friends a couple weeks later to tell them. Two weeks she was gone and no one noticed. No one needed her. Every one took advantage of her. Every one except her birth family. But my dad took care of that. Now every one have up on her."
Jonas was really crying now. "Has she ever told you how she met us?"
Leland shook his head and put a hand on the boys shoulder to let him know it was ok to talk to them. Jonas swallowed and went on. "It was at Joy Camp. A camp for kids in broken homes. My brothers and I had been going since we were old enough to go. The councillors were all there because they had to be. But not Zandra. The first thing every one saw when they got out of the car was Zandra's welcoming face. There were a hundred kids there and she remembered all of them. When I got into trouble for punching my staff, he wanted to send me home, but Zandra wouldn't let him. She took me aside and listened to me. Truly listened. I never had that before. None of us did. I told her every thing from my dad leaving when he found out about me to the looser boyfriend my mother had. She listened to me tell her about how this guy beat me and my brothers. That he was the reason for my seizures. Thats when she found out that I was her nephew when I told her the only good thing in my life was my Dad's family. The week after camp Zandra showed up with cops and took my mothers boyfriend to jail. She's been there for us ever since. If something happened she was there. Not even our mother did that."
"She must mean a lot to you." Dog replied and jonas nodded.
"Before my mom died, We all used to call her Momma Z. Even mom did." Jonas said with a smile. It then faded away and he looked up sadly. "Promise me, that you'll never do to her what her family did. Promise you'll never give up on her."
"Jonas no matter what she does, we'll never give up on her." Dog promised. "With every thing we've done. There's no way."