“Babe.” I crouched in front of her, dislodgin’ my sister, and cupped her damp, pale face in my hands. “You gotta take care of yourself and this baby. What were you thinkin’?”
Tears pooled in those large brown eyes I loved so well and trembled in her lower lashes. “It’s a special night. I didn’t want to ruin it. You deserve––” She gritted her teeth as a low, almost animal moan worked up her throat. Unconsciously, she reached out for me, and I instantly offered up my hand for her to grip tight. “You deserve this welcome back.”
“Fuck what I deserve. My woman and our baby deserve the best goddamn care, babe. We gotta get goin’ down the mountain right the fuck now.” I looked over my shoulder for Dad and found everyone crowded around us. “Dad, can we borrow your cage?”
He was already nodding, looking grimly over my head at Cressida. “’Course, but you had a few brews. Sure you should be drivin’?”
“I can drive,” Loulou offered. “The twins are still nursing, so I haven’t been drinking.”
“No one is going anywhere,” Harleigh Rose declared over the sound of Cressida’s gentle whimper. “Her contractions are less than three minutes apart. She’s having her baby here.”
Shock rocked through the room like a sonic boom.
“Holy fuck,” Boner exclaimed on a whisper like someone had punched him in the gut.
I felt the same sensation echoed in my own.
“You’re fuckin’ with me,” I asked my sister, who looked anythin’ but jocular.
She blinked those bright aquamarine eyes at me and shook her head. “No. Don’t worry, big brother, I know what I’m doing. I’m an ER nurse, remember? I think I can handle this.”
I swallowed my protest. How could I not give her my trust when she’d given me hers unequivocally all these years. When she’d looked up at me just that mornin’ with big, tear-glazed eyes filled with hero worship and love and told me she forgave me for breakin’ her heart?
“Cress?” I asked, crowdin’ closer to my woman, drawin’ our joined hands to my mouth so I could kiss her wedding ring. “How’s my woman feelin’ about this? You wanna get down the mountain, we’ll have an escort’a bikes clearin’ the Sea to Sky, and we’ll get there as fast as we fuckin’ can.”
“You could end up having the baby on the side of the goddamn road, King,” Harleigh Rose insisted as Lion moved up to stand behind her, a silent sentry of support. “You have to trust me. Both of you.”
Cress clutched at her sister-in-law in her free hand, eyes slightly crazed with nerves and pain as she looked up at the only woman in the room qualified to help deliver our precious fuckin’ kid.
“You’ll take care of him?” she whispered vulnerably, voice sweet and shaky as a newborn colt findin’ its legs.
My heart ached and throbbed like a wound. I pressed her palm to my chest so she could feel how hard I loved her, how scared but sure I was we’d get through this.
We’d been through worse.
H.R.’s strong features softened, eyes warmin’ as she bent to press her forehead to Cress’s sweaty crown. A tender hand smoothed back her damp locks, then cupped her cheek.
“You think I’d ever let anything happen to the sister of my heart, the mother I never had, the woman who’s the other half of my brother’s soul?” she questioned gently. “I got this, babe. I got you.”
“We all do,” Zeus said, steppin’ forward to clamp a hand on my shoulder, lendin’ me his awesome strength and support. “Put us to work, Harleigh Rose. What can we do?”
H.R. beamed at Dad, at the pride and purpose in his voice.
And Cress, she sought his eyes with hers and swallowed thickly. “I’m scared.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, bendin’ over me to carefully palm the taut drum of her belly. “It’s terrifyin’ knowin’ you’re bringin’ a new little soul into the world. But you gotta know what every single man and woman ’ere knows without a fuckin’ doubt.” His hand squeezed hard over my shoulder, swept soft over her stomach. “No two people more equipped to raise a beautiful soul than the two most beautiful souls we know. You worry ’bout gettin’ this boy out into the world safe for both’a you and know, all’a us got your back, teach.”
Her laughter was shaky but bright. “Not a teach anymore, Z,” she reminded him like she always did.
He hummed. “Not so sure ’bout that anymore. Bein’ a mother’s the most important teacher there is.”
“We need to move her to a bedroom,” Harleigh Rose interrupted as a contraction made Cress hiss. “Dad, King, can you help her up the stairs? Boner, get me a bucket of warm water. Curtains and Ransom, find some clean sheets and towels. Lion, handsome, can you get sanitizer and soap for me? Lou, I’d be good if you could find some more comfortable clothes for her to wear. Nothin’ you don’t want ruined.”
Instantly, everyone sprang into action. The men all trailed the people who had actual assigned tasks, wantin’ to be useful and also outta the way. The women all shuttled upstairs to prepare a room without bein’ asked, Maja leadin’ the charge.
“King,” Cress called even though I was right beside her, helpin’ her up from the couch with Dad on her other side. “Are you scared?”
“Nah,” I assured her, even though tension struck my heart like a drum. We were havin’ an unplanned birth at a rustic cabin in the mountains and not in the sterile, equipped rooms of a hospital. Fuck. Of course I was fuckin’ scared. I knew in my bones I wouldn’t survive anythin’ happenin’ to my Cress. Didn’t know what would happen if we lost our kid, the child that’d kept Cress goin’ through her grief, the soul that’d been some kinda God-given gift when she found me again in Alaska.
Scared didn’t even cover it.
I was fuckin’ soaked through with terror.
But I pressed my nose into the hair over Cress’s ear, draggin’ in that apple and ink smell of her, and I forced myself to believe. ’Cause at the end’a the day, that was all I could do. All any’a us could do now and forever.
Believe.
“Nah,” I repeated as Dad and I helped her slowly up the stairs. “You know, there’s somethin’ mighty poetic about havin’ this kid in this house with all’a our friends and family around us. I’m thinkin’ it’s fate.”
“You think?” she asked, eyes shinin’ bright. “I wondered that too.”
“Everythin’ about us is fated, Queenie,” I told her honestly.
“That explains why we always have to do things the hard way,” she joked through clenched teeth as we reached the second floor and escorted her into the bedroom Dad had given me at the house.
I chuckled in her ear as we stopped at the side of the massive bed before I bent to scoop her into my arms. She tried to protest, and she was certainly heavier than her normal slightness, but nothin’ I couldn’t handle. Dad pulled the blankets back, and Rainbow was there constructin’ a pillar of pillows for her to lean against when I set Cress down on the middle of the mattress.