fire.
Though, maybe it had.
Maybe he finally understood that Harleigh was off limits.
Though, that was only after Dax and Max had gotten ahold of him, too.
I was the closer. The one that got to say the words.
Max and Dax had done all their talking with their fists.
“So…y’all ready to go?” Max asked, dusting his pants off.
I nodded once. “Probably so. We’ve been gone for over an hour, and Harleigh’s going to come looking for us soon.”
“That’s the truth,” Dax muttered. “Are you sure that you want to marry her?”
I grinned wickedly. “About as sure as I am that I want to keep breathing.”
Max snorted.
Dax, however, tilted his head.
“As long as you know that if you ever hurt her, I’m going to make your life a living hell,” he growled.
I held my hands up in surrender. “Like I’ve told your father, I will gladly stand still and allow you to shoot me if I ever hurt her.”
Epilogue
Always get your wife a snack at the gas station. If you think to yourself ‘maybe she doesn’t want a snack,’ I’m telling you now that you’re wrong.
-Max to Slate
Max
“Is he here yet?” I asked as I flipped open one eye.
“Not yet,” my wife murmured as she practically bounced in her seat. “I can’t believe the baby is coming today. I almost asked to be in the delivery room, but I didn’t…”
“I want my mother!” an all too familiar voice practically bellowed. “You can’t hit a vein for shit!”
“Uh-oh,” Payton murmured, biting her lip as she tried not to laugh.
“Better go before she does something drastic like kill her nurse,” I pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Wake me up when he’s here.”
“She’ll be here soon,” I heard Slate, the man that had married my daughter a little over a year ago, say.
I looked up to find Slate standing in the doorway looking frazzled.
The only other time I’d seen him in this current state was the day that I’d handed him my daughter’s hand in marriage.
He’d looked like I’d just handed him the moon and the stars and told him to take care of them.
Which I had.
Harleigh was my baby, my everything, and the only little girl I’d ever had.
She was my tiny little baby who’d been smaller than the palm of my hand when she was born, and I’d given her away to a man that cared for her almost as much as I did.
But now, he didn’t look just frazzled, he looked terrified.
“Harleigh wants you in there to do her IV,” Slate murmured softly. “She’s losing her shit quickly and is freaking out. I think it’d be best for you to just stay.”
Payton was up and moving before he could finish talking.
I grinned at Slate who stayed rooted to the spot for a few long seconds as if he was gathering the courage to put on his brave face once again.
“Everything okay?” I asked softly.
Slate swallowed hard.
“The infection is hitting her hard,” he admitted. “I’m never doing this again. We’re stopping at one baby.”
I snorted. “Good luck with that. I said the same thing about Harleigh, and look at that one.”
Dax was sleeping, stretched out on six of the waiting room chairs, looking uncomfortable as hell but still able to sleep anywhere.
Slate looked that way and grinned. “I’m glad that he could make it.”
I grinned back. “We knew that it was coming.”
Harleigh had gotten the flu when she was thirty-one weeks pregnant. She’d then gone on to get bronchitis, strep, and then pneumonia. Which had then caused her to go into labor. From there, they hadn’t been able to stop it, which meant delivering the baby at thirty-two weeks, eight whole weeks early.
“Take care of my girls,” I said. “But you should probably get back in there. I don’t want two hot-headed women trying to keep it calm and collected.”
Slate snorted.
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I know what you mean.”
With that he left and didn’t look back.
I watched him go, saying a silent prayer that everything would be all right.
There was something seriously fucked up with my heart at that moment in time, and I had a feeling that it was fear.
Cold, hard, shaking in my boots fear.
***
Linc
“Is he here yet?” I asked as Conleigh and I parked our asses in the waiting room next to Max.
“No,” he grumbled. “Been in labor for going on eight hours now. Nothing is happening.”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair.
“Are they going to do a C-section since she’s eight weeks early?” Conleigh asked.
“Not that I know of,” Max admitted. “Though I haven’t gone in there and asked.”
“Why not?” Conleigh asked.
I wrapped my hand around her mouth and pulled her into my side. “Because not everybody is as nosey as you are.”
Conleigh licked my hand, her eyes sparkling.
“Nosey?” she chirped. “You were the nosey Nancy that had to come to the hospital even though you were told that someone would call you the moment that they had any news.”
I shrugged. “So I wanted to be here when he arrived. Sue me.”
My wife wrinkled her nose at me. “I’m fairly sure you’re more excited about Slate’s kid arriving than you were about your own.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I think it’s because Slate’s been freaking out ever since they labeled Harleigh as a high-risk pregnancy. He’s been treating her like spun glass, and Harleigh looks like she wants to strangle him every time he walks in the room and asks her if she needs anything.”
“Just admit it,” Max said. “You love him.”
I scoffed. “I do not.”
“You so do,” Conleigh disagreed. “You have this bromance going on with him and you know it.”
I kind of did.
Then again, ever since we’d gotten back from Disney World and kicking ass, I did have to admit that Slate had warmed up to the club, and us to him.
He’d been willing to put the effort in once he knew that we weren’t going to fuck him over.
***
Izzy
“Is she here yet?” I practically ran into the waiting room. “I got my kids put to sleep, and my grandmother is watching them,” I explained as I took a seat on the opposite side of Max. “How’s she doing?”
“Still in labor,” Max murmured. “They’re discussing whether or not to perform a C-section.”
“There a reason they’re just not doing it?” I asked.
“My sister is a stubborn asshole,” Dax muttered as he sat up. “Jesus Christ, just go tell her to do it already.”
That comment was aimed at his father, who looked resigned. “Do you think that the Tremaine women do anything that I tell them to do? I’m just a bystander in this thing I call life.”
I grinned widely at the two men, loving the addition they made toward our family.
Ever since our mother and father had cast us aside, we’d been sorely lacking in that.
“Where did you go?” Rome asked as he took the seat beside me. “One second I was searching for coffee, and the next you were gone.”
“I didn’t want to wait to hear anything while you searched for coffee,” I shrugged. “I’m so excited I could burst.”
One by one, the waiting room filled with members of the Bear Bottom Guardians MC. Family. Kids. Babies. Grandparents. Every single person that meant something to Slate was here.
Now all that had to happen was a baby had to be born.
***
Slate
“Harleigh,” I said softly. “You can give it one more try, but if she doesn’t come with this push, you’re getting the C-section.”
“Him,” she corrected me out of habit, looking exhausted and beautiful and scared.
“No argument?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, it’s time.”
And it was. She’d given it her best shot, but if it didn’t happen this time, we both knew what needed to happen.
“One more time,” I said, watching the monitor.
“Push!” Payton ordered, helping hold up one leg while I held up the other.
Harleigh hunched over her belly and pushed with all she had…and our baby came sliding out as if she was ready to be born.
That was right.
She.
“It’s a girl,” I murmured, stunned.
Harleigh burst out crying. “I knew it!”
Payton and I started to laugh, and as the baby was cleaned up and placed on Harleigh’s chest, I knew that everything was all right.
The baby was crying hard and loud, and the doctors weren’t rushing her away like they said they would if she came out not crying.
She honestly looked beautiful…though very small.
“Well,” the doctor said as she stared at us. “That’s one tiny little baby to be giving us so much trouble!”
Harleigh started to laugh. “My dad said the same thing when I was born.”
“It must run in the family,” I said as I ran my finger down the baby’s cheek. “You’re going to make my life a living hell, aren’t you?”
It was directed at my daughter, but Harleigh was the one to answer.
“And you’re going to enjoy every single second of it.”