Wren
“Stop. I can stand up on my own.” I glare at Ryker, then brace my hand on the back of the couch for leverage. With less than two weeks until I’m officially overdue, simple things like getting up from the sofa are getting harder and harder.
“Prove it,” he mutters. Then almost immediately shakes his head. “No. Don’t.” Before I can stop him, he snags me under the arms and gently sets me on my feet. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re bouncing off the walls, Ry. No missions, only one training session a week…” I link my small—albeit swollen—fingers with his thick, misshapen ones, and squeeze gently. “If you don’t step it up, you’re going to end up with a belly like mine.”
He chuckles, then bends down to press a kiss to my large baby bump. Our daughter chooses that exact moment to punch—or kick—hard enough she hits Ry in the nose.
His eyes widen, and he rubs his hand over the green fleece sweatshirt with “Loading…” emblazoned across the front. “She’s going to be a fighter.”
“Or she just really wants out.” I rub my lower back. “If the doctor called and offered to induce me tomorrow, I would be so there for it.”
“Ten days, little bird.” He wraps his arms around me from behind, cradling my belly in such a way, I feel so safe and protected. And loved. Always loved. This giant of a man can be so tender—almost delicate—with me. When we first met, it was hard to imagine he had any sort of…gentleness inside of him. But he does. The hard, gruff exterior is who he thinks he has to be. But it’s not who he is. Not at all.
I rest my head against his chest. “Don’t you mean Big Bird? I’m the size of your truck. Or…you.”
“You are not—“
“I can’t see my toes. I can’t put on my own socks or tie my shoes. And the peeing. Spitsnacks. I have to go. Again.”
It’s constant. I waddle off toward the bathroom. You’d think somewhere along the evolutionary journey, someone would have thought, “Oh, once the baby’s born, the mother isn’t going to sleep for six months or more. So maybe…let’s let her sleep up until birth.” No. I’m up every hour just to pee. And then again whenever baby girl decides she wants to go dancing.
A cramp steals my breath as I dry my hands. They’ve been happening more and more the past week. Normal—according to my doctor—but the first one was terrifying. Thank goodness Ryker wasn’t home that day. The man didn’t flinch when we were being chased by armed thugs in Russia, but if I so much as wince, he’s ready to break every traffic law there is to get me to the hospital in record time.
“You’re pale,” he says when I shuffle into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. “What’s wrong?”
I ignore him, hoping he won’t press the issue. I should know better by now.
“Wren.” He takes me by the shoulders, turning me toward him. “What’s. Wrong?”
Reaching up, I brush my fingers along his jaw. “Nothing, Ry. Just a cramp.”
The look in his eyes is anything but calm. “I’m cancelling training. And calling off the shower.”
“No, you’re not.” I take a step back and glare up at him. “Braxton Hicks contractions are totally normal. They don’t mean anything.”
“You’re my entire world,” he says, his voice rougher than I’ve heard it in months. “If anything happens to you…”
“The only thing that’s going to happen to me this afternoon, soldier, is that I’m going to eat so much cake that I fall asleep in the recliner the moment everyone leaves.”
“I should stay.”
I laugh at the idea of my bald, scarred, mountain of a husband standing guard over me at my flippin’ baby shower. “You want to spend the afternoon with a bunch of women talking about childbirth and breastfeeding and periods? You wouldn’t last an hour.”
“Little bird, I spent fifteen months in Hell. I think I can handle one afternoon with eight women.”
As if the Universe is out to prove him wrong, the doorbell rings at that exact moment. Ryker presses his palm to the scanner to unlock the door and gapes.
Cara thrusts a pan of lasagna at him, then darts back down the hall to the elevator. “I’ve got another huge pan downstairs. Put that one in the oven at three-fifty!”
“Sorry,” Hope says as she squeezes past Ry. “The doctor doesn’t want me carrying anything heavier than three pounds, and Wyatt has his hands full.”
“Where do you want…all of this?” Wyatt asks. A diaper bag is slung over his shoulder—the nicest one on the market—and his other arm is buried under a stack of blankets, a body pillow, and two gift bags.
Hope passes me a small, pink bag that smells like heaven—and my favorite body lotion.
“Crap on a cracker. I thought we agreed ‘only baby clothes and spit-up cloths’?” I didn’t want a big, fussy shower. Just my closest friends together for a silly afternoon with no responsibilities before my life changes forever.
“Like we were going to listen. Harlow is going to be the most pampered little girl in all of Seattle,” Hope says as she leans gingerly against the counter.
Carefully, I wrap an arm around her. The back brace is bulky under her light blue sweater. “How much longer do you have to be in this contraption?”
She sighs. “Another three weeks. At least I don’t need the cervical collar anymore. I felt like I was choking the whole time.”
“Sit down. You look exhausted.” I try to lead her to the couch, but she shakes her head.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Wren, but your furniture is all too comfortable. It’s easier if I sit up straight—or just stand. Otherwise, all this plastic digs into my hips and it’s torture.”
Ry disappears into the back room while Wyatt piles gift after gift in the corner by the bassinet. When he’s done, he moves to Hope’s side and rubs his big hands up and down her arms. “If you need me to come home early, call.”
“Our place is only two stories down, stud,” she says with a laugh. “I think I can make it there myself.”
“And if not,” Cara calls, breezing back into the condo with a second tray of lasagna, “I’ll get her home. We’ve got this, boys. Go save the world. Or train to, anyway.”
Ry drags a solid, wooden chair into the living room. “Will this do, Hope?”
“It’s perfect,” she says, easing herself down onto the hard seat and sighing. “I swear all physical therapists are sadists. I’ve never done so many squats, leg raises, and glute bridges. Every muscle in my body aches. All the time.”
“When I get home tonight, darlin’,” Wyatt says with a wink, “we’ll see how sore you are.”
Her cheeks flush a dark red.
“That’s it,” I say. “The pregnant lady is putting her foot down. Ry? Wyatt? Time to go.”
Ryker wraps his arms around me, cups the back of my neck, and angles my head so he can claim my lips with his. The kiss leaves me breathless—and wet. I shouldn’t want him this badly. Not when I’m as big as a house. But I do. The books say the last few weeks of pregnancy can leave a woman incredibly…needy, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.
My nipples pebble against my bra, and I dig my fingers into Ry’s biceps. If we had time—and privacy—I’d drag him back to our bedroom and tear his clothes off. But at that moment, someone whistles behind me.
I break off the kiss, and shove at Ry’s chest. “Go. Now.”
My knees sway for a beat when he releases me. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I know, I know.”
The door shuts behind Ry and Wyatt before I notice Inara and Raelynn standing in the kitchen, looking anywhere but at me. Inara’s cheeks are a deep, dark red.
“Like you’re much better,” I say, meeting Inara’s gaze. “I seem to remember you making some pretty big puppy dog eyes in Russia when you found out you could call Royce.”
She turns and starts rummaging in the fridge. “You want a beer, probie?”
“Uh…” The newest member of Hidden Agenda darts a quick gaze to me, then looks back down at the floor. She’s still struggling to accept this new family of hers. Of ours. “Wyatt’s trainin’ with the guys today. There some reason you’re still callin’ me ‘probie’?”
“Because I can?” Inara passes her a bottle of Pilsner, and I stare longingly at the local brew. Of everything I’ve had to give up the past nine months, beer is what I miss the most. Even more than coffee. Sparkling water only gets me so far.
Raelynn hunches her shoulders. “Sorry, Wren. I can have water. We can have water.” She elbows Inara in the ribs, and the sniper’s gray eyes meet mine.
“Oh, shit. I didn’t think—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “This is a party. I’m only a little jealous. Besides, I’ve already told Ry he has one job after the baby’s born. In under twelve hours, he needs to bring me an ice cold beer.”
“Oh, please.” Inara shakes her head. “Like he’s going to leave your side or let Harlow out of his sight for the next, oh…eighteen years? We’ll never see him again. West will take over Hidden Agenda, and Ry will be nothing more than a memory.”
“He won’t be that bad.” I take my decaf iced tea and shuffle into the living room to sink down onto the couch. And then it hits me. “Oh spitsnacks. He’ll be worse, won’t he? Hiring a dozen bodyguards to watch over us whenever we leave the building, buying a fudging preschool rather than letting her go off somewhere he can’t completely control…”
“The man, the myth, the legend. Ryker McCabe,” Inara says with a chuckle. “New recruits will hear stories about a mysterious giant, angry man who loved one-word answers and barking out orders. There will be whispers. Rumors. But only us old-timers will have ever met the man.”
Raelynn chokes on a sip of her beer. “Well, shee-it,” she manages, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Am I supposed to be an ‘old-timer’? Fuck. I’m two years older than you. Wren, I’m gonna need somethin’ stronger than beer.”
I love these women. Cara, Hope, Inara…even Raelynn, though I wouldn’t consider us “friends” yet. When the whole team—family—gets together, I fit in. We all do. But despite that, I’ve never been very good at “girl talk.” Even this baby shower. I made Inara promise there wouldn’t be any games. No “sniff the baby food” or “diaper a baby balloon.” And God help anyone who tries to measure my belly with toilet paper.
Cara pops the top on a bottle of sparkling cider as Evianna’s voice carries over the intercom. “We’re here! We’re finally here!”
Inara uses her code to release the locks. Ry’s so overprotective, the door never stays unlocked for more than a few seconds. “Sorry,” Evianna calls as she breezes into the condo laden down with half a dozen gift bags. “The car service got lost on the way to the hotel, then they couldn’t find Cam’s house for a full fifteen minutes. I was on the phone to Dax when the driver finally figured it out.”
I don’t get up. Evianna’s heard all about my swollen ankles, lack of sleep, backaches, and carpal tunnel. She wraps her arm around me and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “How you doing, hon?”
Better now.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I whisper. “You’re staying, right? Until…?”
“Until you, Harlow, and Ryker tell us to go back to Boston.”
The relief is so intense, I shiver.
Evianna, Cam, and I speak the same language. Awkward geek. Zephyr too, but she’s on a case for Austin and working fifteen-hour days. So having them—along with Cara, who keeps me in lasagna and secretly binges reality TV with me whenever the guys go to Hidden Agenda—here with me now is more of a comfort than I realized.
I panic at every cramp. Every time Harlow moves, I wonder if she knows that everything is going to change soon. Does she have any idea how nervous her parents are?
If she cries the first time she sees Ry, he’ll hate himself. He’s convinced he’s so ugly, he scares small children. One day, maybe he’ll understand how I see him. How his family sees him.
“Earth to Wren,” Evianna says. “You want some cider?”
I startle, and my heart thuds against my chest so hard, I wonder if she can hear it. “Sorry. Yes.”
“All right.” She sinks down with two glasses and nudges my shoulder with hers. “You’ve been spacey since I got here. Did you have a panic attack this morning?”
“No. Nothing like that.” I sink back against the cushions and rub my side. There’s usually a tiny hand over there somewhere. Can she tell the difference between my touch and Ry’s? I hope she knows that Ry talked to her every night before bed. That he sleeps with his hand on my belly.
“Then what is it?” She angles her body between me and the rest of the room. “Something with Raelynn?”
“Spitsnacks.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Evianna. In a week or two, there’s going to be a little person depending on us—on me—for everything. She can’t talk. She can’t stand. What if I’m…bad at this?”
Inara takes a seat across from us and leans forward with her elbows on her knees. “Women have been having babies for centuries. And you have the power of the internet. And all of us. Though, I’ve never changed a diaper in my life.”
“Graham has at least a little experience with kids,” Cara adds. “And Hope and I are only two floors down.”
Tears burn my eyes. The crying is almost as bad as the constant need to pee. My hormones are on a see-saw. One that’s spinning around in a circle as it goes up and down.
“We’ve got you, sugar. Whatever you need,” Raelynn says and drops her gaze to the floor—like she’s regretting the offer.
I swipe at my cheeks. “Then you’re on backup beer duty. Can I trust you to pick a good beer?”
“Depends. You want Shiner Bock, Shiner Bock, or Shiner Bock?” But she winks before she studies the bottle of Pilsner and maybe…relaxes a fraction. We’re growing on her.