Page 3 of Bear Your Fate

“Ehhh,” she giggled. “It’s not like I didn’t already know where he got his dirty sense of humor from.”

“His brothers,” I replied drily.

“Oh my Goddess!” she exclaimed, bending at the waist again. I expected her to burst out laughing, but she cried out in pain instead.

“Selene?” Camden wrapped his arm around her waist and placed a hand against her belly. “Holy fuck! Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think I’m going into labor, then yes,” she panted.

I grabbed the pots and pans off the top of the stove and shoved everything into the fridge, tossing lids on top of them haphazardly.

“No!” she cried out, making Camden and I freeze up and look at her, scared shitless.

“What is it, baby?” Camden asked.

“I didn’t even get to eat any of the delicious dinner your dad made for us.”

It was a good thing she sounded so damn pitiful, or else I might have ended up laughing at her and that would have been bad. Seriously bad, considering she was in labor with my grandchild, and the very last thing I wanted to do was piss her off or upset her.

“All my favorites,” she sighed as Camden helped her towards the door. “And not even one tiny bite of food made it into my mouth.”

“I’ll make you whatever you want as soon as you’re home again,” I promised, hurrying after them.

“Will you bring me a big breakfast tomorrow morning?”

“Of course.”

“Only if the doctor has cleared you to eat regular food by then,” Camden corrected.

“The doctor can take a flying leap if he thinks he’s going to stop me from eating real food,” she hissed. Camden got her settled in the back seat of my car, and she kept on grumbling. “You heard your dad, he said he’d bring me breakfast. A big one. Is he the only one who understands that I’m going to miss dinner while I’m giving birth to your giant baby?”

I tore out of my driveway, headed towards the hospital as fast as I could go. Her litany was abruptly cut off by a moan, and Camden urged her to breathe through the pain. This contraction seemed to last longer than the one before it, but it hadn’t taken too much wind out of Selene’s sails.

“We should have taken your truck, Camden. My bag’s in there.”

“I grabbed it from the backseat,” I reassured her.

“Oh, thank goodness. Then we’ll have everything I need when we get to the hospital.”

“What about your mom?” Camden asked frantically. “She’s supposed to be here for the birth. I knew I should have insisted she come to town last week when I talked to her.”

“No need to worry,” Selene answered. “Trust me, she’ll be there in no time at all.”

“What? How?” Camden asked the question rattling around my brain.

“She’s my mom. She’ll know when I need her, just like she knew I was pregnant before I did. Heck, considering it’s my mom we’re talking about, she might even beat us to the hospital.”

Finally! My wait was over. Audra was coming back. I wasn’t sure which part made me happier—knowing I was going to meet my newest grandchild soon or being able to see Audra again after she’d done such a bang-up job of avoiding me for so long.

2

Audra

“Two seems to be our lucky number,” Carrick murmured as he moved to my side to look through the nursery window. If it had been anyone else, I would have been startled by the statement because I’d been wholly focused on my precious grandbabies. But not with Carrick—I’d known the exact minute he’d stepped into the hallway, my body lighting up like it always did whenever he was near.

“Is it?” I asked, forcing myself to keep looking straight ahead. I’d barely managed to keep my focus off Carrick all through my daughter’s labor and delivery, and I didn’t want to crack the moment it was over. If I did, I was likely to melt into a puddle of need on the hospital floor with the way I tended to act around him.

“Twice now, I’ve had you in my bed, but you ran as soon as you could each time.”

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