“Where’s your dad?” I asked quietly, letting my eyes close as Gunner’s tiny fingers ran through my hair.
“Goin’ potty.”
“He’s taking a long time.”
“I bet he’s pooping! He stinks so bad!” Keller crowed, making me snicker.
“I’m not pooping, Keller,” Shane mumbled from the side of the bed, making my eyes pop open. His cheeks were red with embarrassment, and I think I fell a little then.
“You stink worse, Keller,” I accused, meeting Shane’s eyes.
“No I don’t! You do, Auntie Kate! You reek!”
“You week!” Gavin yelled right in my ear.
Shane’s eyes crinkled a little at the sides as he tried to hold back a smile.
“I thought you might want to see them,” Shane said quietly as he sat on the edge of the bed. “I know you don’t feel good—”
“Thank you,” I cut in, letting go of Gunner for a minute to reach out and rest my hand on his knee. “This is just what I needed.”
“I used the spare key.” His voice grew quiet.
“I figured.”
“You want it back?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Okay.”
“Auntie Kate, why are you sick?” Sage asked suspiciously, her voice quivering.
“Come here, Sage the Rage,” I answered, pulling her toward me. “I’ve got news.”
“Kate,” Shane warned in a low tone.
“I’m going to have a baby.”
My words seemed to stun the kids into silence for a moment before they all spoke up at the same time.
“Baby.”
“Baby.”
“What?”
“You are?”
“Yep! Growing a baby sometimes makes a mama sick, but only for a while. So that’s why I’m sick. Once the baby’s a little bigger, I won’t be sick anymore.”
“You’ll be fat!” Keller yelled.
“Keller,” Shane snapped.
I shook my head slightly at Shane and met Keller’s eyes. He wasn’t being a brat…He was worried.
“Come here, Kell.”
He crawled up and sat on my thighs.
“Careful, pal,” Shane warned.
“He’s okay,” I said with a smile, never looking away from Keller. “I’m just growing a baby, bud. But it takes a long time—nothing’s going to change for a while.”
“Where is it?” he asked curiously, looking down at my relatively flat stomach.
“Right about here.” I pointed, making all of the kids look closely at where my finger was.
“I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because its really, really tiny right now.”
“How tiny?” Keller asked dubiously.
“Like a little bean.”
“But it’s going to grow?”
“Yep.”
“Cool.”
“Very cool,” I agreed.
“Is it going to be our cousin?” Sage asked, jolting me out of my soft conversation with Keller.
“Can you grab me a glass of water, sis?” I asked after what seemed like a really long pause. “I need to take my medicine before I get sick again.”
“Ew!” Keller yelped, scooting back away from me.
As Sage climbed off the bed, I turned to meet Shane’s eyes.
He looked as shell-shocked as I felt.
Chapter 5
Shane
I felt like I was spinning out of control.
As I lay there in my bed, I couldn’t help but think back to when I’d sneaked the kids in to see Kate a few mornings before. She’d been sleeping so heavily that she hadn’t even heard the door open or the kids’ quiet conversations, and for a moment I’d felt a flash of something between protectiveness and possessiveness rush over me.
It had rattled me so badly that I’d made an excuse to use her bathroom and had locked myself in there for a few minutes to get my shit under control. Protectiveness I could handle—it wasn’t a new feeling when it came to Kate. But possessiveness was wrong on so many levels that I felt like a creep for even putting a name to it. I didn’t want her, and she wasn’t mine.
She wasn’t mine even though she was currently carrying my child.
I pushed my sheets down to my feet in irritation and rolled onto my side, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep. I had less than two weeks before I had to leave, and though I was already starting to transition into work mode and the familiar life I’d be living for the next six or seven months, my mind constantly raced with the thought of leaving my kids.
I’d left them before. Shit, I’d left over and over again…but things were different now. I wouldn’t be leaving them with their mother, secure in the knowledge that everything would stay the same when I was gone. I was leaving them with Kate, and I trusted her with their lives, but I couldn’t reconcile that with the place she had in mine.
She was pregnant. God, how could I have been so stupid? As if fucking Kate hadn’t been enough of an epically bad decision, I’d also stormed the gates without putting on my goddamn armor.
Not that I’d had any condoms with me anyway. I hadn’t had sex in a year, and I hadn’t planned on having sex for a very long time after that. Then I’d made the boneheaded decision to use Kate to end my dry spell.
Kate. My wife’s best friend, and the niece of the only people I’d ever called my parents. The worst mistake I’d ever made in my entire life.