Chapter Seven #2
“Angel?” Seth stroked her cheek. “Time to go home.” When she didn’t budge or even whimper, he chuckled. “I’m no doctor, but I think she’s in a coma.”
Beck beamed with pride. “Looks like we’ll need to dress her and carry her out.”
“On it.” Seth lifted her, supporting her body while Beck slid the filmy gown over her head.
Once she was covered, the PI dragged the key to the locker from his pocket.
Beck took it and extracted his map. While Seth gathered her sleeping form into his arms, Beck scrounged a red crayon in one of the cubbies and circled the schoolhouse before he grabbed the night-vision goggles and held the door.
“We need to do this again,” Seth announced as he carried their girl out to the dark, starry night and trekked their way to the front of the compound.
“Hell, yes.”
Once they approached the front of the compound, Beck pulled open the wooden gate. Inside the office, Seth shielded Heavenly’s breasts with his arm. Beck darted into the locker room, fished out the key, and retrieved the duffel.
Behind the counter, the bearded man looked up, arched a brow, and grinned. “Looks like you three had a good time.”
“Better than good,” Beck agreed. “Hell of a place you’ve got here.”
“We keep busy. You boys impress me. The two of you accomplished what it took ten men to manage last night.”
“We’re over-achievers,” Seth quipped, looking mighty pleased.
As Beck placed the marked map and their goggles on the counter, a group of seven men strolled through the door, surrounding a lone woman whose eyes looked fever-bright with excitement. She took one look at Heavenly sleeping peacefully against Seth’s chest, and she smiled. “I want what she had.”
As the growls around her promised all that and more, Beck pushed out to the parking lot and opened the back door for Seth before settling into the driver’s seat of the SUV.
Cooper slipped in beside Heavenly, then pulled her onto his lap.
She slept on. In the rearview mirror, Beck watched Seth stroke her hair with reverent fingers, the gesture so tender it made his chest tight.
This was what their future looked like. The three of them, sated and content, bound together for good. The diamond glittered on her finger even in the near dark, and the thought that she might already be carrying their child filled him with fierce satisfaction.
As they pulled onto the main road, Seth’s phone buzzed once. Then again. Beck caught Cooper’s grimace as he silenced it with a curse.
“A case?” Beck asked quietly.
Seth’s jaw tightened. “My brother, Matt. He just ran into the twins at a bar…with the girl they’ve been fucking. He wants to know if he should tell Mom. I’ll deal with it later.”
Beck nodded, but unease crept in. In thirty-six hours, Seth would be three thousand miles away, talking Jack and Connor out of the same lifestyle the three of them had just celebrated.
And despite Seth’s promises, the engagement ring, their shared plans…
Beck couldn’t forget that, mere days ago, Seth had almost walked away.
He won't leave this time, Beck told himself firmly. Not after we’ve come this far.
But as Heavenly stirred and unconsciously pressed closer to Seth, Beck gripped the steering wheel tighter, dreading the big guy’s departure.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please ensure your seat belts are fastened. We’ve begun our descent into LaGuardia and will be arriving shortly,” a flight attendant announced over the plane’s intercom.
Seth stared out the window, his stomach churning with more than the turbulence.
After Beck and Heavenly had given him the ultimatum, he’d spent most of Sunday and Monday taking her bareback every chance he got. That damn breeding kink he hadn’t know he possessed was both shocking and inconvenient.
What if she’s already conceived? The possibility made his chest tight. He wanted that…even as it scared the hell out of him. Last month, he hadn’t been able to hold Raine’s newborn twins without breaking into a cold sweat. Was he really ready for his fiancée to have a baby come summer?
Interminable minutes later, the plane touched down with a jolt.
Seth ignored the knot in his stomach and grabbed his carry-on from the overhead compartment.
He had four days to begin laying the groundwork for his mother to accept his relationship with Beck and Heavenly.
If Grace thought Jack and Connor sharing a woman was deviant…
Christ, her reaction to learning that her eldest son wasn’t just having a three-way-fling, but working with another man to marry and impregnate Heavenly—not necessarily in that order—would be apocalyptic.
Somehow, he had to bring her around. That was his uppermost thought as he made his way through the terminal, toward baggage claim. He spotted his mother before she saw him.
Grace Cooper looked every one of her fifty-four years today, standing with a tissue pressed to her red-rimmed eyes.
Her usually pristine appearance was disheveled.
She’d pulled her cool blond hair—the same shade he’d inherited—back in a severe twist, rather than wearing it loose and curled, as she had been recently.
“Mom.” He approached, dropping his bag to pull her into a hug.
She clung to him, her shoulders shaking. “I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been able to come.”
“I’ll always be here when you need me. But since it was such short notice, I can only stay until Saturday.”
“I understand, and I know you dropped everything to help me. I appreciate it more than you know.” Grace pulled back, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue. “I just don’t know what to do with those boys anymore.”
Guilt plunged into his chest like a knife. Could his promise to reason with the twins be any more hypocritical?
“Have you talked to them since…?” Seth probed as they walked toward the exit.
“Talked, no. I screamed. And I made damn sure they put on their clothes and got that girl—apparently, her name is Gia—out of my house.”
Four-letter words almost never crossed Grace’s lips. Her swearing now was a testament to her upset. “Then what?”
“I tucked Carl into bed with cold medicine, then I lit into those boys. They said they met her at NYU and that she’s ‘sweet’, but…” Grace’s voice dropped to a mortified whisper. “I have another name for the kind of girl willing to go to bed with two men at once.”
And it wasn’t flattering. Seth tried not to wince.
If he was going to start changing Grace’s mind to help the twins and facilitate his own future, he had to figure out how to approach this situation. He had an idea…but first he needed to talk to his brothers and understand exactly what was going on.
“Do the twins know I’m coming?”
She sniffed. “And give them a chance to hide? Of course not.”
Once upon a time, Jack and Connor would totally have gone underground to avoid him. Now…he’d bet they didn’t have a lick of fear. All they had to do was threaten to rat him out to Mom. Mutually assured destruction, goddamn it.
Finally, they reached Grace’s pristine white SUV, sitting under the afternoon sun. Once they were both buckled in, she turned to him. “So, I’ve been thinking…”
Never a good thing… “What’s that?”
“Well, since Heavenly couldn’t come with you, maybe we can FaceTime with her this week?
I’m dying to finally meet the woman who captured my son’s heart.
” Grace’s smile was the first genuine one he’d seen since he arrived.
“Carl has been teasing me about interrogating her, but I’ll behave. I promise.”
Fuck. The last thing he needed was his mother cornering Heavenly via video chat and asking pointed questions he hadn’t coached her how to answer. And if she happened to be wearing the engagement ring Seth hadn’t confessed yet to slipping on her finger…
Yeah, he had to avoid that until he was ready to come clean.
“Honestly, her schedule is really crazy right now—clinical rotations, studying for boards, working at the hospital. She barely has time to sleep.” And she’s probably still walking funny after our evening at The Wild Stalk.
“Besides, she’s a little shy, especially at first. But I know you.
You’re so welcoming, and once you meet her, you’ll bring her out of her shell.
” The lies were coming easier now, which only made him feel worse.
“But I swear you’ll love her. She’s warm, funny, and incredibly sweet. ”
Crap. The same word the twins had used to describe Gia. Freudian slip?
Grace’s expression fell. “Oh. I was really hoping… But I suppose I can wait until the wedding.”
Seth’s stomach clenched as he pictured trying to navigate that minefield.
How was he supposed to sit beside Heavenly while Beck was seated in another pew and at another table, pretending to be nothing more than a friend who happened to be in town for a few days?
How would the surgeon manage to keep his hands—or his stare—off Heavenly?
Asking him to felt unfair. And he already knew it pissed Beck off.
“Speaking of the wedding,” he said, desperate to steer the conversation toward safer territory, “how are the plans coming along?”
Grace’s demeanor brightened. “Wonderfully! Father Heasley will marry us in the Church.”
Of course. The one place where he couldn’t marry Heavenly since Beck would be beside him. The Church would never recognize their union. Would his mother?
“Where’s the reception?”
“A garden pavilion overlooking the Hudson. It’s perfect. The event will be fairly intimate, just immediate family and close friends. About forty people total.”
“I’m so happy for you. You love him?”