Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
GOT MILK?
LOUISIANA
I don’t know what the fuck happened.
One minute we’re sitting there at the kitchen table, laughing about how bad my tunnel vision is—Evie poking fun, Aunt Joe laughing and helping lay it on thick. The next, Evie’s going quiet. Real quiet.
Then she stands up so fast the chair screeches back. Her hand’s already on her belly, like her body knew before her mind did. And her eyes…shit, her eyes go wide, glassy. Not scared, not really. Just…alert. Like this is it.
I don’t remember getting in the car. Don’t remember grabbing her purse or buckling her in or flying down Main Street like a bat out of hell while my heart threatens to crack open my ribcage. All I remember is her voice—calm, grounding—cutting through the panic.
“Both of you,” she says, looking from me to Aunt Joe in the rearview, “take a fucking breath.”
By the time we pull up to the hospital entrance, Henry and Maddox are already there. Maddox doesn’t even close his door before he’s striding toward her, jaw tight, fists clenched.
Then he sees her.
I watch the shift happen—stone to something almost…broken. Not weak. Just real. The man bleeds panic without making a sound.
Evie reaches up, all grace and light, and presses her fingers to the scar on his lip like she’s reminding him of who he is. Who they are.
“Let’s go have this baby, big guy,” she whispers, eyes locked on his.
And he nods.
Just once.
Like that’s all he needs to hear.
A little while after they take Evie and Maddox back, the entire Wilder clan fills the waiting room like a flood.
Vic, Lucien, and Allie come in behind them, voices hushed, faces drawn tight with anticipation.
It’s the room they reserve for family—but even with all the space, it feels like the air has been vacuumed out.
Too many hearts beating too loud in one place.
We all sit on edge, held in a kind of fragile stillness, like if we move too much or speak too loud, we’ll break the spell.
Henry and Mercy are keeping the boys—Charlie, Bash, and Dallas—entertained in the corner with a spread of Legos and playing cards. Henry’s voice is low and steady, laughing with them, patient as ever. He looks so good like that. Natural. Like a father.
It twists something deep inside me.
Sophie, sweet as always, shows up with a cardboard box stuffed with cinnamon rolls, danishes, and two trays of coffee. She passes them around like communion, planting herself between Mags and Aunt Joe while I drop to the floor at her feet, cross-legged, sketchbook balanced on my knees.
My pencil moved on instinct—capturing Joe’s pinched brow, Mags leaning in close to Sophie, Vic pacing like a caged animal, Allie pressed against the wall looking more rattled than usual. It helps. Drawing always helps.
But nothing can quiet the ache under my ribs. My chest tightens with the brutal fact I can never give him this. A baby crying down the hall. A waiting room full of people who love you. A tiny hand curling around your finger for the first time.
As I let my eyes roam across every face in this room—the rough hands, the tired smiles, the way their eyes hold me like I am already theirs—I feel it hit me deep and sharp. Evie was right. How fucking lucky am I to be chosen? To be wrapped up in something so raw, so messy, so impossibly beautiful?
This family that doesn’t give a single fuck about blood or biology.
Fuck tradition.
That cold, dead old shit never held me. Never touched me. Never made me feel like I belonged or mattered.
What had Aunt Joe said the night Maddox proposed? Not born from my body, but from my heart. I can almost hear her voice, soft but sure, cutting through the noise in my head.
Holy hell—what a God damn idiot I’ve been.
So stubborn. So terrified to see the truth blazing in front of me like a bonfire that threatened to burn down everything I thought I knew.
I’m not less. I’m not broken.
I’m the fucking dream, and he has been mine from the very start.
My chest pulls tight, breath catching as I look at him—really look at him.
Henry, sitting back against the wall like he hadn’t just rearranged the bones of my heart by showing up, steady as hell.
His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, calloused hands wrapped around a coffee cup he hasn’t touched.
Jaw tight, eyes soft—like he already knows the war I’ve been fighting inside myself.
Like he’s been waiting for me to stop swinging and finally see him.
This time I do.
God, I see him.
My fingers hover for just a second—just long enough for my pulse to spike—before I reach out, trembling, and hook my pinkie around his.
It’s small. Soft. Almost nothing.
But the second our skin touched, it feels like my whole damn body lights up—hot and sharp and grounding all at once. Like coming up for air after being underwater too long.
His eyes snap to mine, and just like that the Fort Knox I have been building for all these years between us, just blows up. I feel it in my chest, in my stomach, in the base of my spine. That unspoken thing that has always been there.
His pinkie tightens around mine, just enough to say I’ve always been here.
The buzz of the waiting room dulls—muffled voices, chairs creaking, Mercy’s soft laughter with the kids. But it’s background noise. The real thing is right here.
I don’t need a baby in my arms to feel whole. I don’t need blood to make a family. I never fucking did.
I have this.
Him.
The man who’d never let me go, even when I tried to push him away, and now, finally, I reached back, and I will keep reaching for him every damned day. Never letting him slip through my fingers ever again.
I let out a shaky breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, when the door suddenly creaks open and every single one of us freezes.
Maddox steps in, broad shoulders silhouetted against the hallway light, his shirt rumpled, hair damp at the temples like he’s run his hands through it too many times.
His glasses perched on top of his head. The second he crosses the threshold, the entire room stands as one—chairs scraping back, breath held, hearts in our throats.
His eyes sweep across us—Joe clutching her necklace, Mags on the verge of tears, Henry straightening beside the boys, Mercy with a quiet prayer on his lips. Even Vic stops pacing. The silence is thick enough to choke on.
“Still no baby,” Maddox says finally, stepping into the room. His voice is low but steady—rough like gravel, yet carrying a quiet warmth underneath. “But mama and baby are doing good. Evie got her epidural and is dilated to a seven.”
A collective breath whooshes through the room, filling the heavy silence. Shoulders that had been tight and trembling sag with relief. The tension that has held us hostage cracks and spills out like a breaking wave, washing over us in a rush of quiet hope.
From his spot between the boys, Merc breaks the fragile calm with a laugh. “Seven? Dear God. Might want to tell Doc to put an extra stitch in once she births your big head ass baby.”
Maddox narrows his eyes and shoots him a look sharp enough to cut glass while a faint smile tugs at his lips. “Shut the hell up and change your shirt.”
I glance down and catch the words on Merc’s chest—Got Milk?—in faded, bold letters.
Beside me, Henry’s shoulders shake with suppressed laughter, his breath catching in quick, shaky bursts. Maddox turns his searing gaze on him, silence sharp between them before his eyes soften as they land on me.
“Lou,” he said, voice dipping low, rough around the edges, a raw edge underneath the calm. “She’s asking for you.”
My heart slams against my ribs. “Me?”
Maddox holds the door open. “Yeah, she said to drag your stubborn ass back if need be.”
A shaky laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it, and something inside me—something tight and old and scared—finally lets go.
I stand, sketchbook still in one hand, following Maddox out the door, Henry’s touch still burning faintly against my skin. The cool air of the hallway brushes over me, but the warmth lingers stubbornly, a quiet reminder of what I’d almost lost.
We walk in silence, the soft click of our footsteps swallowed by the sterile stillness. Then I feel Maddox’s gaze drop to me, heavy and searching.
“You know how much she loves you?” His voice is low, rough around the edges but filled with something raw and fierce.
I swallow and meet his eyes. “Yeah, I do.”
He keeps walking, but his tone grows softer, almost vulnerable. “She’s been worried sick about you. After everything that happened with her and Allie, to you finding out she left you the boys, to Dallas and… Henry.”
I bite back the ache twisting in my chest. “I’m fine.”
“No, Little Lou,” Maddox says quietly, his voice dropping even lower, like a warning and a promise all at once. “But I think you will be.”
He doesn’t need to say another word. I know grief—the empty, suffocating pit that drags you under and threatens to drown you whole.
Maddox has stared into that darkness and come out the other side, raw but unshattered.
Standing here, steady as a God damn rock, he is a living proof that you can carry the weight of everything life throws at you and still keep moving forward.
Like a fierce, unyielding light cutting through the shadows, he’s showing me how to survive without losing myself in the process.
God, I sure do love the big brute.
“Thank you.”
Maddox slides his glasses down from the top of his head, settling them on his face with one hand. He gives me a small nod—quiet, solid—and then opens the hospital room door.
A massive pink wreath hangs on it, the ribbon letters loud and proud: Baby Wilder.
The moment we step inside, the world narrows. The room is dim and sterile, the overhead lights low, casting everything in a soft blue-gray hue. A chill clings to the air, almost too cold, like the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and makes your teeth ache.
The only sound is the rhythmic thump of the baby’s heartbeat from the monitor, steady and strong. It echoes through the quiet like a drum, grounding and fragile all at once.
“Well,” I say, easing down into the chair beside Evie and taking her hand in mine, “this isn’t anything like the last time we did this.”
My thumb brushes gently over her knuckles, warm and familiar. I can still remember the chaos of that night—the flood of nurses, the beeping machines, the sharp scent of antiseptic, and the mad scramble to prepare her for a C-section of not one, but two babies.
Evie gives me a soft, tired chuckle, her fingers lacing with mine. “Yeah, it’s quieter for sure.”
I settle my sketchbook in my lap without opening it. I don’t need to draw this time. I just need to be here.
“You look relaxed,” I murmur, studying her face—the slight sheen of sweat at her hairline, the rise and fall of her chest. Calm, but tense beneath it. The kind of calm that comes before a storm.
“For now.” She smiles gently. “Just wait until the real fun begins.”
My heart’s hammering like a fist against my ribs. Too loud, too fast. I’m not staying. I shouldn’t stay. She has Maddox. She doesn’t need me here for this.
“You’re staying, heifer,” she says without even looking at me, like she felt the thought leave my body before I could say it out loud. Her voice is soft but firm. “Did you really think I’d do this without you?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I motion toward Maddox, who sits on her other side, eyes laser-focused on the monitor. Every time a contraction spikes, his hand moves instinctively—massaging her hips and lower back, gentle but firm, grounding her with every touch.
“You have Big Guy,” I tell her quietly, voice tight.
Evie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, and if he doesn’t keep a lid on that temper, they’re likely to toss his ass out.”
“I don’t like seeing my wife in pain,” Maddox mutters, not looking up. His hands are moving, steady, controlled. “Plus, I know the sheriff, I’ll be fine.”
Evie turns back to me, her eyes glossy with exhaustion and something deeper—something sacred. “Hey. Look at me.”
“The first time,” her voice thick now, “it was only me and you, bringing Charlie and Bash into this world. Come hell or high water, you will be here to help bring her into it as well.”
The monitor beeps softly. The world outside keeps spinning. But in this small, cold room filled with steady heartbeats and too much love for the walls to hold, I know—
I’m not going anywhere.