AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I couldn’t believe it.
A few moments later, the door flew open, and Zane stood there before me. He stared at me for a moment, then lunged toward me, reaching out to wrap his arms around me.
“Ian told me your water broke,” he murmured. “Are you...?”
“I think so,” I replied, and I winced, grabbing hold of his arm as a wave of pressure hit me. “Oh! Oh, I really think so...”
“Hey, hey, it’s going to be alright,” he assured me, rubbing his hand on the small of my back.
“I know,” I breathed, exhaling slowly through my mouth. “I know it will. I just... oh, it hurts more than I thought it would.”
He pressed a kiss against my cheek, and I wrapped my arms around him tight.
“You can do this,” he promised me. “I know you can, Chelsea.”
I pulled back to look up at him. God, when he said it like that, I believed it. Because if he could come through everything that he’d come through, then I knew I could do this. I knew I could pull it off, with him at my side.
I put my hand to his face and leaned up to kiss him softly. I knew what was to come was going to be tough and chaotic, but honestly, I just wanted this last moment between the two of us.
“I love you so much, Zane,” I whispered.
“I love you too,” he replied, pressing another kiss to the corner of my mouth. As he pulled back, I groaned again, hands on my stomach.
“Okay, this little guy is coming!” I exclaimed. Dad appeared in the doorway again. He looked panicked as hell, and I almost laughed at the look on his face.
“I called an ambulance,” he told me urgently. “But they said it would be a while...”
“Fuck that, I’ll drive to the hospital,” Zane replied, shaking his head. “Chelsea, can you manage the stairs?”
“I’ll pull the car around while you’re getting down there,” Dad suggested, and Zane tossed him the keys.
“Go for it,” he replied and put his arm around me again. “You ready, Chelsea?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied, fixing my gaze straight ahead. Soon, I would be able to meet my son. With Zane by my side, I would bring him into the world. I couldn’t imagine anything better, the start to a new generation, a chance to begin my own family and create the perfect home for my child.
My son had no idea how lucky he was. And I couldn’t wait to show him.
Epilogue – Chelsea
“How long do we have to wait?” Zane asked as he bounced Tommy on his knee on the edge of the bathtub. Tommy was trying to reach up and grab his beard like he always did when he was this close to his dad. He couldn’t keep his hands off of him. He was at that age where everything we did was the most fascinating thing in the world to him, and he wanted to be in the middle of all of it.
But right now, for once, Tommy wasn’t my focus. No, it was the pregnancy test sitting on the sink in front of me, the test I had just taken that would let me know if we were going to bring Tommy’s sibling into the world sometime soon.
I couldn’t believe this was all happening again so quickly. But more than that, I couldn’t believe how much I wanted that test to come back positive.
Tommy was just one and a half now, and as far as I was concerned, he was the most perfect little baby in the entire world. Sweet, loving, full of laughter, and always curious, he had tumbled into our lives after a crazy-quick birth and shown me a love that I didn’t even know I was capable of until I held him for the first time. I could still remember when the doctors placed him in my arms for the first time, the way he gazed up at me with those big green eyes, like he was saying hello.
And, more than that, how Zane had reacted. When he’d held Tommy for the first time, I had seen something shift inside of him, something changing, like he had finally settled into himself, finally understood what his purpose was.
And he had proved every day since that he was born to be a father. Every day, when he was done with the Dogs, he came racing home to spend time with us, giving me a few hours of my own every evening to work on my business. I loved hearing them in the next room, playing together, Tommy’s joyous laughter filling the air.
And though my business was still pretty new, it was starting to take shape. I had pitched it to a few possible investors, and there was some interest from a major advertising brand who wanted to invest to help me reach my goals. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I had long since learned that nothing in life worth doing was. Juggling motherhood with my professional goals was tough, but when I laid down in bed next to Zane every night, I knew I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
As for Zane, he had proved himself a hundred times over this last year and a half—to me and to everyone around me, too. I knew people had their doubts about us when they heard how we ended up crashing into each other’s lives in the first place, but his hard work with the Dogs to clean up Atwood matched with his doting adoration of his son, who he showed off every chance he got, seemed to soothe any questions anyone might have had. My dad was always the first to defend him when people had questions, and knowing how tight the two of them had become in the last eighteen months meant the world to me. They were both my family, and I knew now that nothing mattered more than the people closest to you.
I chewed on my lip as I stared at the test. We hadn’t exactly been trying for a baby, to be honest about it, but we had hardly been able to keep our hands off of each other, and I guessed it was inevitable that it would happen again eventually. He'd become even more attractive to me when I had seen what an amazing dad he was, like my body was kicking in and telling me to have as many babies as possible with this guy. Not that I would have minded...
Finally, the results showed up. I picked up the test, my hand shaking as I stared down at it. And then, I busted out laughing, clapping a hand over my mouth.
