Live Wire (10 page)

Asal skipped into the room. “Check again, Dad. We’re out.”

Well, shit.
How had he missed that search-and-destroy mission? “Okay. Back in ten.” He grabbed his keys, kissed his girls, and headed for his garage, hollering over his shoulder, “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Sugar called. “Just one of everything.” He heard them giggle and scoot out of the kitchen. “Come on, let’s go play in the baby’s room.”

Apparently, in the last two days that meant folding and refolding
everything
, but whatever. Sugar liked it, and Asal was excited for the baby to arrive.

As he punched the garage door open, he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face, knowing that his badass wife, the one someone might mistake for a “biker bitch,” was nothing more than a softie playing dolls with her kid and fussing over teeny baby outfits until they were
just
perfect.

And no one knew that despite Jared’s growl and bite, those two girls and the one on her way could bat their little eyelashes, and he would bend God’s will to get whatever they wanted. He was mush for them. And proud of it.

***

The baby kicked her uterus again, and Sugar winced, trying not to curse in front of Asal. “Whoa, popsicles.”

Popsicles.
Not a creative curse word. It was probably an homage to her ever-rumbling stomach but was better than any number of things that could have come out of her mouth.

“I’m going to rock the baby like this.” Asal had a doll in her arm and swayed back and forth.

“Awesome, honey.” Sugar slowly made her way to the glider and eased herself into it. Asal propped herself on the footstool, fussing over the baby doll’s clothes, then went to the changing table and pretended to change her doll with one of the newborn diapers.

A small contraction hit. As Braxton-Hicks contractions went, this one was light. They’d plagued her for the last few weeks, and while they were supposed to be the
practice
ones, they still sucked.

Buzz. Buzz.

Dang it. “Asal, hon. Can you grab my phone?” She was not standing up at the moment.

Dutifully scooping her baby doll into her arms, Asal grabbed Sugar’s phone—the buzzing had stopped—and handed it to her.
Missed call: Jared.
She hit redial. If there was a shortage of sour cream, there was a good chance she was to blame.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Baby Cakes. I hate to ask you this.”

Sugar grumbled the same time another not-so-light contraction hit. “What’s up?”

“I have a two-woman field team about to run an op for Delta. They have no gear, and Brock’s over near GUNS. Can he swing by for a quick shopping spree?”

Brock was the commander of the Delta team. His wife, Sarah, was Sugar’s business partner, and she ran her gun store and range while Sugar took it easy and prepared for maternity leave. “Yeah, yeah. Take what you need. Put it on your tab.”

“Thanks.”

“Want to tell me how a grocery run turned into an order to fully outfit”—she shifted to alleviate the discomfort in her back—“two women I don’t know?”

“All in a day’s work.”

“No juicy details, huh? I can’t even live vicariously.”

“Delta’s rescuing a Honduran cartel wife.”

“Ah.” That probably had something to do with the shitstorm Delta cleaned up a few weeks ago in Central America. “Give me details later.”

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Of course. Just nosey.” And uncomfortable and crampy. Maybe contraction-y. Definitely. Another contraction started. She checked to see how long they’d been on the phone.
Not that long.
“Did you get my snacks?”

“Roger that. And Jell-O.”

“Sweet. And you’re on your way home?”

“Yeah. Why? Actually, I might stop—”

She took a short breath. “Hey, come home.” Her voice had dropped. Asal paused with her doll.

“Mom, you okay?”

“Yes, honey.” Smiling at Asal, Sugar shifted again, using the glider—unsuccessfully—to try to ease the discomfort. “Jared.”

“Already on my way.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gravel spun under the tires as Jared skidded onto the shoulder and then righted his SUV from the U-turn. Sugar wasn’t one to panic. The woman would rather sit on a grenade and save a small town than let a modicum of sweat dampen her brow. That tinge of
get home quick
in her voice meant she was in pain, and there were very few times he’d heard his wife in a vulnerable state before. She’d be past the level of uncomfortable and likely timing a contraction or two before she’d let him in on what he already knew.

The woman was in labor.

He pressed the gas pedal, his heart pounding, and reached for his phone, dialing Mia Winters.

Mia answered on the first ring. “Please tell me Sugar’s having a baby!”

He grumbled at Mia’s over-the-moon excitement. His own excitement bordered on high blood pressure.

Everything was under control. He’d mapped all possibilities out. Everything had a plan. The plans had contingencies. He would be cool under pressure as always. But his wife was about to deliver his daughter.

He cleared his throat, cracking a knuckle for good measure. “She didn’t say that.”

“Why would she?” Mia rounded her kids up off the phone before coming back. “It’s Sugar. On my way over.”

“Could be nothing.”

“Could be a baby!” Mia gushed.

When she said it like that, Jared’s stomach jumped the way it had when he was that high-school freshman called out for varsity football. He had known it was coming, but when it did, it still shocked the hell out of him. But on the scale of exciting life events, varsity football versus a baby, the baby was magnified about a thousand times over. “Grab Winters.”

“Colby’s already wrangling Ace into a car seat.”

“Good.” Jared floored the gas when the light ahead turned yellow, ignoring what was certainly a heart palpitation in his throat. “Could be nothing.”

“Then we have a pizza party with Asal, and Sugar can complain about heartburn.”

“Right. See you soon.” He hung up and tossed down the phone then thought better of it, pulling it closer in case Sugar called, as though those extra inches between him and the phone would make a difference. He cracked a knuckle and cleared his throat.

Sugar. Was. In. Labor.

Minutes later, Jared screeched into the driveway and jumped out. He left the garage door up because why waste time if he would haul ass out again? He burst inside, groceries in hand just in case he
was
blowing Sugar’s tone of voice
way
out of proportion—although he knew he wasn’t.

Asal’s huge grin met him. “Mama’s having the baby!”

Sugar hovered on the edge of the couch arm, not exactingly sitting, a forced smile on her face, gritting her teeth more than saying hello. “
Think so.
”

For one long-assed second, all of his plans went out of his head. They stayed locked in a look until Asal clapped. “Clara and Ace are here!”

Jared blew out a breath. “Backup. Alright. Good. They’re here.”

“Honey,” Sugar said, taking a deep breath and turning her head to look at their daughter. “Colby and Mia and the kids are spending the night.”

“
I know.
” Asal rushed to the front door to let them in. “You guys have only been over
the plans
a thousand times.”

This was true. They were nothing if not well prepared. Though in the eyes of a ten-year-old, that was likely as boring and annoying as Asal had just made it sound.

The brood walked in. The kids went a million miles an hour. Winters made a joke. Sugar threatened to kill him. Mia smacked her husband and went to Sugar to start timing the contractions. They were close but not close enough to head to the hospital. Jared turned on the oven, per Mia’s instructions,
that little drill sergeant
, and took the bag of frozen pizza that she had brought over for the kids.

Clara and Asal ran through the living room with Ace in the back of a giant dump truck. “Don’t dump your brother face-first on the floor,” Winters yelled. He smiled and made his way into the kitchen.

Jared crossed his arms over his chest, watching their two families’ lives unfold as Winters propped next to him against the counter.

“This is some crazy shit,” Jared mumbled.

“Pretty damn awesome, huh?” Winters agreed.

Pride swelled in Jared’s chest. Hell yeah, it was. He nodded at his guy, who went to grab a beer, and Jared went to his wife. Sugar had still opted to sit on the edge of the couch arm instead of the actual couch cushion, and she and Mia were lost in conversation about Delta team and the new Titan recruits.

He wrapped his arm around Sugar’s shoulders, settling on the back of the couch, and she leaned her weight against him.

Ten years ago, if Jared had been offered a million dollars to predict the future of his household, there was no way he could’ve guessed correctly. Yeah, maybe he could’ve nailed the fact that Winters would settle down. Maybe him too. But that his fortress of a house was… a home? He took it all in: Happiness bounced off the walls as a pizza baked in the oven, and his impatient wife waited for a phone app to tell her it was time to head to the hospital.

Could he have foreseen this? Never. He couldn’t have dreamed anything this great.

“Okay. Press that little damn button,” Sugar growled to Mia, who hit the start button on the phone. All four adults watched the timer. Actually, three—Jared watched Sugar.

Ding. Ding.

Mia’s eyes danced. “Baby time.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The overhead lights in the hospital’s reception room glared. People milled around as though something momentous were not about to happen. Jared was on edge. He knew adrenaline. He knew anticipation. He wasn’t at all prepared to sit and wait on paperwork, contractions, and a waiting area. Of all the places to have a waiting room, a hospital birth center seemed wrong. If he ran the joint, staff would be stationed there, directing traffic, giving orders to move at appropriate times. He’d have constant intelligence updates and live-streaming stats—where the doctor was, what the nurses were doing, when the rooms were ready.

Instead, he held a cheap plastic pen and a clipboard with information that had long ago been submitted to the hospital as Sugar had an intense moment. Her nails dug into his forearm.
A very intense moment.

“Doing okay, Baby Cakes?” Jared adjusted Sugar’s grip.

“Never better.” Her lips were a flat line, and if she hadn’t been ready to have a baby, he’d have assumed she was a split second from a rage kill. He could see her molars grinding behind her cheeks.

“Your fingernails are digging deep, babe. Thought I’d ask.”

“Would you shut up a minute?” She dug back in.

Okay.
Yeah, he would need stitches after Sugar had the baby. That was fine. If that’s what it took. He flipped the form over. “Stupid paperwork. I thought we did this ahead of time.”

“We did.”

“Why are we doing it again? Stay put.” He removed his wife’s talons from the upper layer of his dermis and walked back to the nurses’ desk where they’d checked in. “Hey, yeah. We already did this.”

The nurse faked a smile. “That’s day-of paperwork.”

“Yeah. It’s done.” He put it down.

“Both sides?”

No.
“Everything you need is there.” Honestly, he didn’t need to battle the lady, but as his chest puffed out and he contained a megadose of alpha-hole, Jared made a big show of signing the back page. He slid the clipboard forward. “Done.”

Sugar had wanted to go to
her
special hospital, not where he basically had a concierge setup with Doc Tuska at
his
hospital. At this point, he would have paid to relocate her OB’s practice. “
If
there’s a problem, tell me about it. Otherwise, let’s get this show on the road.
She’s having a baby.
”

As if on cue, a man rolled up with a wheelchair. “Lilly Westin?”

Oh, brother. That would not go well. Before he could correct the poor soul with the wheelchair, he saw his wife’s annoyed face.

“
Sugar.
” She pushed out of her chair. “That’s me.”

Jared growled at the nurse, the wheelchair guy—basically at the entire room. This was not going as smoothly as he had planned. That was fine. He lived for handling contingencies. However, beginner name-calling mistakes and day-of paperwork were not on his list of acceptable fuckups.

“Let’s go,” Jared snapped and led the way as if he knew where he was going. There was only one way to go. Down the hall. So off they went.

“How are we doing today?” the chipper man pushing Sugar’s wheelchair asked.