Risking Fate (4 page)

I knew once we got with our family we wouldn’t have time to talk about what happened until we were going to sleep.

It bothered me.

We’d never had a single issue with anyone from Tucker’s family, in fact
,
from the time Iz was born, none of them had anything to do with her. When we gave Iz my last name, it was just assumed that nobody would ever even ask who her father was.  As far as everyone knew, she was mine.

We pulled into Van and Colt’s place and they came running out to greet us. Miranda calmed down some when she saw them heading toward us. I gave her a squeeze before we opened the door. “I love you, Baby. I will never let anything happen to our family, you hear me?”

She shook her head and squeezed my hand. “I know, Ty.”

Noah opened the back door and Izzy went flying out of the car with him. I jumped out and ran over to Miranda’s side. She was already standing up hugging Colt. “Look at your belly. I can’t believe
its
twins.” Colt rubbed her stomach and then took Christian from Van so she could hug Miranda.

I reached around her waist and hugged her at the same time, lifting her up off the ground when she pulled away from my wife. “We missed you so much!” Van had a love-hate relationship with my sarcasm. There were times where she couldn’t get enough of it, then other times when I was sure she wanted to kill me.

I reached my arms out for Christian and she reached back. “Hey pretty girl. Uncle Ty missed you.” Her dimple was so adorable.
Since we were older and all so close, it was easier for the kids to call the adults ‘aunt and uncle’.
“Did you hear that you are going to have two cousin
s
to play
with, in
a few more months? That’s right!” My baby voice caused
everyone to stop talking to each other and watch me. “What? She loves it. Don’t you?” I kissed her on her head before following everyone into the
house
.

Izzy and Noah had already run inside, so there was no need to look back and worry what they were getting into. They both had reason to never want to play outside in the dark and I think we were all okay with that.

I loved being with my family and shortly the house filled with my mother in law and my aunt, but all I could think about was Miranda. I could sense she was on edge and all I could do was pretend to be tired so I could finally have a second of alone time to make sure she was alright.

Chapter 3

Miranda

To say that I was a little freaked out would have been an understatement. That woman was someone that I never wanted to see again. Her son had d
estroyed my family and caused us
pain and loss. I was glad that he was dead and couldn’t harm anyone ever again. He
’d
got
ten
everything he deserved.

When I saw her looking down at my little girl, I felt like I wanted to kill the woman myself. There was no part of me that felt sorry for her not knowing her grandchild. I knew for a fact that she had something to do with Van’s kidnapping and the loss of her baby. That woman was evil with a capital E.

As excited as I had been about seeing my family and celebrating the news of Ty and I expecting twins, all I could think about was that woman. Her wicked grin haunted me and caused me to be unable to focus on anything else.

I knew Ty sensed it. I could feel him watching me with his concerned eyes. He knew me too well to be able to hide my feelings
from him. We were too close, too good of friends to not sense something was bothering one of us. Usually I loved that about our relationship, but for the first time, I wanted to run away and hide. A part of me wanted to drive home as fast as we could get there. I needed my daughter to be safe from that evil woman.

Maybe I was just jumping the gun, but I couldn’t help but feel that we had just opened up a can of worms.
The last thing I wanted to do was upset the rest of my family over something that was probably just my overactive imagination. I just
couldn’t
shake this gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. I knew my hormones had a way of making my mind wander. In fact, the past few nights I
had
woke
n
up after having terrible nightmares.
 

I hated that feeling of waking up and wondering if what just happened in my mind had really happened. No matter
what time it was, I would get
up and check on Bella and even Ty before letting myself go back to sleep.
 

Sometimes, the dreams would seem so real that I
couldn’t
even get back to sleep. Here recently, I had been dreaming of Ty having a hot
affair with some mystery woman.
 

We spent all of our free time together. He never hid his phone or even gave the slightest impression that he
would
ever be interested in being with someone else, but it still made me feel insecure. Several
times,
he woke up to me crying. At
first,
I
didn’t
even have the heart to tell him what they were about, but as they continued, I found myself needing to be reassured of his love and devotion to me.
 

Ty was the perfect husband. His support and friendship was something I treasured, so telling him that my dreams were haunting me like they were
,
really seemed to hurt his feelings.
After what happened earlier, I knew the last thing Ty wanted to do was be around our family without knowing what I was so worried about.
 

He'd passed a couple hints that he was
exhausted
from the ride and I read into what he was doing. Feeling
exhausted from completely unrelated
reasons, we headed to the main
house, leaving Bella to spend the night with Noah.

Once we got in the car
,
Ty couldn’t wait any longer. “Baby, please tell me what is going on? I realize seeing that old bitch has stirred up some anxiety, but you are really starting to freak me the fuck out.”

Since we were just traveling down the old dirt
road
that le
d to the main
house, I wasn’t b
uckled into my seatbelt. I slid
over toward him and rested my head on his shoulder. “I can’t shake the feelin’ that her seein’ us isn’t goin’ to cause some ki
nd of problem for the
family.”

“What could she possibly do? I think you were just caught off guard and your hormones are making you crazy. Miranda, you and I both know that Izzy has my name. That woman has no say in anything. She can’t do anything to us, or our daughter.” Ty seemed like he was on edge over it too, even though he wasn’t letting on to it, I could sense he was also concerned.

The only issue was that, in the state of Kentucky, the only way to add a father to the birth certificate after it had been issued was to prove paternity, and we knew Ty could never do that. Changing her name was easy and only I had to sign for that, but it broke Ty’s heart he could never be on that piece of paper. He mentioned one time that one day Bella would ask him about it and he didn’t know what he would tell her. I
wanted that to be up to him. Ty was her one and only father. No paper or test could ever change it.

“Maybe, you’re right. Maybe it is just this pregnancy making me crazy. As far as everyone is concerned, Bella is yours. I’m sorry I freaked out so bad.”

He took his hand and ran it up my leg. “Baby, I would die before I let anyone hurt you or Iz. I would never let anything happen to our family. You are my reason for breathing. If you hurt, I hurt. You know this.”

I shook my head, even though he was looking forward, driving us through the dark wooded part of the lane. “You’re right, Babe. I just never wanted to see that woman again.”

“Can you calm down now and enjoy our weekend? Did you see how excited everyone was that we are having twin boys
? God, Miranda, I can’t even explain
how happy I am. Our life is so fucking perfect.”

He was right. Our life was perfect and it would have been stupid for me to dwell on that woman. She had nothing to do with our life. My daughter was safe and she had the only father she would ever know.
Aside from it breaking Ty’s heart, I knew that I would never tell her the truth. Our family was sworn to secrecy, and the only way Bella would
ever have
to know the truth was if it
became a life threatening situation. Still, with her biological father being dead, the chances of other family coming forward was next to none. Our secret was safe and buried and that is where it needed to stay.

The house was dark when we got inside, so we just carried our things up to my old room and started getting settled. Ty stripped down to his boxers and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. I was surprised when I heard the bathtub running, so I walked in to see what wa
s going on. Bubbles were starting
to fill up the tub and my husband turned around with a smile. “I know you can’t get a hot bath, so I made the water just warm enough. You don’t have to stay in very long, but I think you need to relax a little bit.
”

Candles were lit around the room and I had no idea where he had even found a lighter or pack of matches. The candles had always been in there for decorations and fragrance. The smell of lavender filled my nostrils as I approached Ty’s open arms. “This is really nice.”

“Say you will take a ba
th and relax.” He started lifting
off my shirt before I could respond. Once it was over my head, he ran his hands over my belly and pressed his lips on it, kissing in several different places. “My babies need their mommy to stay calm and healthy.”

“I will take a bath, but only if you join me.”

While still in his boxers, Ty stood up and jum
ped right into the tub. Water be
g
a
n to splash everywhere. “Any other requests?” He sat there with his arms out again, waiting for me to join him.

“Take off the boxers.”

He did as I asked and I watched them get tossed toward his other clothes. From being
wet,
they made a splash sound when they came to rest on the tile floor.

I took my time pulling down my pants and stepping out of them.  Ty was still watching me, waiting for me to respond
to him
. The only thing more that I
needed
was to be close to him. I wanted his hands on me in the worst way; holding me tight and protecting me from my own wandering mind.

He held one of my hands while I climbed into the
tub. Since my belly was getting big, I slid in front of him, with my back against his chest. Ty was right, the water was just the perfect temperature. The doctors said that getting hot baths wasn’t good for the baby because it fluctuates the body temperature too much. Of course, I had one of those husbands who went by the book as far as my pregnancy went.

Ty made sure he got rid of any type of caffeine we had in the
house
. He switched everything to decaf. We hardly drank soda, so it was mostly teas and coffees. He made sure that we had a vegetable every night at dinner, even though I was usually the one to cook. Every morning when he woke up, he would get me a glass of water so that I could take my prenatal vitamins. In the evenings, we would do stretching exercises and once I was totally worn out, he would rub cocoa butter all over my belly and back.

He pampered me, I was fully aware, but I never asked him to do any of it. It was almost like he wanted to do it. Even when I expected him to stop after a while, he never did.

I felt his arms reaching around and ending up on my belly. He guided me back so I was pressed against his body. His lips brushed the back of my neck and then my shoulder. Chills ran down my legs from just feeling his breath blowing on my skin. Ty brought his lips to
my
ear and kissed the skin right behind it. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered.

I kept my eyes closed. “You know I do.”

“Please say it.” Another kiss touched my skin.

I moved my hands down to his thighs and started moving each one towards the inside of them. “I love you, Ty. I love you more than I
have ever loved another man.” He asked this often and when I asked why, he would just say that sometimes he needed to hear it.

“Do you trust me, Baby?”

My eyes remained shut as his hands slid up my belly and began circling my breasts with what felt like soap. “With my life.”

His fingers pinch my nipples at the same time, sending a scorching
flame between my legs. When his
hands disappeared, I opened my eyes, searching for them. He grabbed the pink poof ball off the edge and lathered it up, before sliding it between my legs. “Just relax. Know that I will never let anything hurt us, Miranda.” He drug the poof ball full of soap between my legs. It was rough and at
first,
it was uncomfortable, but as he continued to rub me, the friction began to turn me on.
“Does it feel good?”