My Bad (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 4)

“All right, y’all have until eighteen hundred hours. I want you back in here not a minute late.” Treat stood up and started to shut down his computer.

We all stood with him and started to file out of the room.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t made it more than a step toward the door before Treat stopped me.

“Not you, Hoax. I have someone that wants to speak with you.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Someone that wants to speak with you,” he repeated. “That was what that call was about. Take a seat right there and I’ll give him a call back.”

What I hadn’t expected was for the ‘call’ to actually be a video chat through Skype.

What else I didn’t expect? Pru’s father’s face to fill up the screen.

Oh, and his next words? Definitely never saw those coming, either.

“I have some information for you that you might find interesting.” He paused. “I’m also fairly positive that what I say won’t leave this room. My contacts know that I’m retired, but from time to time they still come to me with problems hoping that I’ll pass them along to the correct people.”

Sam went on to blow our worlds, spouting out top-secret information even Treat hadn’t been privy to.

At the end of his explanation, we were both sitting there flabbergasted.

Treat blinked. “That completely changes our entire operation.”

Sam nodded once. “I thought it might.”

“Fuck me.” Treat groaned, his big hands going over his face as he growled. “This is fucking bullshit. I can’t believe we fell for that bullshit!”

Bullshit indeed.

We’d been sitting on our hands for the last four months, and we had nothing to show for it but an empty goddamn village that wasn’t the least bit under threat.

“No wonder the other team couldn’t find anything, and they were made.” He shook his head. “They had to be feeding them false information for a while. They likely knew they were plants, too.”

Sam nodded once. “If I get anything more, I’ll tell you.” His eyes shifted from Treat’s to mine. “You, I just wanted to talk to you and tell you that…”

“Surprise!”

***

Pru

“I’m so glad that you’re home for a little bit,” I told Piper. “It feels like you were away forever.”

She grinned. “Six months isn’t forever.”

She took her hat off as we entered the building that my dad used for his offices. I’d asked her if she wanted to go change first, but she’d declined.

Piper and I were both daddy’s girls, and she’d missed him. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to change out of her military uniform.

“Six months is forever when you’re used to seeing your twin every single day,” I felt it prudent to point out.

“Thanks for picking me up from the airport. I wanted to surprise Dad. Mom’s face was priceless when she saw me at work. I had to threaten her not to call Dad and tell him I was here.” She grinned happily.

Our first stop that morning had been the hospital.

I normally didn’t like going in on my days off because I didn’t like dealing with Kelley and his never-ending bullshit, but today was a special circumstance.

And the look on my mother’s face when she saw Piper had been worth it. Even if I had to deal with Kelley and his bitching that we were being too loud.

Why he’d been back in his old office, I didn’t know, but I knew that I’d be telling my dad about it once the excitement died down.

“Jesus, you look really pregnant.” She laughed.

I looked down at my tank top and jeans. My jeans were being held up by an elastic hair tie around the button, and I knew it wouldn’t be much longer and they wouldn’t fit at all.

“It’s the shirt,” I plucked it from my stomach and showed her how tight it fit. “It’s awesome. And long so I’m not showing half my ass every time I raise my arms in the air.”

“It’s not the shirt,” she disagreed. “It’s the fact that you’re pregnant.”

I sighed.

“I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday,” I admitted.

She looked down at me. “Well, all I’m saying is that you’re either a lot further along than you think…” She held up her hand when I went to retort, “Or you are pregnant with twins.”

I flipped her off. “I’m not pregnant with twins. Don’t put that sorcery on me! When I went, the doctor said I was measuring right on time according to my last missed period.”

“I also notice that you didn’t hear whether it was twins or not. You could be measuring ‘on time’ with twins, too.” She shrugged. “Twins do run in our family.”

They did.

I narrowed my eyes. “Eighteen weeks. That’s it.”

Eighteen weeks put me getting pregnant toward the last two to three days that Hoax had been home. That meant that it might’ve been the time he took me in the airport bathroom.