We’d gone to her appointment—which was enlightening, to say the least.
It was determined that she was, indeed, eight weeks along based on growth.
She was also happy to hear that there was only one after, apparently, she’d had a dream that there were three.
Now we were on the way out of the office, and I was experiencing a rather funny feeling in the vicinity of my chest.
Somewhere close to my heart.
I hadn’t ever thought about kids.
Honestly, after my childhood, I hadn’t thought it would ever be a good thing to bring them around a couple of sad sacs like my parents.
But after seeing that tiny little blip on the screen today of Sierra’s child, I thought—holy hell. I wanted that.
Maybe not now, and definitely not at my present stage of unrest, but maybe one day I would absolutely love to have that in my life.
With a woman like Sierra, for sure.
Her reaction to seeing that baby on the screen? It had nearly ripped out my heart.
To see her so fucking happy was by far the best rise in my fucking happy levels that I’d experienced since I’d been home from war.
“She’s adorable,” she admitted. “Though, her dog is kind of scary.”
I snorted.
“Bobo was a military working dog like me,” I acknowledged. “Originally, I was supposed to be the one with him. I’d gotten him from a man that tries to place them into homes—the ones that don’t look like they’re going to make a great match with a regular family. When we got him, Bobo was a ‘no dogs, no kids’ placement. He’d suffered great trauma both during the war and after he got home. You heard about him and Dillan?”
Dillan belonged to Booth, and Bobo had saved her life when an obsessed man that couldn’t back the fuck off tried to kill her when he couldn’t have her for himself. Bobo had saved her life twice.
Once in an alley where she was being strangled, and again at the vet’s office after he’d gotten shot.
Needless to say, it wasn’t a hardship on my end to take him home.
He deserved to live the rest of his life in happiness.
“You didn’t want to keep him?” she asked after a while.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to keep him,” he said. “It was because he took one look at my grandmother and found a kindred spirit in her, I guess. She loves on him, keeps him happy, and ultimately has no one but him in her life. Which, I think, was what he needed. He was happy with me, but I believe that we were too much alike—both too broken to help each other heal.”
She looked down at her feet as she walked across the parking lot toward my bike.
“That’s sad,” she admitted.
It was.
But he had a somewhat happy ending… unlike me.
Our drive home was fast and painless, and the entire time, I tried not to overthink how good it felt to have Sierra’s fingers plastered against my stomach. Or how great it felt to have her body pressed to mine.
In fact, I was so relaxed by the time we got home that it never occurred to me that my parents would still be there until I was literally pulling up into the driveway and saw their car.
“Fuck,” I grumbled as I pulled right up to the front steps and shut the bike off.
“They’re still here,” she mused as she got off the bike, using her hand on my shoulder for balance.
I got off with her and gestured toward the door when I saw their car doors opening.
“Hurry,” I suggested.
She took the steps two at a time and was opening the door by the time I’d thoroughly glared my parents down.
My mother’s face was an expressionless mask while my father’s was angry as I closed the front door behind us.
“I’m going to let Axe outside,” she said softly as she made her way toward the back door.
Only, Axe—my Maxie—wasn’t following her. His face was pressed up against my leg as he thoroughly shook his hindquarters in excitement.
“He loves you,” she said softly. “I think he missed you.”
“I think he probably thinks that I abandoned him,” I admitted. “My parents are such assholes.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, studying how Maxie didn’t so much as acknowledge her.
“I want to say that I’m sorry,” she said. “That I hate that they did that to you, but Axe—your Maxie? He’s brought a lot of joy to my life. I love him.”
I loved that she loved him.
“If I could’ve chosen anyone to take care of him while I was away, it would be you,” I told her.
The truthfulness of my words rang in the air, and she smiled faintly.
“Let’s go, Axe.” I put emphasis on the name that she’d chosen. “I have to admit, though. You couldn’t have gotten closer to his name if you tried.”