Mom made a distressed noise. “Honey, are you okay? Have you seen a doctor yet? Wait… Is that why Doc saw you at the hospital yesterday?”
“I saw a doctor down in Redding a few weeks ago when I first found out,” I admitted. “But I’ve been having some low blood pressure issues. And after I nearly passed out on Lyric yesterday, he made me go to the emergency room to make sure everything was okay.”
“And is it?” Mom demanded, blinking back tears. “Are you okay? Is the baby?”
“We’re all fine,” I rushed to assure her. My free hand went to my lower abdomen, touching the babies lovingly. “All three of us.”
“Ah fuck,” Dad groaned again. “Twins?”
Mom put a hand to his back. “Spider, we knew this could happen. From the time the girls got their first periods, the doctors all told us the likelihood of an identical twin having twins of their own was higher.”
“But she’s having issues like you did,” Dad muttered, and I realized the look in his dark eyes was worry…maybe even fear. “I was so scared something was going to happen to you or one of our babies, Willa. What if something happens to our baby girl now that she’s having babies of her own?”
“I think all grandfathers freak out when their little girls tell them they’re going to have a baby,” the redhead sitting beside Lyric’s dad said. It was only then that I actually remembered we weren’t alone. “My husband was a nervous wreck when Mia told him she was pregnant. He wasn’t even that freaked out when I told him I was pregnant the first time.”
“Definitely,” Layla Thornton agreed with a kind smile. Her long, burnished red-brown hair fell over her shoulder, and she quickly tossed it out of her way. “And our daughter Lucy couldn’t breathe wrong without this one nearly losing his mind. Especially during the last months of her pregnancies.”
“See?” Mom tried to soothe Dad. “Daughters have babies every day. Mila is going to be fine. I survived having triplets, and obviously, Layla survived having twins. It’s nothing out of the norm.”
“Layla nearly died,” Jesse Thornton muttered, his jaw clenched. “She went into preterm labor, and the twins were in the hospital for months.”
Lyric tensed beside me. “Stop reminding me, Dad,” he gritted out. “I have nightmares just thinking of something happening to Mila. Just stop, okay?”
“Why do you think I was so worried about Lucy when she was pregnant with Hayat and Evan?” he grumbled, rubbing a hand over his shaved head. “Anything could happen, son. You have reason to worry.”
“Jesse,” Layla hissed at him, glancing at my dad out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not helping the current situation.”
Glancing at Dad, I realized he was practically shaking with his own worry. “Mila, we need to get you home. I’ll call Doc, and he can come over and check you out.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him, locking my fingers around Lyric’s. “I saw an obstetrician yesterday, and she said everything is fine. Yes, I’m considered high-risk because it’s twins, but she said there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I can’t take care of you if you’re here,” Dad snapped, getting to his feet.
“You don’t need to take care of her,” Lyric told him, rising to his feet as well. The two men glared at each other, and my nervousness only spiked higher. “I’ll take care of her and our babies.”
“Didn’t you just come to town?” Dad’s brows lifted. “How the fuck is it that they’re your babies when you only got here a few days ago?”
“We met in New
York,” I informed him coldly, more than a little irritated—and hurt—that he assumed the babies weren’t Lyric’s.
Did he think I was a slut or something? One of the MC sheep that slept with anything that blinked at her?
“Of course you did,” Dad grumbled. “Fucking New York. Shit. That’s where all this trouble started. First Monroe, and now you? What the hell do you girls do when I’m not looking, huh?”
“What do you mean, ‘First, Monroe’?” I cried.
Mom’s lips twisted. “She told us last night. She’s pregnant too.”
My hands covered my mouth to hold in my gasp. “But… But she—” I broke off, because there were no words. Monroe was pregnant? That blew my mind.
“She said it happened while she was in Italy. She refuses to talk about the father, and when I told her she needed to contact him to let him know he is going to be a parent, she told me she didn’t know how.” Mom shrugged. “I could tell she was lying, but she was so upset, I didn’t want to push it.”
“Is she okay? I mean, no blood pressure issues or morning sickness? Does she know if she’s having twins or whatever?” I was more worried about my sister than I was myself. She was so delicate, fragile at times, it seemed. She was sweet and pure, not like me. I could take care of myself, but Monroe needed someone to watch over her. Protect her from the evil that was in the world.
She told me everything, except…
Fuck, was the father her stalker?