“Here, Mom. There’s eighteen of them,” Ari announced as she brought a basket of eggs from the hen house into the kitchen. It was one of the“jobs” Shane had given her for the summer that she’d insisted on having so she could earn her own money to buy the baby a present. The new addition to the family was three days overdue, and Paige wished she’d go into labor soon. Her feet were swollen—at least she thought they were since she couldn’t see them—her back was killing her, and she felt like one of the pregnant heifers out in the fields. Ari had been hoping her new baby sister would be born on her own birthday last week, but when that hadn’t happened, she admitted it was probably better if they didn’t have to share their big days.

After she’d been released from the hospital thirteen months ago, Tuck and Shane had proposed to Paige again, since she’d apparently been unconscious the first time they’d done it. After she’d gotten home, Tuck’s parents had stayed through the summer months to help her around the house, letting her ease her way back into a routine as she slowly recovered from her ordeal. After returning to Arizona, they’d come back to Kansas for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and just recently again for the birth of their second granddaughter. This morning, following breakfast, they’d taken Paige’s SUV to run a few errands.

Tuck and Shane had moved her into their bedroom for good her first night home, and she’d fallen asleep between the two of them every night since. Of course, that’d meant she needed to wake one of them every night over the past two months because the baby was taking up space where her bladder normally did. Her men assured her they didn’t mind at all. They were always attentive, but during her pregnancy, their overprotective natures were obvious to everyone. Paige couldn’t remember what it was like to sleep without them. She’d never thought in her wildest dreams—well, maybe in her really wildest dreams—she’d fall in love with two men and be in a full ménage relationship. But it felt right, and nobody would ever make her feel ashamed for loving Shane and Tuck.

Ari had asked if she could call Paige “Mom” as soon as the trio had announced their engagement. Paige had been so honored. Even though this baby was growing inside her and Ari hadn’t, the eight-year-old girl would always be Paige’s daughter.

The night before their wedding last June, when Paige had legally married Tuck and symbolically married Shane, she’d taken the ranch’s golf cart and driven out to the family cemetery alone. She’d brought a bouquet of lilies, the same that would be in her bridal spray the next day—they’d been Sarah’s favorite—and laid them on the woman’s grave.

“I wanted to come and talk to you for a bit before tomorrow. I owe you so much. If it hadn’t been for you, Shane and Tuck might never have fallen in love, and they definitely wouldn’t have Arianna. That also means I never would have met them. I want you to know, I love them all so much, and I’ll take care of them the best I can. But I’m all right with you helping me with that if that’s how things work. I’m convinced you were with us in that barn when I’d asked you to watch over all of us. I don’t know where I got the courage to do what I did, but I honestly think you played a big part in it somehow. You gave me the strength I needed to make sure we all were safe and unharmed in the end. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for loving Shane and Tuck first, for forging the path that led us to this day. I never want any of them, or you, to feel like I pushed you from their memories. You’ll always be special—to all of us.

As she fondly remembered their wedding day, Paige wiped down the kitchen counter for the third or fourth time that morning. Tuck’s mother had told her she was “nesting” and it was normal to want everything just perfect while waiting for the baby to come. As she turned back toward the table to clean it again too, she paused as another mild cramp stirred in her lower abdomen. She’d been having Braxton Hicks contractions on and off for the past week, so she’d gotten used to them.

Grasping the back of a chair, she waited for the cramp to ease. But this time it didn’t let up. Hell, it got worse. Paige leaned over and suddenly there was a rush of fluid between her legs. Oh shit!

“Eew, Mom. What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Shane asked Ari as he strode into the kitchen from where he’d been working in his office. One or the other of her men had always been nearby as her due date approached, and, for once, she was grateful for their hovering.

“Oh, crap!” He was by her side in an instant. “Contractions?”

“Mm-hmm,” Paige managed to reply as the pain eased a little. She tried to remember the Lamaze breathing techniques Nicole had taught her. “First one that feels like the real deal.”

“Um . . . okay . . . great.” He glanced around as if trying to remember what he was supposed to do next, then took her arm and gently helped her move away from the slick puddle on the floor. “Let’s get you to the hospital then. Ari, run and tell Papa we have to go. He’s in the barn.”

“Yay!” The little girl ran out the screened backdoor, letting it slam behind her, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Papa! It’s time to meet Ashley Sarah! She’s coming!”