RILEY AND THE team had to fly down to San Jose after the game—a three-to-one win—for their next-to-last game of the regular season. They were going to be gone for three days this time, which wasn’t too bad, but it was more than long enough to have me wishing he could stay home with me and our growing menagerie of pets. I supposed I’d gotten spoiled by having him home for so long due to his injury, but now I was going to have to adjust to the way things would be under normal circumstances.
He came up to the owner’s box after the game to give me a quick kiss good bye before hurrying to join the rest of the guys for the flight. “Go take care of our babies,” he murmured, his lips still against mine. He pressed a hand gently against my abdomen, even though there was nothing to feel yet. “All of them. And get some rest. Please. Do it for me.”
“I’ll try to rest,” I promised.
“Do better than just trying. You can’t take care of anyone else if you aren’t taking care of yourself first, okay? That’s how this works. Just sleep all day tomorrow if you have to.”
“I can’t sleep all day if I have to be up every two hours to feed Phoebe. Besides, there’s no telling what Lola will get into if I’m not keeping a close watch on her. And Max isn’t exactly a perfect angel, either.”
“You know what I mean.”
He was right. I did know what he meant. “I’ll do my best, but that’s all I can promise. I can’t know what’s going to happen until it happens.”
“I guess that’ll have to be good enough.” He planted another hard, hungry kiss on me before heading out the door, stopping next to Brie Burns and Rachel Shaw on his way to say, “Make sure she gets some rest.”
“Go!” they said to him in unison.
Then Brie turned to me, rolling her eyes. “I wish I could say that he’ll get better once he’s used to the idea of being a father, but that’d be a lie. He’ll probably just get worse.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Rachel Campbell said, gathering up her kids and trying to shuffle them out the door. “Tuck, grab your sisters and let’s skedaddle. It’s a school night, and you’ve got a game yourself tomorrow.”
“Who even says things like skedaddle?” he shot back, his preteen angst starting to make itself known. Which reminded me that babies grew up to be preteens and then teenagers. Were we ready to handle all of that? Or could we be ready in time?
I wasn’t sure, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
“I do, that’s who,” Rachel shot back. “Come on.” She rolled her eyes when he rolled his, but soon she and all her redheaded children were on their way out of the building and heading toward the parking garage.
I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that I was pregnant and having Riley’s baby, but the realization that the entire team, not to mention their families, already knew had come as a bit of a shock. Especially since we’d intended to wait before telling anyone.
But Riley had been too excited to keep it in, apparently, so now the whole world knew. Or they would soon enough, at least, since Anne’s crew had captured his revelation on camera and would be airing it in tomorrow’s webisode of Eye of the Storm.
She did ask my permission first, even though she didn’t need it. Riley and the rest of the team had signed waivers allowing them to air anything they chose to use. But it was nice of her to ask, at least.
He’d apologized, of course—profusely—and had made it up to me by giving me an earth-shattering orgasm last night, but he couldn’t go back in time and undo what had been done. I was just going to have to deal with the fact that the whole world would soon know way more about my private life than I wanted anyone but my husband to know.
Would it really make any difference to keep it a secret now? I wasn’t so sure. Whether people knew I was pregnant or not, I was still going to have to learn all about parenting as I went. Maybe I could start by paying attention to the examples I had with the other Storm WAGs. I made a mental note to spend more time around them in an effort to pick up whatever tips and tricks I could.
All the various moms around me gathered up their kids and herded them out of the arena. I was making my way along with them when Dani Williams and Katie Babcock caught up with me.
“Since you’re still new to town,” Katie said, “I’m guessing you don’t have an ob-gyn yet.”
“Um, no. I don’t have any doctors here.”
She passed a business card into my hands. “That’s mine—Dr. Cahill. She’s the best. She’s been helping me try to conceive. We haven’t had much luck yet, but she’s gone above and beyond in doing everything possible to make it happen.”
“You’re not—” I started, but then I stopped myself short when I remembered what Bea had said that day at the mall.
Katie shook her head. “Still trying, though. But don’t mess around with this, all right? Give her a call. Tell the receptionist I referred you. They’ll probably get you in quicker that way. It can take a while if you’re not an established patient.”
“Thanks,” I said, slipping the card into my purse. “I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Good,” Katie said. Then she deftly changed the subject. “How’s your kitten doing?”
“Probably screaming for her supper right about now, which will have Max and Lola frantic for me to get back and feed her.”
Katie grinned. “You need to get Anne to come film some of that. The Eye of the Storm viewers eat that kind of thing up. The segments when RJ and Ghost took Max and Lola to their swimming lessons are fan favorites.”
“Those two are some characters, that’s for sure,” I said drily.
“Do you mean the dogs or our husbands?” Anne cracked. “Because it fits, either way.”
“I meant the dogs, but I can see your point.”
“I still cackle every time I watch the one when Lola nearly drowned Ghost,” Dani said.
I almost tripped over my own feet. “She did what?”
“He was in the pool, and RJ tossed a ball for her. She took a running leap into the water and landed on Ghost’s head while he was looking the other way, playing with Max. Funniest shit I’ve ever seen right there. He was okay, of course, but he came up spitting mad. Cursed a blue streak at RJ. Anne’s team had to edit that one a lot to make the censors happy. I begged her for the uncut version as a wedding present.”
I laughed, finally starting to feel at ease around some of these women. It had taken me a while, and I still didn’t quite fit in with them, but they were growing on me.
Everything about my new life was growing on me, actually. Slowly but surely, I was beginning to feel as if I belonged in Riley’s world. Maybe I wasn’t an imposter or a poor replacement for his previous fiancée after all. Yeah, I knew that she’d cheated on him and had been horrible to him, but I still felt as if I had to compete with her in some ways. Probably most of that revolved around trying to figure out where I fit with the rest of the WAGs. But they were starting to accept me as one of them. Just like he was accepting me the way I was—warts and all, as the saying went.
And it wasn’t just because I was having his baby, either.
It was because he loved me.
Now I had to come to terms with the fact that I loved him. Because he was right. I did love him. I loved him so much it was almost physically painful. And I wanted to trust in that love enough that I could let him know how I felt about him.
For some reason, saying the words scared me more than it should.
I knew he loved me. Somewhere, deep down, I knew it.
I knew he wanted a family with me. He’d made that abundantly clear. And we were going to have a family together, regardless, since I was pregnant.
But I was still terrified to let him know I felt the same way and wanted the same things.
My inability to admit the truth made me feel pathetic and undeserving of his love. I had to get past it, somehow, someway. Just like I’d had to get past my fear of his dogs.
The trick was going to be figuring out how to do that.
GRADY’S TEXT MESSAGE woke me up. I’d been taking another catnap between Phoebe’s feedings, totally zonked out with both mastiffs curled up on either side of me on the bed, when my phone dinged. In my pseudo-zombie state, it took me a minute to realize it was the tone for a message and not the alarm waking me up to feed the kitten. Bleary-eyed and still wishing I was asleep, I swiped the screen to read the message.
Grady: Minor emergency w/another client. Running late. Might be a couple of hours or so.
Me: Worry about your other charges. I can handle these two.
Grady: U sure?
Me: Positive. Lola can’t walk far right now anyway. Still recovering from surgery. I’ll take them separately.
Grady: Hi-5! C U 2morrow.
Yawning and wishing I was still asleep, I glanced at the clock. Phoebe was due for her next feeding in ten minutes, so that would give me enough time to jump in the shower and throw on some clothes so no one else would realize just how much of a slob I’d become in the last few days.
“Keep a good eye on your baby for me for a few minutes,” I said to Lola and Max as I forced myself to crawl out of bed.
Neither responded, but their tails wagged happily as if they’d understood my edict.
Twenty minutes later, I had fed the kitten and was refreshed, dressed in clean clothes, and ready to go. “Come on, Max. You’re first. Lola, you stay with your baby.” The kitten would just nap now, anyway, since she had a full belly.
It seemed as if they understood me completely, because Max bounded off the bed and followed me downstairs, but Lola stayed put where she was. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and took Max’s leash off the hook by the door, affixing it to his collar.
“You ready?” I asked him.
He barked in response, so I grabbed my keys off the hook and headed outside, locking the door behind me.
We walked at a good clip until we got to his favorite dog park, and I let him off the leash so he could run and chase a few of the other dogs who were out today. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and I didn’t have the energy to run and play with him, so I was glad that some of his doggy friends were here for him to chase.
He’d been romping around for about fifteen minutes when I realized a man I hadn’t ever seen here before was watching me.
He wasn’t outright staring, so maybe the idea that he was paying close attention to me was only in my head, but a nervous tingle crept up my spine every time the man’s head turned in my direction. On top of that, he had on sunglasses and a ballcap, so I couldn’t quite make out his face. Something about him and the way he kept angling his head my way gave me the heebie-jeebies.
I looked out at the dogs playing at the park, trying to match them up with their owners. I recognized the husky belonging to the older, gray-haired woman, and the golden retriever named Shasta often came here with the Hispanic couple seated near me on the next bench over. One at a time, I matched up the dogs at the park with their owners until I realized there were no more dogs who could belong with this strange man.
And he was still watching me. Maybe even more closely than he had been before.
I didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but I wanted no part of it. I grabbed my water bottle and called out, “Max! Time to go.”
Max bounded back over to my side, his tongue lolling and his tail wagging in excitement. I scratched his ears before hooking the leash back into place, and then I grabbed my water bottle and we headed for home.
Every now and then, I checked over my shoulder to be sure the man I’d seen wasn’t following me, but there was no one there. I was probably making a bigger deal out of it than I should. Overreaction or not, though, as soon as Max and I got into the house, I shut and locked the door behind us.
“Good boy,” I said to him as I took off the leash, giving him a solid scratch behind his ears. “Let’s go check on your sisters, hmm?”
Lola had let out a happy bark when we’d come through the front door, so I wasn’t worried that anything was wrong with either her or the kitten. Still, we headed up the stairs, Max in the lead. Lola rushed over to greet us, her tail wagging.
I bent to scratch her behind the ears, too. “Everything okay with your baby?” I asked her.
She barked again as if to answer. The kitten was curled up in a tiny ball in her basket, fast asleep. It was too soon to feed her again yet, and besides, I didn’t see any point in waking her if she was asleep. Really, I ought to take Lola for a walk now, while there was time before Phoebe’s next feeding, but the only thing I wanted to do was crawl back into bed and take a nap.
“Can we do your walk in a little while, Lola?” I asked her. Not that I expected an answer. But she didn’t seem overly anxious to get out, so I decided to chance it. “Come on, guys. Let’s take a nap. We’ll go for a walk after the next time we feed your baby, hmm?”
As soon as I crawled back under the blankets, the dogs both took that as their cue to join me in bed. Which was good, because I didn’t think I had enough energy to do anything else until I had another catnap.
WHEN THE ALARM on my phone went off, I jerked awake so fast I almost banged my head against the headboard, surprising both Max and Lola. They let out barks of indignation, which made my head ache even more than it already was due to the crazy sleep schedule we were keeping.
“Sorry, guys,” I muttered, dragging myself out of bed so I could fix Phoebe’s next bottle.
She was hungry to the point of near desperation by the time I got the nipple in her mouth, her tiny, razor-sharp claws making mincemeat of my fingers in her panic. But soon the formula calmed her, and she happily drank it all down.
I might need to start mixing her a bit more for each feeding. She was only a few days old, but she was already growing fast.
Slightly bigger feedings spread out over a bit more time…wasn’t that what the people at the veterinarian’s office had said I’d have to do soon? I didn’t think they’d meant quite this soon, though. Probably in another week or so I could start to spread them out a bit.
Still, if it meant I could get three hours of sleep in between feedings instead of only two, I was sold on the plan.
Did human babies have to eat this often around the clock? I sure hoped not. If so, I might never get a decent night’s sleep again.
After burping her, I cleaned out her bottle and readied a cloth to wipe her bottom while Max and Lola watched her try to shift herself around in the basket to find a warm, comfortable spot to doze. But now that I was up again and had a bit of time until the next feeding, I figured I should grab a bite to eat for myself and take Lola out for some exercise. Max could stay behind to supervise this time.
“Don’t let her wander off,” I said to the dogs, not that I thought Phoebe could get very far on her own. Then I headed downstairs to forage in the kitchen.
I found one of Riley’s protein bars in the pantry and grabbed a flavored Greek yogurt container from the fridge. Even the idea of trying to cook something in my current state of zombie-ness seemed like a horrifying prospect. Better to eat something I didn’t have to do more with than figure out how to open the container and hope I didn’t spill it all over myself.
Once I’d cleaned up, I grabbed Lola’s leash and headed back up the stairs to snag her. “Come on, Lola. Let’s go for a walk.”
She looked at me with pleading eyes and whimpered before going back to stare into Phoebe’s basket.
“I know you don’t want to leave your baby. But Max will take good care of her for us while we’re gone.”
And besides, I had no intention of letting her boredom get the better of her again so soon. I was not going to let this dog eat any more socks on my watch just because I wasn’t paying attention. We needed to get her out of the house so she could burn off some energy, and I wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“Let’s go,” I repeated with more authority in my tone. “Now, Lola. Every mom needs a break from baby duty sometimes.”
She grumbled, but she came over and allowed me to put the leash on her collar.
“Good girl. We’ll be back soon. Max is a good kitten daddy, okay? Just like you’re a good kitten mama. We’ve all got to trust one another. Everyone has a part to play in raising this baby. Got it?”
She barked as if she’d understood me. Or maybe lack of sleep was starting to make me lose my mind and assume their barks meant anything other than woof woof.
Once we were out of the house in the fresh air, she started cooperating a little better. It was good for both of us to get away for a bit, without the kitten’s schedule tying us down.
When we arrived at the dog park, I took off her leash and let her run free for a few minutes. She wasn’t as active as she normally was, but that was probably for the best since she still had the stitches to worry about. I kept a close eye on her to be sure she didn’t start playing too rough with any of the other dogs, and I called her back before she tired herself out too much.
“Did you have fun?” I asked, rubbing her ears while she put her front paws up on the bench next to me so I could reattach her leash.
She let out a happy-sounding bark, which I chose to take as a resounding Yes.
“Told you it’d do you good to get away from that kitten for a bit. You didn’t believe me, but I was right. Maybe next time you should listen to your mama, hmm?” Yeah, I sounded like a crazy person, talking to the dog as though she were a human and could understand me, but I didn’t care. I felt kind of like a crazy person, too, to be honest. Besides, stranger things had been known to happen than a dog understanding a human. And I’d undoubtedly be fine again once I was able to get a normal night’s sleep. I was sure of it.
Only, when I went to grab the bag I thought I’d brought with me, it wasn’t there. Had I only thought I’d brought it on this trip? I knew I had it with me when I’d been out with Max because I’d taken my phone out a couple of times to check the time before shoving it back into the outer pocket. But had I brought it with me on the second trip out the door? I thought I had, but my brain was mush, so I couldn’t be sure.
I must have left without it. Either way, it wasn’t here now, and I had my keys and phone in my pockets, which were all I really needed. With Lola leading the way, we started the short walk toward home.
We’d barely turned the corner onto our street when Lola slowed down, acting wary rather than tired.
“What’s wrong, girl?” I asked, not that I expected her to answer.
I scanned the cars in their various driveways, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Most of the usual cars were in their normal places, and I didn’t see anyone out walking on the street who didn’t belong there.
I couldn’t fathom what was bothering her, but she was still walking slower than normal, and then she came to a complete stop and started to whimper.
“Come on,” I said, trying to get her moving again. “We’re almost home. Let’s get in the house and then you can take a nap with your baby, okay?”
But she wouldn’t budge, no matter how much I tugged on her leash.
“Lola!” I almost shouted, turning around to face her since I’d already walked several paces past her. “Let’s go. Walk with me, now.” I tugged hard on the leash, to no avail.
She wasn’t looking at me, though. She was staring at something past me. Staring hard, as intently as I’d ever seen her stare at anything.
Slowly, I turned around, suddenly nervous about what I might find.
I barely saw him out of the corner of my eye, his arm reaching out toward me from behind as if to drag me to safety, before Lola flew at me, ripping the leash free from my hands in her furor, snarling and snapping like a dog intent to kill.
I froze in absolute terror, totally unable to take a breath.
Only she didn’t bite me.
She bit him.