The clock said that it was six o’clock in the morning when I woke up and looked blearily around the bedroom. Jo was in the washroom. The light was peeking through under the bedroom door, and the water was running. Maybe she had already showered.

I closed my eyes again. My body felt heavy but well rested. This was the first night in a long time that I’d managed to sleep straight through, probably because I’d been so focused on making sure everything was in order for the proposal. I felt fucking good.

The vigorous sex the night before had probably contributed to that at least a little bit.

As I lay there with my eyes closed, I thought about the woman in the bathroom. My woman. The woman who would soon be my wife. She was already my entire life. Being able to make it official was exciting.

I was a lucky bastard. I’d never thought I would have something this good. The appeal of the sky had been sucked right out of me. I no longer yearned for my plane or my life in the Air Force. That was my old life. The life that had been all about me. I hadn’t had any room to love someone or take care of someone.

And now with Jo, that was all I wanted to do.

The bathroom door opened, and I cracked open one eye. Jo was wearing her favorite sleeping shirt and a pair of black panties that, in my opinion, made her ass look phenomenal. She was smiling from ear to ear as she walked around the bed and crawled on top of me. She straddled my hips and put her hands behind her back.

“Good morning,” I said. “You’re up early.”

She shrugged. “A little.”

I arched a skeptical eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

Her smile stretched, and her cheeks turned a brilliant shade of pink. “Nothing,” she said, swaying her shoulders. Sam did the same thing when he lied about brushing his teeth.

“Oh yeah?” I laughed. “Nothing? What’s behind your back, then?”

She bit her bottom lip.

I reached behind her, and she yanked away from me, erupting in a fit of giggles. “Oh, come on!” I cried, making another swipe. “What do you have? This is no way to treat your fiancé.”

“Okay, okay.” She laughed. “I should have done something better, but I’m too excited.”

She pulled her hands out from behind her back and extended them to me. Across her palms lay a small white stick.

“What is this?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me. Instead, she simply held it out closer to me. I pushed myself up to prop my back against the headboard. She came up with me, rocking from side to side on my lap as I got comfortable.

I noticed that there was a blue cap on one end. It sort of looked like an awkward highlighter. In the middle was a small screen with a pale pink line through it.

Then, realization slammed into me, and I grabbed it out of her hand to hold it in front of my eyes. “Is this what I think it is?” I asked, incredulous.

She nodded up and down, up and down, and her eyes welled with tears. She didn’t have words. Neither did I.

“Holy crap,” I breathed, pressing a hand to my forehead. “Holy crap.”

Jo laughed a little nervously. “Is this a good holy crap, or an ‘oh no’ holy crap?”

“It’s good,” I said, my voice shaking. “It’s really good. Holy crap.” It was all I could think to say. My mind was racing a mile a minute.

We were going to have another baby. A baby that I would be able to hold and love and be there for from the very beginning. Guilt tickled at my gut at not being able to do that for Sam. Would he be jealous?

No. Sam was a good kid. He was loved, and he knew it.

“Holy crap,” I said again.

Jo slapped me in the chest. “Say something else! You’re freaking me out.”

I looked up at her, and smiled as my heart constricted in my chest. God I loved her.

“Hey! I’m serious. Are you happy or-” Jo cried, reaching out and cupping my face.

“Happy.” I nodded and pulled her close, kissing her hard.

Jo giggled. “You’re going to be a daddy again.”

“Holy crap,” I said, and she narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just. Wow. This is insane. This is… this is awesome. How did you know? When did you know? How do you feel? How far along are you? Should we go to the doctor? What do you—”

“Zach,” Jo said, pressing both of her hands into my chest. “Relax. Everything is fine. I woke up feeling a bit off, and it reminded me of the way I felt the day I decided to take a pregnancy test when I was carrying Sam. I had a test under the bathroom sink, and I figured rather than sit around and think about it for weeks, that I would find out now. I didn’t actually expect it to be positive. It’s like Sam knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“What he said yesterday in the car about us having a baby.”

“Yeah,” I said. “After we got married.”

Jo shrugged. “Sometimes, nature has its own plans. I don’t care about being pregnant when we get married. Or we can push the wedding back to the following spring or summer when the baby is already here.”

When the baby is already here, I thought. Holy crap.

“We need to get a bigger house,” I said.

Jo rocked back in my lap and laughed joyfully. “Oh? Just like that, hey?”

“Well, where do you suggest we have a nursery?”

“We could make it work.”

“I don’t want to just make it work,” I said. “I want a bigger home. Our home. A place that is just ours that doesn’t have memories of other people living in it. Somewhere we can raise our family, and when our kids have kids of their own, they can come back for family dinners and holidays and—”

Jo cupped my cheeks. “I love you, you wonderful, good, glorious man.”

I cupped my hands over hers. “I love you too, my pregnant fiancée.”

Jo laughed again. “Lucky me.”

“Well, at least we both know we make great kids. This one won’t turn out any different.” I scratched the back of my neck. “But I think you should make an appointment with your doctor. I want to know how far along you are. And I’m going to start looking at houses.”

“You’re not wasting any time, huh?”

I shook my head. “Can’t. I know stress is bad for the baby and moving when you’re further along in the pregnancy is not an option. If we do it now, you can stay here where there aren’t any fumes, and I can get any necessary work done that you want. Like painting the nursery.” I paused, my thoughts wandering. “Are we going to find out the gender?”

“Do you want to know the gender?” Jo asked, looking at me calmly.

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. Did you find out with Sam?”

Jo shook her head. “No. I had too many things to worry about, and I wanted there to be a surprise at the end. But I think I knew it was a boy. Mothers just have a sixth sense for that kind of thing.”

“Do you have a sixth sense about… about—” I broke off before I got emotional again.

Jo shook her head. “Not yet. It’s too early. But if you want to know the sex, then we can find out. Then we can plan accordingly. But we don’t have to decide now. Let’s just worry about getting to the first doctor’s appointment, and then we’ll go from there. For all we know, I might only be two weeks along.”

“Or two months,” I teased.

“Possibly.”

“Wait. What?”

“Crazier things have happened.” Jo chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess. Like finding out you have a four-year-old son.”

“Exactly,” Jo said. Then she leaned in and kissed me again, and I wrapped my arms around her. “I’m happy. I think this is going to be perfect. And I’ve been thinking a lot about having another baby.”

“You have?” I asked.

“Yes. I was thinking maybe within a year or so when things calmed down with the bar and what not. And I was going to talk to you about moving, too. This kind of just speeds everything up a little bit, you know? And maybe that’s what we need. A good kick in the ass to get started.”

There was a soft knock on the bedroom door. We both looked at each other and grinned. “Do we tell him now?” I asked.

“Definitely,” Jo said, smiling. “Come on in, Sam!” She rolled off my lap and pulled the blankets over her lap.

Sam came in, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He dragged his teddy bear along behind him and climbed up on the bed from the very end. Then he crawled toward us to sit in between us like he sometimes liked to do.

“How did you sleep, bud?” I asked.

He nodded and yawned. “Good.”

Jo and I exchanged another excited look. She kissed Sam’s head. “We have more news for you, kiddo.”

He looked up, a little tiredness leaving his face, and smiled. “You do?”

Jo nodded. “Remember what you said in the truck yesterday after we picked you up from school?”

“That Johanna got me during tag?”

“No.” I chuckled. The kid had a one-track mind, like his dad. “About what people do after they get married.”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Yeah.”

“And what was it again?” Jo prompted.

“Uh, that they make babies?” Sam offered.

Jo nodded and then looked at me. Sam followed her gaze and looked up at me. It wasn’t clicking into place just yet. He looked back at his mother. “Are you guys going to have a baby after you get married?”

“Maybe sooner,” Jo said, and then she rubbed her tummy.

Sam’s eyes widened. His mouth worked soundlessly as his mind sorted everything out. An excited burst of laughter came out of him, and he hugged his mom, who rubbed his back.

“You’re going to be a big brother, kiddo,” she said. But she was looking at me.

I took a mental picture of Jo with her hair a mess. There were toothpaste stains on her sleep shirt. A bit of mascara was smudged under her right eye. Her engagement ring winked on her finger as she rubbed our son’s back.

Sam was smiling as he hugged her, and his hair was also a disaster. His pajamas were Spiderman, of course, and his feet were bare. I stared at his tiny toes and wondered in awe how tiny the toes would be of our new baby.

I gathered my family in my arms and pulled them into my lap to squeeze them tightly. Sam shrieked with laughter and tried to wriggle free. But I held him tightly and basked in the excitement coursing through me.

“I think it will be a girl,” Jo whispered.

And for some reason I couldn’t explain, I knew she was right.