“He was pretty. Not as pretty as Houghton or Sebastian, but still very pretty. And big. He’s taller than Houghton and Mick and Luc and Sebastian, too.”

Jillian looked up at her sister as Brynna came up behind her. Brynna was the cutest pregnant woman Jillian had ever seen. She had a big blue t-shirt covering her belly. It was probably her husband’s. Brynna liked to wear his shirts when he wasn’t home. Carrot red hair was pulled up in a loose ponytail and her ever-present sunglasses were on top of her head and she was missing her usual sunglasses. “Men don’t like to be called pretty, Bryn. It wounds their delicate little egos.”

“Chance and Sebastian and Houghton don’t have egos like that.”

Jillian had to admit, Brynna was right. None of her brothers-in-law had the kind of ego that she suspected the great Dr. Holden-Deane did. Figured. “No, they don’t. Thank goodness. Speaking of your husband, where is Chance? I thought he wasn’t letting you out of his sight for the next three weeks?”

“Gabby called. Elliot dropped something on his hand when he was fixing the truck and he doesn’t want to call a mechanic. Says it’s a matter of male pride, whatever that means. I’d think calling the mechanic would be a lot faster—and easier. But Elliot said Chance would help him. And Chance was getting on my nerves. He watches me every time I move, Jilly. So I said I’d come over here with you. If anything happens, you can deliver the baby. That seemed to work for some reason.”

“I’m sure it did.” Did Brynna realize how lucky she was to have found a man like Chance Marshall? He idolized her sister, and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to keep her safe. “He loves you so much.”

Her sister smiled. “I know. I love him, too. That guy wasn’t your boyfriend, was he? He said he was a doctor, and that I had to be careful of the stepping stones in case I fell. He was really, really pretty.”

“He had business with Blessed Reunions. He was looking for Mel. I told him she’d be back next week. He was a total jerk, pretty or not.” Jillian didn’t mention what that business was. That was for Mel to do. “Like almost every other doctor I’ve ever met.”

“Dr. Jacobson is nice.”

Allen Jacobson had saved her sister’s life—twice. She would always be grateful for him and what he’d done for Brynna. And she genuinely liked him as a person. “Allen is an exception.”

“I think he’d probably sleep with you if you wanted him to.”

“Brynna, that’s not really something you should talk about. That might embarrass Allen—and me.” She felt her cheeks heat; Allen had made a few hints in that direction. Before everything else had happened. It had been eight weeks since she’d spoken to him, though.

“Why? We’re alone right now.”

Brynna’s autism made social norms hard for her to always understand. Jillian had been explaining things to her since forever. Brynna was only eleven months older than Jillian, and they’d been in the same grade in school. Everyone had just assumed they were twins they had been together all the time. Jillian hadn’t minded. She genuinely liked her sisters; they were friends, as well as family. “Because whether he wanted to or not, that is private information. How would you feel about people speculating about you and Chance?”

Brynna smiled again. She did quite a bit of that lately. “You mean like they did before?”

“Yes. Just like that.” Brynna and the man she’d eventually married had been on the run from a band of killers. The media outlets had gotten ahold of the story and ran wild with it. The leader of those killers had almost gotten Jillian. Hard to forget that—or the fact that Brynna deserved every moment of happiness she could get. “And that speculation got Mel and Houghton together.”

Sometimes you couldn’t argue with Brynna’s logic. Her brother-in-law Houghton had abducted Mel in response to the media attention—because his father had been one of the ones after Brynna. He’d hoped to distract the media from his father with his own exploits, and rekindle the affair between him and Mel a year and a half earlier.

It had worked. Probably better than he’d ever imagined. He and Mel were wild about each other still, though it had been a very iffy time just two months ago.

She touched her throat where the three-inch scar remained.

She’d never forget the fear of having a cold-blooded killer press a knife against her throat and demand her older sister hit her knees.

She closed her eyes and reminded herself that that time was over. Mel was alive. She was alive. Brynna and Syd and Carrie and Ari and Lacy were all safe.

Safe. The people she cared about were safe now.

She was in her backyard, surrounded by her mother’s precious yellow roses, with her ready-to-pop sister right next to her. Syd would be home from whatever it was she was doing within a few hours.

Her father was probably down at the old cop bar ten minutes away, eating ice cream—he rarely touched alcohol—and swapping stories of his days with the Texas State Police.

She was fine. It was just his ass-holiness that had scared her. Brought it all back to the surface.

Tomorrow she went back to work after a fifteen-week absence. After the attacks, she’d taken the time off to find her feet again after everything that had happened to her family. To try to heal.

She’d had really understanding supervisors at Finley Creek General Hospital.

That, and Houghton had made a generous donation in her family’s name to the hospital that had saved his—and Brynna’s—lives right after it had happened. The hospital Board of Directors probably didn’t want to risk alienating her brother-in-law.

“Let’s go inside, Bryn. It’s too hot for you and Junior out here.”

“I think it’s a girl.”

“Still not showing up on ultrasound?”

“No. The baby is always moving too much to see.” Brynna rested her hand over the bubble of her stomach where her baby rested. Jillian looked at her sister for a moment—how quickly life had changed for all of them. If someone had told her last summer that one of the Beck sisters would be married with a baby on the way, Jillian would have half expected it to be Mel. Even herself, on the slimmest, smallest possibility. Not Brynna.

She wouldn’t have thought it would be Brynna. Brynna had always been the slow and steady relationship type. Not the flash and burn and eternal flame type. But that’s what her sister had with Chance.

At one time Jillian would have been a bit envious. But not now.

Not since Justin Albright had made her terrified of everything. Damn him for what he’d done to her and her family.

“And Chance; has he said what he wants yet?”

“He just wants healthy. Both of us.”

She understood. He wanted a healthy wife and baby. And was getting scared, as Brynna’s date got closer. Chance was fanatic about protecting Brynna. Brynna had been through so much, including being impaled by debris when someone had blown up the computer lab she worked in. And then attempted to kill her and her best friend before they could be rescued. It was hard for Chance, a man whose parents and two siblings had been ruthlessly murdered, to overcome the fear of losing the wife he adored. “I’ll check your blood pressure and we’ll get out the heart monitor. I need to practice with it again. I’m afraid I may be a bit rusty.”

“I love listening to the heartbeat. I have a baby in here, Jilly. I can’t find the words to tell you how that feels.”

“You’ll be a beautiful mother. Just like Carrie.” Their sister Carrie had a toddler and had just delivered her son Malcolm in April.

She had a family and they were all safe. So why did she feel this overwhelming sense of panic? Like something was about to happen?

Something that was going to change her world, right on its axis? She couldn’t explain it—it had to be him messing up everything.

Jillian shivered, despite the nearly ninety-degree temperature.

“Let’s just get inside, Bryn, ok?”