“Bon voyage,” Brock muttered, Mitch tried to strangle down another bark of laughter, failed and quickly knifed out of his chair and headed toward the hall.

Olivia’s face got red.

“Nice,” she hissed, gave him a long glare, turned on her high heel and marched her bony ass out.

He didn’t watch.

He turned to his desk, instantly grabbed his phone, flipped it open and hit buttons without looking at them because he’d memorized them.

She answered on the second ring.

“Sweetness,” he said the minute Tess finished her greeting, “you are not gonna believe the surprise birthday present I just got.”

* * * * *

“Brock, honey?” Tess said in his ear as he walked through the backdoor into their kitchen.

After they finally got Rex’s room sorted, he sorted the one car garage in the back that was old, had no garage door opener and thus Tess didn’t use it and parked on the street. And he sorted it as in he had it scraped and a massive two car garage built in its place. He did this because he was not a big fan of scraping ice off his windshield. He also did this because he was less of a fan of Tess doing it so he did it for her and since he didn’t like doing it on his own fucking truck, he didn’t like adding her car. And, lastly, he did it because it was a fuck of a lot safer for her to drive into a garage that had a door to a fenced backyard that had motion sensor lights that lit up the backyard from both garage and house the instant she exited the garage, something else he installed.

This took up a fair amount of the backyard.

Tess didn’t say a word. Somehow, she sensed when something was important to him and she didn’t argue. Ever.

He liked this. He also liked that she didn’t make a big fucking deal about stupid shit like him (or his boys) drinking from the milk jug. If it mattered to her, she had a quiet word with him (or his boys). If she could find a fix without having her quiet word, she did. Case in point, they each got their own milk jug, she wrote their names on them in magic marker before putting them in the fridge.

This way, she could give him (and his boys) sweet mostly all the time.

And she did.

It made for a beautiful life.

For him.

And his boys.

“Babe, I’m in the house, you don’t have to call me,” he said into the phone, smiling because she had to be there somewhere too. He was meeting her and the boys there and they were going out to dinner with his family at The Spaghetti Factory.

“Um… well, I’m not in the house, I’m at the hospital.”

Brock stopped dead, his eyes, unseeing, on a fancy-ass cake stand on the corner of the counter that held the remains of his birthday cake that had been nearly decimated by him and his boys that morning.


She went on quickly, “I’m okay, the boys are okay, it’s just Lenore. She’s kind of…” she paused, “not okay. She went into labor about three hours ago. Levi got her to the hospital and was separated from her because he was told both mother and child are in distress.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

He did the calculations in his head and came up with an unhappy number.

Lenore, who became his sister-in-law three weeks before Christmas and not because she was pregnant but because Levi loved her, the baby was just good news on top of good news, was only six months pregnant.

“Which hospital?” he asked.

“St. Joe’s,” she answered.

“I’m on my way,” he stated, turning back to the door. “The boys with you?”

“No, I called Dade. He went to get them at school. They’re at his house helping him with Grady, Dylan and Ellie.”

Even though many would think it was fucked, Dade McManus had slid into their lives naturally and this was because Tess made that happen. He was a good addition because he was a good man, he loved Brock’s boys and he adored Tess. Brock grew to like him, grew to respect him and he’d earned that back from McManus. This worked, how, he had no clue, but it did and Brock was glad that it did. As far as he was concerned, anyone who loved his boys and adored his wife was welcome in their lives so Brock welcomed him. And, just then, he was happier than usual that he did.

“Right.” He was out the door and locking it.

“Baby,” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Hurry.”

Fuck.

* * * * *

When Brock arrived in the waiting room at St. Joe’s, Levi was sitting with his elbows to his knees, his torso bent double, his fingers laced at the back of his head.

Brock’s eyes slid through his wife, his sisters, his mother and his brothers-in-law as he walked to Levi.

None of their faces were happy birthday faces.

Then he crouched down in front of his brother.

“Brother,” he murmured, Levi’s hands unlaced and just his head came up.

“Slim,” Levi whispered. “Fuck, Slim.”

Brock’s arm moved out, his hand curling around the back of his brother’s head.

“Keep it together,” he whispered.

“Fucked it up with her, she was in and outta my life for three years before –”

“Get that out of your head.”

“Never made it official, never made it permanent, she came to Thanksgiving on a fucking rotation. Had a girl at Easter, a different one at Fourth of July, she was due up.” He paused then the next two words came out tortured. “Due… up. ”

Brock squeezed his brother’s neck. “Levi, get it outta your fuckin’ head.”

Levi held his eyes.

Then he whispered, “Under my nose, at the tips of my fingers, never saw her, never felt her, what she was givin’ me not until Tess pointed it out and I opened my fuckin’ eyes.”

“Brother, keep it together.”

Again, Levi held his eyes.

Brock returned the gesture, keeping his hand on his brother’s neck.


Then he said, “She’s in there, I’m out here. Nothin’ I can do. She’s battlin’ and there’s not one fuckin’ thing I can do.” He swallowed then asked, “This what you felt like when Tess was taken?”

Brock had told Levi what had happened and where he had to force himself to be in order not to fuck up and do something stupid. For once, his brother kept that knowledge to himself.

The only people that knew the full penance he was forced to pay for fucking up with Josiah Burkett were his colleagues, Levi and Tess, the last being brutal penance in itself.

“In a way, I reckon… yeah,” Brock answered.

“Brother,” Levi whispered, that one word saying one hundred more.

Brock didn’t reply.

Levi sucked in breath.

Then he sat up, Brock’s hand dropped and he straightened out of his crouch. His eyes went to Tess. Hers were bright at the rims with tears. She sucked in her lips before she let them go and gave him a trembling smile.

He tipped his chin up at his wife and sat down next to his brother.

Half an hour later, a woman in a white doctor’s coat walked in.

“Levi Lucas?” she called but Levi was already up and walking across the small room, Brock at his back, his family behind him.

“She okay?” Levi asked.

“She’s fine, baby’s fine. We’ll have to discuss curtailing activity for awhile to see this through but right now, both are safe and healthy.”

“Thank God,” Fern whispered and Brock heard Jill’s shuddering breath and Laura’s choked whimper.

“Can I see her?” Levi asked.

“I’ll take you to her.”

Levi didn’t look back at his family as he walked away.

Brock watched his brother then felt Tess burrow under his arm.

He curled it around her shoulders and looked down into her eyes.

She caught his for a second before she did a face plant in his chest, her arms moving around him, her body giving his her weight.

He held her.

Then he sucked in breath.

An hour and a half later, in his truck while Tess was in her car on the way to get the boys from Dade’s, he ordered a Famous pizza for his birthday meal.

* * * * *

In the middle of studying his face, the tips of her fingers moving over it, Tess started giggling.

This was unusual. Not her studying his face after he made her come, after he came and when he was still buried inside her. She did that often and he let her because he liked to see what was working behind her eyes as they moved over his features. He liked it a fuck of a lot.

Her giggling in the middle of doing it, now that was unusual.

He found instantly he liked that too. Then again, he liked it anytime Tess laughed.

“What’s funny?” he asked, getting the question in over her escalating laughter.

“Ma… Ma… Martha,” she stammered, lifting her head to shove it in his neck, her hands sliding around his shoulders so both her arms and legs could convulse around him.

“Martha?” he asked her pillow.

She sucked in breath and dropped her head back down, her eyes coming to his as she nodded.

There was a lot that was funny about Martha. The bitch was a scream. She hadn’t toned down the drama and likely at her age, she never would. But she loved Tess and she’d cottoned onto the fact that Brock would accept her drama in Tess’s life as long as it had no negative affects and she saw to it that was so. She also loved his boys and didn’t hide it. They thought she was a scream too. So, since her drama was mostly humorous and not annoying, Brock liked her and she made no bones about liking him and, he had to admit, he liked that too.

He figured his wife’s sudden onset of humor had something to do with the fact that Calhoun had come into Tess’s bakery about five months ago. When he did, Tess had gone direct into matchmaking mode and hooked him up with Martha. Calhoun took the bait and was still hooked. Martha didn’t hide any of her drama from Calhoun and, surprising the fuck out of Brock, Calhoun apparently got off on it.

Whatever. To each their own.

And anyway, the crazy dance between DEA Agent Calhoun and Martha Shockley provided his wife with a variety of things to giggle over when she told him about them. And he was happy with that.

She released her legs from around him, planted her feet in the bed and bucked her hips slightly telling him what she wanted.

He gave it to her. Sliding out gently, he watched her lips part, her eyelids get soft, that sexy-as-hell look that communicated both pleasure and disappointment at losing him being the second best part of fucking her (or the third, maybe the fourth, though it could be the fifth). Then he gave her what she wanted and rolled them so he was on his back, she was on top.

She placed a forearm in his chest, her other hand at his neck under his jaw and suddenly her face got serious.

“What?” he whispered, her eyes slid from her hand at his jaw to his, she tipped her head to the side and she gave him more of her weight, her soft flesh pressing into his.

“When you came back,” she started, her voice soft, “after what went down with you and me with you investigating Damian…” She trailed off then started again, “When you came back, later, when I was at the shower and I confessed to Martha about everything that went down, well, you know, honey, she wasn’t your biggest fan back then.”

His hands which were spanning her hips slid down to cup her ass.

“I know.”

Her lips tipped up in a small grin. “Well, she said I had my head in the sand. She said most women would take one look at you and know you were fun to play with but you weren’t the one for the long haul. But me, she said I took one look at you and had visions of white picket fences and making you birthday cakes until the day you die.”

She swallowed, the smile died and her eyes grew bright.

Brock held his breath, his fingers clenching into her ass and he waited.

“She was wrong,” Tess whispered. “I was right.” She drew in breath through her nose, dipped her face closer and the pads of her fingers dug into his neck then she finished, “We don’t have a white picket fence, baby, but I’m going to bake you birthday cakes until the day you die.”

He let out the breath he was holding, the burn in his lungs moving to become warmth in his gut, his hands sliding from her ass up her back, one arm curving around, the other one going up her spine, her neck so he could sift his fingers in her hair as he whispered,

“Sweetness.”

“I’m glad it’s me who gets to bake your birthday cakes.”

He was happy she was glad but he reckoned he was a fuck of a lot happier he had Tess making his cakes and not just because they were the best fucking things he’d ever tasted.