Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

Sarah. We’re only trying to look out for you. You should be close to the hospital. That’s just common sense,” Felicity insisted.

“How come up to this point it was common sense to keep us all together?”

“We’re not saying you should stay in town alone, Sarah,” Cecilia replied.

“No, you want to ship the guy with the limp off with her,” Dev added. “Like some sort of weakest link eradication.”

Cecilia frowned at him. “You’re both being overly sensitive. We’re working out best options to keep everyone safe, including and most especially the children.” She gestured at Sarah’s stomach.

“Why on earth would she be safe with me? I think we’re well aware I’m a big part of the target here. I got a note just like the rest of my brothers. I’m the one who actually knows Anth. Why don’t you women take her off to town? No one’s threatening you.”

“Oh, Dev,” Gage said sadly.

Dev didn’t even have time to ask Gage what he meant before all four women in the kitchen were glaring daggers at him. Even one-year-old Claire seemed to give him a dirty look.

The door to the mudroom opened and Tucker and Brady came in, though they both stopped short at the tension in the room.

“Abort. Save yourselves,” Gage muttered, earning him a light slap on the shoulder from his wife before Felicity swooped in and picked up Claire.

“I’ll just go change her and you all can have the knock-out drag-out fight you’re so desperate to have.” She stopped in front of Sarah, expression going sad. “I hope you know we’re all just looking out for you.”

If Sarah was mollified, she didn’t show it. She turned her anger toward Brady and Tucker at the door. “So, which scenario do you two agree with?”

“Uh,” Tucker said. “What were the options again?”

“What happens if you’re stuck out here in labor while there’s danger?” Cecilia demanded of Sarah, ignoring Tucker’s question.

“What happens if I’m off in town in labor while there’s danger? Not much different, to my way of thinking.”

“A lot quicker to get you to the hospital though. Brady agrees with me,” Cecilia said resolutely. “Everyone agrees because it’s the most sensible, reasonable option.”

Sarah took exception to that. Brady tried to smooth things over, which only got his wife angry at him. Gage cracked a joke which made everyone mad until the voices all rose over each other and the entire kitchen was just an unholy din that made Dev’s temples pound.

The clanging bell echoed through the kitchen, making everyone wince, but also bringing the arguing and shouting to a dead silence. No one dared break it until Grandma Pauline said her piece.

“How did we weather last year?” she demanded. “Going off in different directions? A few of you did, and what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. You got your butts kicked—every time—except when you got it through your thick skulls to ask for help. Now you.” Grandma Pauline turned and pointed at Sarah.

Sarah blinked, even kind of leaned toward Dev as if she could hide behind him and avoid Grandma’s lecture.

“You’re nine months pregnant in the dead of winter and acting like a stubborn mule. And you!” She moved the pointed finger to him. “Are acting like an egotistical teenager who can’t get it through his head that not everything is about him.” She huffed out a breath. “And the rest of you are shouting out orders without asking anyone how they feel about them—which is not how a family does things. Now, we’re going to start over, and we’re going to act like a family—not a military institution, not a high school cafeteria, and most especially not like one of those god-awful reality TV programs.”

“That you love to watch,” Gage muttered, ever attempting to lighten a moment.

Sarah sighed heavily, massaging her stomach like she did when it was paining her but not a contraction. “Grandma’s right. We need to talk. Really talk. And I think most of all, we need to stick together.” She looked up at Dev, something unreadable in her expression. “How can one man beat us if we all stick together?”

Dev didn’t know how to answer that question. The truth was, Ace had always seemed to win—even escaping the Sons of the Badlands, even being raised by Grandma Pauline, it hadn’t saved them from everything. Not the first terrible years of their childhood. Not their mother’s death. It certainly hadn’t solved any of the rage inside of him that he’d forever be cursed by who and what his father was.

Even now, Ace was dead, but they were still in danger. Still trying to figure out how to fight bad with good—almost as if good could never permanently win.

But Sarah rubbed her stomach and something shifted in his chest. There was a baby in there—one that would be making his appearance very soon. That baby didn’t deserve to be born into a world of fear and gravity. He didn’t deserve what Dev had been forced to endure as a child.

Maybe Dev had a hard time believing good could win—maybe he’d even given up on truly winning—but there was a child that needed more from him than giving up.

“He won’t beat us,” Dev managed. Maybe he’d failed everything up to this point, and maybe he’d never be a father to that child, but the baby was his. Part of him. Part of Sarah.

No matter the consequences, he’d fight to give that baby something better.

Chapter Seven

Trying to find consensus amidst the varying opinions of fourteen people was, to Sarah’s way of thinking, impossible.

She’d managed to talk almost everyone out of the whole ship-her-off-to-town plan—at least for another few days. Everyone wanted to “reevaluate” after her doctor’s appointment on Tuesday.

Eventually she’d given up. She’d tried to help Grandma Pauline with kitchen chores but had been shooed away. She’d tried to help Felicity with Claire, but Claire had been taking a nap and, well, it sounded like a fine idea to Sarah.

She was tired and uncomfortable and grumpy, and a