Tame: Carter Kids #3 (28 page)

Waiting for Teagan to come out of that bathroom was the longest five minutes of my life.

Shit, it was only supposed to take three minutes.

She knew.

She knew what our future held and she was hiding in that damn bathroom, leaving me sweating buckets out here.

Unable to cope with another second of not knowing, I charged into the bathroom, all guns blazing.

"Thorn."

She was standing in the bathroom with her head bowed and one hand curled protectively around her belly.

Unsure of what to do next, I hovered by the door and asked, "Well?"

Teagan stared at me for so long that I wasn't sure if she had actually heard my question, but then she did something so typically
Teagan
that relief flooded through me.

"You bastard!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Teagan stormed over to the trashcan and bent down to retrieve the test. "Congratulations," she hissed, as she stalked back into the bedroom, waving the pregnancy stick in the air like it was some sort of evidence of my crime. "I'm pregnant and it's all your fault."

She
was
pregnant.

With my baby.

My Thorn had
my
baby growing inside her belly.

"How many?" Teagan demanded suddenly, breaking me out of my thoughts.

Taking aim, she flung the stick at my head before grabbing her purse off the bed and tossing that at my head, too.

"How many what?" I asked calmly, because god knows one of us had to be, as I caught the bag midair.

"How many babies did you implant in my uterus?" Her gaze dropped to her stomach and she let out a howl. "What if the whole litter thing is a gene you got from your biological father?" She bit down on her fist. "I'm not built to breed
multiples
, Noah."

Holding my hands up, I approached my wife with great caution.

"Okay, you need to calm down." I wasn't sure if the whole littering was genetic thing or a Kyle thing, but I sure as fuck wasn't telling Teagan that right now. The look in her eyes showed me that I would be wise to sleep with one eye open tonight…

"Noah, I am so scared," Teagan blurted out and suddenly all the fight and aggression seemed to deflate out of her.

There it was…

That vulnerability she always tried to hide with harsh words and raised voices.

Sinking down on the edge of our bed, Teagan dropped her head in her hands. "Please don't leave me on my own."

Claiming the space between us, I sank down beside her and hauled her onto my lap. "You aren't ever getting rid of me, Thorn." With my hands on her waist, I turned her to face me and stared into her fearful hazel eyes. "And you have nothing to be scared of," I told her, trying to remain calm, even though my body was on flight mode. Suddenly it was all starting to make sense.

The mood swings.

The abnormal amount of crying.

The nausea.

The swollen abdomen.

"Noah, you've seen my vagina," Teagan sobbed, clinging to me like a baby monkey. "How am I supposed to push a baby out of
that
?"

Fuck if I knew…

"You just will," I soothed, pretending that I knew about shit I didn't. "And I'll be with you the entire time."

That was the truth.

I wasn't going to let this woman out of my sight ever again.

"Every step of the way," I added.

She was invaluable to me before.

Now she had my kid inside her…Jesus, she was my beating heart walking around outside of my body.

"What if we're no good at it?" she whispered. Lifting her face up to mine, her large hazel eyes were glossy as she spoke. "What if…"

"Thorn," I interrupted, clamping her lips shut between my fingers. "We
can
do this." Pressing a kiss to her temple, I cradled her fragile body to mine, gentler now that I knew what was growing inside of her.

My kid...

"I'm going to take care of you." I had no fucking clue of what to do or how to raise a baby, but I wasn't going to let her down. I wasn’t certain of a lot of things in this crazy world, but one thing I never doubted was the length I would go to in order to provide for and keep this woman safe. I was scared, too.

Fuck, I was petrified, but I had to be strong.

I had to give my wife the strength to feed from me.

I couldn’t stop myself from staring down at her abdomen. It was
swollen
.

God, I was fucking clueless.

I'd missed all the signs – thinking she had a goddamn eating disorder. The woman who could eat a twelve-ounce  T-bone steak down to the bone quicker than I could.

"How far along do you think I am?" she whispered, eyes locked on my hand covering her stomach.

"I don't know." The part of her stomach my hand was cupping was hard as rock. Was it supposed to be that hard? "When did you last…you know…. bleed?"

Ugh.

I was fucking tactless, but I didn't know the proper etiquette when dealing with this.

"Your period," I added in a gruff tone. "When was your last one?"

"I don't know," she sobbed, burying her face in my chest. "I can go for months at a time without having one."

Well
that
didn't help the cause.

"Try and think," I urged her in as gentle a tone I could. I didn't want to get all up in my wife's female business, but we needed to know how many weeks along she was. The mere thought caused a tremor of fear to run through my body. "Have you had a period yet this month? Or last month?"

"No." She blinked back her tears. A huge, heaving sob racked through her. "I had one for like three days." Sniffling, she added, "Back in March."

"March?"
Jesus Christ...
Over five months had passed since Teagan's last period. "Why didn’t you say something sooner?" I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. "It's August, Teagan. How the hell could it slip your mind?"

"Because it's nothing out of the norm for me, Noah," Teagan cried out.

"You're twenty-five years old," I argued. "Surely women your age keep track of that sort of thing."

"Why would I?" she screamed, voice breaking with emotion. "I was a virgin. And then there was you. And when you went down I was on my own again."

"That's not strictly true." Liam's face entered my mind and Teagan seemed to read my thoughts almost simultaneously.

"Don’t you dare," she warned as she scrambled off my lap and climbed shakily to her feet. "Don’t even think about throwing that one time with Liam–
one protected time
– in my face." Betrayal and pain crossed her features and I stifled a groan. "It was
months
before you came back into my life."

"I wasn’t," I was quick to reply.

I was such a dick.

Standing up, I held my hands out as I approached her. With every step I took towards her, Teagan took a step backwards.

"I'm not your mother, Noah," Teagan cruelly tossed out. "I wouldn’t lie about who the father of
my
child was."

"I know," I replied calmly, letting her cruel remark sail over my head. She was frightened and I had unintentionally insulted her in one of the worst ways a woman could be insulted. "I'm sorry…hey." Tipping her chin upwards, I stared down into her wild, fearful eyes. "I'm sorry."

I dropped my hand to her stomach and my heart fluttered in my chest. "
We
made this." She had a bump and I'd put it there. A baby inside my wife. Pride, fear, and adoration floated inside of me. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know how I'd cope or if I'd make a good father, but I wasn’t going anywhere. "I'll do my best for you – for both of you."

"A baby is a blessing," she sobbed, hiccupping, my slip of the tongue seemingly forgotten. "That's what my mother always used to say when I came home from school with the latest gossip on who'd gotten themselves knocked up from school."

"Your mom was a smart lady," I agreed, hoping I was comforting her, or at least calming her down. "I feel…blessed," I added gruffly. I wasn’t religious. I didn’t have a god I believed in like Teagan had, but in this moment I felt truly
blessed.

Sniffling, Teagan nodded her head slowly. "Me, too, but I'm frightened."

"It's okay to be frightened," I told her.
I'm fucking petrified…
"But you need to know that you're not alone in this, Teagan. You're not." Looking down at the only person I'd ever cared about, I found myself desperate to reassure her. "You have me."
Not that I was worth much, but still…
"I
will
take care of you, Teagan."

"We're in this together," she whispered, with a little too much uncertainty in her voice for my liking.

"I don’t have any plans to let you down, Thorn," I promised. I'd finally gotten myself a little family of my own. Seeing her in my bed, all vulnerable and beautiful, and knowing she had life growing inside her...

Jesus, it made my heart squeeze so tight in my chest I could barely breathe.

"Nothing's going to take me away from you," I whispered. "You can depend on me.

"I just wish…" Shaking her head, Teagan swallowed deeply and swatted her hand in the air. "Never mind."

"Tell me."

"I can't," she squeezed out, eyes wide and fearful. "Lewis said –" Slapping her hand over her mouth, Teagan froze on my lap.

"Lewis said what, Thorn?" Reaching up, I caught her chin gently in my hand and forced her to look at me. "Did he say something to upset you?"

Teagan shook her head slowly. "It wasn’t him."

"One of the others then?"

Her nose scrunched up and that was all I needed to know.

"Who? I'll fucking kill him." Furious, I lifted her off my lap and placed her gently down on the bench before jerking to my feet. "You know what, it doesn’t matter. I'll kill them all."

"Noah, wait." Teagan snaked out a hand and circled my wrist. "I was set up that night. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you
have
to believe me. The guys were in on it," she added in a passionate tone.

I shook my head. "Who? Q, Beau, and T?"

Teagan nodded. "I'm not saying they set the whole thing up, but I know one of them brought Liam to the hotel and forced Lewis's hand."

"Tommy wouldn't do that, Teagan." I refused to believe Tommy was capable of being so fucking vindictive. "I know you two have issues, but he wouldn't go that far…"

"Wouldn't he?" Teagan stood up shakily and padded over to where I was standing. "Noah, I had
nothing
to do with Liam coming here. I was as shocked and ambushed as you were." She placed her hand on my forearm and rested some of her weigh against me. "Tommy hates me, Noah. He blames me for throwing you off track. He thinks I'm a huge pain in your ass and as for Beau and Quincy? They think the same way."

Fear crawled through me as Teagan's face turned an even lighter shade of white. "Come here." Taking her by the arm, I led her back to the bed. "You need to sit down, baby." Gently, I forced her back down.

Sinking down on the edge of the bench, Teagan exhaled a shaky breath. "They all want me off this tour, Noah." She kept her hand on my forearm as she spoke. "It was bad enough before, but now that I'm…" she choked on her words. "Now that I'm pregnant it's even scarier."

"Teagan, I…" I didn't want to shut her down – not when she looked so sincere. "Are you sure?"

"If you don’t believe me about Liam, then go and ask Lewis." Folding her arms across her chest, she stared straight up at my face. "Go ahead and ask him."

"Alright," I told her. "I will." And if I found out they had been fucking with my wife, I was going to raise hell.

Grabbing my cell off the bed, I stashed it in my pocked and moved for the door only to halt in my tracks when I noticed Teagan standing up. "What are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you," she told me. "Don't even think about asking me to stay here because I won't."

This was the first time in weeks that I'd seen fire in my wife's eyes and I sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to quench it.

I'd been around Noah during many a meltdown down through the years, but not a single memory from our past compared to the anger that was emanating off him tonight.

"You're a son of a bitch," Noah snarled as he dragged me down the corridor of the Henderson Hotel towards the elevators with Lewis and Lucky trailing behind us.

Slamming his palm down on the keypad, Noah finally let go of my hand and began to pace. "A fucking Judas traitor bastard," he added, furious, as he ran his fingers through his spiked up hair.

Lewis remained silent and I was glad.

One word would be too much right now.

I should have known that telling Noah would cause the mother of all rows, but in the frame of mind I was in right now, I didn't care anymore.

I was done covering for those assholes.

They'd done me wrong.

They'd done Noah wrong.

And I was feeling too emotionally unbalanced to keep a handle on it.

To give him credit, Lewis had confessed immediately when Noah straight out asked him what had gone down, which only made me angrier because he should have done that for me months ago when I'd begged him to.

I guess the old saying was true;
he who pays the piper gets to call the tune…

Noah was paying Lewis, which meant he called the shots.

The elevator opened and all four of us stepped inside.

I chose to sidle closer to Lucky, the one calming soul in a barrage of turbulence and anger.

Noticing that I had shuffled closer to him, Lucky winked down at me and held out his fist.

I discreetly fist thumped him before putting my hands behind my back. I watched Noah as he continued to pace the small space, nostrils flaring, and hair standing on the top of his head.

"I should have been told about this sooner," Noah continued to rant, rage emanating from him. "Not weeks goddamn later."

"Who would you have believed?" Lucky drawled calmly.

"Her!" Noah roared, visibly shaking. "Always
her
."

"I tried to tell you," I couldn’t stop myself from saying.

"I know," Noah confessed, jaw clenched. He turned his face to look at me and I could see the emotions churning in his brown eyes. "I'm so fucking sorry."

Stepping towards Noah, I reached out and wrapped my hand around his bare forearm.

The elevator pinged open on the ground floor and we were on the move again, stalking through the foyer of Kyle Carter's hotel.

The party was in full swing in the function room and that was exactly where Noah was leading us.