Join the Club

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “The water is making it feel better,” she mumbled through a sigh.

  Just as I let her face go, another grimace of pain rolled through her.

  “Every time I move a certain way it hurts,” she said. “Like tight bands of pain starting at my lower back and curving around my belly. God, even my boobs hurt.”

  I stood up and went to fetch her ice water that miraculously hadn’t spilled in my haste to get to her earlier.

  Handing it over, I started to unload the nearest box, keeping a steady eye on my woman.

  Thirty minutes later, she was feeling better and decided to go to bed instead of going to the hospital, and like the fool I was, I let her.

  It was only an hour later that the scream had me running back into our room.

  Pushing the door open wide, I came to a sudden bone-jarring halt when I entered the room and saw what awaited me.

  “Something’s wrong,” Delanie said as she hunched over her stomach, her face awash in pain. “Something’s really wrong. I think we need to call 9-1-1.”

  Booth, who’d heard the scream as well, had his phone out in seconds.

  Delanie fell back onto the bed, and then she screamed again.

  This time, I couldn’t help but see what had been hiding with her being hunched over.

  “Bourne,” Delanie cried. “Oh, fuck.”

  Oh, fuck was right.

  I walked over to her, a sense of calmness that was quite eerie washing over me, as I said, “Delanie, I think that you’re having a baby.”

  It sounded all wrong and weird. As if what I was saying was coming from another person.

  “I think you’re right,” she cried out. “Oh, God. This is exactly what I felt when I had Asa. What the ever-loving hell?”

  Things went very, very fast after that.

  Since we lived so far out of the city limits, the paramedics weren’t fast in showing up.

  And, since Delanie had obviously ignored something that her body had tried to tell her over the last however long, we were now dealing with an impending baby that was only minutes from being born.

  “Tell her that I can see the head,” I said to Booth, who was looking so wide-eyed and freaked out that I wasn’t sure he could process what I was saying.

  Delanie thrashed on the bed.

  “But I still had my period!” she cried, her back arching slightly.

  She had.

  At least, what we assumed was her period.

  Not only that, but she still got her birth control shots.

  She didn’t show in the least, either.

  Her belly, though slightly more rounded than when I’d met her, was still as flat as a non-pregnant woman could be.

  Hell, this wasn’t Delanie’s first rodeo. She should’ve felt all those kicks and shit, too.

  Yet, there’d been none.

  And I would know. I’d been sleeping with her every night, plastered up against me.

  “Oh my God,” Dillan said as she finally made it into the room. “Booth, give me that phone.”

  Booth handed it over as he stared on in shock.

  I shoved my t-shirt up over Delanie’s hips and exposed her bottom half.

  She’d probably be embarrassed later.

  Right now, she was too busy having a fucking baby.

  “They want her to not push,” Dillan said as she crawled onto the bed next to her sister.

  “Fuck them!” Delanie cried.

  That was when she pushed.

  And within five minutes, I had a screaming, highly pissed off, very small baby in my hands.

  “Umm,” Booth said as he looked on. “It’s a girl.”

  Epilogue II

  Every time a mullet reaches shoulder length, an angel gets his jean jacket.

  -Coffee Cup

  Bourne

  Thirteen years later

  “My uncle once told me we sometimes have to do the hard things to get the good things,” Asa said. “And at the time, I didn’t quite understand what that meant.” He looked out over the crowd, focusing on his dad. “He also showed me that sometimes, you get the good things even when you don’t do the hard things.”

  I chuckled, remembering the day that he’d called me faking sick like it was yesterday.

  His mom hadn’t been very happy with me. Saying that it wasn’t a good thing to teach him that he could get rewarded for faking sick. But that day had been for Asa and me. After giving him the lecture, I’d taken him out for ice cream, then to the doctor’s. Brought him to the movies and had then gone out to eat with him. It’d been when I’d gotten home that things had gone bad.

  Now, that blow up between Delanie and me felt like a lifetime ago.

  Now we had three more children. We were married. We’d built a house. Delanie had retired from training dogs, and I had retired from the SWAT team.

  I hadn’t retired from the Reserves.

  In fact, I’d literally arrived from being gone for two weeks to the graduation ceremony with only seconds to spare.

  Asa and my family didn’t even know that I’d made it back.

  Leaning against the fence, I watched as Asa finished his speech, then accepted his diploma and a handshake from the same freakin’ principal that liked to give me hell during my own formative years.

  It was as he was walking back toward his seat that he looked up and spotted me standing there in full uniform.

  I hadn’t even had a chance to take a freakin’ shower yet.

  I was still covered in dirt, sweat, and grime.

  But it was worth it, watching Asa walk across the stage.

  He stopped in the middle of the aisle and grinned widely at me.

  Asa hadn’t decided to follow in my footsteps.

  He’d decided to follow in his grandad’s, going into the Navy with the hopes of one day becoming a K-9 handler kind of like his mom.

  With one last smile, he took his seat, and I started to make my way to my family.

  I was climbing the bleachers when my eight-year-old son, Thomas, hit me.

  Thomas grinned and climbed his way up my pants, then latched onto my neck.

  I carried him the rest of the way up the bleachers and took Thomas’s place next to Delanie’s side.

  She offered me a tear-stained kiss and leaned her head against my shoulder.

  “That was sweet,” my wife said. “Right?”

  My wife.

  Still, to this day, it felt surreal to call her mine.

  I loved the hell out of her, and it made my heart shine like a goddamn beacon when I thought of her.

  Even after all these years, she was still my everything.

  “Daddy, what’s a seven-letter-word for totally devoted to someone?” my youngest, Devon, asked.

  Devon was seven, going on twenty-four, and acted so much like Asa that it was kind of terrifying.

  Having one genius in the family was okay. Having two was downright terrifying.

  When the two of them got together, I saw dollar signs. Not because of what they would one day accomplish, but of the schooling and education that I’d have to pay for.

  Making sure that they could have everything so that they could succeed in life, to be all that they could be, was expensive.

  “Whipped,” my oldest, Taylor, said.

  Taylor was exactly like Booth and me. Brash and a brawler. Everything that we hoped our children never would be because we were wild hellions.

  Taylor was us, though, reincarnated. And had the school record to prove it.

  “That’s not seriously it,” Booth said as he looked at the paper that Devon had in his hand.

  Booth and his children were shoved between my mom and dad.

  Bell, Priscilla, Heath, Daniella, and their significant others were there, too.

  Cousins and their families.

  Our whole entire family.

  We took up eight fuckin’ rows.

  “…With
that, I would like to introduce you to this year’s Kilgore Bulldog graduating class!” someone called.

  I looked forward in time to see the entire student body throw their hats in the air.

  All except for Asa who tucked his underneath his arm and started walking our way.

  “He’s too cool for school,” Taylor joked.

  I grinned at her.

  He was.

  Hours later, when I was finally getting my shower that I so desperately needed, I watched through the glass shower doors as my wife moved about in the closet.

  Today marked the first day of June.

  The day that she moved her calendar over.

  “When are you going to stop that?” I called out.

  Delanie grinned.

  “You’ll always be my Mr. July, you know,” she teased as she moved my photo—the one that I’d posed for in the calendar all those years ago—to cover the photo of the newest month.

  Every year she bought the SWAT calendar.

  And every single month, she put my picture over the top of that month’s.

  It was something that she’d done for such a long time that I didn’t even give it much thought anymore.

  But, when I’d gotten home from bootcamp and discovered my photo hanging in her closet with Mr. August cut out and me covering him, I’d laughed.

  At this point, I would like to say that nothing surprised me anymore, but I’d be lying.

  Every single day she managed to surprise me.

  And every single day, I loved her for it.

  “Did you hear the news?” Delanie asked as she stripped out of her t-shirt.

  My eyes took in her body.

  Her sexy, beautiful body that had given me more children.

  The body that didn’t have as tight of skin anymore, but still managed to bring me to my knees with just a touch.

  “What news?” I asked as I opened the shower stall door for her.

  We’d moved into our new house years ago, but the shower stall was new.

  Delanie had begged for a door on her walk-in shower because she claimed she got cold when I was gone and not there to shower with her.

  So I’d surprised her with it right before I’d left this time.

  She hurried inside and plastered her body to mine, my dick instantly getting hard at the press of her body.

  “Ellie had her baby,” she said. “And she and her man are finally getting married.”

  Ellie had gone to jail.

  For years.

  In fact, I thought she’d be there a whole lot longer than she had.

  But something had happened—something that she wouldn’t discuss—and she’d been able to get out.

  And we hadn’t seen her in a very long time.

  Then one day, she just popped back up.

  She had a man, and she was happy.

  “I’m glad that she’s happy,” I said honestly.

  And I was.

  If anyone deserved it, it was Ellie.

  She’d been through a lot.

  “My dad has decided to run for mayor,” she continued, rolling her eyes.

  I sighed and pulled her into my body, loving the way she felt.

  It’d been two weeks, but it felt like forever.

  “I don’t want to talk about your stupid father,” I said.

  He’d moved away after he’d seen shit go down with Ellie and the murderer, and he never contacted us again.

  We only knew half the shit we knew because Delanie and Dillan were stalkers and every once in a while decided to check up on their dear old dad.

  Most of the time it was to find him struggling.

  Which always made me happy.

  He may not have had anything to really do with Jason’s death, but it’d been enough for me to realize that I didn’t want him around, either.

  If the bastard rotted away for the rest of his life, it would be more than he deserved.

  “What do you want to talk about?” she asked, running her hands up my side.

  I hefted her up into my arms, then pressed her back against the shower.

  “Let’s talk about how much I’ve missed you.”

  Then I kissed her.

  What’s Next?

  Any Day Now

  Book 8 of The KPD SWAT 2.0 Series

  Chapter 1

  I don’t need a pool to get you wet.

  -Lawn sprinkler

  Amelia

  “Please, please, please, please, please.”

  I looked at my friend, Avery, and wanted to say no.

  A thousand times no.

  But, she didn’t ask me for stuff often.

  In fact, I was honestly surprised that she was doing it now.

  “What’s it for again?” I asked, not wanting to hear the words yet knowing that I had to ask.

  “A college class that I’m taking. Photography. We’re supposed to come up with something unique, a photoshoot. It has to be fun, expressive, and emotional. We can do whatever we want. But, it’s a huge part of my grade. And, it’s of a personal nature. I just figured, with where you worked, you might be more okay with it than everyone else… plus, I don’t think that anybody else will do it. Or… more accurately, be allowed to do it.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I ignored the part about ‘where I worked.’

  Where I worked wasn’t bad.

  Really, it wasn’t.

  I mean, working at a strip club as a bartender wasn’t bad.

  I wore what I wanted, made good money doing it, and got the benefit of pissing my brothers and father off. Even more so than my schooling—a social worker.

  They did not, I repeat, did not like the fact that I would be working with druggies—their words not mine.

  They also did not like the fact that I hadn’t caved on any of their demands—i.e., finding a job that kept me safe, protected, and healthy at all times.

  So, to defy them even more, I’d moved to Kilgore—where having one brother around was better than having a brother and a father—both of which were part of an MC that owned that town.

  Sebastian and my father were part of one of the biggest motorcycle clubs in the country. They owned Benton, Louisiana—my hometown—and made it virtually impossible for me to live under their microscope.

  In Kilgore, Texas I only had my eldest brother, Sam Mackenzie, to deal with. Also, I had James, my brother-in-law, but still better than a bossy, overprotective brother or father.

  One was better than three.

  At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

  Luckily, Kilgore was close to my college, and it meant that I could go to school, work toward my master’s degree, and have the added benefit of having family around if I ever needed help.

  Which, I wouldn’t.

  But I liked to allow my alpha family members to think that I would have them in case I needed them.

  “What do you mean by being allowed to do this?” I asked.

  “Well.” Avery bit her lip, looking torn. “See…”

  She looked like she didn’t want to tell me.

  That’s when I knew it was bad.

  “Spit it out,” I ordered as I squatted down and hefted the giant keg of beer into place.

  Or, at least, I tried to. It wasn’t budging.

  Mainly because I was five-foot-three, a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet, and barely had time to get a run in, let alone any squats.

  Meaning, the ninety-pound keg wasn’t moving by itself. At least not today.

  “Come around here and help me,” I ordered.

  Avery did, walking around the bar of the strip club that I worked in and grabbing one side of the keg.

  Together, we hefted it into place.

  Then I got to work hooking up the connections.

  “Okay,” Avery started again. “I’m just going to blurt out my idea, okay?”

  I gave
her a droll look before starting to line the glasses up the way I liked them.

  Just as Avery was about to open her mouth and start explaining, the door to the bar opened and then banged shut, and I grinned.

  “Hi, Lynn.” I smiled. “You’re early today.”

  “Meeting someone,” my dad’s friend, Lynn, and the owner of The Underground, Kilgore’s—or the outskirts of Kilgore’s—newest strip club, said.

  Actually, it was an old club.

  One that apparently Lynn had won off a guy in a poker game, decided he would like to turn it around, and had restored it to its vintage glory.

  When he’d opened it a few months ago, I didn’t think he expected it to do as well as it did.

  The door banged again, and Bruno walked in.

  Bruno was someone I didn’t know all that well, but when I looked at him, I got the distinct feeling he was of the same caliber as Lynn and my father were.

  My father was ex-CIA and a whole lot of other things. Lynn was a whole lot of other things—those were my dad’s words, not mine. But really, I didn’t actually know what Lynn did.

  I’d heard quite a bit about him over the course of my life, and I still hadn’t quite pinpointed what it was that he did—or didn’t—do.

  Bruno was much the same.

  And someone I tried to avoid at all costs. Not because he was creepy or anything, but just because he was kind of scary, and I tried not to get noticed because getting noticed led to my brothers and my dad poking their noses into my life when I didn’t want them to.

  Both Bruno and Lynn walked into Lynn’s office and shut the door, leaving me once again to look at Avery who was still not telling me what she wanted.

  “I’m not getting any younger here,” I said. “And are we doing lunch or not?”

  I usually worked from ten to twelve at the bar after classes, getting things ready for that night. Then I grabbed lunch, went to two more classes, and then got some studying time in and one of my online classes taken care of before I went to work from eight to twelve.

  Avery and I met for lunch on Tuesdays.

  She was in one of my classes at the college, and we’d hit it off quite well.

  Now we were good friends, and we ate lunch and chatted when we could fit in the time.

  Tuesdays were usually my only days that I could do that, though.

  My schedule was busy as hell—at least for the next six weeks.