“I brought you a change of clothes,” she said.
I looked at the clothes on top, then down at my uniform.
“Thank you,” I said as I grabbed the clothes and walked into the bathroom.
When I was slipping my boots back on, I heard a commotion.
Coming out, I found Malachi standing out in the hallway and Frankie’s bare ass hanging out as she peeked out of the room.
I walked up behind her and tugged her gown closed.
She tossed me a look of exasperation over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” I heard.
I looked up to find a frazzled looking nurse running around looking lost.
“What is it?” Frankie asked, sounding focused and not in pain at all.
Even though I’d heard from Malachi that she was apparently six centimeters dilated and in active labor.
“The doctors are all delivering other babies!” the nurse cried.
Frankie took a step out of the room, and I made sure to hold onto her gown.
“Grab me another gown,” Frankie ordered.
Malachi and the nurse looked at her as if she was crazy.
Me, only getting half of the story, was more confused than they were.
“I said, get me a gown!” Frankie ordered tersely.
Just then Coke, Cora, and my parents exited the elevator.
Frankie didn’t spare them a single glance.
Instead, she was busy shrugging on another gown, only this time so it was covering her backside.
Then she was marching down the hallway toward the room two down from hers, her gown flapping in the wind.
At some point, she’d taken off the IV that she’d been hooked up to, as well as the monitors that’d been on her belly.
“What the fuck…” I said.
“There’s a baby in distress,” Malachi said as he watched my laboring wife walk away right along with me. “The woman and the baby aren’t doing good. All the other doctors on this floor are delivering babies. Apparently, there are five of them delivering right now.”
Frankie disappeared into a room and I walked to the door as well but didn’t enter.
I could hear crying and people frantically talking.
It was Frankie’s calm voice that had them all settling down, though.
And, five minutes later, the sweetest sound we’d ever heard came through the closed door.
A baby crying.
Five minutes after that, Frankie walked out looking pained.
“Okay,” she said. “I need an epidural.”
“Let me help you get hooked back up,” I heard.
I turned to find an older woman smiling wide.
Peyton.
My aunt stared at me with a smile.
I squeezed Frankie’s hand as Peyton led us back into the room and helped her hook back up to the monitors.
“Oh, boy,” Peyton said, looking at the monitor that was showing her contractions. “I’m not sure how you just delivered that baby while you were having these kinds of contractions but…”
“Oh, fuck,” Frankie cried out.
My eyes went straight to Frankie who was looking at me with horror.
“What?”
“Are all the other doctors still delivering?” Frankie asked calmly.
Peyton nodded.
“Yes, they…”
“Everybody, turn around!” I suddenly barked when Frankie frantically started yanking her gowns up.
Malachi, Coke, and my dad left the room completely.
My mother, Peyton, and Cora helped Frankie get her gown up.
That was when I saw Frankie’s need for urgency.
“Ummm,” Cora said, sounding worried.
“Catch her!” Frankie yelled.
And that’s exactly what I did.
Seconds after Frankie ordered me to do so, I had a screaming, pissed off, blue-eyed baby girl in my hands and I had no clue what in the hell I was supposed to do.
Peyton, luckily, did.
Frankie did, too.
Thank fucking God.
***
Two hours later
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said for what had to have been the fourteenth time in the last two hours.
“Would you give it a rest?” Frankie cried.
I was shaking my head before she’d gotten the words out of her mouth.
“I just… shit,” I said. “Shit.”
Frankie snickered and ran her finger down our baby’s cheek.
The baby’s eyes opened, and once again, I was struck with the eerie cerulean blue eyes that stared back at me.
“It’s weird,” I said. “Eyes this blue.”
She snorted.
“You and your dad have them,” she pointed out.
“I know,” I answered. “It’s just weird.”
She pressed a kiss to my throat, then laid her head down on my chest.
We were alone in the room for the first time in a while.
Malachi had gone home.
Our parents and my sister had, too.
Leaving us alone with the baby that was now our sole responsibility.
“I don’t feel like I’m equipped enough to be this person’s everything,” I said. “I don’t want to fuck her up.”
She snorted.
“We won’t,” she promised. “We have some great parents to lean on in case we lose our way.”
That we did.
Not only had they helped after everything had gone down in Florida, but they’d been there every step of the way since.
And I couldn’t ask for better grandparents—though it was really fucking weird that my sister was kind of a grandma—for my new little Isabelle.
“We’re lucky, baby,” I rasped.
She pressed a kiss to the baby’s cheek that was only inches away from her face.
“We’re lucky,” she agreed.
“I’m glad that I can remember this,” I said. “I’m glad that, out of all the things I’ve forgotten, it wasn’t this. I don’t know that I could’ve done this without you.”
She laughed then.
“Well, technically, you needed a uterus to have…”
I pinched her ass, and she started to laugh.
Which then woke the baby up.
“Now look what you’ve done,” I said when Isabelle started to cry.
I looked at my two girls and knew that this was just the beginning.
I may have lost the first part of my life and memories, but I still had the second part.
And I knew that, somehow someway, everything would even out in the end.
“I love you, Frankie,” I said suddenly.
Frankie’s eyes were wide and smiling when she replied with, “Same for you, Luca. With all my heart.”
I handed her the now really pissed off baby, then watched avidly as she fed.
When she was done, I took her back, and didn’t let either of my girls go until I was forced to hours later when they came to get her for a bath.
“Go with her,” Frankie urged. “Make sure nobody steals her.”
I looked at my wife and said, “I’ll protect her with my life.”
***
Gabe
I watched as my son watched his girl through the nursery glass window.
“Jesus,” I said. “This is unreal.”
Ember’s face went soft.
“We’re lucky, Gabe,” she said. “This could’ve… this could’ve gone so much differently.”
I knew that.
Over the two years that Luca had been gone, we’d both done a lot of soul searching.
Nobody ever wants to hear that their son, their child that they were supposed to protect, was missing or possibly hurt.
It’d been a very bad two years.
Rough—both emotionally and physically.
But our boy was back now.
And o
ur baby now had a baby.
As I watched my son get his now-clean little girl, pulling her in close seconds after she was placed in his arms, I knew without a doubt that he’d make the very best of fathers.
Much better than we could’ve ever hoped for.
Luca turned then, his face happy, and saw us.
He walked to us and I got the first chance to hold my new granddaughter in my arms.
Emotions like I’d never felt before poured through my chest at holding the third generation of Maldonado in my arms.
Ember pulled her phone out and took a picture.
And for once, I didn’t care.
I smiled like a goddamn loon.
And so had my son.
My granddaughter, though?
She cried.
And I loved the picture all the more.
It now hung, front and center, in my office.
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What’s Next?
Just Kidding
Book 1 of the SWAT Generation 2.0 Series
1-7-20
Prologue
Hey, I like your personality.
Me-Thanks, it’s a disorder
-Me when I’m trying to make friends
Rowen
“Theo!” I smiled as I took the seat across from him. “How are you? How’s work? I thought that you were working!”
It was a complete and utter accident running into him, but I couldn’t say that I was upset.
In fact, I was rather excited.
It wasn’t often that I saw him out.
He was a busy man and most of the time when I invited him out somewhere, he said no.
It was always work-related, though, so I understood.
Theo looked up, and instead of the welcoming smile I expected, there was a frown.
“Rowen,” he said, looking confused. “What are you doing here?”
I’d met Theo when I lived in Kilgore, Texas. He’d actually had a thing for my sister. Katy, my sister, had dated him for a while, but it’d never gone any further than a few dates. My sister had gone through a lot of shitty relationships, her one before Theo having been the worse. So, when Theo had come along, she hadn’t been in the right frame of mind.
Then, Logan, her now-husband, had come along and changed all of that for her. Causing Theo to finally see that Katy wasn’t the one for him.
Me, on the other hand?
I’d always had a thing for Theo.
It was a pain in the ass, too.
I mean, he was all hung up on my sister while I was hung up on him! What kind of person did that make me, wanting my sister’s cast off?
But… I couldn’t help the way it made me feel.
I frowned. “I saw you sitting here, and I thought I’d come say hi while I waited for a few of my colleagues to arrive. Am I interrupting?”
He was quick to shake his head.
“No, actually,” he said. “I’m here meeting a… friend.”
I blinked, then felt something in the pit of my stomach start to churn.
“Oh?” I said, feeling my belly tighten.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, it was a last-minute thing…”
“Theo, you made it!”
I blinked and turned my head to see Shondra, a woman that worked with me.
Shondra, the woman that made it her life’s mission to do things to me, inside and outside of work, to make me look bad.
Luckily, I’d yet to experience anything that I couldn’t come back from. And me not retaliating was driving her insane. She hated that I didn’t fight back.
Me? Well, I just hated her, period.
I officially had two more weeks at Tool & Associates in San Antonio, Texas before my ‘real life’ began.
I had officially graduated, I’d passed the bar, and now I was on my way to the real deal—a grown-up job with a firm that would put my skills to use.
The only problem was, I kept expecting Tool & Associates to offer me a job since I’d been interning with them for a year now. Yet, all I heard were crickets. I didn’t get an offer or anything. I mean, I’d given them a year of my life that I didn’t have to give.
What the absolute fuck?
Needless to say, I had a feeling that had a lot to do with Shondra seeing as she was vying for the same job.
Shondra who was staring at the man that I had a thing for.
Shondra who was glaring at me like I’d committed some faux pas by talking to Theo.
I wanted to scream, “I saw him first!”
Yet, I managed to control myself. Barely.
“Uh, yeah,” Theo said, his eyes bouncing from me to Shondra and back. “I didn’t realize y’all knew each other.”
Theo looked torn, as if he wanted to invite Shondra to have a seat, but he didn’t want to do that with me sitting there.
I chose to allow them their space and scooted out of the booth without another word.
I’d just placed one foot onto the ground outside of the booth when Theo stopped me.
“No, stay,” Theo suggested. “There’s enough room. Y’all have four more joining y’all, correct?”
I wanted to stay about as much as I wanted a root canal.
“Umm,” I said. “I’m just going to grab a drink. But thanks.”
Theo caught hold of my hand when I would’ve taken off, and I narrowed my eyes at the hand that I’d wished so hard would hold me once upon a time.
It was then, at that moment, that I realized my stupidity.
I’d done everything in my power to get him to notice me. But in the meantime, I’d forgotten that I was worth more than giving one man my sole, undivided attention when he didn’t want it.
I was cheapening myself.
Saying that one day maybe he would notice me.
When, I realized, that he hadn’t once seen me for me.
He’d seen Katy.
He’d obviously seen Shondra.
Who he hadn’t seen was Rowen.
I was invisible to him.
I prayed that he would for once see me as something other than the woman he once had a thing for’s sister.
But, that hope was in vain.
Because, once again, he let me down.
How did he do it this time?
By not coming with any of my invites, because he was ‘busy’ but somehow made it to Shondra’s.
That was a bunch of horseshit if I’d ever heard it.
I twisted my hand so that my wrist slipped free of his hold, and his eyes narrowed.
Taking a hasty step back, I quickly skirted around Shondra and made my way to the bar.
I would’ve made my way straight the hell outside, but just as I was heading out, three of my other co-workers made their way inside and headed straight for me.
“Ohhh!” Macy cried. “You’re here! I’m so happy to see you!”
Macy was the cutest little thing I’d ever seen.
She was small, curvy, and wonderful.
I loved her and she was honestly the saddest thing about leaving this old job behind.
Shondra made my life a living hell, as did Shondra’s best friend, Bridget, who just so happened to side-step me and Macy and head straight to where Shondra and Theo were.
Tillie, Macy’s roommate, waved at me.
“Hi, Rowen,” Tillie said. “Congrats on passing the bar.”
I smiled then. The first genuine one since I’d walked into the bar and
seen Theo.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m so excited. I can’t believe I’m finally done.”
“You’re free!” Macy laughed. “Come on, let’s get you a drink. What are you having?”
I thought about what I did and didn’t want, and then decided to say, ‘fuck it’ and drink a margarita.
I wasn’t a big fan of alcohol to be honest, but every once in a while, I could choke down a single margarita.
After I was done with that, I’d switch over to pineapple juice and hope that nobody noticed.
I wasn’t the best drinker in the world.
With my inability to choke down alcohol and actually enjoy it and my disgust at seeing people go too far when it came to consuming it, I just didn’t see the point.
After ordering and getting my margarita, I walked back to the booth, thankful to see that the girls had filed in, leaving me the outside.
Furthest, thankfully, from Shondra and Theo.
Theo and Shondra were talking quietly, and I tried my best to look anywhere but at them.
The only problem was they couldn’t see that my heart was slowly bleeding out right in front of them.
Trying to distract myself, I started texting my sister, Katy.
Rowen: Get this. Theo is sitting with me at a bar. Only problem is, he came with Shondra.
Katy messaged me back instantly.
Katy: what a bitch. And a dick. I hate them both.
I grinned.
Rowen: I’m drinking a margarita. That should tell you how bad it is.
Katy: You should’ve just taken the shot of tequila. It would’ve hit you harder and over with faster.
Grinning because she was right, I took a long swig of the margarita, and only managed to grimace slightly.
“I thought you didn’t drink?”
Theo’s question had me stiffening.
And I knew that his question was aimed toward me without even turning to look at him.
Instead of answering, though, I ignored him, acting for all I was worth that I hadn’t heard him at all.
He was all the way at the other end of the table.
And there were five other chatty women now at the table with us.
It was safe to assume that I could’ve realistically not heard his question.
But then he had to go and repeat himself, louder this time.
“Rowen,” Theo barked. “I thought you didn’t drink?”
I had no other choice but to turn my head and look at him.
Gritting my teeth, I turned my head slightly to stare at him.
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 21