Weekend Surrender (The Surrender Trilogy, #1)(46)
“The baby could be mine, Rogan,” Hudson said quietly from the other side of the table. His elbows were braced on it, and his fingers were buried in his curly black hair so he wasn’t even looking at her. Not a good sign.
Rogan looked from her to Hudson and back. His eyes were confused and wary. “Okay, so what’s the big deal?”
She felt her mouth fall open in shock. Hell, her chin probably had a bruise from landing on the floor so hard. “Rogan, this baby might be your brother’s baby. I won’t know who the father is until after it’s born.”
Rogan’s face relaxed into a smile, and his hands came up to cup her cheeks again, holding her head still so she had to look into his eyes. “Rachel, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care which one of the four of us fathered the baby, as long as you are its mother. Why don’t you understand that?”
To say she was stunned was an understatement. Flabbergasted, emotionally bereft, lost in a sea of confusion and shock, but not just stunned. She stared at the oldest of the four Brooks brothers, taking in the laugh lines around his smile, and the short ends of his dark brown hair that curled over his ears waiting for a trim. His large hands held her face firmly, but his touch was gentle, as though he held a butterfly between his fingers.
She couldn’t grasp it in her brain. He really truly didn’t care whose child she carried, because he knew it belonged to his bloodline. What a remarkable man he was turning out to be. She gave him a smile, and accepted the sweet kiss he brushed over her lips, before turning back to face the fire with Hudson and Parker who still sat stoically at the head of the table. He was as still and silent as a meditating monk, but the tick of a muscle in his jaw gave him away. Emotions were clearly not as calm on the interior as they seemed to be on the exterior.
Hudson looked torn between joy and sheer terror, but since she could relate to both of those emotions she waited a few moments for him to process before she addressed him.
“Hudson, how do you feel?”
He started to shake his head, and then abruptly stopped and stood. Moving slowly around the table, he stopped in front of where she stood with her back pressed to Rogan’s chest. “Rachel, I’ve known for nearly four years that my body wanted you, but until you were here under our roof, and in my bed, I didn’t know how much my soul wanted you. Any child that is part of you is welcome and wanted in my life, whether the baby is half mine or half Rogan’s by blood.”
Rachel nearly wept as Hudson opened his arms to her. The two men she had been most frightened of their reactions, were happy and content to take on the responsibility of a child. That left Parker who seemed to have shut down on them. Forcing herself just to enjoy the bliss of the moment, she began answering the questions Hudson, Rogan, and Sawyer started peppering her with.
“When is the due date?”
“Next winter.”
“Have you called the doctor? Is the baby healthy?”
“Yes and yes, as far as they can tell from blood work.”
“When will you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Not for a while I guess. I don’t know, I’m new to this too. Look, I have my first real OB appointment in a couple of weeks, and you’re both welcome to go with me, but there are a few more things to work out.”
“Like what?” Rogan asked.
“Well now that I know you want to keep it—”
Sawyer scoffed, and Hudson and Rogan looked horrified, “Did you really think we wouldn’t?”
Rachel shrugged, “To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. I hoped you would be excited, but seeing as how none of us planned to be parents right now, well, I just didn’t know.”
“We’re keeping it,” Rogan snapped, looking disgusted that she would have even thought about an alternative.
“Fine, so we’ll need to talk about the medical bills, because to be honest I’m not sure how I’ll afford them, and what we’re going to name the baby, and how we’re going to work out visitation and custody.”
The temperature in the room suddenly dropped twenty degrees and Rachel would have sworn she could see her own breath. All four men now looked at her with anger and frustration.
Rogan jumped in first with both feet. “Rachel, you don’t need to concern yourself with the bills. We are more than well off, and we will handle the costs, whatever they may be. Custody is a moot point because you and the baby will be living here. As for the name—”
“What? Wait, no, you can’t just decide that for me!”
Rogan shook his head and barreled on, “We’ll need to get busy planning a wedding, and getting your place packed up.”
“Wait a second, married? What are you talking about?” Rachel’s head began to spin.
“But who is she going to marry, bro? I mean there are four of us, and she can only be legally married to one of us.” Sawyer was speaking to Rogan, not to Rachel, and she began to feel like she was having an out of body experience. She could see herself standing in the middle of them gaping like a fish.
“It only makes sense she marry me because I’m the oldest. It doesn’t really matter what the legal paperwork says, because she would be married in spirit to all of us. Right, love?”
The look on Rogan’s face was one of determination, and her stomach rolled. She clenched her jaw together, slapping her hand over her mouth. She was stunned when Parker sprang out of his chair and bundled her up into his arms, before she could blink they were in the bathroom, and he was holding her hair as she emptied her stomach into the toilet. Not particularly graceful, but an unfortunately common occurrence for the last four weeks or so.