Anxiety curled in Riley’s stomach. Knowing his family history, why would he expect surrogacy to be any easier? He could see this was going to be a long and stony journey ahead of them.

They finished the meeting with a handful of brochures and their bank account several thousand dollars lighter.

When they stepped outside into the sunshine and the door closed behind them Riley stopped. Nothing out here had changed. The sky was still blue, the heat of a Texas day still there. But inside him, Riley’s whole world had changed. Utterly, irrevocably changed.

“I’m excited,” he lied. He could have used many different adjectives. Petrified. Worried. But he kept a lid on his anxieties so he didn’t come over as a complete idiot.

Jack turned to him, and Riley couldn’t help but see how pale Jack look.

“Fuck, Riley, I’m glad one of us is.” He grasped Riley’s hand firmly. “’Cause I’m too freaking terrified to be excited.”

Chapter 3

Jack scooped Emily up into his arms and swung her high into the sky. She squealed and laughed as he pretended to drop her before cuddling her tight.

“Hiya, Em, baby,” he said with a kiss to her dark curls.

“Hey, Unca Jack,” she shouted gleefully and gripped him hard around the neck. Three years old and she had a grip that reduced Jack to jelly. All soft and clingy and smelling of sunshine, she held a piece of his heart that no one would ever find.

“What about my hug?” Beth asked from his side. In a smooth move he pulled his sister in close as well, and for a few seconds they stood as a three. Every year he had Beth in his life was a good year and she looked well. She felt like she was putting on some weight and she was grinning up at him. Despite his reservations when Steve came into her life and said he loved her, it seemed as if Steve was making her happy.

“Where’s Steve?” he asked, glancing behind him for the blond.

“Gone straight in to see Riley. He’ll be out in a bit.” She took Emily’s hand as soon as Jack placed her on the ground. His itty-bitty niece was forever trying to squeeze under the fence to see the horses.

“So you want to see the horses, pumpkin?” he asked and grinned when Emily began to pull Beth toward the barn. Once inside he hoisted her up on a gate and kept a hand firmly around her as she petted Solo Cal.

“How did it go at the clinic?” Beth asked as soon as she could get a word in edgeways with Emily chatting on about cartoons and school and daycare and daddy and mommy.

“The first meeting was fine. Usual stuff, contracts, the ABCs of it all, but the psychological side, jeez, you wouldn’t believe the kind of things they wanted to know,” Jack said with a shake of his head. “Everything from when I was three up to now.”

“Why three?” Beth asked curiously. She leaned against the fence and reached out a hand to pet Solo Cal as well.

“They asked me my first memory and it was of Josh pushing me off the bed. I was three.”

“Josh always was a bed hogger,” Beth laughed.

“They asked if I had issues being the middle child.” Jack snorted in derision. “Issues? It’s amazing I’m actually sane. I had Josh beating on me and you looking at me with big eyes. I was attacked from both sides.”

“You’re an awesome middle brother,” Beth said, loyal to the last. “I always loved you better than Josh anyways.”

“No you don’t,” Jack laughed.

“No, maybe I love you both the best I can love anything, but it was you that spent your own money on Speedboat Barbie when I was four.”

“You remember that?” Jack, being eleven years older than Beth, had worked part-time in and around the ranch and earned a small amount of money. One batting of Beth’s baby blues later and he’d forked the whole lot out on a Barbie that she carried with her everywhere.

“I remember everything my brothers have done for me,” she said softly.

Red flags raised in his head. “Are you okay, Beth? Are you well?”

Beth chuckled. “I’m doing well. All the stuff they did to me when Emily was born kinda fixed a lot of the defects. It’s just that Steve and I are having some issues at the moment.” She shrugged like it meant nothing, but her expression told a different story.

“Jeez, Beth, I thought you two were solid. What happened?”

“I told him I was thinking about a sister or brother for Emily.”

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He recalled every moment of the panic and fear when Beth was pregnant; he and Riley’s wedding day when Steve found Beth unconscious and bleeding and they had to rush her to hospital. “Really?” he finally said. He used his free arm to pull Beth close and squeezed her before letting her go.

“We’ve been to the hospital. Yeah, there’s some risk and I’ll have to be watched closely, but there’s no reason not to try.”

For a moment Jack was quiet. “I don’t know what to say,” he said softly. “You and Steve and Emily, you’re a family.”

“I know.” It was Beth’s turn to be quiet. “I can’t help how I feel. We’ve talked and talked and I feel selfish, but I hold Emily and I don’t want her to be an only child. We argue about it all the time at the moment.”

Beth and Steve were so in love it was impossible to imagine them arguing.

“Why now?” he asked finally. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t worried.

“Because Emily is three and it’s been that long since we were married, and it feels like something is missing.” Beth was in stubborn mode, and Jack knew immediately he had to tread carefully.

“So what is Steve saying?”

“He’s thirty in November.” Jack knew that, Riley and Beth had organized a party here at the D. “Thing is, he comes into his trust fund on his thirtieth birthday. On that morning when he wakes up he’ll have fifty million in the bank and access to it all.”

Jack pushed aside the shock that Steve was coming into quite that much money. Steve never said, any more than Riley ever really discussed what Riley himself was worth. Steve’s money was old Southern money, and given his parents died young, it had been tied up in the will. Steve never once said he wished he could have access to it apart from the times he’d wanted to draw on it for Beth’s treatment. A legal agreement as long as Jack’s arm had stopped that from happening, but Riley had stepped in at that point. “I’m not following,” he said gently.

“He wants it so that everything is tied up. Like, we have wills, and my part of the ranch goes to him then Emily, everything he has goes to me and Emily. He wants what we have to be carved in stone. I want more, a bigger family. He says we can concentrate on setting up a foundation with his money, that it would be enough.”

“He’s scared, Beth,” Jack said gently. “Hell, I’m scared if you fall pregnant again. I couldn’t imagine intentionally putting Riley in a position where I could lose him.”

“And what about if something happens to Riley?”

Jack frowned, then turned to Beth while still awkwardly supporting Emily.

“What do you mean?”

“What if he walks out in front of a bus, or hell, gets shot at again.”

“Beth—”

“I’m serious. We don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. I’m well, Emily is well, there’s no reason to think I couldn’t have more children.”

“Have you thought about adopting?”

“Yes, of course we have, but if I can I want this baby to be something that is mine and Steve’s.”

Jack had sudden understanding wash over him.

“You mean, because Emily isn’t Steve’s child.”

“She is,” Beth said fiercely. “She was from the minute I told him I was pregnant.” They she grew quiet. “But yes, I need this…”

“You love him, and it’s obvious he loves you.” There was no question there; Jack was simply stating the obvious.

“Yes, of course I do. Just…what if…” She trailed away and Jack lifted Emily from her perch while Beth appeared to be gathering her thoughts.