Page 121 of Ruthless Enforcer

“Don’t make this emotional.” He cringes. “I’ll leave.”

I laugh as I clap a hand on his shoulder. “How about a beer?”

He grins. “Now you’re talking.”

The kitchen is loud.

Jesus, it’s loud, and it only gets louder with Reyes joining in.

I look around the room.

At Mason laughing at something Lily whispers.

At Luke stealing food off Harper’s plate and getting his hand slapped.

At Hendricks, who somehow skulked into our lives and never skulked back out.

At Gabriel Reyes, who came to Iron Ridge as an occasional problem and somehow became family.

At all the women who looked at men carrying more darkness than they had any right to carry and didn’t ask us to become different men. They just demanded we become theirs.

Emma slips her hand into mine. “What are you thinking about?”

I look into her eyes. “How fucking quiet it used to be around here.”

She laughs.

Across the room, Luke says something obscene and Harper smacks him.

Mandy laughs, and Gabriel tells him he’s an idiot.

Mason hands me a beer.

I pull Emma closer, thinking about the men we were when we came home.

We thought surviving was the victory, and maybe for a while, it was.

But this? Emma beside me. Our child almost here. My brothers under my roof. Their families becoming mine. A ranch full of noise and laughter and people who know exactly what we’re capable of and love us anyway.

This is coming home.

Emma suddenly goes very still, her body rigid.

Frowning, I set the beer down. “Em?”

Her eyes widen. “Oh.”

Every instinct I possess snaps to attention. I tip her chin up, searching her face. “What?”

She looks down.

So do I.

A puddle is spreading across the floor beneath her.

For one second, neither of us moves.

Then Emma looks up at me. “I think my water just broke.”