Free In Dark Woods (Signal Bend Series #4.5) by Susan Fanetti

gets.”
    “Uh-uh. Don’t start that. You don’t get to decide when it’s as good as it gets, remember? You get frustrated too fast to be trusted with that kind of power.”
    Time to change the subject. He held out his arms. “C’mere.” She came to him , dropped her messenger bag at the base of his chair, and sat on his lap. Even a month after some sensation had returned to his legs, he felt his throat constrict and his heart race at the feel of her body on his lap. He could feel her weight on him. He could feel her. He would never take it for granted, the simple sensation of his wife’s body on his.
    “Everything go okay at the doctor?”
    She fed her fingers into the top of his braid, along his scalp, and he groaned a little at the pleasure of her touch. “Everything’s good. As it should be. Totally normal.”
    He sighed his relief. His awareness of his own anxiety always increased, oddly, at the moment she told him that all was well. “Got a picture for me?”
    She smiled and reached down for her bag. “I have a couple.” She pulled them out of the bag and dropped it back to the floor. He took the slips of paper she held out to him and examined the blurry image on the top. He could discern the head, arms, legs. The proper count for each.
    “Do we know what you’re baking yet?”
    “Next picture.”
    He pulled the second photo forward. There were words printed over this image, with a little arrow pointing to…something blurry. The words said: BABY BOY LUNDEN.
    A son.
    “Holy fuck, Sport.”
    “Yep.”
    He set the photos on top of his book and put his hand on her belly. “A son. Fuck. I hope I don’t fuck him up.”
    She grabbed his chin, and he looked her in the eye. “If he learns to be a man from his father, Isaac, then he will be amazing.”
    “I fuckin’ love you. I love you so fuckin’ much, Lilli.” He brought her face to his and kissed her.
     
    ~oOo~
     
    “Hold up. I need a minute.”
    Sitting behind the wheel of their SUV, Lilli sat back. “I need to pee. The kid has been using my bladder as a trampoline for the whole ride. Just FYI, so you can figure that into your calculations. Pregnant woman in distress over here. But, you know, if you need a minute, by all means.”
    “Smartass. You know, you used to be more sympathetic.”
    She grabbed his hand, her playful snark set aside. “Take the time you need. But this is a good thing, love.”
    He thought back to the last time he’d come home from the center, pulling up to their house to see everybody standing there, waiting to offer him some kind of fucking hero’s welcome, and the hot, red fury that had rolled through his blood at it all. The sick, futile pretense of it.
    “Okay, let’s do it.”
    “Just a sec.” Lilli released her seat belt from around her seven-months-pregnant belly and opened the driver’s door.
    He reached out and grabbed her arm. “I got it.”
    “You sure?”
    He reached into the back seat and grabbed the walnut stick with the sterling silver horse’s head. A gift from Show. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
    He opened the passenger door and put his feet on the ground.
    With his fancy new walking stick to keep him steady, he walked into the clubhouse of the Night Horde MC.
    When he crossed the threshold, his brothers were standing. As he walked in, they applauded.
    He was home.
     
    ~oOo~
     
    The kutte he’d refused was hanging on a wooden hanger in the Keep, on the wall immediately behind the head of the table. The President’s place.
    “Fuck, Show. You just won’t listen.”
    “You telling me you’re sorry I didn’t burn it?” Show sat in his VP seat. “Isaac, that kutte, that patch, that seat is yours . In all these months—what, ten?—that seat has stayed empty. It’s yours . I don’t want it, and I’m not any good at the head. Things are quiet, moving steady, so I haven’t fucked anything up, I don’t think. But you are our leader. Have been from the moment you first wore that patch.