She looked up at him. All the fear he’d seen in her eyes over the past few weeks—the what-ifs and the worries and the terror of wanting something this much—it was still there. But underneath it was something else.
“Now,” she said.
Bear didn’t make a speech. Didn’t clear his throat or tap a glass or wait for a dramatic pause in the conversation. He just raised his voice enough to cut through the noise.
“Joy and I have some news.”
The room went quiet. Not all at once—conversations trailed off in waves, heads turning, attention shifting. Bear waited until he had most of them.
“We’re having a baby.”
Silence. One heartbeat. Two.
Then his mother burst into tears.
It wasn’t delicate crying. Charlie Bollinger had never done anything delicately in her life. She let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a shriek, crossed the room in three steps, and grabbed Joy’s face in both hands.
“I knew it,” she managed, tears streaming. “Iknewsomething was different. Oh, honey. Oh,honey.”
Joy laughed, the sound wet and overwhelmed. “Charlie?—”
“This sweet baby girl is having a baby.” Charlie pulled her into a hug so tight Bear worried about Joy’s oxygen flow. “Finn! Finn, did you hear?”
“I heard.” His father’s voice was rough. Bear turned to find him standing a few feet away, grinning like he’d been waiting for this moment. No surprise on his face—he’d put it together earlier, when Bear had asked him to watch over Joy.
“You knew,” Charlie accused, pulling back from Joy just long enough to smack Finn’s arm. “You knew and you didn’t tell me!”
“I suspected. For all of about thirty-seven minutes. There’s a difference.”
“Finn Bollinger, I have been married to you for forty years?—”
“And I’ve learned when to keep my mouth shut.” He caught Bear’s eye, still grinning. “Well, hell, son.”
He pulled Bear into a hug. Brief, hard, the way they’d always done it. But he held on a beat longer than usual.
“Proud of you,” Finn said quietly. Just for Bear.
“Thanks, Dad.”
After that, it was mayhem.
Annie started calculating due dates out loud, cross-referencing Joy’s answers with some internal medical calendar. Quinn hugged Joy so tight she actually lifted her off the ground. Becky pushed through the crowd to discuss every piece of babyequipment she and Derek had accumulated over the past three weeks.
“The swing is a lifesaver,” she said earnestly. “And the white noise machine. And—Derek, what’s that thing called? The one that warms the wipes?”
Derek, holding Denise against his shoulder, looked mildly traumatized by the question. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything from the past three weeks.”
“Helpful,” Becky said dryly, but she was smiling.
Through it all, Marshall and Ashley hung back near the fireplace, watching. They weren’t part of this—not really—but they were grinning anyway. Ashley whispered something to Marshall, and he nodded.
They got it. They understood what they were seeing.
The front door opened, letting in a gust of cold air and Baby, stamping snow off his boots.
“Car’s running,” he announced. “Just needed a jump and—” He stopped. Looked around at the chaos. At Charlie still crying. At Finn’s grin. At the way everyone had clustered around Bear and Joy. “What’d I miss?”
“Bear and Joy are having a baby,” someone supplied.
