Chapter two
Shiloh
January
“This is it. Thishas to be it,” I murmur, my hands clammy around the plastic stick. “Come on, baby.”
Something outside the bathroom door crashes, followed by a scream. I jump, dropping the pregnancy test. It clatters to the marble countertop, but I ignore it as every instinct demands I get to my boys. My heart thunders in my chest as I rip the door open, sprinting to the upstairs hallway.
The piercing sound of a toddler’s cry echoes around our massive home and my stomach sinks.
I know that cry.
“Archer!” I shout, gripping the banister as I jog down the stairs. “Boys, what happened? Where are you?”
I stumble through the baby gate, catching the latch on my dress twice before taking a breath and getting it right.
“Mama!” Arch wails just as our other son, Asher, comes barreling around the corner, colliding into my legs. I nearly trip over him but catch myself on the kitchen island at the last second.
Bending, I scoop my red-faced, trouble maker up, giving him a look as I quickly search out Archer. “Why do you look guilty, my love?”
Ash gives me his best pout, but I won’t be deterred. I cock an expectant brow and he releases a sigh befitting of a whole ass teenager instead of a two-year-old.
“Not my fault, mama,” he says, crossing his tiny arms. “He’s a bad, bad boy.”
It takes everything in me not to laugh at his petulant posture. He looks exactly like Logan—they both do. “And why is he bad?”
“You see,” he murmurs ominously.
I follow the sound of quiet sniffles as my mind wanders back upstairs to the pregnancy test I left lying on the counter. I hope Lo doesn’t get to it before I do. And if he does….
Shaking my head, I focus on the two children I already have. The ones I love more than life itself. They’re perfect, sweet little boys, even if they are a bit naughty sometimes. Still, they’re my world and I’d do anything for them.
They’re enough, I remind myself. And they are. If Logan and I never conceive again, Asher and Archer will always be enough, and I’ll be damned if I even let them feel like anything but.
“See, Mama,” Ash cries, jolting me back to the present. I rub my forehead, cursing myself for getting distracted. I’m just so damn tired.
My throat tightens as my eyes widen.
No.
It can’t be.
Maybe?
Against my will, I smile. I don’t mean to, but it slips out.
Yet the second I lay eyes on what my toddler’s pointing at with his precious, chubby finger, my smile falls.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, freezing in my tracks. I gape at the downstairs playroom. How the hell long was I gone? Longenough to pee and stare at a developing stick, so, what? Less than five minutes. Tops.
“How…”
“You owe dollar to da swear jar,” Ash accuses, scrambling from my hold.
A dollar to the swear jar is literally the least of my worries right now.
I gently set him on the ground, but my mind is still doing mental olympics in an effort to piece this shit show together. The majority of our beautiful oak floors are covered in dirt. It’s smeared up the walls, turning the mossy green playroom walls into a muddy color that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get out.
