Force of Nature Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 4) (79 page)

“I don’t even like cake and I love it. Hello, big guy. You ready for the last mile?”

Dallas looked at Phil and Myles. They were both standing in front of him with their arms crossed over their chests.

“Don’t just stand there gaping like a fish, get your ass in gear.”

Dallas couldn’t move. He held onto his crutch and looked at the men in his life. Family. They were all his family. He cleared his throat three times before he could speak.

“I was thinking about Dad just now. And how he never said ‘I can’t.’ I’ve been such a wuss the past three months.”

Austin nodded.

“I just didn’t want to…I wanted to be the big, bad enforcer, and now…I’m not anything to anyone now.” He raised his hand when they looked ready to argue. “I’ve changed my mind. I am someone. I’m going to be a dad. And I’m going to be the best dad I can be.”

“Sure you will. If you get to your house.” Austin helped him move, as did the rest. They were halfway to the house, about a mile, when he couldn’t go any further. They helped him sit against a tree while Phil stepped away to make a call.

“I can take it from here, boys. Provided you can help me get him in the car.”

He looked up to see Stacy.

“I can get him out, but getting him in might pose a problem for me.”

In ten minutes, he was buckled into the new SUV she’d gotten them. He’d wondered why she needed something so big, and now he understood. He realized how much he’d missed staying at the pack house to heal. They were driving along when he reached out to take her hand.

“I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, tears running down her face.

“I love you, Stacy. I’m so sorry for all I’ve put you through.”

“You can make it up to me if you let me take you to bed when we get home. I know you’ll want to rest, but I simply want to hold on to you.”

He nodded and laid his head against the head rest.

He needed to hold her too, he realized. He was going to make this work if it was the last thing he did. When they pulled up in front of the house, he swallowed his pride and asked her to help him. Leaning on her felt good. Needing her felt amazing.

Chapter 19

Four months later

“Pack law states that in order for you to be an alpha in your own right, you have to…”

Stacy growled at the man in front of her. Nigel Briggs had been a pain in her butt since she’d filed a claim to the property that her mother had left her. Briggs took two steps back. She was nearly nine months pregnant, hot, and tired. And this idiot was quoting bylaws at her. As if she had not read them a thousand times over the past several months.

“If you say to me once more that I have to be claimed by my sire, I shall hurt you.” She took a deep breath. “I have told you many times that he is deceased. My mother is deceased. They are all dead.”

“But you have no claim that says you are who you say you are.” He opened the book again then closed it quickly when she growled again. “If you had but a birth certificate, then I could simply file what need be filed. As it stands now, there is—”

“Sorry we’re late.”

She looked up at Phil and her uncle.

“We had to find a few things before we could make this meeting.”

Dallas walked into the room at that moment and she wanted to scream. He leaned down, kissed her forehead, and sat next to her. He’d been in a meeting when this idiot showed up forty-five minutes late for their meeting and had not been able to join them. She wanted to take a nap and her back was hurting her again.

“Sir. As I have said to your mate, without proper identification, or someone that can verify that she is who she claims she is, then I’m sorry, but the council has no choice but to claim the property as its own.” He started to stand and sat down when Dallas stood as well. “There are people who know where I am.”

Phil laughed and she glared. “I’m sure we can finish this without resorting to whatever mayhem is running through her mate’s mind right now. You said she needed proof. Would her birth certificate be enough?”

She felt his touch seconds before he spoke to her.
“You want this property then I suggest you let me do the talking.”

Stacy glared at Phil. She knew that since Myles had given her his blood, she had a connection to his maker as well. She wasn’t thrilled by it, but simply tried to forget about it. She also knew there was no birth certificate.

“I was about to have him for dinner. If you let me, I’ll let you have first taste.”
She nearly choked on her glass of water when Phil licked his lips at her. The councilman didn’t seem to think it was funny.

“I thought you said that no record of…” The man seemed to understand that he was in a house full of people that could and would eat him if this went on much longer. “Let me have a look at this.”

In the forty hours he looked it over, Stacy tried to think of anything. Of course it wasn’t really that long, it just seemed that way. She shifted on her chair again and wondered if she could have someone find her a heating pad. Phil suddenly looked up at her.

“How long, Stacy?”

She looked at him, frowning.

“How long have you been in labor?”

“I am not in labor.” She looked at Dallas, panicky. “I am not in labor. I have five days to go.”

He grinned. “I don’t think our son cares about those five days. I felt your pain an hour ago. I had hoped that you’d be finished with this gentleman and we could go to the clinic. I’ve called Clint and told him we were coming.”

Stacy looked at Briggs. “Do you know how to deliver a baby? If not then I would suggest that you sign that stupid paper and let me go have my child.”

He snatched the pen that Phil was handing him and scribbled his name over the document. She had a sudden thought as to if he was hitting the correct line when a sudden ripping pain took her breath away.

“Okay then” Phil put the document into the file and looked at them all. “Dallas, pick up your lovely mate. Myles, call the troops. I’ll get them to the hospital right—”

“No,” Dallas said loudly. “No, you’re not taking them that way. You can’t make her sick when she’s in labor. We’ll drive. A car. My car.”

Phil laughed. “I was going to say the car. I wouldn’t do that to her. You maybe, but not her.”

They had her loaded in the back of the SUV in seconds and Phil was driving them to the hospital. She was trying to get a grip on her pain and breathing when she felt her water break. Suddenly, things seemed to slow. She felt calm, almost like she was prepared for anything.

She was going to be a mother and it was going to happen now. Stacy looked at Dallas, who looked terrified. Stacy put her hand to his cheek. Things were going to be fine. They were going to be fine.

There seemed to be too many people waiting for them. As soon as they stopped, all the doors flew open and she was lifted from Dallas’ arms. The ride inside was on a gurney and she looked around the emergency room. There seemed to be every person they knew and then some.

She had never felt so loved in her entire life. Smiling, she was whisked to the second floor and labor and delivery. Nancy Wolf was already there waiting.

“That nice man Myles brought me. He said it usually made people sick to be taken that fast, but he said Phil showed him how to do it without causing problems.” Stacy would have laughed at the expression on Dallas’ face, but another pain took her. “Oh my, dear, you must hurry.”

~~~

Dallas held her hand. He was exhausted and he was sure she was too. They’d been at this for nearly three hours and things were not progressing like they had been told it would in those labor classes. In fact, they made it seem so easy. He looked at the monitor when it starting beeping again.

Clint came in smiling and Dallas decided that when this was over, he was going to have Phil drain him. There was something purely sadistic about the man. Who left a woman in labor for this long and smiled?

“Okay, Stacy. Let’s see how you’re coming along.” He moved to the foot of the bed. When he hummed for the second time, then a third, Dallas was trying to figure out what it would cost for a hired gun. Maybe he could get a discount from Holly.

“Well?” He looked around the room when he realized he was being stared at.
Okay
, he thought,
take a deep breath and try again.
“Well? Is she progressing?”

“Yep.”

What kind of doctor said “yep” like a ten-year-old anyway?

“I think we should move this along now. I’d say you’re ripe for the picking, Stacy. I’m ready if you are.”

She nodded. Dallas didn’t. Now? They were ready now? Before he could voice his concerns, the room was filled with people and he was being placed at the head of the table near Stacy’s head. He nearly said stop when the Clint told her to push when she felt the next contraction.

“I think—” Stacy howled and the hair on his arms rose up. Suddenly, she had a grip on his arms that made him see stars. They were having a baby.

They’d not wanted to know the sex. He and Stacy had decided that when the baby came, they’d be happy. Healthy was really all they wanted and when he was born, they’d name him then. Dallas secretly wanted to name him after his father, but didn’t want to push the issue. Not yet at any rate. His son, the doctor said, was crowning.

Four pushes later, it was finished. When Clint put the baby onto her chest, Stacy cried. It was all Dallas could do not to join her. He looked down at his precious bundle and touched the tiny little fingers. They were as soft as they looked.

“You should go and tell your family.”

He nodded, but didn’t move.

“Dallas, you made a promise to them. If they did not join us in this room then you would come tell them as soon as it was over.”

He moved to the door, glancing back every second or so. He couldn’t have wiped the grin off his face if he’d had a gun to his head. Entering the waiting room, he chuckled. It looked like the entire pack, both his and Austin’s, were there.

His mom stepped forward.

“She’s all right. And so is my daughter. All nine pounds and eleven ounces of her.”

The room erupted in congratulations and well wishes. His mom hugged him to her and laughed. “I knew it was going to be a girl. You’ve your work cut out for you.”

Dallas kissed her on the cheek. “We had a girl’s name picked out. Just in case I was wrong this time. The only one we agreed on. Her name is Nancy Janelle Force.” His mom hugged him tighter. “I love you, Mom.”

“And I love you, son. I can’t believe…” She looked around the room. “We’ve so much here. So much that I can’t…”

“I love you, Mom.” He wanted to go back to Stacy, but knew that his mom needed him more than ever. “When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”

She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. He held her while his brothers patted him on the back and congratulated him. Even Phil, with his own baby cradled in his arms, seemed to understand that he was a part of something huge here. He nodded as if to say he really did understand.

After his family held little Nancy and ooed and ahhed over her, they went home. Dallas sat on the chair next to Stacy’s bed and watched his daughter breathe. It was by far the most exciting thing he’d ever seen. When Stacy yawned again, he turned off the light and held her.

“I want to have several more children, Dallas. Would that be all right with you?”

He nodded, closing his eyes.

“And I want us to let my uncle come and stay with us if you do not mind.”

He didn’t. He had grown very fond of the older wolf. He grinned when he thought of his face when Dallas told him to come to live with them. He was a man who didn’t like change. Dallas decided that he’d ask him to be his council. That might make it easier.

“Harvey said that he would help me. I think that’ll I ask him about it tomorrow. You and I have a nice pack to run.” Not all that large, but it was getting bigger daily. Nearly all of Stacy’s sire’s pack had asked to be with her. It seemed that Stacy had been helping them for years.

“Dallas, do you think it bad if we simply held her while she slept?” He got up and went to the little bassinet. Picking her up, she snored slightly and he laughed. Handing her to Stacy, she smiled and pulled her to her breast. “We have a beautiful little girl.”

“Yes. And her mother is beautiful as well.” He reached into the little drawer beside the bed, pulled out the small package, and handed it to her. “I love you and wanted you to have something for making me the happiest man in the world. I know that sounds sappy, but I am.”

She handed him Nancy and opened the box. He held his breath as she fumbled with the tape. When she tried to peel away the wrapping without tearing it, he nearly told her to simply tear it off. But he didn’t. He smiled when she finally opened the box.

It was a bracelet. One he’d had made for her. She took it out and held it to her cheek. He leaned over their daughter and kissed her.

He’d talked with his brother on the design. It had taken them nearly a month to decide on it and he’d never been so pleased with anything like he was with this. Connor promised him that he’d never use the design again for anything.

The wolves chasing one another were made of white gold and encircled her wrist perfectly. The chain that held them together was made of copper. He’d had his brother add a few stones, things he’d found for her when they’d been walking the property. Nothing precious, but things they’d both loved. Then there was the beautiful emerald that was on the clasp. It had been his father’s signet ring from college. His mom had given him the broken ring and told him to use the gold. They had. Each wolf had a little of the white gold in them.

“I have something for you as well.” She had him hand her the bag his mom had brought to the hospital. “It has been in my purse for nearly a month. I wanted to surprise you with it.”

He took the small box and didn’t know what to say. He’d never been very good at receiving gifts. He was more of a giver. He tore the paper off, much to her delight, and smiled before he opened it.

“Oh ,Stacy.” The framed picture lay nestled in a bed of tissue paper. He didn’t even try to lift it out, terrified that he’d break it. It wasn’t so much the frame, but the picture itself. “It’s all of us.”

The picture was perhaps forty years old. In it were his mom and dad and his brothers. They were standing in front of the house he’d grown up in. He and Austin were about ten and the others just a few years younger. His parents were looking at each other as if they were so deeply in love. He and his brothers were standing shoulder to shoulder with their arms around each other and the most mysterious smiles on their faces. As if they knew as soon as the picture was taken they were going to get into trouble for something big.

“Your mother said you broke your arm that afternoon. She said that Austin had tossed you from a tree to see if you could fly.” She looked at the picture with him. “Why would someone do that to his own brother?”

“We had a bet. I was the flyer first because I won. Austin was a little pissy because he wanted to fly first. It never occurred to us that we couldn’t. My parents made us believe we could do anything.” He ran his finger over his father’s face, only now realizing how much he and Austin looked like him. “Dad said that the next time we decided to see if we could do something that involved anything sharp or high off the ground, we had to make sure he was there to help us.”