Page 11 of A Very Montgomery Christmas

“I have ginger ale and crackers,” Mother said the other side of the door. “Let me in, son. I want to make sure that my little daughter is okay.”

“Might as well,” Madison rumbled as she leaned against the bathtub. “They’re all going to guess what’s wrong sooner or later.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” I sighed. “Everything’s just right. We’re just having a wicked fashion about it.”

“Whatever you say. I think I’m going to be sick again.” And she promptly did so, and I opened the door for my mother as soon as Madison was done.

“So, morning sickness?” Mom asked as she knelt beside my wife.

“How could you tell?” Madison still had her eyes closed, looking far too pale for my liking.

“I had four babies, and now my babies are having babies.”

“It’s bad, Mom,” I mumbled. “She has hyperemesis gravidarum.”

Mom’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. Is that why it’s so bad? You look like you’ve lost weight, Madison. How far along are you?”

“Heading into the second trimester, thank God. I had to stay in overnight with IV fluids before Thanksgiving,” she mumbled.

Mom glared at me. “And you didn’t tell us?”

“Because we had a lot of family things to deal with, that was difficult, and we could handle it.”

“Does Lincoln know?

“I knew,” Lincoln said, leaning against the doorway. “And I was going to tell all of you if it got any worse. And hey, it looks like it’s getting worse.” As Lincoln and Madison were cousins, we felt it only right for us to tell him because Madison needed a family member to lean on. Telling the entirety of the Montgomerys would have been too much.

“We didn’t want to tell everyone until we knew I could get at least into the second trimester. I’m sick, but I’m going to be okay. The baby’s fine. I just have severe morning sickness. And it sucks.”

“I would say so,” Mom said. “Okay, let’s clean you up, and we’ll bring you out, and you can sit down next to Bristol. Holland is going to sit down right next to you because that girl has not gotten any sleep, and we’ll probably stick Arden with all of you because I know she’s in the middle of a flare.”

My eyes narrow. “Is she okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” Arden said, and I realized that nearly everybody that I knew and loved was standing in the bathroom doorway and watching the proceedings.

“Oh no,” Madison said, and groaned into her hands.

My mom clucked her tongue. “We’ll bring her out in a second, and then we’ll celebrate a new baby. But come on, give her some privacy.”

“What’s privacy?” Liam asked. “We’re Montgomerys. We don’t believe in privacy.”

My mom narrowed her eyes, and then my dad groaned before pulling the rest of the siblings and family members and friends of family out of the doorway.

“Come on, my girls will sit down on that big couch of mine, and we’ll bring everything to you. You won’t have to lift a finger.”

Madison gave me a wobbly smile. “I seriously love your family, Aaron.”

I looked down at my wife, the soon to be mother of my child, and my own mother, and smiled.

“And I love my family too. More every day.”

I was one fucking lucky Montgomery and an even luckier man.

Chapter 4

Bristol

Iput my feet up and groaned. “Why am I one hundred and seven weeks pregnant. Why does someone think that this is okay to do to me?” I asked, and narrowed my eyes at my loving and handsome and evil husband.

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