Page 29 of Inked Craving

Leif was from a relationship long in Austin’s past. He hadn’t even known his son existed until Leif was nearly ten years old or so. I wasn’t sure of the entire story, but Leif had come into Austin’s life around the same time Sierra had, and they had raised him together ever since. Colin had been born a couple of years later, and then the twins came a few years after that.

They were a blended family, but a loving one. And the two of them had each other through all of it. I also had my family, and I needed to remember that.

“Well, come on in and relax.”

“Do you want me to get you anything?” Leif asked.

I raised a brow. “You are so like the other men in our family.”

“What?” he asked, clearly confused.

I met Sierra’s gaze, and she just grinned. “What Paige is saying, is that much like your father, you walk into any home and have to take over to make sure that everyone around you is safe and healthy.”

“Why are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?” Austin asked as he squeezed his wife. She rolled her eyes and rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“Nothing’s wrong with that, Austin. I like it. We raised a good man.”

“At least you’re calling me a man now, Mom, and not a boy,” Leif said with a roll of his eyes. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me to his side. “You’re looking good, Paige. Are you through with the morning sickness part yet? Because that sucked when Mom got sick all the time.”

Sierra just beamed at the fact that Leif had called her Mom, but I didn’t comment on it. They’d had years of coming together as a family, and I loved how they interacted.

“I’m okay today, but we’ll see.”

“You should be sitting down, though,” Austin growled, and I rolled my eyes, but since he was right, I went to the couch and held back a sigh as Leif and Austin both tucked me in.

Sierra shook her head, her shoulders shaking with laughter as she sat next to me. The two guys took up space in the armchairs, their shoulders so broad, I was afraid they wouldn’t fit.

“Seriously, how are you all muscular? It’s a little disconcerting.”

“See? I told you that you bulked up this past year,” Sierra said, clucking her tongue.

Leif just gave that Flynn Ryder smolder. “The ladies like it, so I can’t complain.”

I met Sierra’s gaze, and we both laughed before we talked about what was going on down in Denver and the expansion up here. The guys stayed for another hour, and Leif went into the kitchen to bring out iced tea for everybody. They weren’t going to let me get up and take care of them, and since I really wasn’t feeling like threatening my health just then, I let them. By the time Austin and Leif left, I was laughing so hard, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

“Thank you for letting us come and hang out with you for a bit.”

I looked up at her and grinned. “Really? I don’t mind.”

“They’re like mother hens, constantly helping out where they’re sometimes not really needed.”

I reached out and squeezed Sierra’s hand. “They’re good men. You’ve raised a good one.”

“Sometimes, I feel like Leif showed up fully grown. He’s so self-sufficient and amazing.” She let out a breath. “We’re also here because when something like this happens in the family, they tend to overreact and get scared.” I froze as Sierra smiled softly, her eyes filling with tears. “Colin’s birth was hard. I almost died, and I nearly lost the baby. And when I got pregnant a year later without even trying, I lost that baby during the second trimester.”

My hands went to my mouth, my eyes stinging. “Sierra. I didn’t know.”

She grabbed my hand again and squeezed hard as she swallowed. “I don’t need to tell you any of this if it’s too much for you.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m glad you’re here. I’m okay, the baby’s okay, but it’s kind of hard to talk to Annabelle, Eliza, Brenna…any of them, when I don’t know if I’m going to step on Eliza’s toes or make Annabelle and Brenna worry about the fact that their pregnancies went off well.”

Sierra nodded. “I know a little bit of Eliza’s past, mostly because she and I talked about it.” My eyes widened, and she smiled. “We don’t tend to talk about loss or pregnancy pains, or how it feels to have a miscarriage. It’s something we don’t really discuss as women. And maybe we should. Our family has been blessed with procreation, whether it’s adoption, multiples, or babies—all healthy and happy. We have been blessed, even with the heartache that sometimes comes with being married into this family, we have been blessed. But you know part of Eliza’s story, and now you know mine. I lost a baby. We lost our little girl.”

I choked off another tear, and she squeezed my hand again. “I will always remember Ashlynn. The name that we were going to give our daughter. And now I have two more babies, Gideon and Jamie, because their birth mother wanted them to have a different life. And we are trying to give them one they can thrive in. It’s not what we planned, but it’s who we are. And I want you to know, I know you’re scared. I know that the unknown is around us, and you’re afraid. At least given what we talked about on the phone. But I’m here for you. I don’t want to be a family who keeps secrets and walks away from the hard things because it’s scary. So, just know, I’m here.”

I scooted next to her and held my cousin-in-law hard, both of us crying. “Thank you for trusting me enough to speak about it.”

“As I said, I don’t want the secrets. And it’s something we need to talk about. About loss, about how it’s not your fault. It is not your fault what happened. Just like it’s not mine that we lost Ashlynn before we even got a chance to meet her. But it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. And I will always be here for you to talk about it.”

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