Page 38 of Guarded

She flushed, even though Zoe was just teasing. “Well, I didn’t go through labor, so…”

“All right. Moving on,” Zoe said, handing out prizes to the winner. “You get the pity prize,” told Briar.

Briar opened the bag. Eyes wide, she looked up at Zoe. “Really?” A sex toy? And a dubious-looking one at that.

Zoe smirked. “Glows in the dark.”

Of course it did.

“You won’t be able to use it for a while yet, but when you do, you’ll thank me.Trustme.”

Okaaay then. She was sure Matt would get a giant kick out of it.

The afternoon passed by fairly quickly after that. Food, drinks and presents. Rosie even got a cute little camo dress from Trinity and pajamas that saidMy Mom’s A Badassacross the chest from Summer. Briar kept an eagle eye on her daughter as the baby was passed around the room. She trusted all the women in the room, but this was her baby and she was going to make sure Rosie was being held properly.

“You look fantastic, by the way,” Rachel said to her, looking her up and down. “Can’t even tell you had a baby a couple weeks ago.”

“Thanks.” Everyone kept saying that. That she looked great, seemed to be handling everything with ease, even with Rosie’s challenges as a preemie.

Looks could be deceiving, however. At times she had been more miserable since Rosie’s birth than she ever had, except for when her parents died and she was first taken into the Valkyrie Program. It was a constant grind to hide that from the rest of the world, including Matt, but there was no way she was going to show the truth.

At four the guests began leaving. By five, it was only her in-laws, Taya and Trinity left. They refused to let Briar clean up, ordering her to sit on her throne while they cleaned up and organized all the presents.

“I put everything away in her room,” Trinity said as she emerged from the bottom of the staircase, “but you can reorganize it later.”

“Thanks.” She carefully removed her sleeping daughter from her breast, covered back up, and put Rosie to her shoulder to burp.

Trinity held out her hands. “May I?”

“Of course.” She handed Trinity the blanket to drape over her shoulder.

Trinity took Rosie and carefully tucked her close. She patted the baby’s back gently. “God, she even smells good,” she murmured.

“I know, right?”

“Until they start eating solids,” Taya called from the kitchen. “Then not so much.”

Trinity grinned at Briar. “Ah, the things you get to look forward to, huh?”

“Yeah, I can’t wait.”

Rosie belched, and the telltale splash followed a second later, all over Trinity.

Briar sighed. “Sorry about that. You’ve been christened. Welcome to the church of projectile vomiting.”

“It’s okay.” Trinity held Rosie away from her a little. “Got me, you little stinker. But you’re adorable, so I forgive you.” She wiped at the mess on her shirt the blanket hadn’t protected her from with a cloth and handed Rosie back to Briar. “Here ya go, mama. Fill her back up and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She dropped a kiss on Briar’s cheek.

“Thanks for everything,” Briar said.

“You bet. See you.”

Watching Trinity leave, Briar had to fight the urge to call her back. Ask her to stay. She could feel herself starting to slide emotionally, the anxiety building as the coming night loomed before her, dark and endless.

Chapter Ten

Since it was the weekend, traffic was light on the way home. Matt couldn’t wait to get into the house as he pulled into their driveway. Hanging with the guys for the day, watching his Chargers defeat their opponent while eating pizza and drinking beer had been a nice break. But he’d missed his girls and was dying to see them.

His mom and sister were in the final phase of cleaning up the kitchen when he walked in through the mudroom. He hugged them both, asked a couple questions to be polite and not make it seem like he didn’t care about them even though what he really wanted was to go straight up to see Briar and Rosie.

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