Page 52 of Cold Foot Croc

“You’ll pick another one when you’re ready.” Such confidence filled his words.

Little Billy-Jack moved again. She rested one hand on the swell of her belly, and slipped her other one into Garret’s. His enormous hand encompassed hers completely, and she had that feeling again—that safe feeling.

It was addictive.

He pulled out a chair for her and she sat down, sighing in relief. Her belly felt so tight right now. It felt good to just sit.

When she glimpsed the food that was stretched across the long table, she laughed in shock. There was fish, and a plate full of T-bone steaks. Snack-sized bowls of chocolate-covered raisins were peppered between bowls of different kinds of potato chips. And in the middle of the table was a plate piled high with peanut-butter-banana sandwiches, and there were saltine crackers around the edge, just waiting to be crunched up on top of them. On each of the paper plates around the table, there were tin cans of clams that someone had heated up in an oven, with parmesan cheese on top.

“Oh my gosh,” she uttered, stunned. She lifted her wide-eyed gaze to Garret as he sat in the seat beside her. “These are all the cravings I told you I’ve been having.”

“He was really helpful with the last-minute menu planning,” Wreck said softly from across the table, where he sat beside his mate, Timber, his arm draped loosely across the back of her chair.

“I am so excited right now.”

“That’s the biggest smile I’ve seen on your face ever,” King pointed out. “You just needed all your weird foods.”

“Hey, don’t knock it until you try it,” she encouraged them, scooping up a heaping helping of clams with her plastic spoon.

“I already tried it, and it doesn’t suck,” Cash announced around a mouth full of food. His can was already empty, and he was scraping the juice out noisily with his plastic spoon. “You gonna eat that?” he asked Kade, who was sitting next to him.

“Am I going to eat my clams?” Kade muttered, a smirk on his face. “I will always eat the clams.”

She did not care at all about the boys’ back and forth, unless one of them was willing to give her their food. Right now she waslost on a roller coaster of delightful flavors, and nothing could harsh her buzz.

Garret, God bless that man, saw her eating her clams like an animal, and he automatically put his tin onto her plate and began gathering other food for her.

She couldn’t fit too much in her stomach right now, for a couple of reasons. One, Billy-Jack felt like he was the size of a small horse, and there was no room for food, and two, her belly was doing that tightening-up thing again that was so annoying and just uncomfortable.

Two hours flew by quick. There were games—mostly drinking games for the non-pregnant members of the group—and the guys were hilarious during them. Even just chatting around the table was easier than it ever had been before. As Raynah looked around, everyone just seemed good. The chaos of escaping prison and making the Crew, and moving here to Montana, settling in, and figuring out which way was up seemed to have lifted for this one evening. Or perhaps the tension in the Crew had been easing up for a while now, and she was just now starting to notice. The baby had taken up so much of her attention and worry, she hadn’t been paying attention to the others as much. They seemed happy. Even the ones who weren’t paired up, like Kade and Cash, just seemed at ease.

“Are you happy?” Garret asked from beside her.

He was looking down at her lips, and she took stock of her expression. She was smiling. She hadn’t even realized.

“I think so—oof.” She inhaled sharply and pressed her hand against the tight spot low on her belly.

Garret leaned forward in his chair and looked worried. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve been having those Brax-thingies for a couple of days.”

“Braxton-Hicks?” Sasha asked from where she was watching Raynah across the table.

“Yeah, my stomach gets tight sometimes, but it’ll go away.”

“Mmm. Does it hurt?”

Raynah shook her head. “Not really. Just feels weird and tight.”

Sasha nodded. “Probably just Braxton-Hicks then. You know, we can always go do some measurements up at the hospital. I know you’ve been kind of putting it off, but I bet I could pinpoint a pretty accurate due date with an ultrasound.”

A few days ago, Raynah’s answer would’ve been an immediate no. She’d been walking this earth scared to death of something going wrong, or finding out something was wrong. But now, after the talks she’d had with Garret, she felt more hopeful. Stronger, perhaps.

“When do you work next?” she asked.

“Tomorrow. I don’t work in that part of the hospital, but I can pull some strings and get you in quick.”

“Can you be there in the room for it?”

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