Page 58 of Claimed By the Cowboys
“She can't have caffeine.” Dakota winced. “I’m so sorry, pretty girl, but we will go into town and get you some decaf as soon as possible.”
Piper without coffee was going to be a very interesting creature. She wasn't even human until she had drunk her first cup in the morning. Pregnancy hormones and a lack of caffeine were going to make for a volatile omega.
“I, uh… I need to go sort things,” Piper whispered, practically rushing to her room and slamming the door.
Her emotions were swirling through the bond like a fucking loudspeaker—and they were confusing as fuck. There was excitement, but confusion. Elation, but nerves. I wanted nothing more than to follow her, to pull her into my arms and insist that everything would be okay. We had no way of knowing that for sure, though. She needed time to come to terms with her new reality, as we all did.
So, as much as I hated it, I realized she probably needed her space.
Zeke went to follow her, but I stopped him. “Give her a few minutes to process.”
He pouted. “But I want to be with her.”
“We all want to be with her right now, but this is very new to her. We've already lived through finding out we're going to be fathers once. This is something different for her than it is for us.”
He pouted but listened to me.
“It's not just me, is it? We are fucking excited about this?” Zeke said.
“It's unexpected, but I'm not going to say it's bad news,” Montana said, crossing his arms. “We need to make sure we set up the house to be able to fit the child in, and we also need to make sure that we get all the supplies needed. Do you remember the early baby shopping trips for Maisie?”
I winced. Yeah, those shopping trips had been expensive.
“Yeah, but Caroline wanted the newest and fanciest version of everything. I don't think Piper’s like that. In fact, we have Maisie's old crib out in the barn. I'm sure I could clean it up, maybe refinish it,” Dakota said.
“What does this mean for our case against Caroline?” Montana, ever the pragmatist, asked.
“I think it’ll strengthen our case,” I admitted. “There's no denying now that Piper is ours. I wouldn't have put it past Caroline to insinuate that we only bonded with Piper to ensure she couldn't take Maisie.”
“Sheisunderhanded like that,” Zeke agreed. “So, this baby is evidence that we are very, very happy sticking our dicks in our pretty omega?”
I chuckled ruefully. “Basically.”
“So… What do we do now? What are the next steps?”
“We need to book Piper's first scan and make sure that everything is okay with the baby,” Zeke said. “The doctors here aren't quite equipped for everything. The other doctors have appointments for next week, though, so if one of us can take her, that would be great.”
“I’ll do it,” I offered. There were a million and one things that needed to be done around the ranch, but none of those mattered right now. The only thing I cared about was making sure Piper got everything she needed.
“We will build a nursery downstairs as well, one that attaches to the pack bedroom,” Montana said. “I know this is a big house, but if we're going to start having babies, then we are going to need to make more space.”
Was he insinuating that we could have more than just Maisie and the baby Piper was pregnant with?
That idea wasn’t the worst.
Hell, I would love to have a gaggle of kids. When I'd been a lot younger and before Caroline had terrorized our lives, I’d always imagined having a ranch full of kids.
Then we had bonded Piper, who couldn’t have kids—or so she had believed—and I had started coming to terms with the fact Maisie would be it. Adoption had crossed my mind, and it was an idea I’d been considering floating to Piper in a year or two, once Maisie was older.
Well, I could still discuss it with her, but maybe once she was out of the newborn phase and wasn’t constantly exhausted.
Not that we would let her get too tired. A certain degree of sleep deprivation came with being a parent, but having five parents helped reduce the workload a lot.
It also helped that we had a pack because we had limited time to build another pack bedroom extension and get everything ready for the baby.
“So, we’re in agreement that we are all happy, and the next steps are building more space, doctors’ appointments and caring for our omega?” I glanced between the three of my packmates, every one of them nodding.
“Okay, let’s go calm down our omega.” We had let her stew in her feelings for almost twenty minutes, and now we needed to have a conversation and possibly a cuddle.
