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She reached out to pat his shoulder as she headed into the kitchen. “Your brothers are out back. You want a beer?”
“A couple shots of whiskey, you say? Sure.” Her laugh prompted his own reluctant smile. “Beer’s good. Thanks.”
He followed her to the kitchen and braced his hands on the counter as she pulled a bottle from the fridge. She twisted off the cap and slid it across the island. “You doing okay?”
Merit shrugged and took a pull off the beer on their way out to the patio. “I’d be better if Mae would give me the time of day.”
Asher looked up from his chair with a chuckle. “Man, I can’t believe you’re still pitching to Mae. She’s way out of your league.”
Loyal grinned but remained silent.
As Honor sat on the arm of her husband’s patio lounge chair, Merit took a seat across from the two of them and kitty-corner from his oldest brother. “Why is she out of my league?”
“She’s too nice for you to sleep with her and move on, and you know Honor would wring your neck if you did that. Not to mention, she’s a single mother, and a successful business woman who works harder in a week than you have your whole life.”
He wasn’t wrong about most of that. Merit took another long, fortifying drink, then shifted his gaze from one brother to the other and jumped in with both feet like Mae had done with him. “She’s pregnant.”
Loyal’s eyebrows shot skyward. Asher’s did, too, but he glanced up at his wife for confirmation. “Is she really?”
Honor nodded, her gaze darting to Merit.
His brother stiffened and looked back at him. “Why is it that you know she’s pregnant?”
Loyal sat forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Guess she’s not completely out of your league.”
“Holy shit.” Asher stared at him in shock. “Mae’s pregnant, and you’re the father?”
“She is, and I am.”
“When did this happen?”
“The night of your wedding.”
“Geezus, Mer, you couldn’t keep it in your pants for that one night?” His middle brother shoved to his feet and paced to the edge of the patio.
“It was a mutual thing—for that one night at least,” he muttered.
Asher swung back toward his wife. “You two are probably due about the same time, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“That’s why she stopped by last night, isn’t it?”
Another nod.
“And you didn’t say anything?”
Her eyebrows dipped at the note of accusation in the question. “I’m sorry. She thought Merit should be the one to tell his family, not her.”
He made a face that said he grudgingly agreed but didn’t really want to before turning back to Merit. “What are you going to do?”
“The only thing I can do.” He sat up straighter. “I’m going to be a dad.”
As weird as that sounded saying it out loud for the first time, the words also shot a little thrill through his veins. He even felt a small smile tug at his lips.
As his brother stared at him, Merit’s smile grew cautiously bigger. “We’re both going to be dads.”
Asher glanced at Loyal. His oldest brother—well, second oldest if counting their half-brother, Grayson—shrugged and offered his own smile to Merit. “Congratulations?”
