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“Let’s hope there isn’t a next time,” I said and turned around with the intent to head to the kitchen, but Keelan was standing right behind me.
“You thought you were pregnant?” he asked.
I let out a sigh and went on to explain.
Keelan and Knox were quiet as I spoke, and when I finished, Keelan put his hands on my shoulders. “Creed’s right. If you ever think you’re pregnant, tell us.”
“And then what?” Knox asked as he walked over.
“What do you meanand then what?” Creed asked.
Knox stared at his younger brothers. “We haven’t talked about Shiloh possibly getting pregnant. Condoms and contraceptives aren’t one hundred percent. So it could happen.”
“If she does, she does,” Creed said like it wasn’t a big deal.
Knox frowned at Creed. “A baby is a huge responsibility and something not all of us are on board with.”
Creed frowned back at his oldest brother. “Why are you saying that when you know that if we got Shi pregnant, we’d be fine with it? Sure, it’d be scary at first, but I don’t think even you would be opposed to adding to our family. We would figure it out.”
“I’m not talking about the four of us,” Knox said, and his gaze shifted to me.
Feeling the weight of all of their eyes, I looked down. “I’m not on board with it.”
Keelan’s hands moved from my shoulders to cup my face. “That’s all right, baby girl.” He made me look up at him. “This conversation isn’t to make you feel ashamed. It’s just to know where we all stand if it ever happens.”
Colt put his hand on my lower back. “What about in the future, babe? When the time is right, would you want kids then?”
“I’m too scared to think about the future,” I said. Before Mr. X had found me in Arizona, I’d actually thought I could allow myself to envision a future. And now, I looked back at myself from a week ago and thought how stupid I had been. “As long as Mr. X is alive, I can’t let myself. It will only lead to disappointment, because his sole purpose is to rip away any future I might want, and he’s proven that he can.”
“What about before X came into your life?” Creed asked. “You told me once that you wanted to be a chef like your mother. Did you want anything else out of life before he ruined it?”
That question was too painful to answer. I grabbed Keelan’s wrists and pulled them from my face. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted back then, Creed.”
“Even though you feel like you can’t envision a future, you must still want something to keep moving forward,” Colt prompted.
For a second, I felt like deflecting, but I knew that wouldn’t work on them. I sighed and gave them the soul-baring truth. “After Mr. X killed my family, the only thing I wanted out of this life was to know what it was like to feel happy again. You four came into my life and gave me that.”
“Hearing that just made me equally happy and sad, baby girl,” Keelan said.
“Some people go their whole lives without knowing happiness. Mine is multiplied by four,” I told him and headed toward the kitchen to finish cooking breakfast.
10
Three days went by.It snowed a lot, which my guys who were born and raised in the desert weren’t used to. The awe on their faces at what looked like a winter wonderland outside and the fun we all had playing in it was uplifting. Snowmen were built. Snowball fights were fought. In the evenings we lit cozy fires. We played board games from the collection in the basement and watched movies on the computer. Those three days were as perfect as could be under the circumstances and I was grateful for it. If I could have encapsulated it, I would have, or at least taken some pictures.
Today was a slightly warmer day. Just after breakfast, I grabbed one of my rifles I’d brought with me from Arizona and a box of bullets from the safe. I was more experienced with pistols; shooting a rifle was something I could use more practice with.
Knox and Keelan were down in the basement using the small gym. As I was going through the trash for cans from last night’s dinner, Colt and Creed came into the kitchen to see what I was up to.
“What are you doing, Shi?” Creed asked as he leaned against the kitchen island.
I set the third can I’d found on the counter. “Looking for cans to shoot.”
“You’re going shooting?” Colt asked with interest underlining his voice.
I glanced at the two of them. They were both eyeing the rifle and box of bullets that I’d laid across the kitchen island.
“Want to learn how to shoot a rifle?” I asked Colt and Creed.
