The scan was normal. Over halfway through this pregnancy and everything was so damn real…right there before Jack’s eyes.

“Did you want to know gender at this point?” The technician asked.

“You can tell?” Riley leaned forward to look at the screen. Jack joined him but all Jack could see was smudgy outlines and the tiny hearts.

“I can certainly confirm one of the babies.” She moved the wand and the image zoomed in as she clicked the device. “Would you like to know the sex of one of your babies?”

“Jack? We never talked about this?” Riley said.

Jack gripped his husband’s hand tightly. “Might be kind of nice to know.”

“Okay, then we’d like to know.”

“It’s easier to confirm absence of genitalia than existence of it,” she said with a smile. “I can confirm one of your babies is a girl.”

Hayley squealed and clapped her hands together, then did her version of a boy band dance on her own. “A girl, I’m getting a sister.” She stopped dancing long enough to suddenly look incredibly serious. “Can we call her Alexandra like my mom? Lexie?”

Riley opened his mouth to answer, but Jack could see what Riley was going to say, probably something serious and about waiting and whether it was appropriate.

“Of course we can,” Jack said. “That is a beautiful name.”

Chapter 17

~June~

Riley found his husband on a ladder in their barn, fixing a permanently wired soft-light lamp. He’d looked everywhere, and true to form at the moment, he’d left the old barn until last. Seemed like he was making everything difficult for himself these days.

“There’s a delivery for you,” he said. He stared right at Jack’s butt and the small tear in the crease at the base of his left cheek. He could glimpse skin. If Jack stayed right there he was just at the right height for Riley to suck him off or just to bite the exposed skin if they didn’t have time for the full blow job. He was disappointed when Jack immediately scrambled down from the ladder.

Jack looked at his watch and shook his head. “They’re early,” he said without explanation. Then he hurried past Riley and at the last minute grabbed Riley’s hand and pulled him along.

They rounded the corner of the house and Riley was once again faced with the chaos in their wide front yard. Right near his SUV there were three horse-drawn trailers, men milling about, and general organized chaos. Robbie was in the middle of it looking in control, and Liam helped by leading one very small horse down the wooden slope to the ground.

“Come and see,” Jack encouraged.

Riley didn’t often get that involved in the horse side of the D. He listened when Jack talked about what was happening, but then he could stare at Jack and listen to his growly voice all damn day.

“They’re kind of small for barrel racing,” Riley commented.

Jack snorted a laugh. “These are for people who need smaller horses,” he said. “Welsh ponies.”

“Small people? Short people you mean.” Riley watched as the nearest horse, pony, whatever came closer with Liam guiding it.

“Children. Smaller kids than Hayley who need something different. Kids like Max.” Jack hugged Riley. “Like the twins.”

Recognition of what Jack meant suddenly broke through and made total sense. His husband had ordered horses for their kids. And Max.

“Wow, Jack,” Riley began.

“You like them? After all, Hayley has Red, so I thought we could stable them in the empty stalls of the new barn. Neil is coming over this afternoon to check them over, but I think we’ve got good ones here.”

“Three.”

“Hatty and Henry are the grays and Hilda, the brown. And before you say it, yes, I know the names are weird, but they’re part of a farm sale and the elderly couple who had them named them.”

“You realize the twins still aren’t born,” Riley said with a smile. Overwhelming love filled him at Jack’s obvious excitement.

Jack scratched between the ears of the nearest mount, then ran a hand along withers and down to the flank. “Good strong horses,” he said. “Good for kids like Max, steady, strong, certain.”

Riley nodded. Unspoken was the ongoing discussion on adoption and whether there was any chance of them adopting Max. They’d shelved adoption in general with the twins only a few months away, but if they could somehow have Max join their family, they’d decided that is what they would do.

“So we have horses for the twins,” Riley said dryly.

“And one extra for Max, maybe? Have you heard from your dad on this?”

“He just tells me he’s pulling out all the stops is all,” Riley said. “I hope it’s soon. Back to the babies, I guess now what we need is a part-time nanny.”

Jack grinned at him and allowed Liam to walk the horse on and around to the new barn.

“Thought that could be something we do together soon. We need someone who loves the land, horses, nice, not too young or old, doesn’t have to be a female nanny. We could have a manny.”

“What the hell is a manny?”

“A male nanny.”

Riley had had nannies as a child. Stern nannies, nice ones, but none that ever stayed for long.

“Whoever we have would need to live in and…” He trailed away as he realized he was having a serious conversation about nannies in front of small horses and total strangers. He had hang-ups where childcare was concerned.

“Then we need to think about this place.” Jack waved at the house. “How is the place for Robbie and Eli getting on?”

“The contractors say end of June.”

“Best get them to work on the house as well then,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “We need to open up the second floor, maybe get the kids upstairs and we keep downstairs so we know they’re safe.

Riley’s head spun with the information floating inside. A nanny or a manny, extending the house, small horses. He quickly went inside the house to his cool office and pulled up a spreadsheet on shale deposits. Now this? Chemicals, geological reports, this was the opposite of all that chaos. This made sense.

After five minutes of staring at the sheet he gave up. The numbers wouldn’t stay still, and he couldn’t even track down a simple rounding error.

Jack’s arms snaked around his shoulder, and for a second Riley relaxed in the grip.

“Sorry,” Jack said softly.

Riley moved in the chair and Jack released his embrace and backed away to lean on the corner of the desk. “What for?”

Jack looked serious. “You were pretty shell-shocked out there.”

“I wasn’t… I…have a lot going on.” Riley realized just how lame he sounded. “I’m pleased though, about the horses, I promise.”

“You weren’t expecting the nanny conversation or extending the house. I’m over-organizing everything.”

“No. We need to start interviewing. Eden was telling me her friend interviewed nannies when she found out she was pregnant. It’s just”—he tapped his temple—“in here, I don’t want to think about our children being dumped with a nanny. It’s a terrifying, unsettling, awful experience.”

Jack knelt down between Riley’s spread legs and rested a hand on each thigh. “Is that why you won’t talk about it? Because your family dumped you with nannies? I’ve been trying to pin you down for weeks about visiting agencies. I just assumed you were busy.”

“I am busy,” Riley leaned forward and rested his forehead on Jack’s. “I’m always busy. I wanted something different for my children.”

“I get that,” Jack began. “You could stop work for as long as you wanted to.”

“I have projects,” Riley said instantly. “And staff, and… Jesus, Jack, why didn’t I think this through?”

Jack rubbed small reassuring patterns on Riley’s pants and edged his thumbs up until they were very close to Riley’s cock, which instantly became interested. Hell, even when he was mid-breakdown Jack had this effect on him.