The collective O’Brian gaze fell on the baby in my arms. Silent until now, Cam followed Logan’s path to the sink and washed up.
River shoved his hands in his pockets, as if it pained him to lay eyes on Orla’s child until he knew she’d be okay.
Cam came back. I laid the baby in his arms and pulled River into a hug, feeling the anxiety trembling though him in every fuckin’ nerve, digging deep for the words Logan had pushed on me. “It’s going to be all right, brother. We just have to wait.”
For the best news or the worst, and I didn’t tell them about the other baby.
Not yet.
Cam took a seat, entranced by his newborn niece. “She’s so small.”
“Five pound six.”
He whistled, glancing at River. “Smaller than you.”
River hovered by the window, his gaze fixed on a sky the same shade as Nash’s kind eyes. “We can’t all be a nine-pound chungus.”
I blinked. “That’s why Rubi calls you Chungus Cam?”
“Only when I’m too bladdered to chin him.” Cam went back to staring at the baby.
I took a breath that went nowhere and sat next to him. “How’s the hangover?”
“Had its moments.” Cam almost smiled, but it faded as he met my gaze. “Want to tell me what the fuck happened?”
I filled him in, mindful of River’s coiled-spring demeanour, again leaving out that whatever surgical wizardry was saving his sister’s life right now included an emergency C-section that was a world away from the calm birth she deserved.
Cam took it all in, the twitch in his jaw the only sign of stress. “Rubi’s outside with your brother. I told everyone else to stay home.”
I’d walk on water before I believed Saint and Alexei had obeyed him, but I kept that to myself. Checked my phone. Strained my fucked-up ears for the sound of the midwife’s squeaky trainers on the shiny floor.
“Have you done anything about Willow’s boyfriend yet?”
Startled, I jerked my head to where River still stood like an unexploded hand grenade.
“Sorry.” He chewed on his lip. “I need to think about something else.”
So he’d picked the last thingIwanted to fuckin’ think about. Amazing. But I didn’t have it in me to do anything but answer the damn question. “I cracked and asked her about it. She told me to mind my own business. I thought I’d fucked it, then she called me back and it turns out he isn’t twenty-five. He said he was cos he’d heardhertrying to convince Sol Bosanko she was twenty-three. Guess Oscar didn’t catch that bit.”
River winced. “Sorry.”
“For what? Not his fault I nearly blew my own gasket, is it? Orls told me to wait, and she was right.”
“How old is he then?”
“Nineteen. And he still drives like a twat.” I sighed. “But Willow said he’s nice and that’s all I should care about.”
“How’d that land with you?”
My knuckles itched for me to crack them, fingers retracting into clenched fists before I caught them. “She’s grown and she has her own life. How that lands with me doesn’t fuckin’ matter anymore.”
River wanted to argue, I could tell. For the sake of it, as much as anything. But the baby chattered again, diverting whatever he’d meant to say.
In spite of himself, he ventured closer, peering at her face, his own more Malone than O’Brian. “Does she have a name?”
“I think so.”
If Orla’s intentions hadn’t changed.