Chapter Eighteen.

Nevvie and Tom were discharged the next morning. Tyler took them straight from the hospital to Dr. Fagen's office, where the hospital had made Nevvie an urgent appointment because of the events.

"You must be the proud fathers," Dr. Fagen said when she walked into the exam room.

"This is Tommy and Tyler," Nevvie said. "My guys."

"Nice to meet you both." Dr. Fagen did a double-take when she rounded the exam table and spotted Nevvie's Aircast, and Tom's bruised and battered face and the fact that he was in a wheelchair. "Are you all right?"

"It's been a really bad twenty-four hours," Nevvie said. "Remember how we told you about my ex?"

"Yes?"

"He found us."

"Bloody bastard won't be coming back, either," Tyler darkly muttered.

Nevvie glanced at him, worried about his mental state, but let it go. "You probably heard about it on the news."

"Ah. Yeah, that. I did. Well, let's get you checked out. I read over the admitting doctor's notes from yesterday, and it looks like everything's okay. I just want to make sure." Dr. Fagen set up the ultrasound machine and started preparing. "Are you interested in learning their sex if I can tell?"

"Yes," Nevvie said. "I can't stand the suspense."

"Hoping for a couple of girls to even the score?" the doctor joked.

"That would be nice."

The doctor switched the lights off and applied goo to Nevvie's belly. After a few minutes of searching, the doctor froze the screen and used the cursor to circle a section. "It's still a little early, but I think this is Baby Girl Number One."

Nevvie couldn't help the smile that crossed her face. "Yeah?"

"We'll confirm it later with an amnio. Not today, though. I'd rather wait a little longer, especially after the stress you just went through." The doctor did some more searching and took another screenshot. "And Baby Girl Number Two."

Tom squeezed Nevvie's hand. "Girls," he croaked. "That's great."

Tyler glanced at him before a smile finally curled his lips. "It's brilliant. Adam will certainly be thrilled."

"I'm not sure Mikey will be. He won't be the baby anymore," Nevvie said.

After conducting her exam, Dr. Fagen proclaimed everything was fine. "I want to see you next week, though," she said. "Just to be on the safe side."

Relief flooded her. "Thank you, Doctor."

With Tyler helping, Nevvie got down off the table and steadied herself with her crutches. The doctors in the emergency room said she could stop using them in a week or so, as long as the swelling had gone down in her ankle and the pain had abated somewhat.

Back at the house, Tyler helped Tom carefully make his way to the couch. He lay there while Adam happily showed him how to play his new video game. Tyler got Nevvie settled in a recliner and gave them both stern looks. "No moving. Either one of you. Got it?"

Nevvie snapped him a salute. "Aye-aye, Cap'n Bligh."

Tom barked out a laugh, which left him gasping in pain. "Baby girl, stop, you're killing me."

"Sorry, Tommy." She grinned at Tyler. "Yes, Sir," she said, winking at him.

Maybe she was twenty kinds of twisted, but knowing Alex was dead had lifted a huge weight from her shoulders. She'd take the pain of the sprained ankle any day. Her kids were safe, her men were safe, and she'd never have to look over her shoulder in fear again.

Tyler rolled his eyes at her. "Behave, woman." He jabbed a finger at Tom. "You, too, mister."

Tom snapped him a salute. "Yes, Sir."

Tyler laughed as he left the room. Nevvie looked over at Tom and winked at him.

He winked back.

The video game only kept Adam's interest for so long. After an hour, when Tom had fallen asleep due to his pain meds, Adam shut the game off and curled up with Nevvie in the recliner.

"Mommy, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, baby." She put her Kindle aside. "What is it?"

"Who was the bad man yesterday?"

She nearly choked. Hell, the "Where do babies come from?" question would have been preferable to that.

She stared down into Adam's blue eyes and racked her brain for an acceptable answer that didn't involve lying or using the terms "fucking douchetard" and "abusive asshole."

"Well, baby," she finally said, "he was someone I used to know a long time ago. Years ago."

"Before Daddy and Poppa?"

She nodded. "Yes." She thought again. Adam patiently waited her out. "He hurt me really bad. Daddy and Poppa saved my life. And the bad man went to jail for what he did. Unfortunately, he was let out of jail too soon and he tried to hurt me again."

"And Daddy and Poppa saved you again?"

She smiled. "Yes, they did."

"Is he the same bad man who hurt Aunt Emily?"

She let out a sigh. "Yes, baby. He was."

His face scrunched up for a moment, deep in thought. Finally, he said, "I'm glad he's gone. He won't hurt nobody else." With that, he got up and put in a different video game and started playing.

Nevvie wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or throw up her hands in confusion.

It doesn't matter how old they are. Men just make no sense sometimes.

While Tyler hadn't slept well the night before, exhaustion had taken over. If he'd dreamt, he didn't remember it. Tonight, with Tom and Nevvie safely back in bed with him, he quickly dropped into a blissful sleep.

At first.

His writer's brain took over at some point. It spun a terrifying alternate version of the events. In this version, he raced down the driveway too late. When he ran into the yard, Tom was already dead and Alex was in the process of bashing Nevvie's head in.

And when he fired, he hit Nevvie instead of Alex.

He jolted awake with a start, heart pounding, sweat pouring off him. Trembling, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there with his head in his hands while he tried to slow his racing pulse.

I'm not getting back to sleep anytime soon. He stood, used the bathroom, then went outside to the RV to try to work. It was only 2:00 a.m.

As he stared at his laptop and tried to make sense of the words there, he wondered if perhaps Alex wasn't getting the last laugh.

Unfortunately, this became Tyler's new routine. A week after the showdown, he'd yet to make it through the night without some sort of nightmare. He always gave up trying to sleep and went out to the RV to work. Sometimes in his dreams, Alex had already killed both of them, as well as the boys and Peggy and Andrew. Sometimes, his aim was off and he killed Nevvie instead of Alex.

And sometimes, Alex broke into the house in the middle of the night and Tyler awoke to find him standing over their bed, Nevvie and Tom already dead.

Nine days later, he'd been working nearly two hours in the RV when a knock on the door startled him.

"Yes?"

Peggy opened the door and stepped in carrying a cup of coffee. "I thought you might want this." She set it on the table, which had become his desk.

"Thanks, Mom. I'm sorry. I didn't wake you, did I?"

She sat across from him in the dinette. "No, I was already awake. I've heard you every night. Not sleeping well?"

He picked up the cup of coffee and took a sip before shaking his head.

"You know, maybe the detective was right. Maybe you should go talk to someone."

"I don't need to talk to anyone. I have my own kind of therapy." He'd started working on another book, a gruesome, dark serial killer story full of murder and mayhem.

It was going quite well, surprisingly enough. He could now describe a gunshot victim with a veracity he'd never known he possessed.

"Only getting a couple hours of sleep a night isn't healthy for you. I'm taking off my mom hat and putting on my nurse hat, here, Ty. You're not a spring chicken anymore. You've had cardiac issues in the past. You've been under a lot of stress, between the storm and Nevvie being pregnant and now all that crap with that maniac. It's time you take care of yourself, because this won't get any better unless you do. And you've got twins on the way. If you think sleeping will be any easier once they get here, think again."

"What am I supposed to say? Go to some bloody head shrink and tell them I'm not a damn bit sorry for what I did? That I don't feel an ounce of regret over killing that fecking bastard? They'll think I'm the barmy one."

She leaned forward. "No, Ty," she said gently. "You go and tell them the dreams you've been having about not being there in time to save them."

He must have looked as gobsmacked as he felt, because she kindly laughed. "Do you think you're the first man to dream about the 'what ifs' instead of the 'what happeneds?' You're not, you know. Maybe your brain isn't flagellating you over what you did, but it's dang sure beating the crap out of you for what didn't happen, isn't it?"

He nodded.

She reached over and patted his hand. "I'm going back inside and try to go back to sleep for a while. I'm here to talk to, even if you don't want to go talk to a counselor."

She left. He sat back and stared at his laptop, where he'd been in the middle of writing a very bloody evisceration scene.

Then he looked at the business card, the one Platt had given him, that he'd laid on the table.

Chapter Nineteen.

"Whoo hoo! Shake it, baby cakes!"

Nevvie and Karen exchanged startled looks and burst out laughing at Peggy, who was brandishing a dollar bill and waving it at the hard-bodied male dancer heading her way while she shouted more catcalls. He'd just stripped off the top half of his firefighter's uniform and was working on his pants.

Nevvie leaned in close to Karen. "How much did she have to drink?"

"Nothing. She's had iced tea all night. She's sober."

"Huh. Well, good for her."

They were all at a local restaurant where April was friends with the manager. They'd rented the back room for the evening for Karen's bachelorette party. Cheryl had arranged the three-part entertainment. Officer Nasty stood in the back of the room with Doctor Feelgood, awaiting their turns to strut their stuff once the frisky firefighter was done being molested by a room full of mostly middle-aged and married or involved women.

It was almost two months since "the incident" and a week until Karen's wedding.

Kelly leaned in close to Nevvie. "Maybe Andrew better watch out," she joked. The fireman was now down to his very well-filled red-sequined G-string. He stood in front of Peggy and did body rolls that made his oiled, ripped six-pack abs move in deliciously evil ways.

Nevvie fanned herself. "Screw that. If I wasn't pregnant, I'd be up there dancing with him."

They watched as Peggy tucked a dollar into his G-string. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek before moving on to the next woman.

One cake, two hours, copious amounts of alcohol, a few hundred dollars in singles and fives, and three male strippers later, the party wound down and Karen had snagged Officer Nasty's G-string as a souvenir. Peggy alone had tucked no less than thirty dollars in singles into the men's costumes.

Nevvie let Kelly drive the three of them home even though she hadn't had anything to drink. She hoped Tyler and Tom were still awake. Happily, she found them stretched out in bed and watching a movie on TV.

She stripped naked and crawled into bed with them. "Hi."

"Hi, sugar," Tom said. "You all right?" He wore an amused look.