Page 75 of A Dragon's Miracle (Fires of Fate)

I stood and took each of them by the hand. “Alright, let’s go then,” I said, leading them out of the dining room. The boy on my right bounced while walking, making me chuckle. These kids always had so much energy. I couldn’t wait until I got to hold my own child’s hand. A dream I’d never thought would come true but that was so close now. I had less than a month to go until this baby was due.

“Ryan,” the boy to my left asked, “do you have a baby in your belly? You look like my daddy when he had Daire in his belly.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I liked Daire better when he was in daddy’s belly,” the other boy said. “He cries a lot.”

I laughed. “All babies cry.”

“Is your baby going to cry?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, probably.”

“Then I don’t like him,” the three-year old declared.

“But you cry too,” his brother said, and I saw a fight coming so I changed the topic.

“So you like the drums?”

“The drums are awesome!” the kid on my right said, and his brother readily agreed with him.

I exhaled, happy that they had found common ground. The twins were lovely, but they could also be a handful. For now, I was happy that I was only havingone.This baby was difficult enough to carry; I didn’t even want to imagine doing two at once. This was so difficult to carry indeed, that I was starting to feel faint by the time we made it to the part of the basement with the band equipment. It hadn’t been a long walk, but these days it seemed any kind of trip was enough to tire me out.

The kids let go of my hands and ran into the room, racing for the drums, while I steadied myself with one hand on the wall. I couldn’t pass out again, not while I was watching the twins. Goddammit, I had the worst timing.

But there was nothing I could do about it.