Page 54

Cullen

B ethany took to motherhood like a duck to water.

She and Zoey fell into an easy routine quickly. The first few days, we had pretty much just followed her lead and let her decide what to do and when. We were her helping hands, who took the baby when needed or just fetched whatever she needed for herself.

The night times were always tiring, but they were also lovely. Zoey started fussing in her crib, and because I was the closest, I was the one who crawled over to her little bassinet.

“Hey, little madam,” I cooed, scooping the baby up out of her bassinet. Her tiny mouth was opening and closing repeatedly, like she was looking for a nipple.

Cuddling her close, I knee-walked across the nest to where Bethany was half-asleep.

“Feeding time already?” she mumbled, sitting up, her eyes still clouded with sleep.

“She’s a hungry girl,” I whispered, passing the fussing baby to her.

“We could all use a solid five hours of sleep, but who can be mad at this cute face?” She rocked her for a moment before pulling up the pajama top she was wearing so Zoey could feed.

When Joey had been a baby, my pack mates and I had done the night feeds.

Her mother had never even considered breastfeeding because she thought it was gross and would ruin her expensive boob job.

So, we had formula fed—not that there was anything wrong with that, but Bella refused to disrupt her beauty sleep, leaving it to the dads.

Bethany, on the other hand, had opted to breastfeed. We had left it to her to decide how she wanted to feed our daughter, but I kind of hated how little sleep she was getting.

Zoey latched on and started suckling as her mother gently ran a hand over her head.

“Maybe you should try pumping before bed so we can take at least one of the night feeds?” I suggested.

Bethany nodded sleepily. “That would be nice. The pumps are so fancy, though. Every time I think about setting one up, I end up just wanting to nap.” Her face was tight with exhaustion, and we were doing everything we could to mitigate that, but with her waking up every two to three hours to feed, it was kind of unavoidable.

“We’ll do it together tomorrow while the little madam is asleep,” I assured her. Now that the baby was latched, I crawled out of the nest, grabbing Bethany’s gigantic water bottle off the bedside table. “Fill it up?” I asked, holding it aloft.

Bethany always got thirsty when she breastfed, so we kept the water bottle nearby. It was almost four a.m., though, and the water was dwindling, so the least I could do was top it off while she fed our daughter.

“Thank you, and maybe some sort of salty snack?”

“Your wish is my command,” I whispered, leaning over to kiss her softly before climbing out of the nest to get her goodies.

When I padded back into the nest a few minutes later, Bethany’s eyes were already starting to droop.

“Drink,” I commanded lightly, holding out her water bottle so she could drink from the attached straw.

There was always at least one alpha in the nest with Bethany at night. Ideally, we all wanted to be there, helping with the baby, but realistically, we all had jobs and we had Joey to think about. So we were trading off.

“I think she’s done,” Bethany mumbled, gently stroking the fussing baby’s head.

I made a grabbing motion. “Gimme my daughter. I’ll diaper and burp her.”

As she handed me Zoey, I couldn’t help but smirk. The sweet little nugget was still a blob, for all intents and purposes, but I could have sworn she was smiling.

I was a pro at diapers at this point. Bethany was in charge of all the baby input, so the others and I dealt with all the output. It was the least we could do, when she was using her own body to feed Zoey.

As soon as the baby was in my arms, Bethany sank down into the sheets, already half-asleep, leaving me with the baby.

Changing and burping didn’t take long, and even though I was quiet, I didn’t need to be. Bethany was so tired, she could sleep through anything, yet somehow always woke when the baby fussed. Apparently, it was some sort of mothering instinct kicking in, but it seemed like witchcraft to me.

Awesome witchcraft I was very thankful for, but witchcraft, nonetheless.

“Would it be rude to ask when we can have another?” I chuckled as I rocked Zoey. It was the middle of the day, and I was looking after Zoey while Bethany took a nap. It was a weekend, so we were all home.

Gideon laughed. “I think you’d better at least wait until she’s healed before you ask that. Otherwise she may throw a dinner plate at you.”

“As she should,” Jensen agreed, nearing to coo over the baby. “Give me my daughter for a few minutes. I need to snuggle.”

“Fine,” I huffed, handing over the baby before turning to Joey, who was watching TV. “I guess I’ll go get snuggles from this baby,” I declared loudly, pouncing on the sofa and pulling Joey in for a hug.

Squealing excitedly, she did her best to shove me away while I tickled her sides. “Daddy! That tickles!” she screeched.

“Duh!” I laughed. “That’s the point!”

We rolled around the couch for a few moments until Joey finally admitted defeat. She was stubborn, just like Bethany, and fought like hell.

My girls were the best.

“What’s for dinner?” Joey asked.

I cocked my head to the side, thinking. “Do you want to help me make spaghetti and meatballs with salad?”

“Chicken nuggets are better, but I know we aren’t allowed to eat them right now…so, yeah!”

Every adult in the room laughed at her pout.

If Joey really wanted chicken nuggets, we were going to get them for her, but we had informed her that Bethany had to eat really healthy meals for a while because she was recovering from having her baby sister.

Joey had decided that she would eat exactly like Bethany and wouldn’t have any chicken nuggets until Bethany could have them.

I honestly don’t know if Joey had ever eaten so healthy in her life.

Having two daughters was a balancing act, but putting Sally in charge of the restaurant had been the best decision I could have made.

That woman ruled the place with an iron fist, and things had never run so smoothly.

Gideon had dramatically lowered his workload temporarily, but there were some time-sensitive things he still had to do.

Jensen had handed a lot of his work to the physician’s assistants as well while he was on paternity leave.

So, between the three of us, we were handling the change shockingly well.

We had been prepared for Joey to potentially be a little bit jealous of the new baby. In fact, we had looked into child therapy just to help her deal with her emotions if that did happen.

Only, it turned out Joey was obsessed with her new baby sister. She’d declared many times how happy she was to have more girls in the house.

Our house that had once been oddly empty felt ready to burst now, and it was as close to perfect as it could be.

“Daddy!” Joey shouted as she opened the fridge to help me cook. “Why do you have mushrooms? ” she asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Oh, that must be an accident!” I gasped, refusing to admit I had purchased them for my own dinner. If I admitted to her that I was planning to cook with mushrooms, she would have scampered out of the kitchen so damn fast, and I wouldn’t have seen her for the rest of the night.

I could survive without them.

More than anything, I wanted my little girl next to me as she stood on her step stool, spending some quality time with her as we made dinner for her and Zoey’s mother.