Page 52 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

RILEY

Five months later…

If I’d had any doubts about how chaotic life with twins would be, they were thoroughly destroyed the moment both babies screamed in unison… right after I sneezed, mid-diaper change, while Asher dropped a bottle and Beckett stepped in baby spit up for the third time in an hour.

But let me back up a little.

The birth itself was… well, it was a blur of sterile lights, beeping machines, contractions that felt like medieval torture, and Garrett nearly getting kicked in the face when I said, “Do not touch me,” and he tried to rub my back anyway.

To his credit, he took it like a champ. He stood there with his big, callused hand braced on my shoulder, jaw tight, eyes darker than I’d ever seen them, while the nurse coached me through it.

Asher made wildly inappropriate jokes the entire time, until the first baby cried. Then he went dead silent. Mouth open. Eyes full.

And Beckett?

Beckett didn’t say a word. He held my hand in both of his and didn’t let go. Not once.

We named them Wren Wolfe and Rowan Wolfe.

Wren came out first, fists in the air like she was ready to square up with the doctor. A full head of dark, wavy hair—Asher’s, no doubt—and lungs that could’ve shattered glass.

Her eyes were the color of storm clouds rolling in over the mountain ridge, sharp and unafraid. She was going to be trouble. I could feel it.

There was a little dimple in her chin that only showed when she cried, which was often and dramatically.

And Rowan followed minutes later, quieter, wide-eyed, holding onto my finger like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. His hair was lighter, chestnut brown with a hint of a golden cast when the sun hit it just right, and his eyes… those were Beckett’s.

Warm and deep and steady, the kind of eyes that looked like they’d seen everything and still chose softness. He rarely cried, he watched everything like he was trying to make sense of the world before making his next move.

The first week back at the cabin was surviving a slow-moving hurricane. Beautiful, emotional, and slightly traumatic.

Garrett tried to run it as a military operation. He printed schedules. Laminated them. Assigned feeding shifts and diaper duty like it was a company takeover.

“Babies are creatures of rhythm,” he insisted, holding a whiteboard and a bottle at the same time like a sleep-deprived drill sergeant. “Structure helps them thrive.”

Except babies didn’t give a shit about structure. Wren spat up on his flannel while he was mid-sentence. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.

Beckett handled the crying better than anyone. He’d just scoop one of them up, lay them against his chest, and hum something low and raspy that settled them instantly.

But he looked permanently haunted by the idea of hurting them.

“She’s too small,” he whispered once, cradling Wren like she was made of spun glass. “I’m gonna break her.”

“You literally throw logs over your shoulder for fun,” I told him, wiping spit-up off his sleeve. “You’re not going to break her.”

Asher, on the other hand, became the human baby monitor. Every peep had him springing into action like a caffeinated golden retriever.

“Is that a hungry cry? Or a poop cry? Or a trick cry where they just want to mess with me?” he asked one night, pacing with Rowan strapped to his chest in a backwards baby carrier, because of course he didn’t read the instructions.

At one point, I found him Googling “how to tell if your baby is judging you.” To his credit, Wren was looking at him like she knew every dumb thing he’d ever done in his life.

And then, just when I thought I might actually cry from sheer exhaustion, Lucy showed up.

“I’m here to save the day, everyone,” she said, breezing through the front door like a fairy godmother. “Also, I bring caffeine and an alarming amount of nipple cream.”

I practically sobbed.

She swooped in like a baby whisperer, bouncing Wren expertly while talking a mile a minute about how she was going to help. She even taught Garrett how to swaddle without looking like he was trying to wrap a burrito during an earthquake.

Watching Lucy hold the babies while Beckett made tea, Garrett folded laundry, and Asher tried, and failed, to warm a bottle without setting off the smoke alarm… it hit me.

This was our life.

Messy. Loud. Perfect.

We weren’t what anyone would call conventional. But we were us .

This strange, fierce little family in the mountains, where I woke up every day surrounded by love, by chaos, by a future I never knew I wanted until I found it staring back at me in the form of two tiny, squirmy humans who had their dads wrapped around their fingers.

And as I stood in the middle of our cabin, Wren on my hip and Rowan drooling down my shirt, with Garrett fixing a drawer that didn’t need fixing, Beckett carving a mobile for the nursery, Asher singing off-key to an old vinyl record, and Lucy loudly declaring herself “Auntie of the Year”.

I thought… Yeah. This is the ending I never saw coming.

And the beginning of everything else.

The end.

Page 52 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

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