“Always.” Jacey waved as Lance led her out of the room and down the hall toward the front.

I walked toward the back to do inventory of my supply stock. The storage room had a door that led to the back parking lot. I always kept it locked when I wasn’t getting a delivery. I smelled the smoke before I saw the flames.

Oh my God…fire!

Coughing and choking on the growing smoke, I whipped open the back door at the same time that the sprinkler system and fire alarm came on. I could hear people running and screaming out of the front of the building. This wasn’t just my place of business. It was my home, and, currently, Trixy’s.

I stood just inside the doorway and shielded my eyes when I saw a movement in the parking lot. A woman hurried across the lot and scrambled into a car. For a moment, I thought she was a customer escaping the fire, but then I got a closer look at the driver as they sped off. There was no mistaking who it was…

Bud Grant.

Fury filled me. He was the only person who used to have a key to my home and business. I’d made him give them back after the divorce, but he’d obviously made a copy. I couldn’t prove it, but I’d bet my life he’d had his latest bimbo set fire to my place.

My attorneys had been foiling his attempts at framing Matt for his so-called neck injury. That had to make him angry. but I’d never known him to be so reckless. Almost as if he were desperate, but why? I had a lot of insurance on this place. Is that what he was hoping for? My inheritance wasn’t enough?

What kind of trouble had he gotten himself into this time?

Well, I had news for him. He wasn’t getting one more cent from me. The wailing sirens grew closer. Someone could have been seriously hurt or died. I’d no sooner had that thought than a piece of the ceiling came crashing down, knocking me to the ground.

“Help,” I called out, cradling my stomach.

My head pounded something fierce; I could barely see straight. Who was I kidding? I was sure everyone had evacuated out front, as planned. No one was in the building to hear me. I was five months pregnant, and my stomach was already growing more than average because of the twins.

The twins!

My eyes welled up with tears. What if the fall had hurt them? The ceiling had hit my head and knocked me down hard. I’d tried to protect my stomach, but it had still hit the ground fairly hard. I coughed, finding it hard to breathe even with the door open.

I was going to die never having met my babies…our babies.

As the world around me faded to black, all I could think about was Matt.

“Tiffany, it’s Dr. Joy. Can you hear me?” She patted my cheeks.

I stirred.

“That’s it. You can do it. Come back to us now.” Dr. Joy had a way of being comforting yet direct. When she told you to do something, you did, no questions asked.

I stirred again, but all I wanted to do was sleep.

“Come on, lass,” said a deep voice close to my ear that even in a smoke-induced coma could stir me to life. “Open those beautiful blue eyes of yers, love.”

That had me blinking them open and then slamming them closed against the light. “My head.” I lifted my hand and felt a bandage wrapped around my head.

“That would be the concussion you suffered.” Dr. Joy spoke as she checked my vitals, and the sounds of beeping machines went off around me.

The memory of what happened came flooding back, and my hand slid to cover my stomach. “Our babies?”

“Are just fine.” Matt’s hand swallowed mine as he covered my stomach.

“Your sons are both doing great,” Dr. Joy said.

That had my eyes blinking open wide, pain be damned. “Sons? As in both boys?” I stared up at Matt in wonder mixed with a bit of horror.

Matt’s face was beaming. “Aye, lass. No wonder yer belly’s so big.”

I leveled a glare at him.

“I mean that in the best possible way.” He cradled my cheeks and kissed my forehead. “Ye are going to be an amazing mother to these big, strapping lads.”

“It’s the big and strapping I’m worried about.” I gestured up and down his torso. “Look at you? How am I supposed to give birth to all of that…times two?” I started to cry, terrified of giving birth. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be pregnant with your Sasquatch cubs.” I was blubbering. “No, wait, I don’t want to give them back. Maybe you can have them for me. You’re a legend, after all.”

He shook his head, and what I could see of his eyes through my tears grew tender. “All of this didn’t happen overnight,” he said gently, gesturing to his torso. “Me mammy is no bigger than ye, and she did just fine. I get me size from me da’s side of the family. Just look at Uncle Liam.”

That only made me cry harder.

Matt looked at me with a helpless expression, at a loss for words for once.

“Get used to it.” Dr. Joy patted his massive arm. “This is only the beginning. Just wait until the last trimester.”

“Ah, Chapters Eighteen through Twenty.” He shuddered.

“And now you passed me in the book.” I sniffled. “You’re the super parent. I’m the screwup. I can’t even make lunch.”

“Tiffany, look at me.” Dr. Joy waited until I complied.

Was there ever any doubt?

I felt like I was in the principal’s office…not Brimstone’s. I would have rolled my eyes, but I didn’t dare. Instead, I focused on Dr. Joy and listened intently to what she had to say, hoping she would restore my useless brain.

Pregnancy brain was real, and it was scary as hell because my thoughts were definitely not my own. They belonged to a mad woman who clearly needed help…if she could even remember to go to her appointment.

“Women have given birth for centuries.” She patted my hand. “Our bodies are designed for exactly that. To reproduce. It’s nature’s way. Freedom of choice allows us to decide whether we want to have children or not, but our bodies are ready either way.”

“My body’s not ready.” I shook my head hard. “I worked hard for that body. It’s meant for other things. Not childbirth. Definitely not childbirth. What if it fails me? I can’t fail at another thing in this town. Grammy was not a failure.”

A brief expression crossed the doctor’s face, but it was gone before I could analyze it. “You are not your Grammy, Tiffany.” She held up her hand before I could speak. “I’m not saying that’s good or bad. I’m simply saying you need to stop trying to be your grandmother, and just be yourself. I, for one, think your self is pretty impressive.”

And that was as close to a compliment anyone would ever get from Dr. Joy.

“You’re right. I can do this.” I inhaled a deep breath.

“Exactly. You’re a woman. You can do anything. In fact, one woman in the United States alone gave birth to octuplets in California not that long ago. If she could do it, then you can definitely give birth to two babies.”

“Eight babies at one time?” I looked at her in horror.

“I was just using that as an example of what is possible in nature.”