Risking Fate Read online

  Risking Fate

  A Mitchell Family Series

  Book 4

  By: Jennifer Foor

  Copyright © 2012 Jennifer Foor

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Art By : Wicked Cool Designs – Robin Harper

  This book is a written act of fiction. Any places, characters, or similarities are purely coincidence. If certain places or characters are referenced it is for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Check out the other books by Jennifer Foor

  Letting Go - A Mitchell Family Series Book One (Contemporary Romance)

  Folding Hearts – A Mitchell Family Series Book Two

  Raging Love – A Mitchell Family Series Book Three

  Hope’s Chance (Contemporary Romance)

  The Somnian Series (YA Paranormal)

  Book One Ascension

  Book Two Absum

  Book Three Attero

  Book Four Aduro

  Book Five Abeo

  Coming Soon

  Wanting More – A Mitchell Series Book Five

  I would like to thank everyone that continues to support me.

  Without you, I would never stay so determined.

  Thanks to all of my new friends on my FB, Twitter and Goodreads pages.

  Author: Amanda Bennett, Author: Elizabeth Buchanan

  Thanks to all of my Independent Author Friends. (you know who you are)

  Thank you to all the book bloggers out there spreading the word for me and others who write.

  Into the night Reviews, Book Bitches, Word

  Special Thanks to:

  Book Broads, Book Studs, Books Books Books, Reality Bites Books

  What to read after fifty shades

  Beta Readers

  Amy Haigler, Glennis Ussery, , Jennifer Lafon, Jennifer Harried, Erica Willis, Karrie Stewart, Kim Eckley, Lesley Ark, Mechelle Lovell Jackson,

  Robin Harper, Heather Gunter, Angie Cowgill, Shannon Murphy and Heather Collins

  And everyone who has made this series the success that it is. I am forever grateful. Thanks to my family and my faith. With them, all things are possible

  Special Mentions in this book:

  Justin Moore: Til My Last Day

  Jeep

  Preface

  Tyler

  “Baby, just tell me what it says.”

  Miranda stood in the bathroom just staring at the little white stick. She knew I was bouncing off the walls in anticipation. I slid in behind her and reached my arms around her tiny waist. She tried to prevent me from seeing the results. “Would you just wait a sec? It takes time for the pee to get to the end of the stick.”

  I nestled my face into her neck, placing small kisses over her smooth skin. She smelled of peaches from some lotion she was trying out. I wasn’t sure if it made me hungry, but I found myself wanting to lick her skin. “This is torture. Can’t you hang the fucking thing upside down or something?”

  “No, you can’t taint the test. It needs to lay flat on the counter. Chill! It’s three minutes!” She turned around and wrapped her arms around me, distracting me by slipping me her magic tongue.

  Ha ha ha….She just said taint…

  I knew what she was doing, so while I continued enjoying her kisses, I opened my eyes and tried to look past her. She caught me and pushed me against the bathroom wall, finally breaking her lips away from mine. “Hey?”

  Miranda gave me those eyes she always gave when she was trying to get her way. Seduction was her specialty and her secret weapon. There was no need to restrain me, or tie me up; she had me at her disposal. If Miranda said jump, she knew I would do it. I’d do anything to make her happy.

  It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Of course, Colt and Conner claimed I was totally pussy whipped. The truth was that, I was crazy about my wife and my life. Miranda was my best friend before we had anything going on between us. In fact, it was our friendship that brought us together. It wasn’t like I was her love slave or anything like that. I was just one hundred percent satisfied in every aspect of my life. No other woman could ever give me all the things that Miranda gave me, and for that, I was forever grateful.

  Miranda got quiet as she looked down at the stick. She turned around and held it behind her back, preventing me from taking a look myself. “Baby, please. I am dying here.”

  She looked down to the floor, appearing disappointed. A knot formed in my stomach. “It’s just the first month. You know we are goin’ to keep tryin’. The doctor says it could take us a while.”

  It was important for me to keep her hopes up even if I was disappointed.

  Damn, I wanted her to be pregnant.

  I grabbed her chin and pulled it up so she was looking me in the eyes. Her sad eyes began to change as her lips curved into a huge smile.

  No fucking way…

  The knots started turning into butterflies again. I knew that look. I picked her up and spun her around our bathroom. She started screaming and smacking me on my back to let her down. I slowed the spin down and stood her up in front of me. “Say it. I want to hear you say it, Baby, please.”

  She backed up against the sink and ran one finger down my chest. “It’s positive. I’m pregnant.”

  I don’t even remember if I pulled her into my arms, or she pulled me, but our lips met with the best celebratory kiss that anyone had ever had. “Baby, I love you so much.”

  She giggled and tossed the stick into the trash. “I know you do.”

  I smacked her ass and reached into the trashcan. “Don’t throw this away. I am carrying it in my pocket.”

  “Ty, that is disgustin’! It has my pee on it.”

  Several consecutive knocks on the bathroom door got our attention. We had been getting ready to leave for a weekend in Kentucky. Miranda was already brushing her teeth, in her bra and underwear when I opened the door. Izzy stood on the other side of the door. Her hands were on her hips as she looked up at me with those pretty blue eyes. “Can I help you?” I teased in a foreign accent.

  “Daddy! When are we leaving? I want to play with Noah.”

  “Honey, you know Mommy takes forever to get ready.” I felt a smack on my ass as I walked out of the bathroom toward Izzy.

  I helped Iz get her bags together and loaded them into the car. She went running over to say goodbye to my parents, while I hurried back into the house.

  Miranda came up behind me and grabbed the stick out of my pocket. “We aren’t takin’ this to Kentucky. We can’t tell anyone for a while. You know we have to wait till I am further along.”

  Not what I wanted to hear. I was ready to run out the damn door screaming to the whole world that my wife was pregnant.

  “How the hell do you expect me to keep a secret like this?”

  She kissed me again and handed me a bag to carry. “Please, Babe. Just keep it between us for right now. Just to be safe.”

  “But I want to tell Iz.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “Tyler, seriously, can you please just keep it a secret between us?”

  I grabbed the back of her pants as she was leaning down to pick up a bag. “Secrets suck. I want everyone to know my seed is inside of you.”

  She shook her head and started laughing. “This is going to be the longest nine months of my life.”

  “I have to tell Conner first.” I was joking, but Miranda’s eyes got huge anyway. She dropped the bag and shook her head. I pulled her into my arms and squeezed her tight. “I want everyone to know that you are carrying my sp
awn.”

  She reached up and kissed my nose. “If you tell my brother that your spawn is growin’ inside of me, you may not live to see it being born.”

  “I ain’t scared of his pussy ass. They all know we were just waiting for the go-ahead from the doctor. Did they think I was going to just wait a while? Baby, I wanted to impregnate you since I first laid eyes on your naked body.”

  She started gathering up the bags again. “Can you please just not tell anyone? Not even Colt! Let’s just get through this visit and when we go back for Van’s shower we can tell everyone.”

  I rolled my eyes and stuck out my bottom lip. “But I want everyone to know.” Even with her arms full of bags, I pulled her toward me. “Aren’t you at least a little excited?”

  Once again, the bags dropped and I felt her hands cupping my cheeks. She looked me straight in the eyes. “I have never wanted anything more than I want to have your baby, Ty. You are already the best father I could ask for and I know you love bein’ one. I may not be runnin’ around screamin’, but I am so happy about this. My last pregnancy was rough. You have no idea how much I look forward to you bein’ there for this with me. I just don’t want to tell the family yet. Can’t we just share this together for right now?”

  Don’t give me the puppy eyes……Don’t do it!

  I kneeled down in front of her and removed her shirt to expose her bare abdomen. My lips pressed against her stomach and I held them there. “Our little secret,” I whispered. “Daddy loves you.” I stood up and grabbed the bags out of my wife’s hands, and stole a little peck. “I got these; now let’s get on the road.”

  I was already a father, and a damn good one at that, but hearing that Miranda and I had created another addition to our family, well it was one of the happiest moments of my life. Izzy was going to have a brother or sister and Miranda and I were going to make our family even bigger.

  My life used to be full of parties and fast times, like I was always trying to fill a void I could never figure out, but when I realized what that void was, I finally felt like I was complete.

  My girls had given me happiness and our new addition was just going to make it even better.

  Chapter 1

  Miranda

  In the first several months of my pregnancy, we had a bunch going on. After the Noah and Bella episode with the horses, we went back to Kentucky two more times, one being for Savanna’s baby shower, which in turn was when she ended up going into labor.

  Their little girl Christian was so beautiful. She had been born with one dimple on her right cheek that was almost so deep you could see it even when she wasn’t smiling. We still weren’t sure whether her eyes were going to be blue or green like Colt and Noah’s, but either way, she was gorgeous. Her full head of dark hair never fell out and it continued to get longer.

  Savanna had already had new family photos taken and her walls were covered in more pictures. We kept joking to Colt that he was soon going to have to build an addition just to house all of the pictures she had.

  I didn’t have much room to talk. Since getting married, my house was also filled with beautiful memories of our family. My favorite picture was the one of Ty and Bella from our ceremony at the barn. Every time I looked at it, I thought about those beautiful words he said to her on that day. I still don’t know how I got so lucky and ended up with Ty, or how he had changed his entire life around for me and my little girl, but I was more than grateful.

  Aside from Savanna, Ty was my very best friend. We didn’t have secrets, unless they were some kind of sexual surprise to be discovered at a later time. We talked about everything, sometimes still staying up into the wee hours of the night.

  In fact, I loved just hanging out with Ty when nobody was around. I loved that if he was close, he was always touching me. He’d play with my fingers, stroke my skin, or kiss me in random places. Just one touch from him sent a scorching fire into my heart. His love for me was obvious and it was something I never had experienced before.

  Even though Bella had her own room, she still liked to sneak in bed with us every now and again. Of course, my husband had a problem with telling her ‘no’, so she knew she could get away with it, if he was around. I’d often wake up with her sideways between us. It was hard considering I had to stand up to style hair all day with a sore back. One benefit was that Ty would always give me one of his famous massages, which in turn would become a passionate night of love making.

  Speaking of love making, I had started to prefer it over our quickies and rough adventures. Don’t get me wrong, Ty and I loved to get freaky, but there was something so intense when we came together emotionally. There had been several times, even before I was pregnant, where we had finished and I couldn’t stop crying. I was just so darn happy to connect with him like that.

  Waking up next to someone that intently loves you, is something that can’t be described. Ty was everything to me and the longer we were together, the more I loved him.

  Since we had built on to our house, we had plenty of room for my brother to move in with us. I was very reluctant at first, considering the state he was in, but he was my brother and we knew that moving him away from that life would help get him straight.

  I couldn’t help but blame myself a little bit for Conner’s actions. He and I had never been apart and for most of our lives, he had been my very best friend. I didn’t hang out with other girls; in fact, they never really cared for me much. It didn’t help that I found it as my life’s mission to steal their boyfriends all of the time. I’d done some horrible things, but Conner always had my back, even when he knew I was in the wrong.

  The issues with him were no different. He needed me and I felt it was my obligation to be there.

  Originally, Ty had given Conner his old room in his parent’s house, but after the first week, he started staying in our guest room. He was homesick, I could tell, because he clung to me like we were the only survivors of an Apocalypse. With having a job, a daughter and a husband, the clinginess got old real quick.

  I don’t think Ty would ever be jealous of me spending time with Conner, I mean our whole lives we had been considered family, as weird as that may sound, but it was more like he missed me. Ty did such a good job keeping his jokes to a minimum, especially the first few weeks Conner stayed with us. To say that I was worried about that would have been an understatement. Sometimes Ty got out of control with his bantering and it fueled Connor up every single time.

  Izzy enjoyed her uncle being around, and because he wasn’t caught up in his normal social life, he had extra time for her.

  For the first couple of weeks he was constantly on his cell phone, managing his Facebook page, texting his friends and even talking to a few girls on the phone. He was a grown man, so I had no right to act all bossy about it. I wasn’t that type of person anyway.

  Instead, I let him do his own thing, knowing he needed the time to adjust. Besides Ty and me, his only friend in North Carolina was Brina, if that was what he would call her. He hadn’t been with us for a whole weekend before she started showing up. At first, she and Conner would go somewhere else, but we woke one morning to her walking around in his clothes.

  It wasn’t just that I didn’t care for Brina, Ty hated her. She had been a bitch to him since they were kids; fighting with him over Van like she was an object. After spending time with her during Van and Colt’s nuptials, I really got a good taste of the person she was. Brina was a selfish girl who had every intention of having a relationship with my brother. She thought she had an advantage of being the only chick he knew. She was wrong.

  When I came out of that bedroom and saw her in my living room, I wanted to pounce on her. She had no right to be in our house, especially after several comments she made about my husband just days prior.

  Once she finally went home that day, and I got Ty to stay out of it, I sat down and talked to my brother. Of course, he made me feel like the bad guy, claiming he had no other friends. The truth was that he and
Ty were friends, he just hated that Ty would rather stay home with Bella and I, instead of going out to party at bars. I guess Conner and Ty used to be on the same page as far as their lives were concerned. After he and I hooked up, it changed him, completely. Conner couldn’t handle the change, not when he knew how Ty had wandering eyes when he was with Van. I think he held that against him. He loved Ty; he just couldn’t understand him any longer.

  I’d invited several of my co-workers over to the house to hang out, even when she was there. After meeting a few of them, he started hanging out with them and some of their friends. Most of them all knew Ty, being that we lived in a small town, so we could keep tabs on Conner, even if he did go out.

  For a while, I felt like his babysitter; always making sure he ate right, worked enough hours and went to bed at a decent hour. There were many times where he called me a nag, among other things, causing a verbal confrontation between him and Ty as a result.

  I was now reaching my fifth month of pregnancy and was already starting to wonder how much longer I could continue to work on my feet. I will never forget going into that doctor’s office and finding out that our little peanut was actually two peanuts.

  We walked into that cold room and I got all changed out of my clothes. Ty was wearing his mechanic uniform, since our appointment was during our lunch break. He stood at my side as the doctor came in and got the monitor on to do the first sonogram. He had been itching to see a picture of the baby for the past five months, but we didn’t have the best insurance and it only allowed for two throughout the pregnancy.

  With my husband being unable to keep a secret, we were also finding out the sex. He had names picked out, but refused to tell them to me until he knew what it was going to be. I had made the mistake of telling him that he could pick out the names this time around, since he obviously didn’t have a say with Bella.

  With the anticipation in the room being so intense I was ready to puke, I watched the monitor as the doctor rubbed the wand over my already growing belly. In a matter of seconds we heard a gasp followed by an “Oh my”.