Page 125 of Snowed In with Benefits

I get up on my tiptoes and kiss him. He gives me that pleased smile that’s lost most of its surprise, which makes me happy. I take my bowl and sit down at the table. The other three get their bowls and sit down too, then Hunter passes around a loaf of garlic bread. He didn’t bother to cut it, and everybody tears a hunk off. Emmett tears it off for me.

Beau lifts a spoonful and lets it dribble back into his bowl. “I swear, every time you make this, it looks more and more like baby food.”

My heart skips. Why would he say it like that? I can feel the tension coiling in my shoulders and I roll my neck.

“You good?” Hunter asks.

“No, she’s been hunched over that computer all day,” Beau says. “She needs a massage.”

“I won’t say no to that,” I say. I laugh a little laugh, trying to release some of the tension in my belly. It doesn’t work.

Hunter doesn’t seem convinced, but he doesn’t push. I’m glad he doesn’t. I want to do this right, and if he pushes I’m going to blurt it out just to get it off my chest. The stew is delicious but I’m having the hardest time getting through it. It’s not that I’m not hungry, because I am. I’m starving. It’s just my nerves.

As I nibble at my bread and stew, I notice Emmett watching me. He doesn’t say anything, but he squeezes my knee under the table, a little touch of reassurance that makes me want to vomit. Or maybe I just want to vomit in general. I don’t know. I barely manage to make it through dinner before the words come out.

I clear my throat. “I have a surprise for you guys.”

They grin at me. “We have a surprise for you, too,” Hunter says.

I blink. It’s definitely not the same surprise. “You do?”

“We sure do!”

“Okay. But let me go first.”

“No, let us go first,” Beau says. “I bet yours is better, and we should save the best for last.”

“I really need to go first,” I tell him, and I’m sweating now.

Emmett squeezes my knee again. “Let her go first,” he says. “Our surprise will wait.”

I give him a grateful smile. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. I suck in a deep breath, then speak in a rush. “I’m pregnant.”

Hunter blinks. “But you’re on birth control.”

I bite my lip, lifting one shoulder. “Well, no method is one hundred percent reliable. And to be honest, we gave it a real stress test.”

There’s a stunned silence from around the table, and I’m barely breathing anymore. None of us planned this. What if they don’t⁠—

Before I can even finish that thought, Beau jumps up so fast that his chair tips over and crashes to the floor. Emmett is on his feet a second later, his eyes gleaming, his neck red. Hunter hauls me into his arms first, and then all three of them are surrounding me.

“You’re having a baby!”

“We’re having a baby!”

“We’re going to be dads!”

“Josie! You’re going to be a mom!”

“How pregnant are you? I mean, how far along? Are you okay?”

“Do you feel sick?”

“Do you need to sit down?”

They’re talking over each other, bursting with excitement and full of questions, but I’m laughing and crying so hard that I can’t answer any of them. I’m enveloped in a press of hard male bodies, their arms wrapped around me and each other in one giant group hug. Emmett kisses me on my temple, Beau kisses the tears off my cheeks, and Hunter kisses my neck in a way that makes me shiver.

“Wait,” I say as we finally break the hug, wiping my face. “What was your surprise?”