Page 51 of Knot Convenient

“Shhh…shhh.” I kept bouncing him, holding him against my chest, which seemed to be the only thing that helped even a little bit right now. I was so damned tired too. He’d had a rough night, and this had been going on all day, it seemed. He’d napped once, but I’d been forced to walk with him the entire time.

If I tried to sit down, he cried. If I tried to lay him in the crib, he cried. If I tried the swing, he cried. It had to be me.

And I was a wreck.

The only salvation right now was the baby carrier I was using so that I could save my arms. Milo was getting big, and I couldn’t just carry him all day. He’d always loved the carrier, how it squeezed him against me, so it was a damn godsend.

“Baby mine…” I started singing the song to him, soft and gentle, and he began to calm down, but only enough so that he was whining instead of full-blown crying.

The front door opened, and I sighed in relief. Although I didn’t want to disturb any of the guys at work, I would gladly welcome support when they were home. Even if they were merely willing to hold Milo for ten minutes while I showered—and finally went to the bathroom.

I turned to the door, stilling when I recognized the woman standing in the entrance. She wasn’t one of my mates.

“Hattie?” I asked.

Standing in the doorway, wearing jeans and a battered old T-shirt, was the woman I had spoken to on the bus on my way into Willow Grove. Behind her stood another familiar face.

“And Edie?”

The sweet little inn owner. I’d actually considered going to the inn to see her once things settled down a bit more because she’d been such a sweetheart to me when I first came to town.

Her eyes went wide, taking in my bedraggled state and the distraught baby in my arms. “Summer?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, taking a tentative step forward. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but it didn’t occur to me that she’d simply walked in the front door like she knew the property intimately.

“I heard that my son had found a mate and had to come see for myself!” A smile spread across Hattie’s face.

“Son?” I asked in a thin voice, my eyes so wide that my brows damn near touched my hairline.

Hattie beamed. “Marshall.”

Edie grinned as well. “Emmett is my boy,” she explained.

“Oh…I…”

“A little birdie told us that Noah had mentioned being mated one day at the high school. Now our sons didn’t tell us anything about this, but they have been unusually quiet for a while, so we thought we’d come snoop around for ourselves. I never expected to find you here, darling. Are you…?” She trailed off, eyes hopeful.

“I am,” I admitted, pressing my lips between my teeth, feeling on the spot.

Hattie’s grin somehow got wider. “Oh, that’s amazing!”

The pair of them rushed forward, pulling me into a hug.

For some reason, even though I knew Hattie was a sweet woman, I’d expected her to be at least a little concerned that her son had bonded with a single mother without even telling her.

“This is excellent news!” Edie agreed, nodding vigorously. “You need to come ’round for dinner—Oh, someone isn’t happy, is he?” She frowned as Milo let out another wail.

“He’s just having a bad day,” I explained.

Hattie stepped farther into the house, looking at the chaos from where I’d tried to feed Milo breakfast to the bags under my eyes. “Have you slept?” she asked, her voice full of concern.

“He was up every hour last night,” I admitted. “And he just…Today’s been hard.”

“Oh, hun. Those nights are the worst,” Edie said with sympathy.

“Where are our boys?” Hattie asked.

“Working, it’s been a busy few days.”