“I don’t give a f**k what the name is, long as you come out of it alive.”

I felt my breath catch.

Al the Nightingale Men got off facing al kinds of uncertain situations and hair-raising danger but they became a wee bit edgy when their women got pregnant.

This was because Indy had nearly died while having her and Lee’s first, Cal um.

I’d known Lee a long time and I’d never seen him the way he was in the hospital that day when the doctor ejected him from the birthing room. He was always cool and in control. Ultra cool and in control.

That day, he was not cool and in control.

He was so not cool and in control, I thought they’d have to tranquil ize him.

In the end, it was surprisingly me who calmed him down.

It was funny how life came around and then went around.

Lee had been the one to find me at my worst, my most humiliated, beaten up and taped to a pole after my ex violated me. He had taken care of me, doing so gentle and sweet.

Years later it would be my touch that stopped him from losing it.

I’d put my hand on his arm. He’d frozen at my touch right before he turned into me, slid an arm around my shoulders and yanked me to him, shoving his face in my neck.

I remember it like it happened two minutes before. Then again, it was something you never forgot.

“Fuck, Ava,” he had said into my neck as his other arm wrapped tight around my waist.

I slid my arms around his waist, turned my head and whispered in his ear, “I know, Lee.”

“She was screaming.”

I shut my eyes tight and held on tighter.

“I won’t be able to…” he started and his voice was hoarse.

“You won’t have to,” I cut him off.

He pul ed me deeper into him and I thought he’d crush me but I didn’t make a peep.

“Fuck,” he murmured and said no more, just held on. So I did the same thing.

Indy and Cal um had made it, though the drama wasn’t over. A year later she announced she was pregnant again and Lee went berserk. I’d never seen anything like it and I’d and Lee went berserk. I’d never seen anything like it and I’d seen Luke go berserk once and, let me tel you, when one of these boys lost it, it wasn’t pretty.

It was Vance who cooled him off that time.

Vance and Jules had been riding the wave of baby number three. At that time, Jules was due any day. She’d had a difficult first pregnancy, sick throughout it and nearly two days of labor, a lot of it hard labor, when she had Max.

Jules had glowed through her second pregnancy with Sam though, and breezed through the delivery. The pregnancy with what would become Harry was like it was with Sam.

Vance explained that to Lee and Lee sorted himself out and settled in for the long haul. Even though for him, and thus everyone around him, it was a tense long haul. Indy ignored this and carried on as always, which was to say, she was her usual crazy self which made Lee al the more tense.

Indy had been the same as Jules when she bore and delivered Alison (named after Al y, but to keep it al straight, everyone, for some reason, cal ed Indy and Lee’s Alison

“Suki”). No problems during the pregnancy or delivery. But Lee took matters into his own hands after that and had what Al y described as “The Operation” in capital letters with the air quotation marks she always used when referring to it as she would lift her hands and jerk her index and middle fingers up and down.

It was Indy’s turn to go berserk. Lee had had “The Operation” without consulting her and Indy wanted three kids.

I had kept it between Lee and me but when Indy looked like she was going to hold a grudge for, perhaps, ever, I shared with Indy the episode in the waiting room while Indy was delivering Cal um. Indy got over her tizzy pretty damn quick after hearing that.

I smoothed my tee down over my bel y and left my hands there.

Soon, I wouldn’t be able to wear my jeans, which would suck.

Other than that, my pregnancy with Gracie had been pretty good outside of the crippling migraines I had in the first three months which I had no idea, until Daisy confided in me after Tex confided it in her after Gracie was born, drove Luke straight to Lincoln’s Road House. There he and Lee would drink themselves to oblivion, talking drunkenly about how they should never have let the Rock Chicks “fuck with their heads” and getting into in-depth conversations about the pros (there were many) and cons (there were none) of adoption and Tex or Hank or Eddie would be cal ed to drive them home.

As I stared at my bel y, I smiled. I didn’t mind being pregnant. I hadn’t lost al my pregnancy weight after Gracie.

Not because I didn’t want to but about ten pounds to goal, Luke put a stop to al dieting by showing me in his unique way how much he liked my curves.

I looked at Luke who was sitting on the side of our bed and pul ing on a pair of boots.

“I’m going to get fat again,” I told him.

His head came up and he looked at me.

“You’re pregnant. Pregnant is not fat.”

“Pregnant is fat,” I retorted.

Luke lost patience. “For f**k’s sake, are we seriously having this conversation?”

“You know how I feel about being fat!” I snapped. I’d once been huge and I’d worked hard to lose the weight. I never wanted to go back there.

Luke looked back at his boots. “I don’t care if you’re big as a house, just as long as you never cut your hair or lose your sense of humor.”

I stared at his bent head like it had split open and a dancing mini-Luke popped out wearing a top hat and tails singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”.

I mean, seriously, was he for real?

“Luke?”

His head came up then his eyes narrowed when he saw I was stil not ready.

“What?” he asked impatiently.

Crapity, crap, crap. He was for real.

“Nothing,” I muttered, turned away and started to pile on my silver.

I really love him, Good Ava, my sweet little angel, said in my ear.

You think we have enough time to jump him again before going to the concert? Bad Ava, my not-so-sweet little devil, asked in my other ear.

Jeez, Bad Ava was such a slut.

* * * * *

Daisy was staring around Sports Authority Field at Mile High which was packed to the gil s.

“Do you believe this shit?” she breathed.

I looked around the stadium. I believed it.

The Gypsies had started out in Denver. This was a hometown gig. There was no way the people of Denver were gonna let Stel a and her boys down.