Benediction (Diversion #9) - Eden Winters Page 0,2

Rett’s caught him square in the side. Hey! No tag-teaming.

“Thank you, Rett,” Charlotte muttered. They fist bumped.

How did she know what went on behind her? Must be a mama thing. His own mother had the ability too. She had to, or her five little hellions would’ve burned down the farm.

More than once.

When the trio’s turn rolled around, the pregnant woman acted as spokesperson after several moments of hushed chatter among the three of them. “I’m Angie, and this is Liza and Steve. I’m acting as their surrogate.”

Finally, Lucky and company’s turn arrived.

“Hey, y’all. I’m Charlotte,” Charlotte proclaimed with a small wave and one hell of a lot of Southern in her voice. “I’m also a surrogate, for my brother, Lucky, and his partner, Bo.” She waved a hand toward Rett. “That’s my bestie, Rett. They’re in law enforcement, so they’re all attending classes to ensure at least one will be available to go with me when the time comes.”

Did at least three couples stop leaning so hard away from them?

“Aren’t you afraid of having kids with such dangerous jobs?” clashed with, “You’re gay?” This from Mike. His wife sniped, “Children need a father and a mother.”

Motherfucking homophobes.

“In your rather bigoted opinion, what is a mother?” Lucky asked. He even managed to sound only semi-threatening.

The woman glanced at her husband, who shrugged. Taking his non-committal response as backing, she spouted opinions better kept to herself. “You know. A mother. Gives birth to the child, cares for the child’s needs.”

She called herself a stay-at-home mom, yet admitted she hadn’t given birth to the two children her husband brought to the relationship. Hypocrite, much?

A poor young woman who’d been dealt a bad hand gave birth to Alejandro, and feared she couldn’t meet her child’s needs. Bo and Lucky could, and did. “What needs?” Lucky asked, arms folded over his chest, and feeling every bit the cocky bantam rooster folks accused him of being.

“Feeding, changing diapers…”

“You don’t think we can do that? I’ll stack Bo’s cooking up against yours any day of the week, lady.”

Laura narrowed her eyes and attempted to mimic Lucky’s posture—twice, since the first attempt got thwarted by her belly. She gave up. “What if it’s a girl? Who’s going to talk to her about girl stuff?”

“The strip club we go to has plenty of drag queens—” A hand over his mouth shut Lucky up.

Bo, looking so professional in his business suit, took over the argument, the slight tremble in his hand the only outward sign of his anger. “What my partner is trying to say is that our child will have two loving parents, an older brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends”—he nodded to Rett— “and will be better off in our home than most of the kids we see on a regular basis while busting their traditional father/mother parents for drugs.” He kept his voice so syrupy sweet he probably induced sugar shock in a few people.

Wow! Go Bo! It might take some of these folks a while to realize how thoroughly they’d been burned.

Lucky licked Bo’s palm. Bo removed his hand, too busy glaring at Mike and Laura to glare at Lucky.

The two women seated together shot the bigots the fiercest go-to-hell look in the history of go-to-hell looks. Impressive.

Lucky didn’t like many people. Those two stood a chance of joining the exclusive ranks.

“Not to mention that all four of us are marksman level or higher on a firing range.” Rett released her best shit-eating grin. “Three of us have a security clearance. We’ve been background checked so hard, that someone, somewhere, knows the last time I ate Cheetos.”

Lucky raised his hand. “That’d be me. And they were my Cheetos that you found in my car.”

Charlotte snorted. “Some of the most screwed up people I know had a father and a mother.” Okay, maybe they needed to have a talk. If Lucky couldn’t cuss to keep from teaching Andro bad language, she couldn’t either. Oh, who was he kidding? Once a day he’d have to disappear out the back door and release his share of F-bombs to keep from exploding.

As long as the world kept cranking out fuckheads like Mike and Laura, Lucky would keep pointing out what douchebags they were. As a public service.

The instructor clapped her hands together. “Alrighty, then. I’m Madeline, and I’ve been a midwife for twenty years. I’m here to provide information you can actually use, calm your fears, and answer any questions you may have. If I can’t answer them, I can refer