And his mother? As she surveys me with a critical eye, I survey her back, and in that neat little homemaker dress, she looks small, calm, and sweet—which only makes the confusion I feel more overwhelming.

These are people I could smile at in an elevator, or passing by on the street. They seem good and caring, but how can they be? How can they have abandoned Remy and then have the gall to come knocking on his door, again and again, like it’s their right to?

The mere thought of abandoning this little baby I hold inside me repulses me, and I still can’t fathom why anyone would do that to their own son.

“You’ve left him alone his entire life. Why can’t you leave him alone now?” I demand, glowering.

They have the gall to look genuinely horrified at either my appearance or my outburst—or, quite possibly, both.

“We want to talk to him,” the woman says.

Because that’s what she is, just a woman. I can never look at her and think of her as anyone’s mother, especially Remy’s.

“Look . . . we’ve heard about the baby,” she adds. Her eyes drop to my stomach, and I feel Pete draw closer to me, as though he expects her to reach out and touch my stomach, and he, on behalf of Remington, plans to stop her. “This baby,” the woman continues, pursing her lips into a thin line and gesturing at me, “could be just like him. Do you realize?”

“Yes,” I say, thrusting my chin up. “I hope he is.”

“Our son is in no condition to be a father!” the man thunders in a deep, booming voice that startles me. “He can hurt someone. He needs to be medicated and contained !”

“Ohmigod, you hypocrites! You want to talk about good parents?” I ask, so outraged my lungs can’t even work right now. “Your son has grown into an honorable, noble man despite what he has to deal with, when you’re the ones who abandoned your only child! You took his childhood and threw him away, and you want to come here to tell him how to live the rest of his life?”

“Our son is sick! We want him to be treated and to check in with the mental facility periodically to make sure he’s calm and serene, like a normal person,” the woman says.

“No! You’re the ones who are! At least he knows what his problem is, but I think you both should figure out yours.”

The door behind us swings open, and Riley steps out with the fiercest glare I’ve ever seen him wear.

“You missed out on an incredible human being,” Riley says, and they look so shocked at his calm, threatening words, I think this is the first time he’s stepped out to greet them too. “As his parents, you were supposed to lift him up and hold him up. We’re not sorry for him, really, because he thrived. But we are sorry for you.”

“We’re his family,” Remy’s mother huffs.

“You were his family,” Pete corrects as he steps closer to me. “He’s ours now. And this is the last time we will ask you to leave. Next time we see you here unwelcomed, we’ll get the authorities involved.”

The man looks at me, and it feels so strange, eyes so much like Remy’s glaring at me with such cold contempt instead of tender heat. “You have to have some silly head on you to let my son get you like that,” he tells me, pointing at my stomach.

Suddenly I’m drawn back into a muscled wall. My breath tangles in my throat when a huge hand opens protectively over my midsection, and the sound of Remington’s voice from over the top of my head sends all the little hairs in my arms standing.

“Come near her or anything of mine again, and I’ll show you in a heartbeat how dangerous I am,” he says in a dead flat tone, all the more predatory for its quietness.

The volatile energy emanating from his large frame makes my pulse accelerate in anticipation of his parents’ reply. Neither of them seems capable of holding Remington’s stare too long. Lips pursed tight, the man grabs his wife and drags her down the walkway toward the small car at the curb.

My limbs are shaking, most of my weight resting back against Remy when he clenches my hips and tightly murmurs, “Get in.”

We go inside.

Remington grabs a water bottle from the kitchen and drinks it all down quickly. He’s still in his workout gear, his muscles glistening. He shakes his wet hair then he drops down on one of the living room couches and sends the empty bottle spinning on the floor, angrily watching it twirl. His elbows rest on his knees, his broad shoulders hard and tense, and his dark head is bent as he stares at nothing but that spinning bottle. Round and round it goes.

“I don’t think your parents like your choice of woman, Rem,” Riley speaks first. He’s trying to make light of what just happened, but nobody laughs. The tension in the air is so thick you’d have to hack at it with an axe.

Remington lifts his head and pins me down with violently tender blue eyes. “They ever come near you, I’m the first to know. Do you hear me, firecracker?”

The fierce protectiveness in his gaze makes an equally protective feeling wrap tightly around my gut. “They weren’t looking for me, they were looking for you.”

“I don’t want them near you. I don’t want them near our children,” he angrily says. My heart wrings in my chest; did he say “children,” in plural? I want to smile and hug him for this, but the look in his eyes is almost . . . raw with pain.

“Are you done?” I ask lightheartedly, signaling outside, to where he was working out.

He nods slowly, his face tight as he watches me head over to him.

He’s brooding, his anger palpable in the air. He wears a strange expression, as if he’s trying to pull himself together. He keeps clenching and unclenching his jaw. I hate that he had to come face-to-face with his parents, but time and again, he’s proven that he’ll do anything to protect me.

My head feels both bruised and swollen as I drop down at his side and take his arm, seizing his thick wrist and starting to work on it. “I can’t believe two assholes like them created something as wonderful as you,” I whisper softly.

Pete quietly goes into the kitchen and Riley heads out to the lawn to help Coach clean up.

Their footsteps fade, and everything around us feels muted as Remington looks at me. His voice carries that calm, deadly quiet it does when he’s getting extremely busy battling something within himself. “They’re right, little firecracker.”

I feel like I’ve been struck with a baseball bat right in my chest.

Inhaling a slow breath, he looks at me fiercely. “Brooke, I wouldn’t wish a father like me on Scorpion’s offspring, much less my own kid.”

No. Not a baseball bat. I think I’ve just been slammed into by a train. Pain streaks through me, and my hands fall from his arm. “Please don’t say this. Please don’t think anything other than that you’ll be the best father.”

He clamps his jaw, and I can tell he softens his voice for my sake. “It could be like me.”

“How like you?” I fiercely counter, clutching my stomach. “Beautiful, inside and out? With more willpower than anyone I’ve ever known. Herculean, generous, kind—”

He looks so tormented, I seize his jaw and force him to look at me. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re human, Remy, and real, and I wouldn’t have you any other way. We want this. We want a family together. We deserve it—just like anybody else.”

He clamps his jaw and grits his teeth, “Little firecracker, wanting it doesn’t mean it’s right. I’m fucking worthless for anything but fighting.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a great fighter, but that’s not what makes you YOU. Remy, don’t you see how inspiring you are? You’re honest, driven, passionate, fierce, and tender. You protect and provide without any expectations. I’ve never heard you judge people, criticize. You live your own life by your own rules and do your best to protect those who surround you. You love even harder than you fight, and I’ve never seen anyone fight like you. Nobody taught you how to be like you—it’s just you. Any shape you come in, you are the only father I would have ever wanted for my children, and the only man I will ever love. Let those two go. They biologically made you, but they. Did. Not. Make. You.”

He absorbs my words, and as he thinks about them, I grab the back of his head and pull him down so I can kiss those beautiful lips, and stop them from saying any more hurtful things about himself.

His mouth, hard at first, softens under my pressure, until I feel the tension in him ease as he tongues me back and murmurs against my lips, “You’re blinded because you’re mine.”

“No. I see you because I’m yours.”

He eases back to search my expression, his gaze shining protectively on me, I know he will do anything to protect me and our baby.

“They don’t agree with my choice. Are you all right with it?” he asks me.

God, I’m all right with anything he does, that’s how much I trust, respect, and love him. I know he’s asking about his choice to use natural means to control his illness. It probably takes him double the effort that it would take him to medicate; it takes discipline and an entire lifestyle devoted to his well-being, and, frankly, it’s not like he’s making a political stand out of the issue. It’s his life and he’s trying to live it, and I want to live mine with him. Everyone who has ever been sick or has ever been on medication long-term knows that when you fix one thing chemically in your body, you give something else up. Look at the list of side effects. There is no magic pill for health.

We are works in progress, and health is not a static place. It is a goal that is always moving and needs to be chased, daily, and forever. Remington will always fight this fight . . . and I will always fight it with him.

“I’m okay with your choice, Remy,” I say to him, holding his gaze so he knows that I mean it.

The smile that appears on his face is oh so tender. “We’re going to have a little someone who depends on us. You have to tell me if it’s too much for you, Brooke.”

“I’ll let you know,” I agree.

He takes my little hand in his big, callused one, and we both watch our hands as we interlace our fingers. “Then give me your word you’ll tell me if I ever get out of hand and you’d like me to medicate, and I give you my word I’ll do it the instant you ask me to.”

“Remington, I give you my word,” I say, squeezing his hand.

“And I give you mine.” He tugs me closer and wraps me in his arms, and I slide right in, absorbing his strong, protective embrace as he spreads his fingers on my round stomach and ducks his head over my shoulder to look at the swell. “I will protect you until I die,” he whispers against the back of my ear. “Nothing will ever hurt you two. If she’s like me, I’m going to hold her up like they never did. I’m going to show her she can still thrive. It’s still worth it.”

I’m completely melted as I turn my head to bury my nose in his sweaty chest, not wanting to be anywhere else. “It’s going to be a he. And he’s got this. Like you do.”