Military Daddies’ Nanny (Lucky Women’s Daddies Reverse Harem #1)

Chapter 25

Nathan

It’s supposed to be just another ordinary, uneventful morning. I’ve just gotten the morning paper, and I’m stretching out on the couch, a steaming mug of coffee balanced in my other hand.

I’m halfway through a deep sigh of satisfaction when the noise starts. The harsh rap of knuckles against the apartment door makes me look up in confusion.

Ever since Carlos and I started staying over at Nancy’s house, we haven’t had any visitors so it’s a little surprising to hear the sound of knuckles against wood.

I exchange a loaded look with Carlos who has just stepped into the living room. His expression mirrors the curious one undoubtedly splashed across my own features.

There’s one person we do hope to see at the door, though.

We've been taking care of Nancy, ensuring she wants for nothing as her pregnancy progresses. But the looming question hanging over all of us has been the agonizing question of whether—or when—we finally break down and tell Drew the truth he remains oblivious to.

Nancy's wishes to keep him in the dark have stayed our tongues so far. But every day that passes feels like another lead weight strapped to our shoulders, burdening us with this monumental secret he deserves to know.

Maybe that's why I can't quite stifle the flicker of desperate hope blooming in my chest as I cross the room and carefully pull open the door. Because there, framed in the hallway, looking utterly disheveled and wild around the eyes, stands my brother himself.

"Drew," I breathe out. I’m both surprised and relieved. I had been hoping, but I hadn’t expected it would really be him.

For his part, Drew seems to register very little beyond his harried, almost manic stare roving across the living room behind me. "Where is she?" he demands without preamble, voice cracked and hoarse like he's been rending his throat raw over these weeks. "I need to see Nancy. No more bullshit. I'm here to make this right, no matter what it takes."

The raw desperation simmering in his words takes me aback. This isn't the deluded, self-pitying Drew we've been butting heads with for weeks now.

No, this is a man undone, humbled to his core in a way I've seldom witnessed. It’s etched across his proud, disciplined bearing.

“Wait, hold on,” I protest, holding out my hands. “Why are you here? Where’s Karen? And why the hell do you look like you just fell headfirst down several flights of stairs?”

“Karen’s gone, Nate. Where’s Nancy? Where’s she at, man? I really need to see her. I know she’s home. Just, please, let me see her.” He’s looking over my shoulder, trying to see into the house.

Karen’s gone?

I don’t get time to process that, though. The desperation in his expression is worse than anything I’ve seen from Drew in the past. Before I can even formulate a reply, Drew's gaze swings back to me with laser focus, and whatever he sees in my expression seems to drain what little remains of his composure.

With a ragged gasp, my brother pushes forward until we’re a hair’s breadth apart, his head bowed, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Please..." he rasps out, the tattered remnant of a plea more strained exhalation than actual speech. His eyes gaze into mine, brown eyes that hold pain that he struggles to hide. Not even after the war did he allow me to see the torture behind his eyes. I can only gape, utterly taken aback by the nakedness of his surrender.

He blinks, and in the second it takes to open his eyes, he manages to hide the raw pain from me, but how can I get an image like that out of my mind?

There's a soft scuffle of motion beside me as Carlos appears at my side. His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly as he takes in Drew's broken expression. After a loaded moment, they soften with something that looks like pity or understanding.

Whatever trials or emotional gauntlets he's endured over these days, they've clearly shattered something deep inside him. Smashed that brittle facade of denial and delusion into so much wreckage and viscera laid bare before us.

I watch, rooted in place, as Carlos steps forward to touch Drew on the shoulder in consolation. There's no anger or recrimination in his bearing—only that faintly paternal concern and patience that has always defined him.

"Easy there, hermano ," he murmurs, the gentle cadence in his tone almost shocking after the two weeks of strain between us. After we moved into Nancy’s place, we didn’t talk to Drew much, half because we were upset with him, and the other half because we weren’t sure how well we could keep the secret if we continued to talk to him.

"Why don't you come in and tell us what's got you so twisted up?" Carlos suggests.

Drew’s shoulders sag in obvious relief as he does as Carlos says.

"I fucked up..." Drew croaks out, the confession scarcely more than a hoarse rasp torn from deep inside his chest. He lifts his head then, and the utterly harrowed look smoldering in those sunken, shadowed eyes lances straight through me like a physical blow.

"I've been so wrapped up in my own shit, I nearly lost everything."

He doesn't need to elaborate for the implication to resonate like a thunderclap in the stillness between us. Everything—as in this entire family.

The family he awoke to and found fulfillment in, after years of treading water against the relentless tide of despair. The family he nearly let slip through his fingers in pursuit of one final, ill-fated grasp at redemption.

"Please," Drew presses on, words cracking with strain. "Just let me talk to Nancy. I need to make this right, no holding back." His jaw works soundlessly for a tense moment before he visibly braces himself, drawing in a deep, unsteady inhalation.

"I love her. And I can't keep lying to myself, to all of you, anymore." Another pause, and then he seems to reach some profound internal decision, squaring those broad shoulders in that stalwartly resolute way I recognize from a thousand battlefields. "So whatever it takes, I'll do it. Just...give me the chance to be honest with her this time."

The naked earnestness in his voice washes over me with the force of a physical blow. I search his expression almost frantically, that nagging spike of doubt warring with the profound desire to finally have my brother back, the real Drew, unencumbered by the shackles of guilt and regret.

I see haunted, hollowed-out desperation in him, as well as a sincere yearning for understanding and absolution from the mistakes that led him to this ruinous juncture.

Silently, I shift my stare to Carlos and find him already watching me with a carefully neutral expression plastered on his face. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but I’m willing to bet that it can’t be all that different from the maelstrom raging inside my own head.

A million fractious thoughts and impulses ricochet through my skull. I feel the all-too-familiar urge to safeguard Nancy from any further potential trauma warring with that desperate, ragged need to have my brother back as part of this family in full.

In the end...I find myself simply nodding once in muted assent. Because even after everything, I know Drew. I know the man's capacity for self-denial and closed-off stoicism is equally matched by his potential for profound grace and redemption, given the proper catalyst.

Who am I to deny him the opportunity to earn his way back into the fold? Especially when it seems like he's already paid such a staggeringly high cost in anguish and hard-won epiphanies.

With that silent acceptance passing between us, Carlos breathes a measured sigh, gripping my brother's shoulder in that same steadying embrace I've seen him offer a thousand times on the battlefield.

“There is one question I must ask you, hermano. Forgive me for being overprotective, but you must understand,” Carlos begins. “You were so hellbent on working out your relationship with Karen that you were willing to let go of Nancy. You said she was gone earlier, so are you only here because she left yet again? What would you do if she came back again?”

Carlos is right. I cross my hands over my chest, regarding my brother. “That’s true. Is Karen leaving the reason you’re here, Drew? Because Karen gave up again and there’s no one else?”

Drew’s jaw ticks like he is offended I could even suggest that, but I don’t care. Nancy's safety and the safety of our baby come first.

“No. You’re wrong. Nancy has never been a second option for me. I would never return to her if it wasn’t my deepest desire. I could never treat her that way. You know this.” His voice holds a deep conviction. “I am here because I love Nancy. Karen is gone from our lives because she knows that the kids and I have moved on. We had a conversation, and we agreed that it would not work. There is nothing left for her here.”

Carlos smiles then. "All right.”

Come on, hermano " he murmurs, squeezing Drew’s shoulder. "It's time we got you sorted out once and for all."