Love Slave for Two: Family Matters Read Online Free

control her tears again.
    Tommy brought the bottle in and settled on the couch next to her. “Let me have him, sugar,” he softly said.
    She tearfully handed Adam over.
    He looked at her, his brown eyes earnest. “Listen to me. You’re missing something important here.”
    “What?” she asked. Tyler walked into the room and settled on Tom’s other side.
    “If we’re bottle feeding, now we get to take care of him, too,” Tom patiently explained.
    Tom held Adam and the baby immediately latched on to the bottle. He hesitated only a second at the new taste and sensation, then promptly proceeded to greedily drain the bottle
    Nevvie watched the men, Tyler’s arm draped around Tom’s shoulder as he leaned in and stroked the baby’s cheek. Tom smiled at her. “Now we get to have some fun.”
    Another wave of guilt swept through her. Not only was she a bad mother, she was selfish, too. Of course they should get to feed the baby. She’d tried using a breast pump early on but it hurt nearly as much as nursing, so the men weren’t able to bottle feed until now.
    Jesus, she felt like she was losing her mind. Usually she was a very level headed, rational person, her personality a good mix of Tyler’s passion and Tom’s steadiness. Now she felt like an alien in her own skin.
    She retreated to their bedroom and curled up on the bed. Before Adam’s birth she’d felt worried, anxious, nervous. Then several weeks of bliss and now…
    Back to craziness. Was this post-partum depression?
    Nevvie awoke from her nap to find Tommy curled around her.
    “You feeling better, baby girl?”
    “No.” She tried to roll away from him. He wouldn’t let her go.
    “Stop it. We’re going to talk about this. You’re not a horrible mother.” He took a deep breath. “Momma wants me to have you call her.”
    “Why? Is she going to chew me out, too?”
    He kissed her cheek. “She wants to talk to you. She loves you, and she’s as worried about you as we are.” Peggy Kinsey, a retired nurse, had been a wealth of information for Nevvie early on, between her medical and mothering skills.
    Tom reached over, grabbed the phone and dialed his mom’s house in Savannah before Nevvie could object.
    “Hi, Momma. She’s awake. Here she is.” He handed her the phone and at first Nevvie tried to resist, then she took the receiver with a sigh.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Nevvie, sugar, what’s wrong?”
    “You mean with me or life in general?”
    Peggy’s soft chuckle reminded Nevvie of Tommy. “Listen to me, the boys already called and told me what’s going on. I want you to know that with all six of my beasties, Tommy is the only one who got breastfed. And I only breastfed him for six weeks until I went back to work. Then he was bottle-fed. Back then, we just didn’t breastfeed very often. While Emily’s a bitch that had nothing to do with the fact that she was bottle-fed.”
    Nevvie smiled, barely aware of Tom slipping out of bed and leaving her alone.
    She spent over an hour on the phone with Peggy, laughing, crying, and finally feeling a little better. It amazed Nevvie early on that Peggy readily accepted her son’s choice first to bring Tyler home as his partner, then to add her to their family years later.
    “Sugar, let the boys have their fun. You’re lucky enough to have not one, but two men who are practically tripping all over each other to take turns changing diapers and preparing bottles. A lot of women don’t even have one who does that. Seriously, I think you’re just going through the baby blues. If this keeps up, you need to talk to your doctor. It can make you feel crazy. I wanted to castrate Tom’s father after Karen was born, and I still had two more with him.”
    Having her thoughts vocalized by Peggy helped more than anything. “I hate feeling like this.”
    “I know you do. I can’t come this weekend, but do you want me to come down next week, spend a little time, give you a break?”
    She didn’t really need the