When baby makes three, Christmas will never be the same for Ten and Jared.
There's not much that Tennant Rowe hasn't accomplished, and all before reaching thirty. Hoisting the Cup, marrying the man of his dreams, and becoming a spokesman for LGBTQ2+ athletes' rights have filled his world with great joy. While his successes on and off the ice have been beyond his wildest expectations, he's now wondering if it's time to add one more tiny addition to his already wonderful life.
Being a dad to Ryker and marrying Ten are the two of the best things in Jared's life, only something is missing. He always wanted more children, but with Ten and the Railers riding a wave of success, how could he even broach the subject of adoption or surrogacy with the man he loves? Jared would give the moon and the stars to his husband, so when Ten reveals his desire to be a father, they start a journey that will fill their Christmas with a new and special kind of love.
First off, let's see what Baby Makes Three has:
Tennant Rowe ✔️
Jared Madsen ✔️
Christmas ✔️
Friendship ✔️
Family ✔️
Humor ✔️
Love ✔️
and as the title suggests: baby ✔️
Okay, now that I've established all my reading boxes have been ticked lets continue.
Seriously though, Baby Makes Three is an absolute reading gem! As you know I don't do spoilers but I think the title pretty much says it all. If you've been reading from the beginning I don't think there's ever been any doubt that Ten and Jared would make great parents because let's face it they've had their fair share of dosing out parental guidance with a team like the Railers have😉😉.
Between this entry being a novella and my spoiler free blog, I'm going to make this short and sweet: I freakin' loved Baby Makes Three.
I do want to comment on one thing that really pleased me. RJ Scott & VL Locey managed to show the anxiety of finding a surrogate that fits the couple without, well I don't want to use the term "bog down" because the road couples face, especially LGBT couples, is important but since this is a holiday novella, an established series, and an established couple, I really appreciated how they told the drama without the angst, still keeping the story light and the guys didn't lose who they are.
Oh and the little hints for a future Raptors story was brilliantly laid out and managed to perfectly fit into Ten and Jared's parental journey. So Scott & Locey have done it again with their hockey universe. Such a delight all the way around.
RATING:
Chapter One
Jared
February
I hated waking up to a Ten-sized space in bed but in the last few weeks it had become the norm. Missing the early morning snuggling was one thing, but knowing that my normally unflappable husband woke every day with his thoughts in a twist was hurting my heart. As I tugged on sweats and a T-shirt and resolved to hunt him down, I didn’t know what I’d find.
Day one of waking at dawn I’d found him running hell for leather on our treadmill, day two it was weights, day three he was slamming pucks at the net in our large backyard, then day four we were back to running. It was twenty-one days since we’d gotten the letter from the Harrisburg Central Family Agency, and I had no idea what Ten could be doing today. Hockey players were a superstitious lot, but I was convinced this new daily ritual he’d formed was less about helping his game and more about escaping his worries.
I grabbed coffee and the specific protein shake Ten had on game days and went searching for him, finding him in the home gym. Only he wasn't running, or lifting weights; he was sitting on the treadmill, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He was a sight for sore eyes, his dark hair soft and messy around his face, his Railers T-shirt with his number was old and worn and hugged him like a second skin, and his shorts meant that I got a good peek at his long legs and spectacular hockey thighs. But it wasn't any of that that I focused on—it was the look of misery on his face.
The Railers were on top of the division by five points, he’d played with a fire that blew away the opposition, and the team was on a high. So I was sure it wasn't hockey that was playing with his mind. Also, he’d only just had another checkup so I hoped it wasn't his brain that was causing him issues. He had headaches sometimes, moments when words didn’t immediately come to him, but that was a small non-issue according to the specialist, just remnants of the trauma.
I was sure it was tomorrow that was messing with his head, but then it was a big day for us both. Stress and worry frustrated him, and that was why he’d reverted to routines.
“Babe?” I called from the door.
He glanced up at me. “Hey,” he murmured.
“You worried about Philly?” I knew he wasn’t, and also knew full well what his answer would be. At least it would raise a smile.
He huffed. “The day I worry about playing hockey is the day hell freezes over.”
“Good.” I deliberately didn't push him to tell what the actual reason was, always kept it to hockey, because one day he’d tell me the truth. I almost left him to his thoughts, but it appeared that today was the day he’d decided to share.
“Jared? It’s not hockey, it’s all these worries about what we’re doing.”
My stomach fell. “About trying for a baby?” We’d made the decision together, on Christmas Day, and had talked the issue to death until we were both completely sure we were on the same page. Ten wanted a family with me, I wanted a family with him, and at the end of it we’d hugged and agreed that the time was right.
“No, not that.”
“What about then? Do you want to talk?”
“You’re going to think I’m stupid,” he muttered and rubbed his eyes.
“Never.”
“Well, what if our surrogate hates us?” he blurted.
And there it was. Twenty-one days ago we’d had an email confirming a potential match from our choices, and twenty-one days ago Tennant Madsen-Rowe had begun to lose his shit. I instinctively knew that was the thing messing with his head, but it was up to him to process it all and let me in when he reached a point where he couldn’t keep it inside anymore.
I handed him the shake, and settled next to him on the treadmill, bumping elbows. “What is there to hate?”
“Where do I start?”
I winced at the resignation in his voice. As his coach I needed his head in the game today, but as his husband and lover I wanted to make everything right for him. “You know she picked us from the list, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts, babe. We ticked all the boxes, same-sex married couple, sportsmen, annual income, family history, your injury and recovery backed up by doctor letters, my divorce, Ryker, wills, trusts, suggestions for contacts, references, there was nothing we left off, so if she chose us then she made decisions based on facts.”
“She can still pull out of it all.”
I put an arm over his shoulders and tugged him close. “She could, and you know what? We’ll deal with that if it happens. Together.”
“What if we go all the way to the end and—?”
“Stop thinking ahead. Let’s take each day as it comes. Treat it like hockey and take each day on its merits, where each win and loss forms a tapestry of content to get us to the finals.”
He laughed, and I knew I’d broken the fears for the moment. “Dude, did you just use the word ‘tapestry’ in a sentence about hockey?”
“I have mad English skills,” I said with a smile and pressed a kiss to his stubbled cheek. He faced me and the kiss changed from a peck to a full blown hello and good morning.
Ten would be fine and we’d make it through the game, and then hell, we’d rock the meeting tomorrow with the potential surrogate.
Together.
Isobel Mackie was thirty-one, a beautician, married to Eddie, and with a twin brother, Adam, who was gay. Isobel had signed up with the agency when her brother had been going through the same process as us to become a dad with his husband. In a selfless exchange of love, she’d offered to become a surrogate because her brother was now the father of twin boys by using the same method. That was one of the things that had drawn her to us the most; that she knew what the process had been like for the brother she adored, and that her family supported her one hundred percent. In fact, her husband, Eddie, was with her today as her advocate, and there was so much love between them that it was like looking in a mirror at Ten and me. The four of us were ushered into a plush room to sit at a round table with the agency owners and a young woman called Michelle who was there to take notes.
We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, all very formal when all I wanted to do was hug Isobel until she squeaked. Of course that would be after I explained to her that Ten was sure she was going to back out, and then begged her not to.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you in real life.” She smiled broadly.
“And you,” I said when Ten stayed quiet. I knocked my shoe against his, but he was focusing on the paperwork in front of us.
“Do you have any questions for me?” Isobel asked with an open smile, and I knew Ten had a thousand, but again, silence.
“This is the time to discuss the finer points,” Lloyd, the owner of the Harrisburg Central Family Agency encouraged, but Ten seemed tense.
“Ten?” I murmured, “You want me to—?”
“No, it’s okay,” he said, then lifted his chin. “I’d prefer this meeting to be just the four of us in here, with Michelle as our case manager,” Ten interrupted.
“For a high profile situation we usually oversee,” Lloyd said.
“Actually, we’d prefer it to be Michelle,” Isobel murmured.
Lloyd glanced at his wife, Jennifer, the other half of the ownership team, but Jennifer shrugged.
“Okay, if that’s the way it has to be, then Michelle has this,” she said, and pushed back her chair. “Michelle, make sure you detail everything.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michelle murmured, and opened the pad in front of her, making a big deal of writing the date and time at the top of a fresh page.
We waited in silence until Jennifer and Lloyd had left, and as soon as the door closed behind them I could see the tension leave Ten in a rush.
“I hope that wasn’t rude. I wanted it to be us so we can get to know each other better,” Ten admitted.
Eddie nodded. “Totally understandable,” he said. “But, then I thought maybe they’re all sniffy because you’re high-profile clients.”
Ten dipped his head, he hated the celebrity part of what he did, and out in Harrisburg he was recognized more often than not. “I don’t want them staring at me as if I don’t deserve to be here, or that we won’t be the best parents.” He glanced at Michelle who was still in the start position waiting to write, but who returned Ten’s glance with a level stare.
“Believe me, I have noted, and fully understand your concerns,” Michelle said, and that was all we were getting. Only there was something in her expression that spoke of a deeper understanding of Ten’s worries.
We knew they were the best local agency, and from the first meeting the owners had made it clear that they supported our choices. But they’d also insisted we didn't publicly post about our progress or make what we were doing into a media circus. They called it reasonable discretion, but I felt as if they were implying we were going through this process to get an accessory to our lifestyle and not because we wanted a family. I was probably wrong to even think that, but still, the concern had been there on my list of pros and cons.
I liked Michelle though, a quiet woman who appeared to respect what we were doing.
“Actually, can Jared and I have you as our specific case officer and put it in writing?” Ten asked Michelle.
Michelle appeared startled, but then stared down at the notebook. “You can request whomever you want,” she admitted after a short pause.
“We request you as well,” Isobel said, and Eddie added his agreement.
“Okay then,” Ten said with enthusiasm, “can you write that down. Number one, Mr. and Mr. Madsen-Rowe request Michelle as the official case manager.”
“And Mr. and Mrs. Mackie,” Isobel added.
Michelle was flustered at first, and then she pulled on her game face and sat back in the chair a little more relaxed.
“Let’s get down to business then.”
The next few hours were spent working through the surrogacy structure, the financial and emotional investment from both sides. We spoke at length about why Isobel was ready to do this, and she spoke so eloquently about her twin. Some of it was technical and dry, the fact that we would have an anonymous egg, with Ten’s sperm, and that Isobel was our gestational surrogate. The rest? That was laughter, and getting to know each other, and finally ending up leaving the agency with the four of us going for lunch. We’d signed reams of paperwork and Michelle was collating and copying and sending our contracts.
Everything in writing even this early before conception was an issue. We’d already had a home assessment, criminal and records checks, and Isobel had been screened alongside us. There were extra NDA pages to sign so that Isobel didn't go out and sell our story to the media, and even though I wanted to say blindly we trusted her, we had to have that level of protection.
I had to keep my family safe.
Isobel had us sign anonymity forms, and our own type of NDA that we wouldn't out her as our surrogate unless she chose to reveal it. Michelle appeared to have every eventuality listed, and lawyers had prepared everything. It was reassuring, and overwhelming all at the same time.
We had an egg donor chosen, no name or identification, but we had enough information and we’d asked for very little in the way of qualifying data. We didn't care about some of the more specific stuff like hair color and eyes, because who knew what genetics would play a part in the baby we would end up loving? Yes, we crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is but now we wanted to know Isobel, the person.
She was lovely, there was no other word for it, and even though we knew the dry details, I wanted to know more about her, but she beat me to it.
“At sixteen we fell pregnant,” she blurted out, and Eddie squeezed her hand. “We’d been dating since eighth grade, and I knew I’d be with him forever. But me getting pregnant was the final straw for my parents. They not only had a gay son in my twin brother, but they had a daughter who was expecting a baby outside of marriage. Let’s just say both myself and my brother were encouraged to leave home.”
Of course we’d read all of this in her profile, but to hear her say the words and know that her parents had rid themselves of two children at the same time, was heartbreaking.
“She didn't need them,” Eddie said, “both Isobel and Adam moved in with my mom and we did okay.”
“We got married, and our first son, Dale, was born just after my seventeenth birthday, and our second, Austin, when I was nineteen. We worked for Eddie’s mom in a salon in town and we were a family. When my twin, Adam, met his husband and wanted a baby, I offered to carry a baby for them.” She glanced at her husband. “We offered. But it worked out better for all of us to have anonymity, and I promised myself that we would help another couple who couldn’t have children. When we read your profile, we knew it had to be you.”
“Thank you.” Ten was choked.
“Of course, when we matched and they revealed who you were we nearly rethought it,” Eddie said, and my chest tightened. “Only because I’m a New York fan.”
“Someone has to be,” Tennant deadpanned, and like that, the ice was broken.
I knew we were in good hands. She was very open about why she was willing to carry our baby, using the money to fund her education and to give her kids a good start in life, and I wanted to hand everything over to her there and then. Ten relaxed as lunch continued, and we were done. We hugged her goodbye, thanking her so much she was scarlet with pleasure. We headed back to the parking garage, and Ten tugged me into a dark corner, and held me as if he’d never let me go.
“We’re doing this,” he whispered in my ear.
I grinned and held onto him. “We’re so doing this.”
The disappointment was real when the first cycle didn't work. February was a hard month mentally and physically for us both. The Railers were fighting tooth and nail in a close division, tensions were high on ice, and the call from Michelle to explain there would need to be a second try rocked our safe little world.
“We get everything so easy.” Ten grasped my hand hard after the call ended, “I just expected this to be easy as well.”
“We don’t get everything easy,” I said, and tugged him to sit next to me on the couch. “We work hard at everything, and this is no different.”
We entered the second month with renewed hope, and the day we would find out if everything had worked was the day after a brutal game against Brady’s Boston Rebels. Ten had been slammed into the boards in so many different ways that he was a mess of bruises, and he was exhausted. We’d slept late, but at least when I was woken by my cell phone dancing on the bedside table, he was curled up next to me.
I reached for the phone, connected the call as soon as I saw it was Michelle.
“It’s good news. Isobel is pregnant.”
And in that single instant as Ten and I hugged each other, we knew our lives were about to change in the most dramatic way.
Bring it on.
Saturday's Series Spotlight
Arizona Raptors
RJ Scott
RJ Scott is a USA TODAY bestselling author of over 140 romance and suspense novels. From bodyguards to hockey stars, princes to millionaires, cowboys to military heroes to every-day heroes, she believes that love is love and every man deserves a happy ending.
USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, Torchwood and Dr. Who, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a pair of geese, far too many chickens, and two steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in one hand and a steamy romance novel in the other.
RJ Scott
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
VL Locey
Baby Makes Three #10
Harrisburg Series
Owatonna U Series
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