Chapter 4 - Four Little Storms
Five years passed like a blur of sleepless nights, scraped knees, spilled milk, and overwhelming, unconditional love.
The small white farmhouse in Asheboro had become a sanctuary. The wooden porch was lined with small muddy boots, four tiny bicycles with training wheels, and a fleet of plastic dump trucks scattered across the green lawn.
My four boys—Ethan, Liam, Caleb, and Mason—were five years old now, and they were four little storms of endless energy.
Ethan was the eldest by two minutes, the quiet observer who always made sure his brothers wore their jackets. Liam was the reckless daredevil who climbed every tree in sight. Caleb was the artist, spending hours drawing elaborate houses on butcher paper. And Mason... Mason was the baby, the sweetest soul who refused to sleep without his worn teddy bear.
They were distinct, beautiful, and completely my world.
But they all shared two unmistakable traits: their father's dark, wavy hair, and a striking, piering shade of slate-gray eyes that caused every stranger at the grocery store to stop and stare.
"Mommy! Look! Liam found a turtle!"
Caleb came bursting through the back screen door, his boots covered in creek mud, his cheeks flushed red from the cool autumn air.
I smiled, setting down the basket of folded laundry on the kitchen table. "Did he bring it inside?"
"No, Ethan made him leave it by the porch!" Caleb giggled, tugging on my hand. "Come see!"
I walked out onto the porch, pulling my cardigan tight against the October chill. The four boys were huddled around a small box turtle in the grass, their heads clustered together. Looking at them from behind, it took my breath away. They looked so much like Nathan—the slope of their shoulders, the way Ethan crossed his arms when he was thinking, the deep, rumbling laugh that Liam had already developed.
For five years, I had successfully hidden them from the world. I worked as an online educational consultant from home, earning enough to pay our rent and buy groceries. My parents came down every weekend to help, bringing homemade casseroles and endless love.
We were happy. We were safe.
Until the Tuesday afternoon that changed everything.
I had taken the boys into downtown Charlotte for their annual specialist checkup. Because they were born as quadruplets six weeks premature, they required specialized lung function tests every year at Charlotte Children's Hospital—the only pediatric center in the region with the necessary technology.
I hated bringing them back into the city. Every time my car crossed the Charlotte city limits, my skin prickled with anxiety, my eyes constantly darting to the rear-view mirror, terrified of seeing a black SUV with tinted windows.
"Mommy, can we get ice cream after the doctor?" Mason asked from his car seat, his huge gray eyes staring up at me through the mirror.
"If everyone listens to Dr. Sarah and sits quietly during the breathing tests, yes," I promised, turning the steering wheel into the medical center parking deck.
The appointment took two long hours. The boys were angels, taking turns breathing into the plastic tubes, laughing as the computer screen showed animated birthday candles blowing out.
"Their lungs are completely clear, Claire," Dr. Sarah smiled, clapping her hands. "They are thriving. You've done an incredible job with them."
Relief washed through me like warm sunlight. I packed up their small backpacks, held Ethan and Liam by the hands while Caleb and Mason held onto my coat skirts, and walked down the main concourse of the medical plaza toward the exit.
The hospital was busy. Doctors in lab coats, nurses carrying charts, and families were moving through the glass atrium.
We were ten feet from the heavy glass exit doors when Liam suddenly dropped my hand.
"Liam, stop!" I called out, reaching for him.
"My truck!" Liam shouted, darting back toward the waiting area where a small red toy truck had tumbled out of his pocket.
"Liam, no!"
I turned around quickly, pulling the other three boys with me as Liam dashed into the center of the atrium—right into the path of a tall man in a dark charcoal suit who had just stepped out of the private executive elevator.
Liam collided head-first with the man's knees, tumbling backward onto the marble floor with a small oof!
"Woah there, buddy," a deep, familiar, baritone voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room.
The man instinctively reached down, his large, powerful hands catching Liam by his small shoulders before he could hit his head on the floor. "Are you alright?"
I froze. The blood drained from my face so fast the world tilted on its axis.
The voice. The voice that had haunted my dreams for five agonizing years.
I looked up.
Nathan Prescott was kneeling on the marble floor, dressed in a three-thousand-dollar suit, holding my five-year-old son by the shoulders.
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And as Nathan looked down into Liam's face, his entire body went completely still.
He was staring into a pair of slate-gray eyes that were an exact, undeniable mirror image of his own.
