Quinn stared at the stick, her heart beating too rapidly. Impossible.
Her eyes glanced at the positive sign once more, then she shook her head. “No! It can’t be!”
Yes, she was three weeks late.
Yes, her breasts were unusually sensitive.
But still….Zeke was only four months old! She couldn’t be pregnant! Not again! Not so soon!
Impossible!
And yet, the blue positive sign told her that it was not just possible, but an emphatic reality.
“Bryce!” she yelled, storming out of the bathroom in search of her too-charming, too-virile, too-irritating, and most-likely-dead husband. Or he will be dead as soon as she murdered him.
“What’s wrong?” Bryce asked, carrying Zeke in his arms, the boy’s chubby hands and feet wiggling with excitement at seeing his mother.
Quinn wasn’t fooled. Bryce knew her angry tone of voice and was using their son as a shield. “Put him down,” she ordered, her eyes narrowing as she glared up at her too-handsome husband.
Bryce looked down at his beautiful wife, noting the fire in her eyes. Shaking his head, he pulled Zeke closer. “No…I don’t think I will.”
His wife stalked closer, almost like a predator and that would have been adorable, except for the look of death in her eyes. Oh, he knew she wouldn’t ever harm him. But he was still wary.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it, love?” he said softly, trying to soothe her ruffled feathers. He thought back to the past few days, trying to remember if he’d forgotten her birthday or their anniversary. But no, he’d taken her to a hotel for their anniversary. They’d spent the night in blissful peace and quiet while Zeke’s nanny watched over their son. Normally, couples would make love on nights away in a romantic setting. But the two of them….they’d slept.
Until the morning!
Uh oh!
“Quinn, I don’t think…”
“No!” she snapped, lifting her arm up in the air, showing him the pregnancy test. “You did this to me! Again!”
He looked into her pretty lilac eyes, eyes that had captured him from the beginning.
Okay, well, that was a lie. It had been her sexy butt in that long, flowing maxi skirt that had caught his attention initially. And that horrible denim jacket. A jacket that she still wore, he thought. He’d hated it then, but now…well, it sort of fit her personality.
Except when she was angry like this.
But Bryce understood what her anger really meant.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“This!” she snapped again.
He looked at the white, plastic pregnancy test and shrugged. “I don’t know what ‘this’ is, love. Talk to me. I know you’re scared about something. Let’s just…”
“I hate it when you do that!” she grumbled, turning around and pacing back and forth. “I’m not scared! I’m angry.”
Bryce thought he deserved an award for not rolling his eyes at that announcement. His beautiful wife was sweet and passionate, but also brilliantly logical. She rarely yelled, only when she was scared.
“Okay. You’re angry,” he agreed, not believing it for a moment. “What are you angry about?” he asked, rubbing his hand over Zeke’s tummy and causing him to wiggle and giggle.
“This!” Quinn yelled, and lowered her voice when Zeke’s smile disappeared.
She reached for her son, thinking to soothe him but Bryce turned the boy upside down and gave him a flubbert on his belly, causing him to laugh once again.
When Zeke was up right once more, Quinn took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. Lifting the plastic stick up in the air, she opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Her chin trembled and a dratted tear appeared at the corner of her right eye. She swiped it away angrily, and tried again. “I’m pregnant,” she finally got out.
Instantly, Bryce understood. And yes, she was definitely scared.
“Honey!” he exclaimed softly and pulled her into his arm, holding his son with one arm and his wife with the other. “Come here,” he said and led her over to one of the overstuffed chairs in Zeke’s nursery. “Okay, so you’re…” he chose his words carefully, “concerned about another pregnancy.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, placing her hand on Zeke’s back to soothe him. In response, his chubby hand smacked gently against her cheek.
“Yes, I’m scared. I don’t think I can do it again.”
He rubbed her back and kissed Zeke’s dark hair. “You can,” he promised. “I’m sorry. I know you wanted to wait a while before having another baby.”
She sniffed, not sure she could really do it again. “Giving birth hurts,” she whispered. “And I’m not good when I’m pregnant.”
He laughed, remembering all the times he’d caught her sneaking out of the house late at night, desperate for strawberry ice cream. It wasn’t the ice cream that he’d objected to. It was finding his wife trying to hit the convenience store, alone, at two in the morning.
“Yeah, but I’ve heard that each pregnancy is different.”
She pressed her face against his broad chest, wondering how she was going to get out of this. “How about if you take over this time?”
He laughed. “I would if I could, honey.”
They stayed like that for so long, Zeke eventually fell asleep on Bryce’s shoulder for his nap instead of his crib.
A week later, her pregnancy was confirmed and they discovered that her due date was about two weeks after Zeke’s first birthday.
Thankfully, this pregnancy was significantly easier. Unfortunately, Bryce didn’t take his own advice and instead, stocked up on strawberry ice cream. They had a freezer full of ice cream, but Quinn couldn’t stand the stuff this time around. So one day, she took a garbage bag to the freezer and emptied out the fifteen pints of strawberry ice cream.
Instead, her cravings during this pregnancy turned to vegetables. Quinn couldn’t get enough vegetables! It was amazing and Bryce came home every night from work with a new bag filled with vegetables that Quinn munched on as she worked or read. There was always a container filled with chopped celery, carrots, asparagus – only the tips though – broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, yellow and green squash. The obstetrician announced it was the healthiest pregnancy she’d ever witnessed.
“It’s going to be a girl this time,” Quinn announced around the six month mark, as she fed Zeke his strained carrots. The boy ate like a demon, needing food fast for his growing body, and she had to concentrate on getting the spoon to his mouth or he would bang his fists on the high chair, demanding more food, faster.
“Why do you think so?” Bryce asked, setting a small jar of mashed peas next to the almost empty jar of strained carrots as well as a bowl of carrots next to Quinn. She ate, Zeke ate, and Bryce leaned against the countertop, amazed at how huge his son was. He seemed to be twice the normal size for a nine month old baby. But he was all arms and legs. The boy was quickly losing his baby fat. The boy was going to be as tall as he was, Bryce thought with pride.
“Because I haven’t had any morning sickness and I’m not craving bad stuff.”
Bryce threw back his head and laughed. “So girls only crave good things?” he teased.
Quinn nodded her head. “Exactly. We’re very smart and logical.”
He walked over and put a hand on her swollen belly, thinking how sexy she looked. “So you craving me the way you do,” he teased as he nipped at her ear, “is a sign of craving only the good things?”
She laughed, thinking back the previous night. Yes, she was voraciously hungry for sex with her husband lately. She just couldn’t get enough of him. Earlier in their relationship, he’d woken her up in the middle of the night to make love to her. But lately, it was her nudging him awake and demanding that he perform. Of course, her wonderful, amazing, loving husband was only too happy to oblige.
Of course, she couldn’t let him get too happy. “Don’t get used to it,” she warned him in a dire sounding voice.
He laughed even as he let his hand smooth over her nipple, laughing when she groaned. But Zeke was demanding more food and she had to turn her focus on her son, ignoring her husband.
Three months later, she was back in the hospital, the pain shooting through her body. “Bryce, this isn’t funny!”
Bryce was pushing her in a wheelchair up to the labor and delivery room. “I’m not laughing, honey,” he vowed, which was the absolute truth. He remembered their last delivery and was concerned about Quinn going through that same process again. He didn’t want her to endure that kind of pain once more. If he could take that away from her, he would!
Thirty minutes later, the obstetrician walked into the delivery room. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
Quinn was sitting up, watching the monitors. “I think I’m having another contraction,” she commented, but the epidural had already been administered, so she was barely feeling anything at all.
“Good. Let’s just check and see how far along you are,” she commented, but looked like she was ready to head out for a while, assuming that this delivery was not going to move very quickly.
Two minutes later, the doctor’s eyes widened.
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked, seeing the woman’s expression.
The doctor smiled, nodding to the nurse standing nearby. “Well, it seems that you are already ten centimeters dilated, Ms. Steele.” The nurses were moving things around, getting ready. “You’re going to have a baby!”
Quinn shook her head, noticing that the nurse was doing something to the IV flowing into her arm. “Um…what’s going on?”
The doctor shifted as the nurse placed Quinn’s feet in the stirrups. “We turned down the medicine in your epidural.”
“Why?” she demanded, looking up to Bryce, worried now. So far, things had been quite nice. Nothing like Zeke’s delivery. This had been easy. Almost laid back!
“Because you need to be able to feel the contractions.”
Quinn quickly shook her head. “No. No, I really don’t need to feel them. I’m perfectly fine not feeling them!”
The nurse and the doctor both laughed. A few more nurses walked in at that point, bringing in equipment.
“I really don’t need to feel anything. I like not feeling…”
Wow! That was fast! The contraction hit her like a truck and she wasn’t able to finish her sentence as the pain ripped through her.
“Time to push,” the doctor said. “You’ve done this before, so you know the drill. The harder you push now, the faster this will go,” she explained.
Quinn took Bryce’s hand in hers, squeezing with both the pain and the fear hitting her all of a sudden. She looked to Bryce, her eyes conveying her fears.
“You can do it, honey. You know you can.”
She nodded, feeling his strength flow into her from just his touch. She concentrated, thinking back to Zeke’s birth. “It’s going to be a girl,” she told Bryce, and screamed as another contraction hit her. “A girl! This is a girl!”
Quinn continued to chant this the whole time, knowing in her heart that this baby was going to be her precious little girl. It had to be! Just had to!
An hour later, the doctor smiled as she quickly cut the umbilical cord. “It’s a boy!” the doctor announced, smiling up at Bryce and Quinn.
Quinn stared back, both exhausted and elated that the ordeal was over. But the words were wrong, her head moving back and forth. “No. It’s a girl!”
Bryce chuckled, kissing the top of her head.
The doctor was astonished and looked down at the baby that was quickly being wrapped in a cotton blanket by the chuckling nurse. “Um…it’s a boy,” she corrected Quinn with a smile.
Quinn shook her head once more. “No. It has to be a girl,” she told the doctor, becoming angry now.
The doctor blinked, but then looked down. The delivery wasn’t really complete until the placenta was delivered and she had to work quickly.
The nurse tightly wrapped the small, red-faced baby up and gently handed the infant to Quinn.
Bryce laughed softly, unconcerned about the gender of their child as long as the baby and his wife were okay. “I told you that you could do this,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around Quinn and his newest son. He kissed the top of her head. “Are you disappointed that it is a boy again?”
Quinn laughed as well, shaking her head as she stared down at the newest member of her wonderful family. “No. This little guy will be the perfect addition to our family.”
“But it is a boy.”
She looked up at her husband, all the love she felt shining in her eyes. “He’s perfect.”
“You wanted a girl.”
She shrugged. “And instead, I got a perfect boy.”
“He looks like a troll.”
Quinn laughed again. “Yeah. But Zeke looked worse, and he is growing into a very handsome little devil.”
Bryce lifted a dark eyebrow at her statement. “Little?”
After grimacing, Quinn conceded his point. “Okay, Zeke isn’t little,” she agreed. Looking down at her newest, she smiled gently. “But this guy is tiny.”
Bryce rolled his eyes. “No, honey. That little nine-pound guy is big compared to other babies.”
Quinn didn’t argue with him there. The guy was big. The doctor’s hadn’t realized how large he was going to be and, if she thought about it, she was pretty sore. “He’s perfect,” she stated once again.