Читать книгу The M.D. She Had To Marry - Christine Rimmer - Страница 10

As soon as the shopping bags were emptied, Logan went out and got his things from the car. There was only one bureau in the dark little cabin. A scarred mahogany monstrosity with a streaked mirror on top. It loomed against the wall by the rear door, sandwiched between a pair of crammed-full pine bookcases. Lacey gave him three of the eight drawers. He’d traveled light, so everything fit in the space she assigned him.

As he unpacked, Lacey sat in the old rocker in the corner, watching him, rocking slowly, her abdomen a hard mound taking up most of her lap, her head resting back, those blue eyes drooping a little.

When he finished, he shoved his empty bag and extra shoes under the daybed. Then he dropped onto the mattress, which was covered with a patchwork quilt. “That’s that.”

“Umm,” she said softly. The rocker creaked as she idly moved it back and forth.

He leaned an elbow on the ironwork bedstead and allowed himself the luxury of just looking at her.

She looked good. Her skin glowed with health and her golden hair still possessed the glossy sheen he remembered. Pregnancy seemed to agree with her. That pleased him. He wanted more children, after this one. A whole house full. It wouldn’t be the way it had been when he was a boy, just him and his father and the endless string of housekeepers who had never managed to take the place that should have been filled by a wife and mother.

His kids would have more than that. His kids would have brothers and sisters—and both of their parents. There would be noise and laughter and a feeling of belonging.

Lacey went on rocking—and she smiled.

He wanted to touch her, to put his hand on the fine, smooth skin of her cheek, to run it down over her throat and then over her breasts, which looked sweet and firm and full, even beneath the shapeless denim dress she wore. He wanted to spread both hands on her belly, test the hardness of it now, when she was so close to term, maybe even get lucky and feel his baby kick.

But he knew she wouldn’t allow such intimate explorations of her body. Not now. Not so soon after he’d forced himself back into her life.

He was going to have to wait to have his hands on her. Probably until after he had managed to convince her to marry him.

Well, fair enough. He’d waited nine months, telling himself most of the time that this physical yearning he felt for Jenna’s little sister would eventually pass.

It hadn’t. And recently he’d allowed himself to accept the fact that it was only Mother Nature playing at irony.

Lacey Bravo, of all people, was his sexual ideal.

Explain it? He couldn’t, didn’t really even care to. Human beings were primates, after all, aroused by things they didn’t consciously understand. By certain scents and secretions. Desire had nothing at all to do with logic. It was a chemical reaction, the natural attraction of one healthy specimen for another, designed to perpetuate the species.

Now that Lacey was having his baby and he meant to marry her, he found it a real bonus that he wanted her so much. They might have their problems in a lot of different areas, but he didn’t think sex was going to be one of them.

She stopped rocking and lifted her head off the backrest. “Are you tired?”

He almost said no. But then he reconsidered. He could use a nap, as a matter of fact. He’d been up well before dawn. And he hadn’t been getting much sleep in the last week anyway, not since her letter had arrived.

“A little,” he said. “I’ll lie down for a while if you will, too.” He wanted to make certain she got plenty of rest.

“It’s a deal.” She put both hands on the rocker arms and levered herself to a standing position.

He asked, in a tone as offhand as he could make it, “Is there a double bed behind that curtain?”

She gave him a lazy grin. “Nice try. You get the daybed.” She shuffled out the back door. After a few minutes, he heard the toilet flush. She came back in, only to disappear behind the curtain in the corner.

He paid a short visit to the bathroom himself, then took off his shoes and lay down. Like every other piece of furniture in the cabin, the bed appeared to be something salvaged from an earlier era. It had creaky springs and a lumpy mattress and it wasn’t long enough to fully accommodate his six-foot-three-inch frame. But he stretched out as best he could, letting his stocking feet hang over the edge and pulling one of the long sausage-shaped bolster pillows under his head.

A strange kind of peace settled over him, a deep relaxation, a sense of well-being. It was a state he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He dropped off to sleep like a rock falling down a well.

The next thing he knew, someone was knocking on the door.

Logan bolted to a sitting position, blinking and staring around him, wondering where the hell he was.

Then it all fell into place. The long trip from California. To this cabin. In Wyoming. Lacey. Pregnant with his baby. She was resting now, on the other side of that curtain over there. He glanced at his Rolex. She’d been in there for less than an hour.

And whatever idiot had dropped in for a visit would probably wake her with the next knock.

He jumped to his feet and padded swiftly to the door. When he pulled it open, he found a cowboy on the other side. Behind the cowboy, hitched to one of the poles that held up the porch, a handsome horse with a reddish-brown coat let out a low snort and flicked his shiny tail at a couple of flies.

The cowboy lifted his hat in greeting, then settled it back on his head. “I’m Zach Bravo.” His gaze shifted down, paused on Logan’s stocking feet, then quickly shifted up again. “Just thought I’d stop by and check on things out here.”

“Logan?” It was Lacey’s voice, sounding slow and sleepy, from the other end of the room. “Who is it?” She stood just beyond the curtain in the corner, her feet bare, her face soft and her hair mussed from sleep.

“It’s Zach,” said the cowboy, craning to see around Logan, who had positioned himself squarely in the open doorway.

Lacey grinned and started toward them. “Come on in. I can probably scare up a beer if you want one.”

Zach Bravo stayed where he was. “No. Got to get a move on. Never enough hours in a day around here. But Tess asked me to see if you wanted to come over to the house for dinner tonight. Around six?”

Logan stepped aside a little as Lacey came up next to him. “Zach, this is Dr. Logan Severance, a…dear friend.” Logan didn’t miss her slight hesitation over what to call him. He’d bet his license to practice medicine that Zach Bravo didn’t miss it either.

“Pleased to meet you.” The rancher held out a tough brown hand.

Logan took it, gave it a firm shake. “The pleasure is mine.”

“You’ll come for dinner then…both of you?”

Lacey lifted an eyebrow at Logan. He nodded and she smiled at her cousin. “We’ll be there. Six o’clock.”

“So I’m your dear friend,” Logan challenged the minute Zach Bravo had mounted his horse and trotted away down the dirt road that led to the cluster of ranch buildings just over the next rise.

Lacey made a noise in her throat. “What should I have said? Former lover? The father of my child?”

“How about husband?”

“But that wouldn’t be true, now, would it?”

“We could make it true.”

She looked at him for a long, cool moment, then announced defiantly, “Zach comes out to check on me two or three times a day, which is just another reason why I’m perfectly safe on my own here.”

“I’d say he came to check on me this time.”

“Right. He’s protective. More proof that I’m in no danger at all, as I’ve constantly tried to make you realize. You simply do not have to stay in this cabin with me. If you want to be here when the baby’s born, you could take a room in the motel in town and—”

“I’m not leaving, Lacey—and your cousin strikes me as a conservative man, the kind of man who would feel a lot better if you were married to the father of your child.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You are truly relentless. Now we should get married so as not to offend Zach’s conservative sensibilities?”

“I’m only pointing out that—”

“Logan. You said you would drop it.”

Lacey gave him her best unwavering stare. She was wondering, as she had more than once in the past nine months, how she could love such an obnoxious man.

He stared right back, which forced her to demand, “Are you dropping it, Logan?”

He made a growling sound. “All right, all right. I’m dropping it.”

“Good.”

His handsome face had settled into a scowl. She watched him rearrange it to something more gentle. “We’ve got another hour and a half before we have to make our appearance at your cousin’s house. Why don’t you go on back behind that curtain and lie down again?”

She blew a tangled curl out of her eye. “No, thanks. I’m wide awake now.” She marched to the sleeping nook, ducked inside and came out with her lace-up hiking boots.

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you doing?”

She sat in the rocker and pulled on one of the boots. It wasn’t easy, working around the bulge of her stomach, but she’d had a lot of practice in the past few weeks. Huffing and puffing, she tied the boot, pulled on the other one, tied it up, too.

“Lacey.”

She stood, turned to the bureau, picked up the brush lying on top and went to work on her hair. Their eyes met in the mirror. “I’m going out behind the cabin a ways. There’s a creek that runs by back there. Very picturesque. I’ve been doing a few sketches. Willows and cottonwoods, a few cows and their calves…” He was scowling again. She pretended not to notice. “I’ll be back in an hour or so, in plenty of time for dinner with Zach and Tess and the family.”

“Are you sure that you should—?”

She turned and pointed the brush at him. “Don’t, all right? Just…don’t. Nothing’s going to happen to me down by the creek. It’s barely a hundred yards from the back door, for heaven’s sake.”

“What if some big bull comes at you?”

“It’s not an issue.”

“This is a cattle ranch, isn’t it? If I’m not mistaken, bulls live on cattle ranches.”

She struggled to contain her building exasperation. “There’s a barbed-wire fence that runs between this particular spot on the creek and those cattle I mentioned. If there are any bulls nearby, they would most likely be on the other side of that fence.”

“But—”

“Read my lips. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll come with—”

“Logan. Stop. If you insist on staying here, in a twenty-by-twenty-foot space with me, we’re going to have to give each other a little breathing room. I am going alone.”

He shut his mouth, made another growling sound and then dropped to the side of the daybed. “Great. Fine. Do what you want to do. You never in your life did anything else.” He braced his elbows on his spread knees and shook his head at his stocking feet.

Tenderness washed through her. She set down the brush. “You’re the one who needs more rest. Come on. Stretch out and sleep for an hour. You’ll have the cabin all to yourself. Forget all your cares and I’ll wake you up when I get back.”

He didn’t say anything, just went on staring at his socks.

“Logan…”

“All right. I’ll take a damn nap.” He lay down on his back with his feet over the edge, turned his face to the wall and shut his eyes.

Smiling to herself, Lacey collected her sketch pad and a couple of nice, soft pencils from the chair where she’d set them earlier. Before she went out, she couldn’t resist whispering, “Sleep well.”

“Thanks,” he grumbled, neither turning his head nor opening his eyes. “Be careful, for God’s sake.”

“I will, Logan. I promise you.”

He was sound asleep when she returned, lying in almost the same position she’d left him in, his hands folded on his chest. His head, however, was turned toward the room now.

Lacey stood over him, admiring the beauty of his body in repose, thinking that maybe she could do a few sketches of him sleeping—nothing too challenging right now. She wasn’t up for it. But she could certainly line out a few ideas in pencil.

Then, later, after the baby came, she could go back to what she’d started, delve more deeply. She loved the softness of his face when he was sleeping. And something else. Some…determined vulnerability. Some aspect of his will that came through even when he was unconscious, some sense that he distrusted the necessity of surrendering to sleep.

He had a wonderful face, handsome in a classic way. And very masculine—she’d always thought so, even before she realized she was in love with him. A broad forehead, a strongly defined supraorbital arch, so the eyes were set deep, shadowed in their sockets. Cheekbones and jawline were clean and clear-cut and his finely shaped mouth possessed just enough softness to betray the sensuality she’d discovered with such delight during their five incredible days together last fall.

Though he didn’t know it, she had painted him. A number of nudes, from memory, in the first months after their affair. She believed they were her best work so far. And she had exercised great ingenuity, in all of them, so as not to reveal his face.

Had she been wrong to paint him without his knowledge? After all, Logan Severance was not the kind of man who posed for nude studies—let alone the kind who would allow them to be hung in an art gallery for all the world to see. Those paintings weren’t in any gallery yet. But someday they would be. Lacey had told herself that she’d protected his privacy by obscuring his face. But sometimes she felt just a little bit guilty about them, wondered what his reaction would be if he ever saw them—which he would probably have to. Someday.

She wasn’t particularly looking forward to that day.

“What are you staring at?”

Caught thoroughly off guard, Lacey gasped and stepped back. She could have sworn he was sound asleep just seconds ago. But those eyes looking into hers now were clear and alert.

“Well?”

The truth slipped out—or at least, some of it. “I was thinking that I’d like to sketch you while you’re sleeping.”

“Why?”

“Something in your face. Something…unguarded, but unwillingly so. It’s very appealing.”

He grinned. “You like me best unconscious, is that what you’re telling me?”

She’d regained her composure enough to reply smartly, “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but now that you’ve done it yourself…”

“Marry me. You can watch me sleep for the rest of our lives.”

She resolutely did not respond to that. “We should go. It’s quarter of six.”

At the big side-gabled wood frame ranch house, Zach introduced his family to Logan.

“This is Tess.” He put his arm around his wife. “And our daughters, Starr and Jobeth.”

The older of the two girls, a beauty of about eighteen, with black hair and Elizabeth Taylor eyes, gave him a polite “Hello.” The younger one, Jobeth, who looked ten or eleven, smiled shyly and nodded.

Next, Logan shook Edna Heller’s slim, fine-boned hand and learned that she had once been the ranch’s housekeeper but now was one of the family; her only daughter had married a Bravo cousin, Cash. She lived in the foreman’s cottage, which was just across the drive from the main house.

“And this is Ethan John,” Tess said. She held up a big, healthy blue-eyed baby. “Ethan is just six months old today.” The baby gurgled out something that sounded almost like a greeting.

They ate at the long table in the Bravos’ formal dining room. Ethan John sat in his high chair and chewed on a teething ring and occasionally let out a happy, crowing laugh.

“Ethan’s already had his dinner,” Tess explained. “We enjoy having him with us during meals, but we don’t enjoy watching the food fly. So I feed him early and he sits with us and everybody’s happy.” Tess turned her smile on Logan. “Do you have children, Mr. Severance?”

Logan answered that one carefully. “Not yet.”

“You plan to, then?”

He sent a significant glance at Lacey, who was sitting directly to his left. She smiled at him, an innocent, what-are-you-looking-at-me-for? smile. Apparently, he was on his own here.

“Yes,” he said. “I plan to have children…very soon.”

Now it was Zach and Tess’s turn to trade glances. And the two girls, as well. They looked at their parents first, then swapped a glance of their own. Edna Heller somehow managed to make eye contact with all four of the others. She shared knowing looks with Zach and Tess, and right after that flashed a “mind your business, girls,” expression at their daughters.

Lacey was grinning. Apparently she thought the whole exchange of meaningful looks rather amusing.

Logan didn’t. As far as he was concerned, those flying glances were just more proof that Lacey needed to come to her senses and marry him immediately. It was an embarrassment to sit here with this nice family and have them all wonder what the hell was going on between their unmarried pregnant cousin and the strange man who’d shown up out of nowhere this afternoon—and appeared to have set up housekeeping with her.

He wanted to get the truth out in the open. He wanted to say bluntly, That’s my baby Lacey’s carrying and I’ve come to marry her and take her home with me where she belongs.

But he couldn’t do that. Not here at the Bravo dinner table, with a girl of Jobeth’s age listening in.

“How do you and Lacey know each other?” asked Edna Heller. She was a small, slender woman, probably in her fifties, and very feminine—though in her eyes Logan could see a glint of steel. Not much would get by her.

She was smiling at him in the most polite way and waiting for an answer. Unfortunately, the truth wouldn’t sound good at all. I’ve been in love with Lacey’s sister since I was eighteen years old. Jenna was going to marry me—until she decided to run off with Mack McGarrity instead.

Lacey came to his rescue on that one. “Logan and Jenna went to school together. Logan’s been sort of a big brother figure to me over the years.”

Edna Heller’s eyebrows rose daintily toward her hairline. “Ah. A big brother figure.”

“He’s always felt he has to take care of me. He still feels that way. Don’t you Logan?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s…admirable of you, Mr. Severance.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Heller.”

“You know, for years my son-in-law, Cash, imagined himself a big brother to my Abigail. But then he married her and found out he was deeply in love with her. Abigail, of course, always worshipped him.”

“Oh, really?” Logan said, for lack of something better to say.

Lacey couldn’t let Edna’s observation go unchallenged. “Are we supposed to be noting similarities between Cash and Abby—and Logan and me?”

“Well,” said Edna airily. “Only if the shoe fits, as they say.”

“The shoe does not fit. Logan and I are not getting married. And if you ask him, he’ll tell you he never got any worship from me.”

Edna might give the Bravo daughters stern looks admonishing them to stay out of others’ affairs, but she clearly thought of herself as someone who had a right to be in the know. She turned to Logan. “Well, Mr. Severance?”

Lacey hasn’t fully accepted the idea yet, but we are getting married, he thought. He said, “No. Worship is not the word I would use to describe Lacey’s feelings for me.”

“What word would you use, then?”

He shrugged. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t be worship and leave it at that.”

There was a silence, which was quickly filled with nonsense syllables from the baby and the clink of silver against china plates.

Zach said, “More potatoes, Logan?”

“Yes, please. This is a terrific meal, Tess.”

Tess colored prettily at the compliment. “Well, I must confess. Edna always does the potatoes around here. I swear she has a way of making them light enough that they could get right up and float off your plate.”

Edna smiled graciously—and went back to her velvet-gloved interrogation. “And how long will you be staying on the Rising Sun, Mr. Severance?”

He shot a look at Lacey. She’d had a lot to say a minute ago. Maybe she’d want to put her two cents in on this one.

But not this time. She only looked back at him, thoroughly annoying in her pretended innocence.

He shrugged. “I’ll be here a week or two. At least until the baby’s born.”

“You’re a doctor, you said?”

“That’s right. I’m in family practice.”

“This is…a vacation then?”

“Not really. I’m here to…help Lacey out, in any way I can.”

Glances went flying again. He almost wished they would all just say what they were thinking. Then he could answer them. He could explain his position and enlist their aid in convincing Lacey to see things his way.

“Well,” said Tess, taking pains to remain neutral. “We hope you’ll enjoy your stay.”

He was neutral right back at her. “I’m sure I will.”

The baby dropped his teething ring. Tess picked it up, wiped it off, and handed it to him, then suggested casually, “We’ve been trying to talk Lacey into moving to the house.”

Lacey reached down the table to brush Tess’s arm. “Stop worrying. I told you, I’m just fine at the cabin for right now.”

Tess sighed. “I disagree. And I wish Dr. Severance would help me to change your mind.”

Fat chance, Logan thought. He said, “I’ve known Lacey for fifteen years. In all that time, I haven’t changed her mind about a single thing.”

Lacey laughed. The musical sound tingled along his nerves and warmed something down inside him. “That can’t be true, Logan. You must have changed my mind about something in a decade and a half. It’s not as if you haven’t tried.”

He turned his head and looked right at her. The reaction was instantaneous—that chemical thing between them, which unscientific men called desire. It heated his blood, made him glad his lap was covered by Tess Bravo’s lace tablecloth.

He should not allow her to do this to him. She was nine months’ pregnant, for pity’s sake. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re right.” To his relief, his voice sounded fine, level and calm. It gave no inkling of what had just happened under the table. “It’s incredible when you think about it. But it’s true. I have never changed your mind about a single thing.”

“Yes. Yes, you have.”

“Oh, come on, Lacey.”

“I remember distinctly—”

She didn’t either, and they both knew she didn’t. “What?” he demanded. “You remember what?”

The baby, in his highchair, chortled to himself as a slow smile curved Lacey’s eminently kissable mouth. For a moment, Logan thought she would actually say something about the two of them, about how she’d never in her life imagined him as a lover—but that was one thing he had definitely changed her mind about. He had to resist the urge to clap his hand over her mouth.

And then she said, “Broccoli.”

He didn’t think he’d heard her correctly. “Broccoli?”

Lacey nodded. “You convinced me to give it a try. You said I would like it raw. With ranch dressing.”

He stared at her, thinking, Liar. You never ate any broccoli for me—raw or otherwise.

“Yes.” That smile of hers was too innocent by half. “Broccoli. Remember?” She was blatantly teasing him, pouring on the innuendo.

But it could be worse, he reminded himself. At least she hadn’t said what he’d feared she might.

He forced a smile to answer hers and let her have her silly lie. “I don’t know how I could have let myself forget.”

“More string beans?” Tess asked him.

He thanked her and spooned a second helping onto his plate.

The talk turned to safer subjects.

Zach asked Jobeth about a calf she had chosen to raise herself as a 4-H project.

Jobeth explained how she planned to experiment with different varieties of feed.

Then Tess wanted to know how things were going for Starr. Evidently, the older girl had a job at a local shop called Cotes’s Clothing and Gift.

“A summer job is a summer job,” Starr said. “It gets a little boring, but it’s not that bad. Mr. Cotes offered me four more hours on Saturdays. I’m going to take them. Might as well make use of my free time this summer. When school starts, I want to keep my focus on studying, where it belongs.”

“Our Starr is a straight-A student,” Edna declared with pride.

A contrary glint came into the girl’s impossibly beautiful violet eyes. “At least I am now.”

Zach frowned. “We are proud of you. Very, very proud.”

Starr lifted her lovely chin. “Thanks.”

Evidently, the girl had had some problems in the past. Logan wondered what, but the subject had already shifted again.

Zach was suggesting that Logan might want to saddle up and ride with him and Jobeth and the men sometime in the next few days. He could see how things were done on a working cattle ranch.

Logan confessed, “I think I’ve been on a horse about three times in my life. And they weren’t very lively horses, if you know what I mean.”

Zach chuckled. “We’ll find you something sweet-natured and easy-going—or you can ride in one of the pickups. Your choice.”

“Then I’d enjoy a tour, Zach. Thanks.”

Beside him, Lacey slid back her chair and stood. “Excuse me.”

Apprehension pulling a thread of tightness across his chest, Logan looked up over the ripe curve of her belly and into her eyes. “What is it? Are you feeling all right?”

She laughed and put her hand on his shoulder. It felt good there. Damn good. “Relax. I’m fine. I need to…make use of the facilities, that’s all.”

“You’re sure. If something’s—”

She lifted her hand and stroked the hair at his temple. “Logan. Eat.” Her hand was cool and her eyes were a summer sky—clear, stunningly blue. A smile quivered across that soft mouth of hers. He had to remind himself that they were not alone, or he would have laid his palm on her belly, a possessive touch, which would have felt totally appropriate then. At that moment, she was all softness, all openness. And all for him.

But then she seemed to catch herself. She jerked her glance away. Her smile vanished.

She dropped her hand. “I’ll be right back.” She slid around the chair and headed for the hall.

He watched her until she’d disappeared from view, reluctant to relinquish the sight of her, wondering at her swift change of mood. For a moment, she had been so damn…tender.

Just as she’d been when he woke and found her standing over him in the cabin an hour before. He’d seen the softness in her eyes then, too. And something else. Worry, maybe.

But softness, definitely.

And even earlier, while he unpacked his few things. She had sat in that rocker and watched him, a dreamy, contented expression on her face.

As if she…

It came to him. Right then, at the Bravo family’s dinner table, as he watched her waddle away through the living room, then disappear beyond a door that led to the front hall. It all snapped into place.

For Lacey, this was more than a matter of sexual attraction. More than affection, more than the commonality of a shared past. More even than the most important issue of the child she was about to have.

She was in love with him.

It made perfect sense. The abrupt way she had broken it off in September—that must have been when she had realized.

And what about the times he had called her and she’d never called back? That hadn’t been like her. Before, she would have called, if only to insist that she was fine, that he was not to worry about her, that he needed to get on with his life and let her get on with hers.

Yes. She was in love with him—and she feared, because of Jenna, that he would only hurt her.

He wouldn’t. Never. Jenna was gone for good now, living in Florida with Mack McGarrity, a baby on the way. She was no threat to what Logan and Lacey might share.

Damn. Lacey loved him.

True, he didn’t have a lot of faith in love lately. He’d loved Jenna for all those years and in the end, his love had not been enough to hold her.

But this situation was different. He was already committed to making a life with Lacey. He had been from the moment he’d learned that she carried his child. If Lacey thought herself in love with him—whatever the hell that really meant—it could only work in his favor.

A lightness seemed to move through him. A feeling of rightness, of ease.

And of power, too.

She loved him.

He knew now, with absolute certainty, that she would say yes to him. She had that wild streak. And she was willful. She might not be the wife that Jenna would have been. But she would be his in a way that Jenna never had.

She was already his.

Because she loved him. Lacey Bravo loved him.

He hadn’t realized that doubt had been eating at him, eroding his self-confidence, setting his nerves on edge. He hadn’t realized it until now, when doubt was gone.

He turned back to the table, a grin pulling at his mouth—and found six pairs of eyes focused on him. Even the baby was watching him.

“That girl’s a pistol,” Edna muttered under her breath.

“She’s independent,” said Tess warmly, speaking right up in Lacey’s defense. “I admire independence.”

Edna gave Tess a fond smile. “Of course you do. So do I. But the fact remains. She needs a husband.”

Zach Bravo was still staring at Logan. “You’re here to marry her,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Logan felt satisfaction, to have it out in the open, to be able to answer simply, “I am.”

Zach nodded. “Better not waste any time about it. That baby is likely to show up any minute now.”