Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,175

struck up a conversation and pulled out pictures of their grandchildren when you just wanted to worry about your bladder infection.

“So,” the doctor went on, “you had a pregnancy at age fifteen, which can be a pretty risky business. Any problems there?”

“No,” Jennifer said. “Or this time, either. A little tired and sick at the beginning, and that’s all. I seem to be good at being pregnant.” She’d never been a serene person. Why was she feeling serene now?

“Technically, you’re higher risk,” the doctor said. “As you’re of what we call advanced maternal age. Although you’re just …” She consulted her tablet again. “Thirty-five in four days. Happy birthday. Barely geriatric.” With a smile, because it was evidently a joke. Ha, ha. “We’ll keep a good eye on you, though. The conditions we watch for are the same as with a very young girl, interestingly enough, but you seem to be in good shape so far. Your weight gain is just fine at eight pounds, so is your blood pressure, and you’ve had the chromosomal testing already. Call the office right away, though, if you’re experiencing any excessive swelling, headaches, blurred vision, or dizziness, so we can check your blood sugar and blood pressure.”

Well, this was extremely cheerful. She asked Harlan, “You OK?”

He looked up from where he was typing on his phone. Wait. He was texting?

“Yeah,” he said. “Just getting all that down.”

Oh. He was taking notes. She said, “Hey, look, it all worked out before, and now I’ve got you watching out for me, right? I’m fine.” She needed to be holding his hand. He was definitely nervous. She was supposed to be the worrier. Why wasn’t she worried?

Maybe because she was the one who could feel the baby, and he felt strong. He felt like his father’s son.

“So,” the doctor said, “let’s do some measuring, and then we’ll take a look.” Harlan still looked apprehensive, and Jennifer asked him, “Could you come hold my hand?”

The doctor looked up, and Jennifer said, “I’m a little nervous.” She wasn’t. She was nothing but excited.

A measuring tape, that was all, and Jennifer told Harlan, “She’s comparing how big I am now to a month ago.”

“First appointment with her?” the doctor asked, and Harlan said, “Yeah,” and nothing else. Which was fine, too. No matter how chatty Jennifer got, she wasn’t going to be sharing their interesting path to childbirth. Nobody needed to know about that but the two of them.

“Measuring like twenty weeks,” the doctor said when she was done. “And now we’ll take a look. You had a sonogram previously, I see, and the heart and organs looked fine there on the 2D, but I like to do my own on the 3D machine, especially with a higher-risk pregnancy.”

Jennifer could feel Harlan’s hand tensing in hers. “It’s OK,” she told him. “Relative risk, that’s all. You’ll feel better when you see him. Just wait.”

He wasn’t a nervous guy. He was the opposite of a nervous guy. But ever since he’d walked in here with Jennifer and she’d lain down on that table, his heart had been racing. And now, as the doctor smeared goop on her round belly with a squeeze bottle, he was having trouble controlling his breathing.

Fourth quarter, he told himself, and gripped Jennifer’s hand. Even though it wasn’t anywhere close to the fourth quarter. It was about the second quarter. By the fourth quarter, he was going to be … going to be …

Going to be passing out, that was what.

The doctor was moving a paddle over Jennifer’s belly now, and Jennifer was peering at the screen of a machine at the foot of the bed. She said, “I’ve never had a 3D sonogram before. This is so exciting. Usually,” she told Harlan, “it’s just this grainy black-and-white thing, but this will be almost like a picture.”

He was looking, but he couldn’t see anything. Just a series of yellowish blobs. The doctor said, “Placenta. Umbilical cord.” He saw that, he guessed. At least, he saw a thick, twisted cord. So much bigger than he’d have expected it to be. It looked like a rope. The doctor kept moving the paddle on Jennifer’s belly, and he could tell Jennifer was holding her breath.

“Breathe,” he told her.

“You breathe,” she said. She’d been calm and chatty through all of this, like it was no big deal. Now, he could tell she wasn’t, and that wasn’t all right.

He hauled his chair over so he was sitting by her head, smoothed