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Chapter
Three
Tegan eyed the very pregnant woman sitting on the platform in the medical bay. Her belly was like a giant balloon protruding in front of her as she rubbed one hand over it then scratched absently.
“So, can you do anything about it?”
“Max, right?”
The woman flicked her other hand through her short, dark hair and met Tegan’s gaze with wide, blue eyes. “That’s right. Technically, it’s Maxine but no one calls me that. Technically, I’m also a doctor but not a medical doctor, and I know nothing about anatomy or childbirth. My specialty is minerals.” She blew out a breath. “Not much help when you’re growing a person inside you.”
Tegan ran her hands over the swollen belly and smiled. “The baby is big and very active.”
“You’re telling me.” Max managed a weak smile. “It’s half Dothvek.”
“Are you in pain?”
Max shook her head. “No, but I have to pee all the time and breathing is not easy.”
“Unfortunately, that’s normal at this stage.” Tegan walked to the cabinets inset in the walls and opened them. Although, the ship was decently stocked with standard medical supplies, they didn’t have any of the herbal remedies that Tegan preferred. Luckily, she’d brought some with her, but after a few days tending to the very pregnant women on the ship, she’d almost run out.
She snagged a small bottle, holding the brown glass up to the light to see that there were only a few drops left in the bottom. She twisted off the cap and emptied the remaining oil into her palm. She slid her hands under the hem of Max’s shirt.
“Will that stop me from peeing every time I sneeze?” Max lowered her voice. “I’m running out of clean underwear.”
Tegan laughed as she shook her head. “Sadly, it won’t. I’ve never heard of a healing oil that will fix that. This will help with the itching, though. It will help your skin stretch naturally so you won’t get marks.”
Max let out a sigh. “I didn’t even notice I was scratching, but you’re right. My stomach has been itchy lately.”
Tegan cut a glance at the now-empty bottle. She’d have to get some more, but she didn’t know where or how.
“So, how are you enjoying life with the bounty hunter babes?” Max asked as she slid off the table, putting a hand on the woman’s arm before she could answer. “Just so you know, I wasn’t one of the original crew. Danica, Tori, Caro, Bexli, and Holly were the bounty hunter babes before they took me prisoner and before we all crashed on the Dothvek planet.”
Tegan’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a prisoner?”
Max threw her head back and laughed. “Not anymore, but I used to have a price on my head, and they were the ones who found me.”
Tegan looked at the woman skeptically. She’d always imagined bounties to be hardened criminals or outlaws. Not petite, female scientists.
“My discovery of an alternative fuel source had everyone after me. I was lucky Danica and her crew got me instead of the Gorglik named Mourad. He was terrifying, and he was the one who marooned all of us on the sand planet where the Dothveks live.” Max winked at her. “Of course, that didn’t turn out to be such a bad thing since the Dothveks saved us and helped us defeat Mourad.”
Tegan slid her gaze to the woman’s belly. “It seems like they did more than that.”
Max’s cheeks flushed. “Do you blame all of us for falling for them? They’re huge, gorgeous, and brave.”
“And they stuck around. That’s not something I saw a lot of where I’m from.”
Max cocked her head. “You’re from that outpost on Zeroen?”
Tegan pressed her lips together as she nodded, thoughts of her home making her back stiffen.
“Is that where you learned everything about babies and childbirth?”
“My mother taught me. She said in a place like Zeroen, where the women are foolish enough to believe the men who never stay, it was a good job to have. We were always busy.”
“That sounds hard.” Max’s voice was soft. “But not all guys run off. Just look at all the Dothveks on this ship. They might look tough, but when it comes to babies, they’re marshmallows.”
Tegan didn’t know what a marshmallow was, but she’d seen the Dothvek fathers with their babies, and had to admit that they were besotted. From her experience, these alien males were the exception, and not the rule. She’d seen pregnant women abandoned too many times to believe anything else. It was why she’d promised herself that she’d never be stupid enough to lie with a man and why she never wanted a baby or family for herself. It was fine for others—and she could even find it in herself to be happy for them—but there was no way she was risking the heartache of being left behind and the difficulty of being a single mother. She’d seen her own mother struggle, working herself to the bone and into an early grave. That would not be her fate.
