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Serendipity? Or just potential embarrassment when I had to grab one and toss it in the cart next to my king size roll of Rolos?
“Weren’t you just dancing a few minutes ago?” I kept my voice chirpy while I turned sideways and tried to bump the package off the shelf into my cart. Crap, I’d probably need a couple for accuracy.
Then again, the contents of my cart were probably all the accuracy I needed. I hadn’t considered consuming so much junk food since…ever. I was freaking starving. My stomach was in an empty itself then immediately fill up again cycle.
Somehow I’d become Dusty with a hairball except mine would grow for nine months and be much larger.
With Thor involved, I didn’t want to contemplate how much larger. Why didn’t I think ahead and have sex with a much smaller man to balance out my own giant genes? It was the Cove, for pity’s sake. No one with a vagina escaped unscathed.
And with Lucky as the papa, mine would be so scathed I was wincing even now.
“Yes, dancing is so much fun. I love weddings. All those possibilities in the air.” She smiled mistily and patted her snowy curls. “But our night cashier had a migraine so she’s upstairs resting. By the way, Luna reserved a room for you. I put you in a very special one.” She winked in a way that made me wonder where the television crew was.
“Oh, um, great. Special how?”
“The room has a bit of lore. Although upon second thought, I may have jumped the gun there. Or didn’t fire soon enough.” Her denim blue eyes twinkled as she reached for the pregnancy test I was bumping against as casually as possible. “This is a good brand. I recommend it. This one too.” She plucked the one beside it and added both to my cart.
I cleared my throat. I was speechless for the first time in my life.
“Nothing to be ashamed of. With a strapping young man like yours and with your coloring, you will have the most beautiful babies. You’ll send me pictures, won’t you?”
I blinked. “Um, ma’am, you’ll excuse me because I don’t have a mom, and I’m new to small towns, but do you do this with everyone?”
“My Leelee would say so. My daughter,” she explained. “My only child.” Her laugh was melodic as she nudged me toward the café tables set up on the other side of the cash register. “How do you feel about peppermint hot cocoa?”
“Very fond,” I admitted reluctantly, gripping the handle of my cart as if it would float away otherwise. “I can order—”
“Fred,” she called. “Two large mints. Candy canes included. Croissant sandwich for Leticia.” She glanced my way. “Ham, turkey, or roast beef? American, provolone, muenster, swiss?”
I nearly moaned in anticipation. How could I be hungry again? Or still? “Turkey and swiss, please. Thank you.”
She called out the rest of my order then indicated I should sit at one of the small tables and took a seat opposite me. “Deli meat isn’t the best for the baby, but we all need a last hurrah.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Besides, maybe I’m not—”
“If you’re not, bottle that glow. You’ll be a millionaire in a month.”
I rested my cart against the wall and slapped my hands to my cheeks. “I’m just flushed.”
“Glowing.”
“Hmm.”
“My Leelee has twins,” she said conversationally while I stared at her in abject horror.
“Two? At the same time? Why? How?”
“C-section at seven months.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “She was on bedrest for much of her pregnancy due to complications.”
“Is—is she okay now? And the babies?”
Babies. That required literal months of rest to grow in a bed.
I would lose my ever-loving mind.
I was afraid to touch my stomach. It now felt like a volatile missile, no longer under my dominion.
“Leelee’s just fine and those little girls are so smart and fun. Well, Charlie is fun once you peel her off the ceiling. Too much like her father, that one.”
