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“What do you think you’re doing,” Cade growled, jumping to his feet.
A moan broke from her lips, and she pressed a hand into her side. Closing her eyes, she sucked in slow, deep breaths, and let each one out gradually to the count of ten.
Panic made his heart stutter. “What’s wrong?” Cade asked as he felt pain ripple through his stomach muscles. “Is it the baby?”
The bond between mates allowed one to experience the other’s pain. Normally, the person suffering could block the other mate from the experience. But when extreme pain was involved, or when the pain hit unexpectedly, there was no blocking it.
She didn’t respond immediately. It was difficult enough to speak through gritted teeth, add to that the need to concentrate through a contraction, and it wasn’t going to happen. At least not until the pain eased.
“I’m fine. There’s no reason to worry. The contraction just caught me off guard.”
Cade's eyes grew wide with alarm. His stomach plunged to somewhere near his feet. His breathing was nonexistent as he stared blankly at her, his mind refusing to process the situation. Contraction–one of the forbidden words men didn’t have in their vocabulary. It ranked right up there with menstrual cycle–hell, even menopause. His brain balked just thinking about them. He didn’t even like reading the word in his books.
Men avoided any word or phrase on the dreaded ‘do not speak aloud’ list like the plague. It was silently understood; a man never uttered them, ever.
He forced his brain to function so he could process the situation. This couldn’t be happening. It was too early for the baby to be born. There must be another explanation, like maybe those ‘hicks’ things. Tuning out the pounding of his heart and burning lungs, he studied Anna’s expression. He saw no panic and even though she was huge, the baby wasn’t due for another three and half weeks. Five and half weeks if what she told him last night was true about always going over her due date.
I’m an extremely intelligent man; I’m sure I can figure this out.
Anna frowned with her hands on her hips, or where her hips used to be anyway. “What?”
Alarms clambered in his mind. Shit! She didn’t hear me thinking she was huge, did she?
Hearing what he had been thinking would not end well. No pregnant woman wanted to know her husband thought she looked like she swallowed a basketball. He glanced at her expression again, praying his luck held out.
Whew!
Somehow he’d managed to dodge that bullet. All right, he needed calm and subtlety, abilities no longer in existence when she said terrifying words like ‘contractions.’
He could run billion dollar corporations or rule a kingdom with his eyes closed. But deliver a baby in his living room? He wasn’t equipped for that, no way, no how. At least not yet. As soon as he could breathe again he was going to learn everything he could about emergency deliveries. The rate this pregnancy had gone, he might need to know how to deliver a baby in the back seat of a car like he’d seen in movies.
She hadn’t taken her eyes off him, and from the look of her deepening frown she was demanding an answer.
He anxiously searched for the correct response, one that wouldn’t get him gelded. A smile touched his lips, as he struck gold. “You always look so amazing with your sexy pregnant glow; it startled me when you said you had a contraction. You can’t possibly be ready to give birth.”
There, saved with a compliment for good measure. But, crap, why is she still staring at me with her hands on her hips?
“No, it was another bout of false labor. From here on out that’s going to happen a lot. But why are you looking at me funny?”
“Am I? I was thinking how sexy you are and visualizing you on the bathroom vanity. Maybe my steamy thoughts gave me a funny expression. I was going for smoldering. I guess I need to practice that one.”
Anna laughed at his goofy expressions as he tried to achieve smoldering.
*****
Anna sipped her decaf coffee, watching the second hand roll around the face of the kitchen clock. It was Thursday morning, and ten o’clock couldn’t come fast enough.
“Watching the clock won’t make time go any faster, cher.”
