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“No,” she said. “It’s a little strange. A weird sensation. Sometimes it gets a little tight. But not really painful.”
“He’s squirming around.”
“Yeah.” Laurel felt the same squirming feeling in her chest. “Paul?”
“Mm?” He gazed evenly at her, fully alert now. She loved his dark eyes, and she hoped their baby inherited those. “What about Royce if it’s a boy?”
“Royce.” He tried the name out in his voice, and he didn’t make a face. So, some improvement over the last name she’d suggested. The more she thought about it, the more she didn’t like Carter either. Carter Lehye just didn’t sound right.
With their last name, they really had to choose something carefully. If the doctor told them this morning that they were having a little girl, Laurel was fairly sure they’d name her Lucy. They both loved the name, and it sounded like angelic music when paired with Lehye.
“Royce Lehye,” Paul said. “I don’t hate it.”
“I don’t either.” Laurel started to roll over, because she had to in order to get out of bed on her side. She groaned as Paul pushed on her hip and then her back to help her, disliking that she even needed help. She felt like a giant beach ball, getting rolled around in her own bed, and she still had a third of her pregnancy to go.
“Paul?” she asked again.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
She took a deep breath. She needed to get the snakes out of her stomach, and the best way to do that was to have a conversation. Even if it was hard. Even if she didn’t know the outcome of it. “I’ve been thinking about…not going back to work after the baby is born.” She twisted to look over her shoulder, needing to see his reaction.
She couldn’t quite see him, but the mood in the bedroom shifted. “Yeah?” he asked, the bed moving as he did.
“Yeah,” she said. Her hands worried around one another, and she looked at her fingers. “I don’t know who we’d have watch the baby. My parents are in Nantucket, and your dad is inOhio. Julie is busy with her own family, and she doesn’t live here besides. We’d have to find a daycare, and I haven’t even started looking.”
Those were just the external reasons, and Laurel reminded herself that she loved and trusted Paul explicitly. “Plus, I sort of don’t want to. I want to raise our child. Me and you. I don’t want to give him to someone else during the day. The hours are crazy as it is, and I don’t know. I’ve been thinking I’ll take my maternity leave, but then that I should maybe…quit.”
He knelt behind her, his hands on her shoulders now. He massaged and said nothing, and Laurel let her head roll left and right as he worked the tension from her muscles. He placed a kiss on the sensitive skin on the back of her neck, and she leaned back into the touch.
“It’s fine with me, hon,” he said. “I’d love to have you home with the baby.”
“Can we afford it?”
“I’m sure we’ll work it out,” he said. “People do.”
“Maybe we can sit down and look at the finances this weekend,” she said. She didn’t do a lot of that; Paul did. He paid the bills, and they didn’t overspend. They should have money in savings, but Laurel didn’t know how much.
She felt out of control because of it, and she didn’t like it. Paul trailed kisses down both sides of her neck, his hands sliding down her arms. She sighed as he touched her in such an intimate way, and it was like he could take all of her cares and worries and make them disappear.
He held them inside himself so she didn’t have to concern herself with them, and she appreciated that so much.
He got out of bed and knelt in front of her now, still carefully touching her with his big, Deputy hands. He looked right into her eyes as he said, “I don’t want you to worry about the money, Laurel. I make a good salary. We’ve got savings.”
Her chin shook as her emotions overcame her. She wrapped her arms around him and he leaned his face against her chest. “I love you,” she whispered.
“Mm, I love you too.” He pulled back and grinned at her. “Since you got us up early, can we shower together?”
Laurel smiled at him and took his face in her hands. She kissed him, so glad she’d taken another chance on being with a man. “Yes,” she whispered.
A few hours later, Laurel once again lay in bed, this one completely different than hers at home. The doctor’s office was cold, and her shirt had been pushed clear up under her chest.
Their doctor, a woman named Elizabeth Ellison, smiled at Laurel. “Are you ready to see how your baby is doing?”
Laurel nodded, and Paul’s hand in hers tightened as he said, “Yes.”
Cold gel got squirted onto her belly, and Dr. Ellison sat down on her rolling stool. “All right.” She lubricated the wand too and pressed it to Laurel’s body. “Last time, she was looking good. Nothing to be concerned about. She’s big enough now for us to see the gender.”
An infant heartbeat echoed through the room, and Laurel grinned at the black and white screen at her eye-level.
