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  “Okay, sweetheart. I want you to hang up and call Dr. Opitz, and do whatever she says, okay? I’m only ten minutes away.”

  “I can’t. Her number’s in my purse, and my purse is in the hall closet. I’m afraid to move. When I move there’s more blood.” She got that out okay, but ended on a near-sob.

  “That’s okay, honey, she’ll be listed in information,” he soothed. Dimly, she could hear screeching brakes and angry honking. He wasn’t wasting any time getting here…how that comforted her! “Call 411 and ask for her number. She’ll be listed, she’s a doctor.”

  Damn. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “Okay. I’ll call her. Vic?”

  “I know, sweetie. I’m coming.”

  She disconnected him, then called 411 and, lo and behold, Dr. Opitz was listed. She called the office number and, once the receptionist was made to understand the seriousness of the situation, was put through to the doctor immediately.

  “Ashley, it’s Sharon Opitz. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m bleeding, Sharon,” she whispered into the phone. “It’s all over, isn’t it?”

  “Hell, no!” she shouted, so loudly that Ashley jerked the phone away from her ear with a wince. “It could be any one of a hundred things, and a lot of them won’t have any lasting effects on the baby. Five months is a little late for a spontaneous miscarriage, okay, Ashley? It might not be as bad as you think. Where are you?”

  “Home. Victor’s on his way, he should be here in another couple minutes.” If he doesn’t get himself killed driving like an idiot.

  “Okay. Rather than wait for an ambulance, have Victor drive you to Mass General. I’ve got privileges there, and it’s only fifteen minutes away. I’ll meet you there, okay? Head up to the tenth floor and tell them your name, they’ll get you set up. And try not to panic, okay, kiddo? Like I said, it could be any number of things.”

  “What should I—the blood, it’s—”

  “Take a towel and stuff it between your legs. This is no time for modesty, Lorentz-Lawrence. Victor will help you into the car, and you can hop into a wheelchair when you get to the hospital.”

  “I can’t!” she cried. “I’m afraid to move.”

  “You can’t teleport to the hospital, Ashley,” she said sternly. “Keep it together, now.”

  Sharon’s tone had the desired effect; suddenly Ashley felt silly, almost ashamed of the fuss she was making. She was just hanging up when she heard the front door flung violently open and pounding feet. Victor burst in just as she stood to find a towel.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he cried, and she assumed it looked even worse than it felt.

  “I need a towel,” she said calmly, “and then you have to drive me to Mass. General.”

  He held his hands up and started backing out the doorway. “Don’t move. I’ll get it. Don’t you move an inch. Oh my God. Does it hurt?”

  “No.” Was that good? She thought so. She felt no cramping, no labor pains. “No, actually. I didn’t feel a thing until I noticed the blood.”

  He came back in and sort of flapped the towel at her; she took it, folded it to a small square, and put it between her thighs. He bent to pick her up and in his anxiety, scooped up the chair as well. He turned and started out the door, not noticing when the chair legs thunked against the doorway.

  “Victor.”

  He turned, the better to maneuver her, him, and the chair out the door, and she practically yelled, “Victor! Let go of the chair.”

  “What?” He looked down and noticed he was holding an office swivel chair, as well as his bride. He shook her lightly and the chair swung away and thudded to the carpet. “Well, why the hell did you bring it if you didn’t want it?” he snapped, and she reminded herself that he was just as rattled and frightened as she was.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said, but, oh, that felt like a lie.

  “I know,” he said.

  And now, she thought grimly, we’re both lying.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The car phone rang once on the way to the hospital. Victor punched the speaker-phone button and barked, “What?”

  “Er—Victor? This is Crystal.”

  “Not now,” he snapped, swerving to avoid rear-ending a Wonder Bread truck.

  “This will only take a moment. I just got back from Paris and I heard the most incredible rumor. Apparently you've gotten married to some nobody no one's ever heard of.” She tittered. “I thought you should know what people are saying—”

  “I am married, she's not a nobody, you're a worthless bitch, goodbye.” He punched the disconnect button.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Ashley said, eyes closed.

  “For God’s sake! You’re—we’re—in the middle of this huge crisis and you want me to make nicey-nice with my ex?”

  “No, but I do want you to avoid running that red light.”

  “Shit!” He stood on the brakes and Ashley felt her seatbelt lock. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said patiently, “but being tossed about the car isn’t going to help, especially if you get us in an accident. Calm down, we’re almost there.”

  “I’m perfectly calm,” he shouted.

  She had to smile a little at that. “If you get any calmer I’m going to need earplugs.”

  He pulled into the hospital and parked in the red No Parking zone. Leaping from the car, he wrestled a wheelchair away from a startled valet, wrenched open Ashley’s door and then tenderly helped her into the chair. He ignored the valet’s pleas that he move the car, tossed his keys at the woman, and then ran for the doors, pushing Ashley’s wheelchair in front of him.

  “I hope that was an actual hospital employee,” she commented, watching the valet drive Victor’s Mercedes away. “Or we’re going to have to take a cab home.”

  “This is no time,” he said through gritted teeth, “for your weird sense of humor.”

  “Sorry.”

  Things happened very fast after that, and the next half hour was a blur of doctors, nurses, paperwork, and tests, finally culminating in her lying in a hospital bed, dressed in a hospital gown. For the first time since they’d arrived, only she and Vic were in the room. Dr. Opitz and her team were at the nurse’s station, discussing the test results and their options.

  “Do you want me to call Jean?” he asked anxiously, pacing back and forth in front of her bed.

  “Heck, no. Let’s wait until it’s over, one way or the other. She’s not what I would call a calming influence.”

  “Well, Dr. Opitz didn’t seem too worried,” he said as if she had said something entirely different. He wore the look of a man grasping at straws. “She would have been a little more worried if something was really wrong, don’t you think?”

  “I think it’s all over,” she said dully. “I think in a minute she’s going to come in here and schedule me for a D&C.”

  “Don’t say that!” he cried. “You don’t know that!”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, and suddenly the events of the last hour overwhelmed her and she started to cry. Victor looked stricken, and came to sit on the side of her bed. “Victor, I know my baby’s dead!”

  “You don’t know,” he said, pulling her into a hug. She clung to him, taking comfort from the warmth of his body. “You don’t. It—it could be anything. Don’t give up on him yet.”

  “Her,” she sobbed.

  “Her, okay. And it’s our baby, you goof. You didn’t get into this mess by yourself.”

  “Our baby,” she repeated. Strange, that that should be so comforting. That sharing loss could actually make her feel a little—a very little—better. “You’re right.”

  “Actually, that was your cue to start yelling and throwing things at me.”

  “I never felt less like yelling at you in my life. Victor…” She pulled back and looked at him. His dark eyes were intent, too bright with unshed tears, and his mouth was pulled down in a sorrowful bow…and yet, he had tried to tease her, to cheer her up a little. Oh, God,
I love this man so much. “Victor, if something—if the worst has happened…let me finish,” she said, because he started stubbornly shaking his head. “If I lost the baby, will you get me pregnant again? I couldn’t bear not to have your baby. If we’ve lost her, I’d hate it—I’d miss her forever, but I’d want to get pregnant again. I don’t want to use a miscarriage as an excuse to get a divorce and go our separate ways. I want to stay together and raise a family.”

  He was looking at her incredulously, with dawning hope. “You—do you mean you—”

  “I mean I love you, Victor. I’ve always loved you, and I’ve been lying to myself for months and months. I love you and I want to have your baby—oh, God, I wanted this baby so much!” She tried to cover her face with her hands, but he clasped her wrists and gently prevented her from looking away.

  “Don’t give up on her,” he said, and kissed her lightly. “She’s tough. Like you. I love you, Ashley.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Again,” he murmured, kissing her eyebrow. “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  They were holding each other, taking comfort from the other’s body, when the door to her room whooshed open and Dr. Opitz stood there, holding a printout and grinning. “Can you say placenta previa, boys and girls?” she asked triumphantly.

  “What?”

  “You, young lady,” she said, advancing into the room and pretending to scowl at Ashley, “have given us all a scare for nothing.”

  Scarcely breathing, hardly daring to hope, Ashley couldn’t speak. When Victor spoke, his voice was almost inaudible. “Do you mean the baby’s okay?”

  “I mean the baby is just fine. Placenta previa is when part of the placenta detaches prematurely from the uterus. It causes blood loss and looks scary as hell, but it’s not serious and we can fix it in a jiffy. Bed rest for you, though,” she said sternly to Ashley. “We can take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and I’m going to want to see you at least once a week for the rest of your pregnancy, but the baby’s fine. And so are you.”

  “The baby’s really okay?” she asked tearfully.

  “Yes, they are.”

  “You mean—”

  “They?” Victor nearly fell off the edge of the bed.

  “—twins?” Ashley asked, stunned. “You know for sure?”

  “Yes, we know for sure.” Grinning, Sharon Opitz remembered again why she loved her job. “They’re just as perky as you please, too. Incidentally, you’re going to get huge.”

  “Twins…I…twins?”

  “Wow,” Victor said, grinning so hard he thought his face would break. “That’s fantastic!”

  “Twins?” Ashley squeaked.

  “I was starting to suspect when you got so big so quickly, but ultrasound confirmed it.”

  “But I had an ultrasound months ago!”

  “Yes, but sometimes one twin is almost directly behind the other, and the scan only picks up one…especially so early in a pregnancy. I never picked up a second heartbeat, either. It’s rare,” she admitted, “but it happens. But we know for sure, now.”

  “She’ll probably deliver early, then, right?” Victor asked.

  “Most likely. We’ll keep a close eye on her, and you should definitely consider hiring someone to help you with the babies for the first couple weeks.”

  “First couple years,” Ashley said, still stunned. She was happy the baby, babies, were okay, but this was a lot to take in. Twins? “Oh my Lord.”

  “Anyway,” Dr. Opitz said briskly, “we’re keeping you overnight, just to make sure we’ve got everything under control. But lay off sex, and—”

  “Doctor, it’s my fault this happened,” Victor said anxiously. “We had sex yesterday—”

  “Twice,” Ashley added helpfully, blushing a little at the memory.

  “Yes, and I was—that is to say, it was awfully fast, and…uh…”

  Dr. Opitz tried to keep a straight face, but her reserve cracked a little as this large, powerfully built man fumbled through an explanation of a quickie on their kitchen floor, blushing like—well, rather like Ashley was blushing right now.

  “—and then we went into our bedroom and I made us do it again, only this time…“

  “Please, spare me further details. I’m begging you. This was not your fault,” Dr. Opitz said sternly, in her best doctor-to-patient voice. “Sex during pregnancy does not cause placenta previa.”

  “But we had sex twice.”

  Dr. Opitz laughed politely.

  “Okay…you’re sure?”

  “Positive. I swear on my stethoscope.”

  The Lawrences exhaled in relieved unison.

  “I’ll go finish up the paperwork for your admission,” Sharon said, preparing to leave, “and we’ll see about rustling up a cot or something for you, Victor…I assume you’re going to insist on staying overnight?”

  “Damn straight. And good luck moving me.”

  “No, no, we wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll go talk to an orderly about getting a cot.” With a cheerful wave, she left the room.

  Ashley lay back in her bed with a sigh of relief. “I just can’t believe it,” she said. “Not only did I not miscarry, but we’re going to have two babies!”

  “It’s a wonderful miracle.”

  “That’s redundant.”

  “So’s what’s in here,” he said, gently patting her stomach. “Give me a kiss, Ash.”

  “Why?” she teased.

  He grinned. “Because you adore me and you can’t live without me.”

  “Oh, well…there is that.” She complied, and they ended up necking in her hospital bed like teenagers, stopping when an embarrassed nurse came in to give Ashley a sponge bath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Great news!” Dr. Opitz sang. “You’re dilated to ten centimeters.”

  “I want my epidural!”

  “Well, you can’t have one. Sorry. You’re fully dilated. But guess what, Ashley? You get to push now!”

  “I think,” Jean said nervously, looking at her enraged friend, “you’d better get away from her, Doctor. She’s small, but she’s strong, and if she gets to that stethoscope around your neck…”

  “I don’t want to push! I want some drugs, and then I want to go home.”

  “But you’ll have your babies soon! It’s almost over,” the nurse said comfortingly, taking care to stay out of throwing range. Ashley had already heaved two books and her focal point, a framed picture of the babies’ most recent ultrasound, at him. “You get to push, and then the babies will be here.”

  “What’s this ‘get to push’? You make it sound like a privilege. And where’s my idiot husband?”

  “You told him to get the hell out of here before you killed him where he stood,” Jean reminded her helpfully. “Needless to say, he did not linger.”

  Ashley slumped against the pillows, exhausted. How did women do this for twenty-four, thirty-six, even forty hours? Her labor had started six hours ago and already she wished she were dead. And I wouldn’t mind some company down in the morgue, either, she thought murderously, glaring at the others in the room. How had she never noticed Dr. Opitz’s obscene, constant cheerfulness before today? And that irritating laugh that sounded like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz? And Jean’s useless, provocative comments? And the way Victor—Victor—well, she’d remember some of the things he did that annoyed her, later.

  It had started out so deceptively pleasant and exciting. Just like the books said, she knew at once that this was the real thing, and the contractions didn’t even hurt that much. Oh, they left her breathless, but she was staying on top of them, and the breathing really seemed to help. Victor was so excited he kept dropping her suitcase and tripping over things, and for that reason she refused to let him carry her to the car. Once at the hospital, she had elected to walk the halls, hoping gravity would speed things along, and it certainly seemed to do the trick…now,
a few hours later, she was ready to go, or so Dr. Opitz claimed.

  The contractions were coming fast, and breathing did not help. Nothing helped. The pain gripped her belly, seized it in red-hot pincers, twisted, squeezed, and finally let go after thirty or forty years…then she would have a break of about a half second before it started again. When the breathing no longer helped, when all she wanted to do was scream, she finally asked for an epidural, only to be told she was fully dilated, so now she ‘got to push’. Oh, goody.

  Victor poked his head in. “How’s it going in here?” he asked Jean.

  “What the hell are you asking her for, you dumb son-of-a-bitch? I’m the one having the babies!”

  “About as well as it was going when you left,” Jean admitted. “Why don’t you get in here? I’d much rather have her screaming at you than at me.”

  “Stop talking about me like I’m not here!”

  “And stop taking your pain out on us. It’s nobody’s fault that labor hurts.”

  “Come a little closer and say that,” Ashley snarled.

  “Not on your life. Or mine.”

  “This sucks!”

  “It sure looks like it,” Victor said nervously. He thought Ashley beautiful, always, even now, but she did look a bit…crazed. “Can’t you give her something?”

  “Nope. It’s too late.”

  “Oh, shit!” she gasped. “It’s starting again.”

  “Okay, Ash, this time push during the contraction.”

  “Push…during? Are you out of your mind, Opitz?” She groaned and gritted her teeth and writhed through the contraction; Jean and Victor watched, wincing. Finally, it was over. “They lied,” she gasped. “The books lied. You’re supposed to want to push. I never wanted to do anything less. I can’t push! The babies will tear me in half. This is going to kill me, somebody call the police!”

  “Ashley, this is what your body was made to do,” Dr. Opitz soothed. “And since you’re going a little early, the babies are actually smaller than term, so it’ll be easier than it is on most women.”

  “Easy! You call this easy, you blonde harpy?”