Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) (12 page)

“I dreamed that I was talking to my mother, and she was pregnant with me. Then she left, and I walked into the ocean. Just walked straight into it, like I
wanted
to drown.”

For a few seconds he was silent, apparently processing this latest revelation. “And you woke up all damp, as if you really had gotten wet.”

“Yes.” Despite the warmth of his embrace, my teeth began to chatter, and I realized the tank top I wore was sticking wetly to my body. True, that could’ve been sweat, but it wasn’t quite warm enough in there for me to have been perspiring that much. “I need to get out of this top,” I told him.

He let go at once. I pushed off the covers and slid out of bed, then went to the dresser and got a clean top. As I pulled it on and tugged it down to mostly cover my underwear, my hand slid against my belly. Maybe the slightest roundness there, which could have had just as much to do with the enormous burger I’d eaten too soon before going to bed than the baby, which still couldn’t be much bigger than a fingernail at this point.

My mother’s words came back to me.
You might want to get that looked at.

After locating a hair elastic on the dresser’s top and tugging my damp hair back into it, I turned to Connor. “I think we need to get that doctor’s appointment lined up as soon as possible.”

W
hether any magical
strings were pulled, I didn’t know for sure, but that Friday I was in Flagstaff at the office of Dr. Ruiz, the ob-gyn several of Connor’s cousins had recommended. I decided to leave aside the improbability of getting an appointment at all on the Friday before a long weekend, let alone with a highly in-demand doctor, and just be glad that I wouldn’t be left to stew over the holiday as to whether my baby was okay or not.

The medical assistant asked if I wanted Connor in the room with me while they did the ultrasound, and of course I said yes. This was the part that scared me the most — logically I knew it was just a baby and that everything should be fine at this point — but damn straight I was going to have Connor at my side as I got the first true confirmation that the baby was real. Okay, yes, I’d done the home pregnancy test, and had it confirmed at Planned Parenthood, but that wasn’t the same thing as hearing your baby’s heartbeat for the first time.

Dr. Ruiz was probably in her early forties, with her dark hair cut in the kind of sleek bob I envied because I knew I could never get my own half wavy/half curly hair to do anything that controlled. She also seemed always calm, always unhurried, even though her waiting room was full and she had to be chomping at the bit to get out of there and start her own long weekend…most likely praying that none of her patients would go into labor while she was attending a barbecue.

Probably because mine was a very low-risk pregnancy, she’d decided a transvaginal ultrasound wasn’t necessary at this stage. I lay there in a pink paper examination robe while she poured cold goo on my stomach and then began the procedure. Connor stood next to me, holding my hand.

“Okay,” she said, peering at the monitor as she moved the ultrasound wand slowly over my belly, “the baby looks good, just about the right size and in the right position. And there’s the heartbeat. Nice and strong.” But then she paused, a line appearing between her brows as she frowned.

“What is it?” I asked, worry pulsing like ice through my veins. “Is something wrong?” Connor’s fingers tightened around mine, but he didn’t say anything, just stood there, waiting.

“Just a sec….” She was moving the sensor back and forth over my belly, her dark eyes intent on the screen. “Wait…got it!”

“Got what?” I asked, thinking,
Are there any congenital birth defects in the Wilcox family? No, that’s crazy…I’ve met most of them…they’re all fine….

Sometimes it would be really nice if I could just get my brain to shut up.

The worry line disappeared, and she smiled at us. “Well, you two are going to have your hands full. It looks like you’re carrying twins, Angela.”

“Twins?” I said blankly.

“Yes. One is mostly hidden by the other, so it’s hard to see right now. But look there.” She pointed at a blot on the ultrasound screen. To me it just looked like a paler blip against an amorphous darkness, with the faintest little trace of…something…behind it.

“That’s our baby…our babies?” I asked, reflecting it was a good thing I’d never had a burning desire to be an ultrasound technician. I had a feeling I wouldn’t have been very good at it.

“Yes. They look about the same size, which is good. And this explains why some of your blood test results came back so high. The hormones in your bloodstream are elevated because you’re carrying two babies, not one.”

“But everything else is okay?” Connor asked. His expression was, in a word, gobsmacked. Not that I could blame him. One baby was enough to handle, but twins?

“Perfectly okay,” Dr. Ruiz assured him. “They’re a good size, and their heartbeats are strong, in the 116 to 118 range. No reason why they shouldn’t be — Angela is a very healthy young woman.” Her gaze flicked back to me. “But because you’re carrying twins, you need to make sure you’re eating enough to properly nourish both of them — ”

“That’s not a problem,” Connor remarked with a grin. “She’s been eating her weight lately.”

I shot him a mock-severe glare, but Dr. Ruiz merely said, “That’s good to hear, although you should be putting on more weight than you are. Worry about losing the baby weight after you have the babies.”

Babies
. Plural. It was such an alien concept that I still wasn’t sure exactly how to process it.

“I’ll do my best,” I told her. “But Connor’s right. I’ve been eating just about anything that isn’t nailed down. I’ve always had a fast metabolism, though.”

“Okay, we’ll keep an eye on it.” She turned to the medical assistant, who’d been hovering in the background during the procedure. “Lora, let’s have Angela back here in three weeks.”

That sounded like an awfully long time to go between appointments. I must have looked dubious, because the doctor went on, “Everything’s going well, so I don’t see any need to make you come in before that. However, if anything feels off to you, if you have any bleeding or severe nausea or cramps — any of that — call us immediately. Okay?”

I nodded, not liking the sound of that very much. But things did go wrong sometimes, and better to know someone was standing by, ready to dive in, so to speak, in case the unthinkable happened.

After that everyone went out, leaving me alone in the exam room so I could get dressed. As I did so, I tried to keep myself from panicking. Twins. Two babies. Two tiny little people growing inside me. I had no idea how that happened. Twins did not run in the McAllister family. Yes, my cousin Brady and his wife just had twins, but she was the daughter of a twin, and it sounded like they did pop up about every other generation in her family.

I slung my purse over my shoulder and went out to see the receptionist. My next appointment was set for June 12
^th
, and Connor and I walked out of the office into the bright sunshine, both of us a little unsteady on our feet.

It wasn’t until we were on Route 66 and headed toward his apartment that he spoke. “Before you ask, no, twins don’t run in the Wilcox family. I mean, I’m the anomaly because I was born at all, since all the other heirs in Jeremiah’s line were only children. But we really don’t have any twins in the extended family, either.”

“Same with the McAllisters,” I said. Twisting in my seat so I could see him better, I added, “So what do you think it means?”

“I have no idea,” he confessed. “This is where I really wish Marie would get back to me.”

We’d come up to Flagstaff the night before, and Connor had tried calling her, saying he wanted to talk. She hadn’t responded, which, according to him, was strange. Usually she got back to him within the hour when he called.

“Maybe she went away for the long weekend?” I suggested, and he’d only shaken his head and said that he’d never heard of Marie going away on vacation. Ever.

“Why did you want to ask her about this particularly?” I asked now. “Hoping for a vision?”

I’d been teasing him, just a little, but he didn’t smile. “Marie sort of acts as the unofficial family historian — keeps all the genealogical files, that kind of thing. So she’d know if there were some Wilcox twins out there that I hadn’t heard of.”

“Hmm,” I said, considering. It did seem kind of strange that Marie was out of contact, but I wasn’t going to let myself worry about it too much. “I’m sure she’ll call you back soon. It hasn’t even been a full day yet.”

He tilted his head slightly but didn’t say anything.

“Are you…okay with this? I mean, one baby is a big enough deal, but two….”

The distant look disappeared from his eyes immediately, and he reached over and laid a hand on my thigh, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Of course I’m okay with it. Although it does figure that Angela McAllister the overachiever would be the first McAllister
prima
to ever have twins.”

“Bite me,” I replied blithely, and then we both started to laugh. The tension that had filled the interior of the car seemed to evaporate at the sound of our laughter, and I knew then that we were going to be okay.

B
ecause of my
appointment with the ob-gyn — and because it was supposed to be almost ninety in Jerome, compared to the upper seventies in Flagstaff — we’d already decided to stay at Connor’s place for the long weekend. Besides, I figured it would give me a chance to do some shopping in town and start putting together a wardrobe to accommodate my waistline, which I guessed was going to start expanding any day now.

Between shopping and going out to eat so I could keep the twins properly supplied with nutrients, I didn’t stop to think much about Marie’s disappearance, even though I knew Connor kept trying to get in touch with her. Several times I’d been tempted to call Sydney and tell her about the twins, but Connor and I had made a sort of unspoken agreement not to tell anyone quite yet. At any rate, she wasn’t all that available, as she’d gone to the Colorado River with Anthony and a bunch of his friends. Cell reception there was horrible, although she did manage to squeeze out a text or two, mostly to say they were having fun and wished Connor and I could have come along.
Maybe next yr
was her final comment. I didn’t bother to respond to that. If I were still around a year from now, I’d have my hands full with not one but two newborns, and playing in the Colorado River would be pretty far down my priority list.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, Connor turned to me and said, “I’m going to call Lucas. Maybe he knows what’s going on with Marie.”

“Sure,” I told him. Although part of me wanted to ask what was really fueling his obsession over talking to Marie, on some level I thought I understood. Connor had spent his whole life thinking Damon would be running things, and that he’d be able to go on quietly living his life without a lot of interference. But with Damon gone, Connor found himself the head of the clan, in a position of authority he’d never anticipated. It was probably natural of him to go to Marie for guidance, since she’d apparently offered counsel to Damon during most of his tenure as
primus
.

So Connor pulled out his phone and called Lucas, who did pick up, luckily. I listened with half an ear as Connor asked after Marie. Of course I couldn’t hear Lucas’s reply, but from the growing frown on Connor’s face, it appeared his cousin hadn’t spoken with her, either.

“Okay, thanks,” Connor said. “We’ll just keep checking — no, we really hadn’t talked about that.” A long pause, and I looked up from my iPad to see him frown and push his overgrown hair back off his forehead. “I don’t think — well, okay, I’ll talk to Angela about it and let you know. I doubt we could do anything before Tuesday because of the holiday. Yeah, okay. ’Bye.”

He ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket. Sensing I wasn’t going to be getting any more reading done today, I closed the Kindle app on the iPad and set the device down on the coffee table.

“What was that about?” I inquired.

“Lucas hasn’t heard anything from Marie, either.” He was frowning, reaching up to rub his brow as if his head hurt.

“I sort of gathered that.” Since he continued to scowl, I got up from the couch and went over to him, then put my arms around his waist. “But what did he want you to talk to me about?”

Connor folded me in his arms, pulling me close. “Oh, you know Lucas. He’s got the bit between his teeth on this house thing, says he was talking to one of his golf buddies, someone who’s going through a nasty divorce. Anyway, the guy wants to sell their second home — or maybe it was their third home — the one here in Flag. He’s selling it fully furnished and is ready to deal, mostly because he just wants to get out from under it.”

In a way that sounded great, as long as Connor and I both liked the furniture. It would save us a lot of work. Then I wanted to shake my head at myself. I couldn’t live in Flagstaff. My home was in Jerome, high up on Cleopatra Hill. But because I didn’t know what was going to happen, and had to make myself realize that Connor might be raising two babies on his own, I had to recognize that this apartment was going to be woefully inadequate in a few short months. If Connor could slide into something that was basically turn-key, it would take a lot of the pressure off.

“Okay,” I said. “It sounds like it could be a possibility. What’s he asking for it?”

“A hair under a mil.”

I pushed myself away from him and gazed up into his face, looking for the joke and not seeing it. “A — a
million?
” I finally managed.

“Ange, I got more than that from the sale of Damon’s house. If we like this place, we can get it for cash.”

Since I didn’t know what else to say, I had to settle for a weak “wow” before going back to the couch so I could sit down. Suddenly my legs felt just a little shaky. I had to hope that someday I’d get used to the casual way the Wilcox family threw large chunks of money around. “And he wants us to look at it.”