Lucky in Love (27 page)

Knowing Lily, she
'd probably end up bunking down there, too, but she assured me that it wouldn't be the first time they'd slept in the barn. They did it when any of the horses foaled, and there was a small office out there with a fold-out couch.

When I hung up, I found Chance watching me with a speculative look on his face.

"What?" I asked him, flustered. He gave me a come-here gesture and a lazy half-smile.

"
Oh, is that how this goes? We're married now, so all you have to do is crook your finger and I'm supposed to jump?" Completely contradiction myself, I was already moving toward where he was stretched across the bed.

"
Hey, whatever works." He caught my hand and pulled me down so I was lying on top of him, my breasts pillowed against the solid wall of his chest. I gave him a mock scowl, but couldn't resist running my fingers through his silky dark hair. It was already growing out of its military severity, the slight curl of it making him look boyish. But the twinkle in his eyes was all grown-up male appreciation as he glanced down to get a better look at my cleavage.

I scooted up further, enticing
ly, and he planted a kiss on the swell of my breasts. "As much as I'd like to flip you over and blow your mind right now," he growled, "I think it's about time we did something different for a change, Mrs. Atkins."

"
What's that?" My breathing quickened, and sudden, colorful images popped into my fertile imagination.

He stretched upward to take my lips briefly and possessively, letting his hands run down my sides and curve around my hips to cup my behind.

"We're going out on a date."

I was distracted and it took me a second to process his statement.
"Wait, what?"

"
You've heard of dates, I'm sure." He playfully nipped my bottom lip. "As a matter of fact, we've been on a couple. Just not since we were kids, making out in the back row of the Kalamazoo 10."

"
Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember a late-night showing of
The Shining
." The buttery smell of theater popcorn. The slick way Chance had yawned and stretched his lanky arm over the back of my seat. The rich chocolaty Sno-Caps and the thrill of teenage hormones that I'd enjoyed even more than the shiver I always got from the scene with the creepy girls in the elevator.

"
Things have moved so fast the last couple of months that we skipped over the whole dating thing. So I want to take you out. How about dancing?"

Dancing.
My heart flip-flopped. My goodness, how I loved this man.

I felt a little out of place in my lemon-bright, citrus-print halter dress and orange strappy heels, but Chance blended with the Nashville locals in his faded jeans, a grey t-shirt that stretched across his broad chest and scuffed work boots. The battered cowboy hat he wore completed the picture, but he took it off and set it on the seat next to him when the waitress seated us in a corner booth. We'd eaten not too long before, but I was still hungry, ordering cheese sticks and hot wings to go with the unsweetened tea that marked me even more as an outsider than my outfit. Chance got a beer and sipped it slowly as we watched the dancers on the floor boot scoot and boogie.

I
'd never listened to much country music and the band onstage was just firing up a song I didn't know, but it had a catchy beat. I gawked, fascinated, as everyone lined up and started doing complicated dips and sidesteps and slides in perfect unison to the thumping beat of the song. It wasn't swing dancing, but it looked fun as hell if the random whoops and hollers were anything to go by.

Chance was watching me with a smile.
"I know it's not your thing, but you are a Southern girl now, and there's no other kind of music here down but country. Wanna give it a shot?"

"
I might as well adapt, right?" I answered happily, sliding out of the booth. We took a spot near the end of the back line and I intently studied the girl in front of me, trying to copy her steps. Next to me, Chance was moving smoothly and confidently, like he knew exactly what he was doing and enjoyed doing it well. I stomped on his foot twice and bumped into the giggly blond next to me once before I started to get the hang of things. Just when I started feeling like I wasn't a total moron, though, the music segued into a slow song and Chance pulled me into his arms without missing a beat.

"
I thought you took dance classes," he teased, lowering his forehead to rest on mine.

"
Different kind," I retorted, deliberately stepping on his foot. "I'd like to see you try your hand at some West Coast Swing."

"
Oh, I expect I'll learn. If you can line dance with me, the least I can do is jitterbug with you." To illustrate his point, he spun me around in a complicated twist and dip before pulling back up against his chest and giving me a wink.

Laughing breathlessly, I rested my head on his chest, breathing in his intoxicatingly male scent of sweat and soap, feeling the warmth of his broad palm against my bare back. Dreamily, I watched the couples around us sway in time to the song. But suddenly, a sound cut through the noise of the crowd, ripping into my senses and sending
goosebumps chasing down my arms.

It was the laugh from my dream.

I stiffened and stopped, looking around wildly. A drunk couple reeled into us and went spinning off the other way. The noise in the crowd was abruptly jarring, and there were too many faces in the swirling around to pick out a single familiar one. I struggled to get air into my panicked lungs.

"
What is it?"

"
We need to leave. We need to go,
now
."

Without a word, Chance steered me back to our table to grab my purse and his hat. I searched every face we passed on the way to the exit but none jumped out at me. Still, I knew I wasn
't crazy. I'd heard that before.

I gulped in the night air greedily in the parking lot.
"It sounds ridiculous, but someone in there was laughing. It was just like the one in my dream."

Chance put a protective arm around my shoulders and gave
them a reassuring squeeze. "Let's get back to the hotel. You can tell me about it in the car."

When
we got to his Jeep, the back window was shattered and all four tires were slashed.

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't devastating. The police had come and taken notes and promised to follow up, but seemed to think it was just a case of vandalism. They'd check to see if the bar had security cameras, but unless someone saw something, the chances of catching anyone were slim. A cab had picked us up and whisked us back to the hotel. A few phone calls and we had arrangements made for the Jeep to be sitting out front, new tires and back window, by ten the next morning, so we could leave in time to get to my doctor's appointment. It was amazing how easy having money smoothed over inconveniences.

But back in our room, huddled up next to Chance in the king-sized bed, under a down comforter, I was
still cold.

Chapter 48

The next morning dawned bright and beautiful, and as promised, the Jeep was ready to go when we were. Karma seemed to be smiling on us, since there was a Starbucks drive-thru just down the street from the hotel and my outlook was vastly improved with a decaf iced mocha in my hand. Still, I stewed the whole way into Franklin. When we pulled into the parking lot of the doctor's office, though, my brain shifted fully back into gear and my palms started to sweat.

"
Are you nervous?"

Chance had been getting ready to open his car door, but stopped and looked at me in surprise.
"No, are you?"

I glared at him.

"For Pete's sake, yes! Don't tell me you haven't notice how big my belly is getting already. You know we've probably got a double dose of trouble in there."

He leaned across the seat and kissed me lightly.
"We could have a whole litter in there and it wouldn't freak me out. I told you, I like kids."

"
What if I suck as a mom?"

"
You won't." To his credit, he didn't even crack a smile. "But if you do, you have enough money to buy a tutor."

"
I'm going to get huge. Will you still love me when I'm ginormous?"

"
Absolutely. Twice as much."

"
What if my ankles swell?"

"
Then I'll tell you to sit down and put them up. And I'll give you free footrubs with no strings attached. Anything else?"

"
What if my hormones turn me into a psycho hose beast?"

Now
, he did chuckle and kissed me again. "You're the only girl I know who can still reference
Wayne's World
and get away with it. It's one of the many reasons I love you. Now, come on."

I was still jittery with nerves in the exam room, especially after the scale tattled
on me for gaining six pounds. I was also feeling really vulnerable in the hospital gown with only a giant paper napkin to preserve my modesty. Chance had pulled his chair up to the exam table to hold my shaking hand and was rubbing soothing circles on the back of it with his thumb. Still, despite all the books I'd been reading, shit was getting real. 

We didn
't have long to wait for the doctor. She burst through the door with a wide smile and a bright pink lab coat. She was a motherly-looking woman in her fifties with an effervescent personality that immediately put me at ease.

She introduced herself as Dr. Lewis and suggested we get right down to business. During the exam, Chance kept his eyes on mine the whole time, still holding my hand.
"Well, you're definitely pregnant. Let's see if we can find a heartbeat in there," Dr. Lewis said, pulling off her gloves.

"
Really?" I asked, surprised. "It's not too soon for that?"

"
No guarantees, since it's different with every mom, but since you're about seven weeks along, we should be able to hear something."

She smeared some warm gel over my belly and started moving the ultrasound wand around. I heard a weird grumble.
"No worries," she laughed. "It's not a baby bear, just a hungry belly."

And then, there it was.
A
swish, swish, thub
sound. I held my breath and Chance's hand tightened on mine. "Mm-hmm," she hummed, moving the wand to a different spot. After a few moments, the thubbing and swishing the only sound in the room, the doctor nodded decisively.

"
What is it?"

"
I've heard a lot of baby bellies in my career, and that sounds like two heartbeats to me."

I had to lean on Chance on the way back out to the reception desk to schedule my next appointment.
Two babies. The thought had been in the back of my mind, but having my suspicions shared by the doctor was something altogether different.  We wouldn't know for sure until I had my ultrasound, but in my gut, I knew it was true. Twins.

"
June tenth will be fine," Chance said.

"
What?
No! That's too soon!"

"
For your next appointment," he clarified, eyes crinkling in amusement. "She asked you twice, but you were somewhere else."

The receptionist smiled understandingly.
"No problem. I get that a lot. That's why it's always nice when dad comes along."

"
Oh, right," I said distractedly, taking the appointment card she handed me and opening my wallet to tuck it inside. But my attention was caught by a folded piece of paper sticking out from behind my KPL library card. I pulled it out and unfolded it. There were just two words, in blocky black print.

You'll die.

My knees went week and my vision went all swimmy.

"
Whoa," Chance said, catching my arm as my legs buckled.

Dimly, I heard the receptionist say,
"That happens a lot, too. Let me get her some water"

You'll die.

The piece of paper fluttered from my limp fingers to land on the burgundy carpet, and I fainted. Again. I was officially turning into my mother.

"I don't care if you're driving. You ask me one more time if I'm okay, and I'm going to belt you."

Chance wasn
't amused. His face was remote as he maneuvered the curving road that led up to the farm. I sighed.

"
Seriously. It just wigged me out, is all. Somebody had their grubby hands in my purse. That's enough to freak anyone out. What if they used my Chapstick?"

He didn
't respond to my stab at levity, and I didn't blame him, but I wasn't happy with the return of Semper Fi Chance. Gravel spit under the spinning tires as he turned and gunned it up the dirt driveway. A chicken squawked and flapped off in a rustle of feathers when he skidded to a stop in front of the house. Already parked there was a gleaming black Harley.