More Than Forever (Providence Series Book 2) (13 page)

It hit me then how rough I’d been with her, so pulling my face out of her neck, I raised myself up on my shaking arms to see her face.  

“Did I hurt you?” 

She opened her eyes and burst out laughing. “No, Luke, you didn’t! Far from it.” 

“I’m sorry I was pretty much a one pump chump. It had been a long time without you.” Normally, I had stamina and could get Isla off at least three times before reaching it myself, but I wasn’t lying - it really had been a long time. 

Isla laughing underneath me was starting to make me hard again, so I shut her up by kissing her and gently withdrew, making her mewl into my mouth. Backing away from her, I got up off the bed then leaned over and grabbed her ankle and pulled her down the bed making her scream. 

“We need to get cleaned up and ready, Angel,” I said picking her up and carrying her into the bathroom. “Then, I’m gonna get you dirty again later.” 

While we were waiting for the shower to warm up, I looked down at the beauty in my arms and took in the perfection that was Isla. I hated corny statements like that, but she really was perfection and she was all mine. 

I
sla
 

On the way to Lombok
on the boat, I asked Luke what had been going on at home and how Cole and the security guy who’d been injured in the blast at Luke’s house were. When Luke got to the part about Cole being a unicorn, I laughed until there were tears running down my face.  

“He chased her around the hospital?” I wheezed. My poor babies were going to end up like scrambled eggs bouncing around like they were; I was laughing that hard. 

“Yup! And apparently yelled at Tony to get off his magical horn.” Luke laughed. 

The mental images were just too perfect and I made a note to ask Maya to see if she could get the security camera footage from the hospital so that we could watch it on repeat. 

After this morning, I was feeling more relaxed, but I couldn’t get myself to trust him fully. I kept waiting for something to happen or for him to leave me and break my heart. I knew that this was to be expected, but I’d let him into my body so surely trust should follow.  

Docking in Lombok, we got off the boat and into a taxi to take us to the Medical Center with Guntur as his men followed us in another taxi. As we drove through the streets, I took in the beauty that was Bali. There was an eclectic mix of people and styles everywhere and it was breath taking. We drove past shopfronts overflowing with wooden figurines, batik sarongs, flip flops, tanks and t-shirts with the Indonesian Beer called Bintang on them, stalls with silver…it was just beautiful. 

Pulling up to the Medical Center, we got out and entered the building, going straight to the reception desk. Guntur’s men were apparently spread around the outside and inside of the building, blending in with the crowds and watching everything like hawks. Guntur himself was to act like our local guide and translator so that we didn’t draw attention to ourselves, he played his role well as he asked where the OBGYN Department was.  Following him into an elevator, we all stayed quiet as we rode to the floor. I was scared but excited about seeing the babies again and finding out what sex they were. Underneath it all was the fear that they’d find something wrong and all of the dreams that I’d built up over the last couple of weeks would be shattered. 

Arriving at our floor, we got out and Guntur went to sign us in. Within minutes, we were being called through to the room where they would be doing the scan, bringing Guntur with us. The Medical Center he had booked me into may be new and state of the art, it was small, though, and not in the center of Lombok and not all of the doctors spoke English. My Bahasa was no way near conversation level. The most I could do was say
terima kasih,
which was thank you, and
silakan
for please, so Guntur was needed. 

Following the instructions that he translated for me, Luke lifted me up onto the table and I lay back, trying to get comfortable on the paper underneath me. I hated this stuff, it always tore as soon as you sat on it or moved;
what was the point
?  

The nurse came over and covered my lower half with a sheet and gently pulled my dress up over my stomach whilst making sure that the sheet stayed where it was. None of my shorts fit any more, so I was stuck in dresses, which was inconvenient because I wasn’t a huge fan of them, but it was all that I'd had available.  

I could see Luke shooting scowls in Guntur’s direction, and I started giggling because he was facing away from me in the corner of the room. 

“It’s not funny,” Luke grumbled, still scowling in Guntur’s direction every couple of seconds. 

Reaching out and grabbing his hand, I gave it a tug so he’d look at me. “I’m covered, no one can see anything so, do the poor guy a favor and take him out the dunce corner!” 

“Guntur,” he called just as the technician squirted ice cold jelly on my stomach shocking the hell out of me.
Oh my God, what did they do - freeze the stuff?

Looking over in Guntur’s direction, I smiled and rolled my eyes as the technician rolled the weird wand thing over my babies.

“Shit,” Luke gasped from beside me and my head snapped around to look at the screen while my heart froze. 

“What?” 

“Look, there’s our baby,” he was whispering now and watching it with a stunned look on his face. I knew how he felt, these babies were beautiful, little miracles. 

Guntur began interpreting what was being said for us, giving us the measurements of Thing One’s body and all of the other details that the technician was reeling off; basically Thing One was perfect. She moved on to Thing Two, who frustratingly was quite happy behind their sibling. They had to push down quite hard to get a proper scan which was uncomfortable, but seeing my miracles made it tolerable. 

Grinning as she continued to scan, I heard her say straight to Guntur, “
satu laki-laki”
.  Luke and I looked straight at him waiting for the translation to see him grinning which shocked me for a second because he was such a serious guy and I’d never seen him smile like that. 

“What did she say?” Luke said, impatient for more information. 

“Congratulations, baby one is a boy!” 

“A boy?” I whispered. Oh shit, this was really happening; I was going to be a mom and I had a son. 

Luke was busy staring back at the screen looking pale and as shocked as I felt. The technician was talking to the nurse who was standing behind her and I heard the word
perembuan
followed by
laki-laki
again. I was having two boys? 

Before I could ask Guntur, the technician turned around and started talking very quickly and gesturing and my heart froze. Was there something wrong with baby number two?  I’d been holding Luke’s hand throughout the scan and gave it a squeeze.  

“They are having problems,” Guntur started. “The way that the baby is positioned just now, behind the other and on its side, means they don’t know if it is a boy or a girl.” He explained. 

“So, nothing is wrong with the baby?” I asked. 

He asked the technician and she grinned and grabbed my hand, holding it tightly. “All okay. Very good.” 

I lay back, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. My biggest fear was something happening to someone that I loved, and these babies were now my life. The worry that something could happen to them, though, took over from time to time. Right now, my babies were fine. I might not know what Thing Two was, but I knew that I had a son. Luke squeezed my hand tightly and I opened my eyes and looked over at him to see him standing with tears in his eyes as he looked at the frozen image on the screen and then down at me. 

Leaning over me, he put his forehead on mine and croaked, “Thank you so much, Angel.” And then he kissed me softly. 

Chapter

ELEVEN

L
uke
 

H
olding Isla’s hand tightly
so that we didn’t get separated, we walked around going into various small shops. There were a couple of malls, but Isla wanted to shop this way and I had to admit I preferred it. There was so much to look at and so far, we had five full bags of things. Isla was having issues fitting into her clothes, so we’d bought her some stretchy shorts and some dresses. I had to admit, I loved that bump. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I was obsessed with it!  

I stood in front of a small shop filled with silver with Guntur and watched Isla as she walked around. The deal was - she picked, I paid. Why? Because I was so fucking happy and she deserved the world, which I was going to do everything that I could to give it to her.  

Watching her point to something and smile at the woman who was talking to her, I caught sight of a woman carrying a small child in a sarong made into a sling walking towards us. As she passed, I heard her say a word that I’d heard a couple of times and couldn’t figure out what it meant. 

“Hey, what did that lady call her kid there?” I asked Guntur. His eyebrows shot up over his sunglasses as he turned to look at me. 

“
Sayang
?” At my nod he shrugged. “It means darling or dear. It’s a common endearment that we call our loved ones.” 

Thanking him, I looked back at Isla to see a pile of silver jewelry forming beside her on the glass counter and grinned, looks like I got to treat her again. 

I
sla
 

Lying on Luke in the hammock
after dinner, I thought about the phone calls that we’d made when we got back. Luke’s mom Christie had always been quiet, but now she was on excitement overload and I loved every second of it. She was going to go shopping tomorrow to start getting her grandbabies things that they needed. Last week, I’d called Gram to let her know the good news, and, as expected, she was beyond delighted and was almost as bad as Christie when it came to buying stuff for her great grandbabies. Finding out that we had one boy for sure on the way today, just sent her into a spin. She might be getting old, but she was made of titanium and was still more independent than even I was.