Chapter 58 : Fated Babe

Maeve

Cleo felt over my belly, finding a spot just below my navel where my stomach went suddenly limp, as though the muscles I had there just up and disappeared. I looked down, slightly concerned.

“It’s just your ligaments loosening up,” she said with a smile, unrolling a length of measuring tape and laying it vertically over my skin. “You’re going to start feeling

something like… being snapped with a rubber band, every once in a while, around your waist.”

“Yeah, I’ve felt that a few times,” I said, watching as she measured my stomach. I definitely wasn’t showing yet, but I did feel a little softer, looser. I had tried to explain it to Troy, trying to find a word for the way my body felt. What had he called it? Limp noodle?

Ah, yes. My bones felt like overcooked pasta. I was suddenly clumsy, dizzy, and extremely fatigued. I felt so out of sorts, like my mind and body were no longer connecting. And when I brought it up to Cleo, she had simply nodded, telling me it was all totally and completely normal.

“You’re measuring ahead, but I expected that, carrying twins and all,” Cleo said, rolling the tape around her finger and putting it back into the bag Una had given her, which was full of practically everything needed to tend to a pregnancy and deliver a baby. She pulled out a stethoscope next, placing it on my skin to listen to whatever lay beneath.

“Can you hear them yet?” | asked. She put the stethoscope away and gently prodded my stomach. It was amazing to watch her work. She had delivered so many children during the course of her career. There was no one else I trusted with my pregnancy more than Cleo.

She was also the only person even remotely qualified to deliver the babies, especially given the fact that we were traveling into the unknown.

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“Not very well, but I guarantee you, they’re there. Both of them. You’re probably txo

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months along, I’d say.”

“When will she start getting round?” Myla was standing in the corner of the room! shared with Troy, watching us with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked a little uncomfortable.

“I already feel round,” I said as I pulled my shirt down. I struggled suddenly to sit upright, needing Cleo’s assistance as a wave of dizziness washed over me.

“You’re likely a little anemic, Maeve. I’ll let Olly know. You’ll need more iron in your diet.”

“Your boobs are huge,” Myla said curtly, and both Cleo and I turned to her.

“Are you okay,” I said, but Myla was already out the door, slamming it shut behind her. “What’s her problem?”

Cleo sighed deeply as she put her tools back in the bag, running her fingers along the smooth leather. “Her biological mother died in childbirth, remember?”

“Oh,” I replied, feeling incredibly insensitive. I blushed, drawing my knees into my chest. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,”

“It’s not you, honey. She’s concerned.”

“But… I’ll be fine, won’t I?

Cleo gave me a soft smile, nodding. “You’ll be fine. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, either.”

“Is that what she’s upset about?”

Cleo folded her hands in her lap as she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking over at me with a look that told me whatever was said between us was not, under any circumstances, to be repeated.

“Myla asked me recently how to prevent a pregnancy from occurring. She is terrified of it, Maeve. She may not have known her mother, but she was orphaned moments after she was born. That would make anyone have second thoughts.”

“She was talking about having ten children with Keaton when we were in Dianny-”

“And maybe someday she will, but for now…” Cleo trailed off, picking at a patchwork

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quilt “She’s not ready. And I don’t think Keaton is, either.”

“What did you tell her to do?” I asked, genuinely curious. I hadn’t ever even considered it given that I was in a situation where I was supposed to get pregnant instead of not

*Not have sex, for one. But that’s not plausible after meeting your mate, is it?” Cleo laughed, shaking her head.copy right hot novel pub