The Baby Arrangement (The Daycare Chronicles 3)

“See...right here,” the technician said. “This is your baby.”

She didn’t see a baby. She saw something that looked kind of like a peanut still in the shell. A really small one. If she looked really hard at the differences in the shadows, she could almost make out a bunny head, too.

“Is there a heartbeat?”

“Not yet,” the technician said, moving her apparatus around. She’d grown quiet. Her tone more business-like than chipper. Honing in on one part of Mallory’s stomach, she put more gel on her and stared at the screen.

Oh, God. Everything wasn’t okay.

She couldn’t do this. No. It wasn’t right.

She took a deep breath. She had to handle what life gave her. There simply was no other choice. Tucker had taught her that. Her sweet baby boy. He’d be in heaven, watching over her.

“There...” Frowning, Adelaide held the transformer still.

“Is that a heartbeat?” It sounded different from what she remembered of Tucker’s. Of course he’d been older. But the sound was so...jumbled. Not a regular rhythm.

There was something wrong with her baby’s heart.

“It’s two actually,” the woman said. “I wasn’t sure at first, but there are definitely two babies there.”

Two babies?

But...

“Do twins run in your family?”

She had no idea. And Braden’s? Did they run in his? She didn’t know that, either.

But she knew she could find out.

And she would.

As soon as she got a hold of herself.

She was having two babies? Kids who’d always have each other. Who’d never know what it was to grow up alone.

Two little ones to hold. To raise. To watch grow.

Twice the love.

Lying on the table with her smeared belly exposed, Mallory burst into tears.

Chapter Thirteen

Braden was getting ready to go into a theater with Anna to see a touring Broadway production of Hamilton, something she particularly wanted to see, when his phone buzzed with Mallory’s call.

“I’m sorry. I have to take this,” he told her, leaving her to find their seats on her own while he stepped out into the lobby.

“Everything okay?” he asked. She almost never called in the evening.

“I just...was wondering...when you’re going to be in San Diego.”

“I can come tonight if you need me. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I’m just calling to arrange a meal. You know, lunch or dinner, so we can talk.”

Her words said one thing, her tone of voice another. His concern turned into something more.