Time for Love , The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 9 by Marie Force Read Free Book Online Page B

descending, so I’d like to take a quick ultrasound while I’ve got you.”
    “Is that unusual?” Joe asked, immediately tense.
    “Not entirely, but we like to see the baby starting to move into birth position at this point. He or she might be a little behind schedule, but I’d like to take a look just to be sure.” She removed Janey’s feet from the stirrups and put the table extender back in place. “Be right back.”
    “What does that mean?” Joe asked the second she closed the door.  
    “You’re chilling out, remember?”
    He grunted out a reply, but his face was a study in tension.
    “Let’s talk about something besides the baby.”
    “Like what?”
    “I talked to your mother this morning. She’s going crazy cleaning and cooking and getting ready for Seamus’s mother to get here. I offered to help her, but she won’t let me do a thing.”
    “You’re damned right you’re not doing a thing.”
    “Joseph… You and I are going to have our first major marital blowout if you don’t calm the hell down .”
    “I am calm! This is me being calm!”
    She narrowed her eyes and gave him her best pissed-off look as Victoria wheeled in the ultrasound machine, arranged a sheet over her lap and raised her gown to expose her belly. “Try to breathe normally and stay very still.”
    It took a few minutes of positioning the wand before the baby’s image appeared on the screen.
    Joe gasped and squeezed Janey’s hand. “Oh, there he is! Wow, look at that.”
    The wonder she heard in his tone almost made up for the crazy way he’d been behaving the last few weeks. “I thought you’d decided he was a she.”
    “He, she, I don’t care either way.”
    “Just as I suspected,” Victoria said, studying the screen. “The baby is in breech position, which isn’t dangerous or anything, but he—or she—is going to have to turn around before delivery, or we’re looking at a C-section.” She pointed to the screen. “See the feet, there?”
    “Uh-huh.” Fascinated by the crystal-clear view of her baby’s toes, Janey wasn’t seeing much of anything else.  
    “They should be up here by now. Everything else looks really good, though. You’re sure you don’t want to know what you’re having?”
    “We’re sure,” Janey said, answering for both of them before Joe could change his mind.  
    Victoria wiped the gel off Janey’s belly and helped her to sit up. “We’ll keep an eye on it and make some delivery decisions when you get closer to thirty-six weeks. In the meantime, I’d like to see you next week for another check of your blood pressure. It was a tiny bit elevated today, so we’ll need to monitor that, too. You’re not working anymore, are you?”
    “No, my last day was Friday. Joe wanted me to relax for a few weeks before the baby gets here, and I’ve been so tired he didn’t have to twist my arm.” Doc and the staff at the vet clinic had thrown a shower for her and invited many of their patients, which Janey had loved.  
    “Good. Take it easy, stay off your feet, no stress. Relax. That’s your job now, Mom. Dad, your job is to make sure she does nothing too strenuous and keeps the stress to a minimum. Here’s your chance to earn some major points.”
    “Hear that?” Janey said to her husband. “Keep the stress to a minimum.”
    He scowled at her. “I heard it.”
    “Hang in there, Janey.” Victoria patted Janey’s arm. “You’re in the home stretch.”
    Stretch seemed to be the key word, and she wondered at times how much more her skin could expand without bursting open. How her mother had ever done this five times was beyond her. This baby would be lucky to get a sibling, let alone four of them.
    As Joe helped her into her tent of a sundress, Janey acknowledged to herself what she hadn’t shared with anyone else, even Joe. She hated being pregnant. She hated feeling fat and bloated and swollen and achy all over. She hated not being able to work or have sex comfortably or