ALISON"Oh, my gosh. Look at this. It's so tiny!" I lifted a precious white cotton sleeper from the gift bag, holding it aloft so that everyone could coo over it. The front of the little outfit was embroidered with ducks and bunnies-and, I saw with a smile, there were miniature stethoscopes and footballs mixed in, too. "Anna, I love it. Thank you so much." I held the sleeper to my chest. "I thought it might make a nice coming-home outfit." The older woman smiled. "Anna, didn't I tell you that Alison's giving birth at home?" Emma piped up. "Oh, did you?" Anna shook her head. "Well, either way, I hope he or she wears it in good health." "Thank you," I said again, and then raised my voice a little bit to be heard about the low-level chatter. "Thank you, everyone. I can't tell you how much all of this means to me. To us." There was a smattering of applause and a swell of voices as women began to stand up or turn to others to continue conversations. I sighed, wondering how a
NOAH"This is all so beautiful." My mother stood with me on the front porch of Emma and Deacon's cabin, gazing out over the neatly planted rows of vegetables and the trees beyond. "Emma and Deacon have built a beautiful home here.""Yeah, they have," I agreed. "Although I'm not sure how much Deacon had to do with the building since he was overseas when the rest of us were working so hard. Still, they both made it more of a home. They're happy here.""And what about you?" My mother glanced at me. "You're living with Alison now at her house in that small town? What about your home?"I shrugged. "I don't really know," I admitted. "I've had some thoughts, and a couple of ideas, but I don't want to make any big decisions until after the baby comes."My mother eyed me. "Will you think that I'm interfering again if I ask how you and Alison are getting along?"I sighed heavily. "No, it's not interfering. I just don't have a good answer for you. We're …" I squinted, trying to figure out h
ALISON"Have you seen my keys?"I made my way carefully down the steps, intentionally not rushing even though I was running late for work. My balance had been crap lately which wasn't any surprise considering the fact that I was carrying an immense amount of weight out in front now. I'd learned to take my time going down the steps. Or suffer the consequences."Aren't they on the hook?" Noah stepped into the foyer, sipping a cup of coffee. I tried to ignore the fact that he looked like sex on fire with his bare feet, tight faded blue jeans that were unbuttoned at the waist, and an open cotton shirt lying like a lover's kiss over his shoulders. "Maybe they are. I haven't checked yet," I replied tartly, a little salty because I was mad at myself for how much I still wanted this man. "It takes me so long to get from one point to the other that I try to call ahead nowadays."Noah chuckled. "All right then, darlin'. You stay there, and I'll hunt your keys." I picked up my handbag fro
NOAH"Spencer." Coach stood up from where he was sitting at a small round table in the corner of the coffee shop. He stretched out a hand toward me. "Good to see you. You look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you.""Thank you, sir." I shook his hand. "I feel a hell of a lot better than I did then, too. I want to say again, sir, that I'm sorry for –""No more apologies, Spencer." Coach shook his head. "That's water under the bridge now." He hesitated. "I assume you saw all the paperwork for your retirement?""Yeah." I nodded. "Everything looked good to me. And I appreciate the team waiting as long as you did to make the announcement. I heard from the head of PR that you're going to release a statement next week?"Coach nodded. "Of course, it's more of a formality now than anything else. I don't think anybody is under the impression that you're going to be coming back to play with us this year. Not after we drafted Ramonez.""True," I chuckled, thinking of the guy wh
ALISON"Read me that last part again?" Noah and I were sitting in the nursery, surrounded by boxes, gift bags, and about a million pieces of a pine crib. He had spent the last two weeks focusing on the nursery. He'd painted the room a lovely pale yellow color, insisting that I stay with Emma and Deacon at the cabin for the two nights after he'd completed the first and second coats so that I didn't have to inhale the paint fumes. Together, we had selected the crib and the dressing table. Noah's mother had sent us the cradle that all of her children had slept in, and that was already set up in my bedroom.Now, with my due date less than ten days away, we were finally tackling the project of building all of the furniture that hadn't come pre-assembled. I squinted at the paper in my hand, trying to decipher the words."I'm pretty sure that this was translated directly from Swedish by someone who didn't speak English," I commented. "It doesn't seem to make sense.""Does it say at wh
NOAH"What's the world record for the longest pregnancy ever?" I glanced up at Alison from the book I was reading. We were both lying on her bed while a movie that neither of us was very invested in played on the TV. The couch downstairs had become too uncomfortable for her over the past week or so, so we'd begun hanging out here in her room. It was strictly for comfort, though; we stayed on top of the covers, with Alison on one side while I stuck to the other. It was a king-sized bed with plenty of room for us. But while we hadn't hesitated to cuddle and kiss on the sofa, something about being on the bed made us more cautious. I didn't know why, exactly; Alison was so tired of being pregnant that she wasn't up for much of anything other than television lately. She'd stopped going into the office after her due date since she'd already arranged with Dr. Johanson to cover her hours. So we were both at home now all the time . . . just waiting.She really was huge. While the ultraso
NOAHNow I got it. The night we'd first had sex-the night after Emma and Deacon's wedding-we'd challenged each other to come up with the sexiest, most outrageous names for cocktails. Alison was playing the game again."Ohhhhh." I grinned. "I still don't believe that last one is legit.""It totally is. The bartender confirmed it." With a smile that was deceptively seductive for an extremely pregnant woman, she reached down to grasp the bottom of her oversized T-shirt-which was not so oversized just now-and lifted it over her head. I helped just to make sure she didn't topple over in the process. It was the first time I'd really seen her without a shirt in many months. My first few impressions were awe at the size of her swollen middle. I knew she was huge, but damn. The skin was stretched as tight as a drum, and her belly button looked like a cork just about to give way. And her boobs-they were incredible. Within the utilitarian maternity bra, they were still the sexiest breasts
ALISON Spoiler alert: having sex with Noah did not start my labor.But it sure was worth the effort. Two days after that monumental night-and after we'd given it the good old college try several more times-we went to Maggie's office. I was in a rotten mood-being a million years pregnant can do that to a person-and poor Noah looked a little haggard. He'd been sleeping with me in my bed (we both clung to the excuse that if I went into labor, I'd want him closer than across the hall), which meant that he woke up whenever I had to climb out of that bed to pee. He thought I'd been exaggerating about how often I had to go. He was quickly disabused of that notion. After a quick exam, Maggie made some notes on her tablet and then turned to the both of us. "So listen," she began. "Do you want to have this baby?" I stared at her as though she'd lost her mind. "What the hell do you think I've been trying to do for over three weeks now, Maggie?" I bellowed. "Of course, I want to have th