Page 89 of Grave Curse

Smart man.

No less than two minutes later Avis, as calm as a spring breeze, came in through the curtain with Tyr nipping at her heels, looking highly freaked out but also strangely chastened, with his hands folded tightly together in front of him.

“Here is your Prince Charming, Miss Ginger. He’s going to use his indoor voice the entire time he’s back here in Triage, because yelling like a five-year-old to get what he wants is going to get him kicked out. Right, Mr. Colgrave?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very good. By the way, honey,” Avis added, tipping me a wink on her way out, “you were right. You did train him well.”

“Told you,” I said pertly, then beamed at Tyr as we were left alone. “Um. Hi. Quite a surprise, this.”

“Are you okay?” Not at all inclined to return my smile, he surged up to the side of my gurney and carefully touched the bandage on my forehead. “What happened? Did someone roll up on you? Who did this? Did you recognize them?”

“Tyr, stop,” I finally broke in when he took a breath. “No one rolled up on me, okay? Calm down.”

“Woman, do not tell me to calm down when I am perfectly calm.”

Right. “Then how come you have murder in your eyes?”

“I just want to know who did this to you.”

“No one. If anything, I guess you could say that I did this to myself.”

He scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“I fainted,” I admitted sheepishly. Some badass biker chick I was. “I was getting us coffees at this cute little coffee bar set up in the cafeteria, just like I said I was going to do. Then someone walked by with a tray of food that smelled so utterly disgusting I got hit with a wave of nausea. Then I got dizzy, and then—lights out.” Seriously, this was so embarrassing I could hardly look himin the eye. “I must’ve hit my head on the coffee bar’s counter on my way down, but the doc who initially examined me doesn’t think I have a concussion. I’m just so sorry about this.”

“Baby girl, don’t be sorry.” Like magic, the murder in his expression turned to crushing concern as he moved in for a careful kiss, as if he feared I might shatter. “You just need to take it easy while they figure out what’s going on with you.”

“I’m hopeful that we’ve done just that.” The smallish, bespectacled doctor who had initially examined me when I first arrived in the ER appeared through the curtain with a beaming Avis by his side. “We still have a few more tests to run, Ms. Sisko, but for now you’re testing positive for pregnancy.”

I gasped, and the room went swirly like it had in the cafeteria. And then…

“…don’t understand, why does she keep doing this? I’ve known her since she was five, she’s never fainted before in her life. Is there something wrong with her? Or the baby.Oh my God, is the baby okay?”

Yeah. Tyr was going to be all sorts of fun for the next nine months.

“Mr. Colgrave, in all probability Ms. Sisko is just dehydrated, so we’ll get her on an IV to top off her tanks before sending her home. Basically her body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing—shunting all available resources toward the creation of a new human being.”

“Or human beings.” I opened my eyes and stared up at a seriously freaked-out Tyr. “Hi again.”

“Hi.”

Oh boy. His voice shook.

Gamely, I tried to smile. “There’s something I should probably tell you at this point, baby. Audrey was actually a twin, but her mother miscarried one of the fetuses. And Audrey’s mother was part of a triplet set, and a few generations beforethat, there was another multiple birth, though I can’t remember what it was. But since I was a single birth, that chain’s been broken, right? And since I’m older, I would think the chances of a multiple birth would go down.”

“You’d think so, but the opposite is actually true.” The doctor closed in on the other side of the gurney and picked up my wrist to check my pulse. “The older an expectant mother is, the higher chance there is for a multiple birth.”

Good grief, I almost fainted again. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. More to the point, if you come from a line where you’re genetically predisposed to such rarities, your chances of a multiple birth grow exponentially. So, I think at this point it would be smart to bring in our multiple-birth OB/GYN specialist to consult with the two of you before we discharge you, just to be on the safe side.”

“Definitely,” Tyr said at once, squeezing my hand so hard it was a wonder my fingers didn’t pop off and shoot across the room. “The safe side is where we want to be.”

“Excellent,” the doctor nodded and grabbed up his phone to thumb-type furiously, no doubt calling in the specialist. “We’re also going to get you started on prenatal vitamins right away, as your body is clearly telling us it now needs all the support it can get. Better safe than sorry.”

“Congratulations, you two,” Avis smiled before scooting off to get the IV.

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