Page 31 of Come For Me
Chapter Twelve
Olivia laid her hand on Dain’s bouncing knee. “Be still.”
“Still? I’m still.” He glanced at the thick black watch on his wrist, the kind his entire team wore, with more displays and buttons than she’d ever figure out how to read. The watch complemented the masculine sprinkle of black hair along his muscular arm, but today that arm was twitchy. Just like his knee.
She clamped down on the thick thigh muscle beneath her hand. “You are not.”
“How much longer?”
“Not long.” It better not be long. Her bladder already felt like an over-full balloon about to explode from the water they’d ordered her to drink. She had a feeling when they got into the exam room for the ultrasound, the organ would obscure any view of the baby they hoped to have. And that was if she managed not to wet the table while they ran the probe over her stomach.
Dain sat still for maybe thirty seconds before his leg started twitching again. Frustration began a slow rise in the back of Olivia’s mind, but she refused to give it room to grow. Nothing was going to ruin this moment—not Dain’s nerves, not her need to pee, nothing.
They both needed distracting, that was all.
“I’m surprised your team didn’t show up.” She wouldn’t have put it past them. They really were like her and Dain’s kids sometimes. Her lip quirked up. Guess she wasn’t a totally inexperienced mom after all—she had four grown kids to prove it.
“Mmm.”
Gimme something to work with here, husband.
“So what’s the pool up to now?” They had a running bet on the sex of the baby, though she didn’t know who had voted on what.
“Five hundred.”
Olivia choked, both from the number and from the sound of Saint’s voice at her elbow. When had the damn door opened? “What are you all doing here?”
And it was all of them. Saint, King, and Elliot lined up like good little soldiers in the waiting room, staring down at her with mixed degrees of amusement. They even had their weapons strapped in place. What, did they think she might come under attack from the ultrasound tech?
She glanced at Dain. He didn’t look surprised. She narrowed her eyes at him.
Dain shrugged.
Men.
She looked to Elliot, hoping for at least some spark of sanity there. “What are you all doing here?”
Elliot’s brow creased. “Dain said you had an appointment.” Likeobviously we’d be here.
The pain in Olivia’s bladder precluded following that line of thinking.
Saint’s mind was back on the baby pool, apparently. “Five hundred as of this morning, but that’s just us. The other teams have their own pools.”
“Why would the other teams have pools?” She turned her back to Saint, unable to handle the full force of the entire team’s stare at the moment. Dain was easier. “How did this happen?”
That distracted Dain enough to forget his nerves. He grinned and slanted her an arch look, the boyish expression at odds with the sprinkling of gray barely beginning to show in the stubble along his chin. He’d gotten out of their joint shower too late to shave this morning. “I’m a popular guy, you know.”
“No doubt.”
He opened his mouth, probably to say something about her sass. Elliot interrupted.
“Don’t worry, Livie. Whoever wins, the money is going into the kid’s college fund. We can’t have our baby starting out life poor. I mean, look at his dad.”
Olivia did. “‘Our baby.’”
Dain had the grace to look the slightest bit sheepish. She turned to Elliot. “‘His’?”
Elliot tilted her head, her gaze questioning. “You don’t think he”—she nodded to Dain—”would throw a girl, do you? I mean, it’s Dain.”
