“Okay.” I put down my book and faced her. “The record for the longest pregnancy is three hundred and seventy-five days.”
“Three hundred and seventy-five days?Are you fucking kidding me?” Her eyes were round. “That’s more than a year. That’s over three months longer than a typical pregnancy. Why in the hell did the doctor let that poor woman go that long?”
“It was in 1945, and I guess they probably didn’t intervene so much in those days. Also, they theorized the baby just developed very slowly. We know ours is all ready to go, according to the last ultrasound.”
Alison spread her hands over her bump and lowered her head, speaking in a slow, deep voice. “Now hear this. You have officially overstayed your welcome in my uterus. The time has come for you to vacate the premises. The exit is just below your head. Use it.”
Then she cocked her head as though waiting. I stayed quiet, but I couldn’t hide the grin that crept over my face. I knew that Alison was miserable, that she was impatient for the baby to arrive, and that she was anxious to get the birth over with, but she was so adorable that I had trouble keeping myself from pulling her into my arms.
“Damn it.” She threw her head back onto the pillows. “It didn’t work.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not an expert, but I think babies are notoriously impervious to following directions from their parents. Especially before birth.”
“Yeah.” She rolled to her side, facing me, her violet eyes gazing earnestly up into mine. “I’m sixteen days overdue, Noah. And I’ve tried everything that Maggie suggested: black cohosh. Castor oil. Walking. Yoga. Spicy foods.”
“I know. Those wings just about putmeinto labor.” I winced, remembering.
“Nothing has worked. Maggie said that with some women, they assume the dates might be off—maybe they didn’t know exactly when they conceived. But since I knew exactly when I got pregnant, we know that I’m overdue. Very overdue.”
I smiled, remembering. “The night of the wedding.”
“Yep. I mean, it could have been at your house later that week, but we were a lot more careful that night. We used brand-new condoms.”
“True.” I tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Try not to stress too much, Alison. The baby’s going to come. Just not on your schedule.”
“Oh, we are so far beyond my schedule that it’s not even funny,” she snorted. “I’d counted on delivering a week early.”
I frowned. “Why? First babies are notoriously late.”
“Most are, but I thought my baby would be the exception to the rule.” She sounded so mournful that I couldn’t help laughing. When she gazed at me reproachfully, her lower lip jutting out, I couldn’t help myself anymore. Sliding my arm under her, I rolled onto my back, taking her with me so that she half-sat, half-lay on my lap.
“Oh, sweetheart. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to relax. Enjoy this time. Get some sleep. Once the baby comes, we’re both going to need it.”
“I can’t sleep. I try, but I just can’t shut off my mind, and then I have to get up to pee every fifteen minutes—”
“That’s an exaggeration,” I put in.
“Not by much,” Alison shot back. “And it’s not your bladder, so shut it, buddy. And I can’t lay on my back or my stomach, and whenever I roll over, it’s like a major production. I have to move the body pillow, fix the sheet and the quilt . . . by the time I’m settled, I need to get up to go to the bathroom again, and then the whole process starts all over.”
“I’m sorry, babe,” I told her, pouring as much sincerity as possible into my voice. “If I could take a shift with being pregnant for you, I’d totally do it.”
“Hmph.” Alison sounded skeptical. “You wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. “My point is that if there were anything I could do to make it better, I would.”
She lifted her head, stared at me, and said, “Prove it.”
My brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, that when I said I’d tried everything that Maggie suggested, I wasn’t telling the whole truth. I haven’t triedeverything.” Her eyelids fell to half-mast, and she sent me a look that I realized was supposed to be a smolder.
“Maggie did not say that,” I muttered. “Did she?”
“She did so.” Alison reached up and rubbed her fingers alongside my jaw. “I swear she did. She told me that sex can initiate labor.”
I didn’t say anything for a few moments. I was in a precarious position here: I’d committed to protecting Alison’s heart from being injured by respecting the boundaries she’d put between us. True, we’d stretched some of those boundaries quite a bit, but still . . . kissing on the couch was a far cry from having sex. If this was what she wanted . . . as the father of her baby, I was duty-bound to step up and do whatever it might take to get this show on the road. But I had to tread carefully and be sure she knew what she was asking.
“Are you saying that you want us to have sex on the chance that it might make you go into labor?”
