Page 39 of His to Mate

Ann walked back into a smaller office and looked as Meg and Skye worked together. Skye read out the instructions and Meg hit the buttons as directed. Nothing happened, so Ann sat down in a chair and waited. Her foot started to tap again, and Katy whined to get into her lap. She picked the puppy up and put her down. Katy crawled up from her lap to the top her chest. She stuck her head into Ann’s hair, down for the moment, and curled around her neck, her warm little belly right against Ann’s skin.

Ann had become accustomed to the dog doing that quickly, and didn’t think about it. She simply put her head down to cradle the puppy there and waited. “You two are about to kill me, you know that, don’t you?”

“Sorry, just trying to get this combination right. Nothing I do seems to work.” Meg handed it over to Skye, and the woman followed the instructions with the scanner pointed at Meg.

Lights came on, and a blue light came out of the scanner. There were a variety of sections on the scanner, as far as Ann could see. It looked like a much larger version of the scanners that used to be a part of the checkout lines in stores. The screen was around 10 inches long and four inches wide. It was almost too unruly for the women to hold and operate, but it worked.

“Perfectly healthy,” Skye announced, and then looked at Ann. “You ready for this?”

“Can you hold Katy for me, Meg? I don’t want her to get in the way.” Ann handed her puppy over to the other woman and stood against the wall. She stood as still as she could, but just when Skye was about to start, she moved, her face twisted with worry. “Are you sure this is safe for the baby?”

“I don’t know, honestly, Ann. I have to imagine it’s fine. The baby is made up of the same cells as you, and it shouldn’t hurt it.” She looked at Ann and then spoke again. “Besides, I think they’d warn us if there could be a problem for pregnant ladies.”

“Okay. Let’s do it then.” Ann took a deep breath and stood up straight once more. She held her head high and waited for Skye to start.

It took the other woman two attempts before the blue ray came out and scanned Ann from head to toe. Ann watched Skye’s face for any signs of what the test revealed, but the woman’s face didn’t change at all. Skye watched the display screens, and nodded a couple of times, but she didn’t reveal anything.

“Well?” Ann finally asked, her voice impatient.

“I’m still reading this stuff, hang on.”

“What do you mean you’re still reading? You declared Meg perfectly healthy in a second. What’s on that thing?” Ann walked over to stare at the screens. Words and charts appeared all over the surface. Several areas were lit up in red. “What’s that?”

“Your blood pressure is up, but that might just be your emotions. You’re also a little bit malnourished. I imagine it’s from all the vomiting. You need some more B-vitamins, and some vitamin C would do you some good. It’s this one that concerns me the most.” Skye tapped at a small box that glowed red and orange. “Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what.”

“Alright, we’ll figure it out, but am I pregnant?” She needed to know, and she felt like Skye was messing with her. She knew the woman wasn’t, but it still felt like it.

“I think you need to call Rager.” Skye finally looked up at her. She had a smile on her face. “Because yes, you are most definitely pregnant. This shows elevated levels of the pregnancy hormones. And see here? That’s the baby.”

Another small screen showed a small smudge and Ann looked down at it closely. Almost like an ultrasound, the scan didn’t show a lot, but there was definitely a shape there that she was familiar with from ultrasound pictures. Her baby. It was real. Her hands went to her stomach and her eyes filled up with tears. “My baby.”

“Your baby, Ann. You really are pregnant my friend, no more need to stress about it now. You can scavenge all the baby clothes you want.”

“We have to keep it secret until I can tell Rager. And I guess he’ll need to tell his men, or something. I don’t know. I’m kind of scared what will happen when they find out. You know those people aren’t all happy about me.”

“We’ll keep you safe if Rager can’t, Ann. Don’t you worry about that,” Meg said from behind Skye. “I’m sure he’s more than capable of keeping you safe, but just in case, we have ways down here to keep you from harm. You and your baby.”

Ann hugged the other woman, and then Skye. “My baby.”

She looked down at the screen again, at the little blot that showed up there and smiled. She had a feeling she wouldn’t stop smiling for days now. Not with that picture in her head. She took a happy breath and took Katy from Meg. She had to talk to Rager, today. No more putting it off, she had to talk to him. To tell him he was about to be a father.