LITMIR.BIZ

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amazing,’ Freya admitted.

      ‘Does he know about the pregnancy?’

      ‘Yes,’ Freya said. ‘He knows and we both want the baby. It’s just a bit too soon to know if we want the other...’ Then she looked at Hilary and a doctor’s office doubled as a very nice confessional. ‘Well, it’s not too soon for me to know but I’m trying not to push and crowd him and just see where we go...’

      And it was time to see where this pregnancy was going.

      She lay on an examination table and Hilary had a feel of her flat stomach and squirted some jelly onto it.

      ‘I guess you might not see much,’ Freya said, ‘given it’s so early and...’ She chatted to keep herself busy. ‘I haven’t got a full bladder, so you probably can’t—’

      ‘Freya,’ Hilary asked, ‘how often do you menstruate?’

      ‘Every six months or so.’

      ‘Okay.’

      And she was going to be told, no, Freya knew, that maybe in six months or so’s time that she could try again.

      ‘Well, when your ovaries zap, they really zap,’ Hilary said, and she turned the screen. ‘What do you see?’

      A map of the moon, Freya thought, and then she looked again and there was a tiny person, a little bean with a head and a flicker that was a heart.

      ‘Oh...’ Freya said, because she was still pregnant.

      ‘And over here,’ Hilary said, and Freya’s eyes wandered to another little bean and another tiny flicker that was a heart.

      ‘Beautiful embryos,’ Hilary said. ‘Their position is perfect and their heartbeats are strong and a very good rate...’

      ‘Their?’ Freya checked.

      ‘Twins,’ Hilary said. ‘So get used to throwing up for a few more weeks. Double everything, including the fun.’

      ‘What about the bleeding?’

      ‘It happens,’ Hilary said.

      ‘Do I have to be careful?’

      ‘I tend to find they stay put or not whatever a woman does,’ Hilary said, ‘and these two look to me like they’re staying put.’

      It was overwhelming, completely, and then she thought about telling Zack that they were having twins and she blew out a breath.

      Oh!

      Drifter Zack the father of twins.

      Freya had blood taken and then thanked Hilary and walked out to her car. She sat there for ages and then drove home and collected Cleo’s ashes, feeling so glad she’d told her about the baby before she had died.

      Babies!

      ‘Thank you,’ Freya said, as she scattered her friend’s ashes into the huge ocean that separated the US and Australia. It was a place Cleo had loved in younger days and she was so glad of the gift James had given her at a time she had been so fragile.

      Not any more.

      Oh, it was a sad and happy day and she watched the sun go down and thought of Cleo. Her phone rang and when she saw it was Zack she answered it.

      ‘Hi,’ Freya said.

      ‘You’ve been crying?’

      ‘Yes, I scattered Cleo’s ashes. And don’t you dare suggest I get another dog.’

      ‘How was your client?’

      ‘It went well,’ Freya said. ‘How was surgery?’

      ‘Long,’ Zack said. ‘Have you had any more bleeding?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘That’s good.’

      ‘It is,’ Freya said. She didn’t want to tell him the news over the phone and decided she’d wait till a more suitable time than the last time she’d dropped a bombshell on him.

      ‘Freya, can I ask a favour? I’m going to be here all night and I’m supposed to be speaking to my parents. They’re driving me mad with video chats. Can you stop by the hotel and bring my adaptor?’

      ‘Adaptor?’

      ‘I don’t have US appliances and I need to charge my laptop.’

      ‘Oh.’

      Well, what chance did they have? Freya thought as she let herself into his hotel room. Even their plugs were wired differently.

      Freya lay on the bed in a room that had seen an awful lot of their goings-on and she smiled and decided to pinch a shirt of Zack’s while she was there.

      And if he found out, so what?

      It wasn’t a crime to be in lust, she would tell him, and just leave the love part out.

      She drove to The Hills and there was Stephanie and her beady eyes at Reception, mentally weighing Freya as she walked in.

      ‘Hi, Freya.’

      ‘Hi.’ Freya smiled but didn’t stop for conversation. Thanks to Stephanie, rumours were flying but because of her past everyone was assuming her eating disorder was back with a vengeance, rather than that she had a baby on board.

      Two babies.

      Yikes!

      She knocked on his office door and waited.

      ‘Come in,’ Zack called, and as she stepped in it dawned on Freya the possible real reason she was here.

      The room was in darkness and, as memory served, Zack liked to unwind after Theatre.

      ‘Did you get me here to give you...?’ And then she stopped because there was a table and two places laid and it was lit by a candle.

      ‘Valentine’s Day,’ Zack said.

      Oh, so it was.

      ‘What did you get me?’ Zack asked.

      ‘You don’t do Valentine’s Day,’ Freya said. She had truly forgotten. ‘Actually, I’ve never done Valentine’s Day either.’

      She sat at the table and as lovely as it all was it was dark.

      ‘I can’t see you,’ Freya said, and he laughed and put the lights on.

      ‘Better?’ Zack said, and now that she could see him it was. ‘I got you a present.’

      ‘Are you trying to make me feel extra-awkward for forgetting?’

      ‘I am.’ Zack nodded.

      ‘And then I’d have been accused of being over the top,’ Freya said.

      ‘You are over the top, Freya,’ Zack said, and he went behind his desk and very carefully carried over a very large box.

      Oh, no, Freya thought as he gingerly put it down, and she watched for movement and saw all the little holes punched in the box so it could breathe.

      He’d got her a puppy.

      And she didn’t want one.

      ‘Zack...’

      ‘Just open it.’

      ‘I don’t want it.’

      ‘You might when you see it.’

      Twins and a dog, Freya thought. Well, there goes any chance of freedom for the next two decades. And what about dog jealousy? And yet of course she was going to love her new puppy, it had come from Zack after all and it beat stealing a shirt from his wardrobe.

      Freya pulled back the lid, waiting for a wet nose to peek out, but it didn’t.

      The box was empty, except for one thing.

      A

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