Page 90 of Expecting an Argument
“Nope,” the man said with a smile and a quick shake of his head. “The name is Johnny Charles Fitzpatrick, but everyone just calls me—”
“Chuck?” A small smile tugged on the corners of my mouth. “You’re Chuck!”
Another pair of footsteps entered the helicopter and Chuck looked over his shoulder.
“You told your girl about me?” Chuck said as he moved toward the open door. “I’m flattered!”
Beau rolled my suitcase into the helicopter before kneeling in front of me.
“Don’t let your head get so big that you can’t squeeze into the cockpit,” Beau said to the wide open doorway. “We need to get in the air.”
My body tensed with another contraction before I could think to be afraid. After the pain crested, I opened my eyes to find Ashley setting my purse near my feet.
Her face was pale, but she gave me a reassuring look and patted my calf. “You can do this. Remember what your mom always said.”
“I can do hard things,”I mentally recited.
Both babies moved inside me and I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around my belly. The twins were all right. Beau was going to take care of us. We were going to be fine.
The helicopter door slid shut with a loud click and my eyes popped open. Beau had ignored the wide, comfortable-looking seats behind him and stayed kneeling in front of me.
My hand spread across my belly as I looked at him. “It’s today, isn’t it?”
His mouth formed a tight line. “Dr. Ornelas told me she’s just going to check you out, but statistically half of all twins are born before thirty-six weeks. Odds are in favor of you being right.”
Statistics. Odds. The proposal note.
My blood ran cold and my lip trembled. “Beau, the ring—”
“Don’t.” He took my hand. “Don’t worry about that right now.”
My chest shook as my breathing became more and more labored. “Damnit, Beau, you can’t expect me to look at you and not address—”
He brought the back of my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “Olivia, I waited ten years for you to come back into my life. I can wait a little longer for you to marry me.”
A hollow laugh, light as a luna moth, escaped from my lips.
“You are so presumptuous,” I whispered with a smile, “andegotistical…and…”
I blinked and Beau’s face disappeared. I stared at the upper edge of the wide window on the helicopter door, watching the tiny lights of city buildings approach us in the night.
Wait…lights of city buildings?
A tiny gasp shot through my throat and I looked down, finding Beau still kneeling at my side.
“How did…how did we get in the air?” I asked breathlessly. “What happened?”
His brows furrowed. “We’ve been flying for a while. You were just saying that you wondered if the twins were going to be born under a scorpion moon or something. Do you not remember?”
“Scorpio moon,” I corrected. “But…no. I don’t remember any of that.”
What was going on? I hadn’t lost consciousness because I had been talking, but what about the blood?
“Beau,” I asked timidly, pointedly darting my eyes toward my hips, “am I…?”
Beau took the hint and glanced down. His eyes widened.
“What’s wrong?” I said as my heart started to race. “How bad is it? Oh God, this is white leather…”
