Chapter 58 : Fated Babe

Maeve

Cleo felt over my belly, finding a spot just below my navel where my stomach went suddenly limp, as though the muscles I had there just up and disappeared. I looked down, slightly concerned.

“It’s just your ligaments loosening up,” she said with a smile, unrolling a length of measuring tape and laying it vertically over my skin. “You’re going to start feeling

something like… being snapped with a rubber band, every once in a while, around your waist.”

“Yeah, I’ve felt that a few times,” I said, watching as she measured my stomach. I definitely wasn’t showing yet, but I did feel a little softer, looser. I had tried to explain it to Troy, trying to find a word for the way my body felt. What had he called it? Limp noodle?

Ah, yes. My bones felt like overcooked pasta. I was suddenly clumsy, dizzy, and extremely fatigued. I felt so out of sorts, like my mind and body were no longer connecting. And when I brought it up to Cleo, she had simply nodded, telling me it was all totally and completely normal.

“You’re measuring ahead, but I expected that, carrying twins and all,” Cleo said, rolling the tape around her finger and putting it back into the bag Una had given her, which was full of practically everything needed to tend to a pregnancy and deliver a baby. She pulled out a stethoscope next, placing it on my skin to listen to whatever lay beneath.

“Can you hear them yet?” | asked. She put the stethoscope away and gently prodded my stomach. It was amazing to watch her work. She had delivered so many children during the course of her career. There was no one else I trusted with my pregnancy more than Cleo.

She was also the only person even remotely qualified to deliver the babies, especially given the fact that we were traveling into the unknown.

“Not very well, but I guarantee you, they’re there. Both of them. You’re probably txo

months along, I’d say.”

“When will she start getting round?” Myla was standing in the corner of the room! shared with Troy, watching us with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked a little uncomfortable.

“I already feel round,” I said as I pulled my shirt down. I struggled suddenly to sit upright, needing Cleo’s assistance as a wave of dizziness washed over me.

“You’re likely a little anemic, Maeve. I’ll let Olly know. You’ll need more iron in your diet.”

“Your boobs are huge,” Myla said curtly, and both Cleo and I turned to her.

Are you okay,” I said, but Myla was already out the door, slamming it shut behind her. “What’s her problem?”

running her fingers

feeling incredibly insensitive. I blushed, drawing my knees into my chest. “I’m sorry,

you, honey.

I’ll be

a soft smile, nodding. “You’ll be fine. I wouldn’t let

what she’s

looking over at me with a look that told me whatever was said

recently how to prevent a pregnancy from occurring. She is terrified of it, Maeve. She may not have known her mother, but she was orphaned moments after she was born.

talking about having ten children with Keaton when we were

someday she will, but for now…” Cleo trailed off, picking

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ready. And I don’t think Keaton

I hadn’t ever even considered it given that I was in a

for one. But that’s not plausible after

of our moment alone to ask her something I had never known. “Did you ever

eyes shimmering suddenly with a distant,

didn’t

After a moment

old were you when you found

was enraptured by her. She was

did?” I leaned in,

Her father would have never approved of our relationship. We thought we’d have a chance if we fled to

Arrested?” I was shocked.

her, if you can believe that.” Cleo rolled her eyes, shrugging

“What happened then?”

see her again for many years. Twenty years… the longest years

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I had trained to be a midwife. I ended up setting up a practice in Mirage. That’s when-“She exhaled deeply, her eyes misting with

“Told her what?”

woman already, but at that moment, I could picture what she would have

the far wall. “I hadn’t seen her in so long. And then, there she was, right in front of me! | couldn’t believe it! But she was so sick, so far gone by that point.” She blinked several times, trying to steel her expression

family, so he sold her. And she spent twenty years…. I didn’t know. Oh, Goddess, 1 regret not knowing every day. And I see her in Myla. They are so alike. I thank the Moon Goddess daily for bringing us together, one last time, even though she died in my

“You raised Myla-”

nodding her head as though she were answering an unsaid question. “She was meant to be ours. When Olivia died, the man never came back. I never saw or heard from him again. I don’t know if Liv had other children. I don’t know anything about how she spent the last twenty years of her life. I blamed myself for her death for a long, long time. But I never, ever resented Myla for it. Liv gave her to me, I truly believe that. It was fate that

I asked, my heart shattering

Cleo

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