CHAPTER 3
Rummaging through the racks at Barney, Laura growled her frustration, softly. She'd tried on a half dozen dresses that reflected her vision for the evening and not a single one had worked. Two had refused to zip, one had magnified the very slight rounding of her stomach while the remaining three had been a bit too snug on her chest. At this rate, she'd mused, her breasts would be not quite ample, but certainly much more full. Then, she'd discovered, the idea left her a bit irritated. She liked her body, she worked hard to keep it lithe and muscular. Remington certainly enjoyed it, large breasts or not. She liked going braless on the weekends and to wear snug cocktail dresses that most women would have to turn to a strapless bra to wear.
She gasped softly at her find, quickly checking to see if it was a size 2, grinning when it was. She didn't consider herself a vain woman, but there was no way she was moving to a 4 this early in her pregnancy. The one shouldered sheath, would cling to her soft curves but not accentuate the soft rise of her belly except for the most astute of people, like Remington. This would inevitably lead to more of those artless touches for which he was known and a slightly proprietary air. It amused her when she could make the former Lothario do so.
Slipping the gown over her head, she was relieved when it zipped with more encouragement than normal, but that it zipped was all that mattered. She examined herself in the mirror. The singular shoulder emphasized the slimness of her shoulders, while the bust somehow made her breasts seem even more full. The dress hugged her newfound curves, and ended just below her knees. With an acceptable drape, it would be perfect for the evening.
Racing through the remainder of her trip, she selected a pair of strappy stilettos in the shoe department then swept out the doors. Dropping her purchases on the limo seat beside her, she directed Fred to her doctor's office. Forty-five minutes later, she was wearing an entirely different gown while tapping an impatient foot at the air when Remington rushed through the door.
"Sorry, sorry," he greeted, breathlessly. "Traffic was horrible." Her lips pinched.
"Funny, I didn't run into traffic on the way here." He winced caught in the lie, but unable to let it go.
"You do somehow have a knack at finding roads remarkably open when you're on them," he tried a quick smile.
"Why can't you just say 'Sorry I'm late' like most people instead of invent—"
"I see the elusive father decided to join us," Dr. Lloyd announced as he stepped into the room. Never had Remington been so glad to be interrupted.
"Ahhhh, Dr. Lloyd, good to see you again," Remington greeted far too effusively while offering the man his hand. Remington shook the other man's hand victorious, until the doctor pulled his hand from his.
"These come in handy when delivering babies," he noted, holding his hands up. "Are we ready for the big show?" he asked the couple. Remington quickly crossed the room to take a seat near Laura's head. The small screen lit up after Lloyd hit a series of switches. Next, came the gel – cold gel, based on the way Laura jumped. Then that wand…
Then there it was, the little lima bean, that wasn't so much a lima bean any longer, it's little legs and arms having sprouted, it's head having formed. He started with fascination at the blinking of the small heart beating.
Then he blinked hard.
If that was the baby's heart, what was it he seeing further up? Dr. Lloyd hummed where he stood at the machine.
"Is something wrong?" Laura worried.
"No, no, not at all. I just want to have a look from another angle." He slid the doppler higher on her stomach and a deeper angle, one hand securing the wand, while the other made a series of entries into the machine, Remington's eyes following his every movement. The doctor hummed at whatever it was he'd found.
"What? What is it?" Remington pressed.
"You see this right here?" the doctor asked, indicating a blinking heartbeat.
"The babe's heartbeat," Remington identified. The doctor moved that wand lower.
"Yes, as is this here," he indicated the blinking on the screen again.
"The babe has two hearts?" Remington asked dumbfounded, even more confused when the doctor guffawed loudly.
"Two hearts, two babies," the doctor corrected. Laura smirked and the blood drained from Remington's face as what the doctor was saying settled in.
"Twins?" he all but squeaked.
"Twins," Lloyd confirmed, eyes on the screen and still moving the wand around.
"I think I need to sit down," Remington murmured, drawing a hand over his lower face. Twins?
"You are sitting down," Laura advised, drily.
"Then perhaps I should stand," Remington returned, shoving himself to his feet, wondering if it had been wise when the room swayed around him. Twins? He swallowed hard and looked at his partner, who remained icy calm.
"Laura, you're taking this news awfully well," he noted.
"We're already unprepared for one," she commented, breezily, "What's one more?" His jaw slackened and eyes widened at her response, but he'd barely had time to digest that before…"
"Better make that two," Lloyd announced.
"Yes. Two. Twins," Remington answered, numbly.
"No, two more," Lloyd corrected. Remington positively blanched this time. Two plus two…
"Quadruplets," he choked. "We're having quadruplets?" At least that seemed to sink in with Laura, if the way her head snapped around to look at the doctor was any indication.
"Two plus one," Lloyd corrected, again. For some reason, Remington didn't find that less daunting than four.
"I think I should sit down," he murmured, as the room spun and the floor beneath his feet seemed to have disappeared. He stumbled backwards a step and sat down heavily on the stool, only to misjudge where he landed and for the stool scoot right out beneath him, landing on him on the floor… hard.
"Stacy!" Lloyd bellowed towards the door of the examination room, before directing his focus on Laura. "Think he's had enough?" Laura glanced down at the man on the floor, who was busily counting to three under his breath.
"Oh, I'm willing to bet he won't be late to another appointment."
The door to the room swung open and a petite blonde nurse stuck her head in the room, the same nurse, Remington realized, who had found him thus the last time they'd been there.
The nurse's eyes widened and she giggled.
"Again?"
"Again," the doctor confirmed. "Can you help him into a chair and get him some water?"
"Yes, doctor."
"Three," Remington mumbled, looking at the nurse, as she bent down to give him a hand up. "Three. Do you know how many that is?" he asked when she deposited him into chair of the non-rolling variety.
"Ummm, three?" the nurse asked, wondering what kind of trick question this was. Lloyd laughed again.
"The water, Stacy."
"Yes, doctor," she nodded then stepped back out of the room.
"Shall we tell him?" Lloyd asked Laura. Laura turned and looked at her partner, then nodded her head.
"April fools!" The doctor announced, jovially. Remington looked at the doctor as though he'd lost his mind.
"It's not April." The joke still hadn't computed in his mind.
"We may have broken him," Lloyd joked with Laura.
"Mr. Steele?" At the familiar address, Remington responded automatically.
"Yes, Miss Holt?"
"We're not having triplets. It was a joke." He numbly shook his head.
"I've just wrapped my head around one, Laura. Three?" He eyed her accusingly. "How can you be so bloody calm?! Three, Laura. Three!" A laugh bubbled past her lips. "We're going to need a bigger house… and new cars." That caught her unawares.
"New cars?!"
"Can't very well strap the babes to the trunk now can we?" Maybe they had broken him. He'd always had selective hearing, but he was seemingly struck dumb.
"We're not having three babies."
"We just saw it right there on the little screen," he indicated said screen with a finger. "Three of them. Shocking, I know. But we'll find a way. We may need a hand a first, but I'm sure Mildred, Frances and Abigail would be more than—"
"We're not having three babies!" she insisted, voice rising. The mention of her mother had set her pulse pounding. She looked at Lloyd, imploring him for help.
"Mr. Steele, I remember reading an article a few years back in which you said you enjoy movies, particularly the old black and whites." Remington stared at the doctor for a couple of ticks of a second hand, trying to digest what the doctor was getting at, smiling a wobbly smile when he got it.
"Yours, Mine and Ours. Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Desilu Walden Production, 1968. A widow and widower marry, each bringing with them six children from their prior marriages." Laura rolled her eyes.
"So far as I know, neither of us have lost a spouse or have children."
"I would think the three you are carrying now, certainly qualifies as children."
"Oh, for God's sake, we're not having three. It was a joke!" She flopped backwards on the exam table, thoroughly frustrated. What had made her think he'd hear the news, panic a bit then let it go with a laugh? "Dr. Lloyd!" she beseeched his aid.
"I'm sure you're up on the latest gadgetry then," Dr. Lloyed continued. "This video cassette recorder, for instance. You can not only record anything on the television with it, but you can buy movies for it, as well." Remington's ears picked up.
"Movies?" he asked, standing again, his troubles with triplets forgotten for the moment.
"You're kidding me, right?" Laura protested, irritably. Here she was, in little more than a paper napkin, her belly on full display for all to see, and her doctor and partner were discussing movies!?
"Yes. There's an impressive collection already on the market. In fact, just Saturday I found Gone With the Wind, North by Northwest and Key Largo." Cary, Bogart, Leigh and Gable. It was enough to boggle the mind. He crept around the exam table to get a closer look at the contraption, that Dr. Lloyd was only too happy to show him.
Lloyd hit the eject button and removed the tape he'd played earlier and handed it to him. I think of it as a video camera and projector, combined. I can record what interests me and play what interests me. Plus, anything I record I can fast forward through the ads on." He slid the tape back in the machine. "Watch." Turning back on the video, he hit the fast forward and watched as the video he'd been watching morphed into a documentary about multiple births. Only then did his mind return to the purpose of the visit.
"So, this is what we watched?" Behind him, Laura threw up her hands and dropped them.
"Yes. Just a little joke."
"So we're only having…"
"The one, yes. Would you like to see it now?"
"I would," Laura volunteered from behind Remington. Lloyd turned off the VCR and flipped on the ultrasound.
"Mr. Steele, recent history suggests you might want to take a seat," Lloyd suggestion.
"Mmm, yes," Remington agreed, just as a knock sounded on the door and Stacy stepped in again with the glass of water. She pressed it into his hand then started for the door again when the doctor stopped her.
"Stacy, you may want to stick around, just in case." Remington's ego took a ding when the young nurse smirked.
"Yes, doctor." Lloyd waited until Remington was seated on the stool next to Laura, before adding a little more gel to her abdomen, then using the doppler, this time quite for real. Standing, Remington took Laura's hand and leaned forward to peer at the screen.
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillion, Teri Gar and Bob Balaban, Columbia Pictures, 1977.
"Mr. Steele," she drew out his name wearily, "Can we please save the movie references to home and the office?"
"I give you my word, our child is a doppelganger to the aliens in that movie." He looked with confusion from Lloyd to Stacy who'd both been suddenly seized by fits of coughing. Shrugging it off, he returned his attention to Laura. "Same long, narrow jaw; same huge cranium, bloated belly and spaghetti like arms. Not to mention the empty orbitals-"
"Out!" she barked, pointing a finger to the door. "Now." He looked from her to the door then back to her again and hesitated. "Get out now!" Much to his annoyance, Stacy's coughs had morphed into full-out tittering. Imagine, being thrown out of the room by the mother of your child. He was Remington Steele, for pity's sake. There was a certain image to maintain.
"But, Laura—" he began his plea, only to be immediately cut off.
"Now, Mr. Steele, unless you'd like a reminder of what it feels like to be a bachelor—" His jaw dropped in affront, but nonetheless, he skittered to the door and out, flopping down in a waiting room chair and crossing his arms in a fine pout.
"Well, then," Dr. Lloyd began back in the room, then cleared his throat to keep from laughing again, "Shall we?" Once again, the doppler slid across Laura's stomach, the room silent as Lloyd made a series of measurements and entered them into the system. At the conclusion of the exam, he handed Laura a print out of the ultrasound and the baby's heartbeat, both of which she tucked safely away in the confines of her wallet. "Have you and Mr. Steele decided if you want to know the gender of the baby?" This gave her pause. No, they hadn't.
"No, we haven't," she replied, aloud.
"You might want to begin that discussion. We should be able to determine the baby's gender on your next visit."
"We will," she assured. Peeling off the exam gloves and dropping them into hazardous waste, he offered Laura a hand to the sitting position.
"Everything is right on track. The baby looks good, but I'd like to see you put on a little more weight when I see you next month. You're going to need the calories over the months ahead."
"I understand." He cocked his head towards the waiting room.
"Don't be too hard on Mr. Steele," he advised with amusement, "I've seen far worse things from new fathers than a little fainting and tripping over their tongue. Enjoy it while it lasts. If I've nailed your husband correctly, you need to save your energy with him until the third semester."
"Why's that?" she wondered with a tip of her head.
"The man's going to try to wrap you up like fragile china and keep you safe and I've known you long enough to know you aren't going to put up with it." Laura muttered an unladylike oath beneath her breath. She hadn't even considered that, she'd been so wrapped up in telling him about the baby and working out their personal relationship. She'd thought she'd spoken quietly enough not to be heard, until Lloyd laughed aloud. "See you next month, Laura."
Uh-huh. She thought she'd mumbled it aloud but hadn't. Mind elsewise occupied, she climbed down from the exam table, cleaned up, dressed, and joined Remington in the waiting room.
One look at him, and she knew Lloyd was correct.
Oh, hell.
