Bear's Midlife Surrogate (Shifter Nation: Fated Over Forty) by Meg Ripley

Author:Meg Ripley [Ripley, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shifter Nation
Published: 2022-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

14

Lara tipped her hands in the air. “Don’t you think so?”

“Sure,” Amy mumbled.

“Okay, now I know you’re not listening.” Lara fixed her with a critical look. “I just asked if you thought Western Wheels was the best food this side of the Mississippi.”

Amy twisted her face. The mere thought of their watered-down chili, flavorless fatty ribs, and goopy rice dishes made her dry heave, and she was well past that phase in her pregnancy. In fact, she was finding the third trimester to be just as tiring as she remembered it, and she had an intense craving for lemon Italian ice even though it was barely spring and the air was still cool and pleasant. The heat of the stove and simply being pregnant had carried her easily through the winter, but she was still looking forward to better weather. “It’s definitely not. I can’t believe that place is still up and running with slop like that! Why would you even say such a thing?”

“To get your attention!” Lara laughed. “You’ve been zoning out all afternoon, and I swear the only reason you’ve managed to make any tacos is because you’re on autopilot. You hardly have to think about it anymore.”

“Mm.” Amy nodded as she searched for the little notepad she’d started using to keep track of all the things she needed or wanted to do. Pregnancy brain was a real thing, and things often didn’t happen unless she wrote them down. “I still want to add a few more tacos to the menu now that I’ve had the chance to perfect these first three. I was going to do that a few months ago, but by the time I get home, I just need to put my feet up for a while instead of getting back in the kitchen. A part of that was brainstorming a chipotle pineapple marinade for pulled pork tacos. Well, shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

Amy sighed as she turned her notebook around and tapped on a page dated several weeks ago. “I’d already written it down, and I still didn’t do it!”

“I’m sure that’s normal,” Lara said, touching her gently on the arm. “When my older sister was pregnant and going through similar things, our mom kept telling her that her main job at the moment was to make a baby. Everything else came second.”

“It can’t come second forever,” Amy noted. There would be more life to be lived once she gave birth, though she hadn’t concentrated too much on the upcoming event. Labor and delivery would be painful, but it was something she’d been through before, and of course, fantastic anesthetics were available. The hard part would be knowing that the child wouldn’t be hers. She wouldn’t get the chance to give it a name or see the first time it smiled. They’d have an irrevocable bond that would exist simply because she’d grown it in her womb and cared for it. But it wouldn’t be the same as if she’d get to raise this child just as she had her other three.

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