The Line Book One: Carrier by Anne Tibbets Page B

then turned a soft eye to me as she approached and indicated I should lift my shirt just a little. She put the spoollike sensor to my belly, just under my navel, and compressed a green button at the end.
    The spool heated on my skin then beeped.
    She removed it and held it out to the doctor, who took the spool and checked the green light.
    “Positive.” His face had lost all expression. “You’d better lie down.”
    I lay on the couch, pulled up my blouse to just under my chest as Dolore asked. The doctor put a scanner board over my belly button, pressed the screen a few times and watched it. He pressed another button on the board, and then I heard them.
    Heartbeats.
    They were soft little thumps, overlapping each other, as if fighting over who got to beat first.
    The doctor punched his fingers a few more times on the touch screen, studying the visual images. His face hardened again. The smile that had been creeping onto my lips shriveled. I wanted to be happy about hearing the babies. It suddenly made all this trouble seem worthwhile. But he seemed so furious, it was killing the moment.
    He held up the scanner to show me, and two little white beans rolled around in black jelly.
    There they were. And they were mine.
    I grinned.
    I couldn’t wait to meet them.
    What they would look like? Would they resemble me? I certainly didn’t want to cringe each time I gazed into the faces of my children, remembering how they’d been conceived.
    I would never tell them, I told myself. They would never know.
    It was a promise and my gift to them, and the least I could do, given that I didn’t know what else I had to offer them.
    For now, all I could do was reach out and lightly touch the tablet, as if I were able to feel the warmth of their skin on the screen. My eyes filled with tears. “Thank you,” I said to the doctor.
    My emotion caught him off guard. He nodded. Then the corners of his lips curled into a brief smile, but he didn’t look at me as he took the scanner and shut it off. He went to his rocking chair and typed on the tablet, rocking back and forth, deep in thought.
    “You knew you’re having twins?” he asked, his eyes on the tablet.
    “That’s what they’d said.”
    Dolore seemed confused and was working hard not to cry. Every time I caught her watching me, she gave a little jerk.
    “You’re having girls. Two of them,” he said. “Fraternal.”
    Girls. I had two daughters.
    The doctor finished typing and locked eyes with me.
    Green.
    His eyes were bright green and they were hard and serious. The gentleness was gone. “Were there any conditions for them letting you go?” he asked point-blank.
    “Uh.”
    He knew. But how could he?
    This could turn bad.
    My face must have showed my panic. He didn’t look away.
    “Dolore,” he said, “Naya and I are going to need a moment alone. If that’s okay with you, Naya?”
    I hesitated, but only for a split second. I nodded, though it wasn’t true.
    I glanced at the window with the air conditioner and wondered how far the drop was. If this turned worse, maybe I could make a run for it.
    Dolore got up and closed the black door behind her. I could hear her crying as she walked down the hall. “The poor lamb!” she moaned, and then the cries grew distant.
    “My name’s Ric Bennett,” he said. “But everybody calls me Doc.” He was stern, but I could tell it took effort on his part. “I’m not an obstetrician. You’ll need to see one in four weeks. Can you manage that?”
    “I...I...wasn’t planning on being here in four weeks.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “South. Maybe.” I was actually thinking West, given Shirel’s history with South, but I also wasn’t sure of this guy’s loyalties.
    “You have family there?”
    “I don’t know where they are. Look, I appreciate the help, but I’m not staying in Central. I’ll find a doctor in South, that’s all.”
    He nodded, his expression softening again. He rocked some more. “The