Interrupted in mid-yawn, Milla glared at him. “Oh, yes, we do,” she said fiercely. “If you think I’m going to wait another minute—Justin will be lucky if I don’t leave him with Susanna while I hunt you down at the clinic.”
“Gonna hold a scalpel on me and make me strip?” he asked, grinning.
“It’s a thought.” She caught his hand and pulled it to her breast again, rubbing her nipple against his fingers. “It’s been over six weeks. We don’t have to wait for Susanna’s official okay.”
He wanted to go with that idea. It had, in fact, occurred to him before, but he hadn’t wanted Milla to think that all he cared about was sex. He was relieved she had brought up the idea first, and temptation gnawed at him. He glanced at his wristwatch and the time made him groan. “I have to be at the clinic in ten minutes.” Already people would be lining up outside the clinic doors, prepared to patiently wait for hours to see a doctor. He was the team surgeon, and in fact had a surgery scheduled in half an hour. He barely had enough time to get to the clinic, change, and get scrubbed. Not that he’d need more than ten seconds to climax, the way he felt, but Milla definitely needed more time than that.
“Tonight, then,” Milla said, turning on her side and smiling at him. “I’ll keep Justin awake as much as possible so he’ll sleep.”
“Good plan.” He stood and reached for his keys. “What are you doing today?”
“Nothing much. I’m going to the market this morning before it gets so hot.”
“Get some oranges.” He’d been on an orange kick lately, as if his body craved the vitamin C. He’d been spending long hours in surgery, so maybe he did. He leaned down and kissed Milla, then brushed his lips against Justin’s satiny cheek. “Take good care of Mommy,” he told his sleeping son, and hurried out the door.
Milla stayed in bed a few more minutes, luxuriating in the peace and quiet. Right this moment, no one was wanting anything of her. She had thought she was prepared to care for a baby, but somehow she hadn’t realized the work would be practically nonstop. When Justin wasn’t needing to be fed or changed, she was rushing around trying to keep up with all the other chores, and she was so tired that every step was like slogging through water. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in what felt like months. No, it had been months; about four of them, since the growing baby had gotten large enough to press on her bladder and she’d had to pee practically every half hour. She had carried him low, which Susanna said made it easier to breathe, but the trade-off was peeing a lot. Being a mother was anything but glamorous; rewarding, but definitely not glamorous.
She knew she was beaming as she examined her sleeping son. He was so gorgeous; everyone said so, exclaiming at his blond hair and blue eyes and the sweetness of his mouth. He looked like the Gerber baby, that idealized, big-eyed infant whose image graced millions of baby-care items. Milla was entranced by everything about him, from the tiny fingernails to the dimples that were forming as he gained weight. She could just sit and watch him all day long . . . if she didn’t have so much else to do.
Immediately her mind switched into work mode as she remembered everything that needed to be done today, such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, and, whenever she had a spare moment to sit down, catching up on the clinic’s paperwork. And sometime today she needed to take care of girly things like washing her hair and shaving her legs, because she had a hot date with her husband tonight. She would never get tired of being a mother, but she was definitely ready to be something else, too, like a sexually desirable woman. She missed sex; David made love with the same total concentration he gave to everything else that interested him, which was very nice when one was the recipient of said concentration. Actually, it was better than nice. It was pretty damn wonderful.
First, though, she would go to the market, before the day got too hot.
Only two more months here, she thought. She would miss Mexico: the people, the sunshine, the slowness of time. The year David and his colleagues had donated to the free-care clinic was almost over; then it would be back to the rat race of practicing medicine in the States. Not that she wouldn’t be glad to be home, back with family and friends and such niceties as an air-conditioned supermarket. She wanted to do things like take Justin for walks in the park or visit with her mom during the day. She had missed her mother a lot during the long months of her pregnancy, and sporadic phone calls plus one quick visit home just hadn’t filled the need.
She had almost decided not to come to Mexico with David; she found out she was pregnant just before they were scheduled to leave. But she hadn’t wanted to spend such a long time away from him, especially while she was carrying their first child. After meeting Susanna, the ob-gyn part of the medical team, she had decided to stick to their original plan. Her mother had been horrified—her grandchild would be born in another country!—but the pregnancy had gone by the book, without any medical problems arising. Justin had arrived almost on time, just two days past her due date, and since then Milla had felt as if she existed in a fog composed of equal parts love and fatigue.
This was so completely opposite to how she had imagined her life would be that she couldn’t help but feel amused. Armed with her grand liberal arts degree, she had planned to change the world, one person at a time. She was going to be the kind of teacher people remembered when they themselves were grandparents, the kind of teacher who made a real difference in her students’ lives. She was comfortable in academia, even the highly political side of it; she had planned to continue her education until she received her doctorate, then teach at a university. Marriage—yes, after a while. Maybe when she was thirty or thirty-five. Children—maybe.