Chapter 199

The rest of my pregnancy passes happily, with about as much trouble as the first two months gave me. Which is to say…not very much at all.

“I get the feeling I’m being rude,” I murmur, drifting my hand over my very-pregnant stomach and glancing out over the vineyard, which has come so far in the past few months.

“Rude?” Frankie asks, coming up behind me on the stone porch of our little cottage tucked away in the corner of the field, up on a hill, overlooking the entire vineyeard and down over the main house. He slips his hands over mine where they rest on my baby bump, pulling me slightly backwards so that my weight rests against him.

I sigh in happiness to feel him behind me, warm and supportive.

“Yes, rude,” I murmur, looking towards the road to the village, where my friends Diana and Beatriz live. They’re also pregnant – Matilde introduced me to them, wanting me to have a community of women in which to raise the baby, like she had. “Diana and B are just…miserable. Throwing up all the time, their bodies so swollen…”

I sigh again, looking down at my cute little belly that looks more like I’ve smuggled a basketball beneath my dress than like a full-term pregnancy. I mean, my ankles are a little swollen, but all things considered? I’ve loved being pregnant and had what I think is a comparatively easy time of it.

“I take credit for this,” Frankie murmurs, pressing a kiss to my temple. I laugh, turning slightly to look up at him. He grins down at me. “With all my catering to your every needs, and the foot rubbing, and the singing to the child at night –“

“Something no one asked for,” I sigh, turning my face away from him so that he doesn’t see the smile that stretches so wide across my face my cheeks hurt.

“And yet which everyone has benefitted from,” Frankie says, dipping his head again and pressing another kiss to my neck.

“Yes, you’re very good,” I concede, lifting a hand to his neck and passively letting it drift upward to tangle in his hair, which he’s let grow out a bit in a way that I very much like. “But my biology takes some credit for this – I’m sure Diana and B’s husbands are just as nice.”

“Nah just me,” he sighs. “I did all of it. You’re welcome.”

I grin, shaking my head at him, but don’t bother countering him again. Frankie – he really has been so wonderful to me throughout all of this, and I find myself even more fully head-over-heels for him as each day passes. When the baby comes, I’m genuinely afraid my heart will burst for the joy of it – our little family, complete.

“Want to go to the main house for dinner?” he asks, kissing my cheek next and then moving to my side instead of behind me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“Nah, I want to stay here with you,” I murmur, leaning against him, my arm around his waist.

“You sure?” he asks, looking down towards the house. “Matilde will want to see you and try again to fatten you up with a variety of fried meats and cakes.”

“Cakes I made,” I counter, laughing. “And which I obviously have slices of inside the house.”

He grins down at me. “Slices you had inside the house.”

“Frank!” I shriek, giving him a smack. “Did you seriously eat all of those!?”

“They smelled so good!” he explains, laughing as he pulls me tighter against him.

I just laugh and shake my head at him, knowing that he’s lying. That he wouldn’t eat the cake when he knows how much of a sweet tooth I’ve had this whole pregnancy.

At least, he won’t have eaten all of the cake.

“Come on,” he says, tugging me in towards the house. “Let’s feed you, get you off your feet.” I smile up at him and nod, letting him lead me inside, but I take a last glance out over the gorgeous vineyard that has become our home in the past few months, my heart filling with joy to see it.

As soon as they found out I was pregnant, the Boss and Matilde put their heads together and made Frankie and I an incredible offer – full time work, in exchange for a share of the profits of the place as well as this little house on the hill, ours for as long as we choose to live in it. Apparently, the Boss had been as pleased by Frankie’s work ethic as he has by my baking.

Frankie and I immediately said yes and put our whole hearts into helping this place grow. The result has been incredible; in only a few month’s time, the main house has transformed into what is becoming a well-rated Bed and Breakfast, absolutely a part of the luxury tourism of the Portuguese wine country. Beyond the money coming in there, the first grape harvest went beautifully, suggesting that in a few years’ time the villa will again be producing its own label of wine.

Frankie has been helping the Boss with all of the work in repairing the villa and tending the fields while I’ve been coordinating the running inside the house – ensuring that we got wifi, and ordered linens, and that the standards of the place are up to snuff in terms of what American customers will be looking for when they come to stay. Matilde mostly lets me have the run of it, including hiring two village girls to help and to clean the rooms between guests.

The result is that Frankie has learned a great deal about carpentry and wine, that I’ve been living my dream of running a small luxury hotel in the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, and that the two of us together?

Well…I think we’re happier than we’ve ever believed we could be.

“Do you want a glass of this?” Frankie asks, as he does every night, pulling out a bottle of wine that the Boss has asked him to try, to help develop his palette.

As I do every night, I turn it down, rolling my eyes to be asked again even though I know he’s only doing it to be nice. “No drunk baby tonight,” I sigh, sitting down in my little wooden chair by my little wooden table in my cute little stone kitchen, resting my chin on my hand and beaming at my adorable boyfriend who has put on a serious amount of muscle since he started doing labor in a vineyard for a living.

“More for me,” he says, opening the bottle and giving me a wink as he pours himself a glass and then carries it over with the plate of cake that I brought up from the main house this afternoon.

I grin at Frankie, lifting a fork from the little cup at the table and starting in eagerly on the cake the moment he sets the plate down and settles into his chair across from me.

Frankie takes a deep sip of his wine and then lifts his chin towards me. “How’s she doing in there?”

“He,” I say, lifting my eyes for a moment and giving him a smirk, “is doing amazing.” The baby’s sex is a running joke between us, with Frankie insisting that it’s a girl even though I know in my bones that it’s a boy.

“It’ll be soon now, won’t it?” he asks, his voice more serious as he leans on the table and looks me over.

“Doctor said any day,” I say softly, cheerfully, as I scoop up a forkful of carrot cake and cheerfully take a bite. I don’t bother to mention that I’ve been feeling the stirrings of…something. Some minor pains that I’ve been working through, not ready to worry anyone about them yet. Still far apart but…starting.

Frankie sighs, betraying his inner anxiety even beyond his jokes. “I don’t like that,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Seriously, Bambs, I wish you’d reconsider and let me take you to the city to wait it out – have little Franquette in a hospital, where you’ll be safe.”

“This child,” I say, putting down my fork and leveling a bit of a glare at him because we’ve had this conversation a thousand times, “who will be named nothing even close to Franquette –“

Frankie smirks here, taking another sip of his wine.

“Will be born here,” I continue, smiling back, “where we’ll both be perfectly safe. Honestly, Frankie, my love – we’ve been over this.”

“I know, I know,” he sighs, dropping his gaze. “Perfectly safe, standard practice in Portugal to do a home birth, plus, no questions, no one asking for ID. I just…” he shrugs, raising his eyes again to me, “want you to be safe. If anything ever happened to you…”

“It’s going to be perfectly fine,” I say, reaching across the table for his hand. He purses his lips for a second and then gives it to me, wrapping my fingers up in his. “Now, tell me the notes in that red,” I say, pointing my fork towards the glass in his hand. “Boss told me to quiz you.”

“Hmmm,” Frankie says, allowing me to change the conversation because he knows he’s not going to get anywhere with it, as he hasn’t the other hundred times we’ve had it. Instead he closes one eye, studying the glass and taking a long sip. “Velvety, with a strong base of stone fruits. Top notes…” he takes a long sniff and then turns back to me with a considering frown, “yes…top notes of incredible anxiety that your girlfriend is going to die in childbirth because she won’t let you take her to a hospital? Yes, I’m tasting that…”

I tilt my head back as I laugh, squeezing his hand, loving him terribly in this moment, so incredibly grateful to have him in my life.

We pass the evening calmly, with Frankie making me laugh by turns as he cajolingly tries to persuade me to go to the city where I’ll be safe. But he gives up, finally, as we get changed for bed and lay down next to each other, curled up cozy and safe.

“Love you, Iris,” he murmurs, running his fingers through my hair as he presses a kiss to my forehead. “Love you too, baby,” he says, looking down at my belly.

“We love you too, Frank,” I sigh, letting my eyes drift shut. “So, so much. See you in the morning.”

But morning, apparently, is too long for baby to wait.

Because it’s only an hour or two past midnight when I wake up with a low ache in me which lets me know that the baby is ready to get started.

“Frank,” I whisper, panting a little bit at the pain as I reach out and give his shoulder a shake.

“Hmm?” he says, blearily opening his eyes and peering around.

When his eyes finally focus on me, I give him a tight smile, pressing a hand to my back against the pain. “Baby’s coming,” I whisper. “Time…um, time to call the midwife I think.”

“Fraquette,” he whispers, his eyes going wide as they move quickly down to my belly. “You couldn’t have given us more notice!?”

And even despite the sharp pain deep in my stomach, I can’t help but laugh.