Angel was shaking her head from side to side, disbelievingly.

“If your husband wants to talk to me,” Dr. Zelman said gently, “I can explain to him how this happened.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to think he knows already,” Angel said dismally. “But I would never in this world…” She shook her head, finishing the rest of her sentence in her head.

I had to help Angel dress, she was so deeply shocked. I tried not to burble, since she was upset, but I was so excited by proxy that it was hard.

A baby.

“How can I work?” Angel said, but not as if she was really concerned.

“Pooh, as a bodyguard? I don’t need a bodyguard anymore, now that Martin’s out of-that mess,” I said soothingly. “If you still want to help me out around the place, we’ll work something out. Maybe I could keep the baby for you? Some?”

She heard the yearning in my voice.

“This should be happening to you,” she said with a faint smile on her thin lips.

“Oh, Martin’s worried about his age,” I said, and thought right away of kicking myself: Shelby Youngblood was Martin’s age, forty-seven, and Angel was twenty-eight to my thirty-two and a half. “Anyway,” I said bracingly, “you tell him to call Dr. Zelman, okay? He may get kind of upset, having had a vasectomy and all.”

“Oh, I just bet he will,” she said grimly.

Angel walked out to the car in a state of stunned silence. I made sure she was in the car and then I ran back in to get my purse, which I’d left in the examining room. You could tell I was excited and upset, since normally I’d be as likely to leave my arm as my purse. I explained to Trinity Zelman, who waved me on back, and Linda was waiting at the door to the examining room with the purse in hand.