Page 104 of The Very Virile Viking

"Never!" he replied with a laugh.

Grandma Rose laughed, too. "By the way, a Dr. Neville called you today. Said he'd see you at the hospital."

He nodded and started toward the stairs. "Do I have time to shower before dinner?"

"Plenty of time," Grandma Rose said.

Angela caught up with him in the hall. "Who's Dr. Neville? I don't recall that name among Jogeir's physicians."

"He is a physician I met one day whilst you were gone. I am thinking about having a little snipping done myself. Would you like to take a shower with me, sweetling? I have missed you sorely… and I do mean sorely."

"No, I am not taking a shower with you in broad daylight with Grandma and all the kids about. What kind of snipping?" She had picked up a small piece of leather luggage at the bottom of the stairs and was carrying it up to her bedchamber, he presumed.

"A vasectomy."

Angela stopped dead in her tracks, dropped the luggage, and didn't even look backward as it toppled down the steps. "You? You are having a vasectomy?"

"I agree it is hard to fathom how a man like me would consider being cut there , but Harry assures me that it is painless and very effective. I have not made a final decision yet, though. What… what troubles you, Angela?"

She was staring at him as if he had stabbed her. "You were going to make such a monumental decision without consulting me."

He was about to advise her that she was not his mother or his wife… but luckily he curbed his tongue.

She did have some rights. After all, she shared her body and her home with him. She was the woman he loved, who loved him in return. "Angela," he began more patiently, "I have bred eleven living children. 'Tis more than enough for any man. Truly, I cherish each of my children, but I would not want another."

"Not even one of mine?" Her voice broke on a sob.

"Oh, God! You are with child," he concluded, putting a hand out to clasp her on the shoulder. "I thought you said that you were taking birthing-control pills, but then, they do not work perfectly; that is what Juan told Torolf. Oh, God!"

She slapped his hand away and charged ahead of him the rest of the way up the stairway. When he followed her into her bedchamber, she informed him icily, "No, I am not pregnant. Lucky you!"

Whew! "Angela, what is this about?"

"I'll tell you what this is about," she said, but then she seemed unable to speak. When he started to approach her, she put up a halting hand. Finally she calmed herself and asked, "Having no father here, let me be the one to ask. What are your intentions toward me?"

"Huh?" Uh-oh, I know where this conversation is headed .

"Are you even remotely considering marriage?"

Remotely. "Of course, but there are many other things to be settled first."

"Like vasectomies?"

"Why do you keep harping on that operation? I will not have it done if you do not want me to. Really, 'tis not important."

Carmen was right. You are a dumb man. "Yes, it is important, Magnus."

A prickling of suspicion rippled through his thick brain, but he waited for Angela to say it herself.

"I want to have a baby myself. Just one. I want to experience childbirth. To breast-feed my own child.

To have a child with you ."

Oh, nay! Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay! Ask me for gold. Ask me for jewels. Ask me to swine you silly.

Ask me to lay down my life for you. But do not ask me to have another child. He knew his inner thoughts would be hurtful to her, so he kept them to himself. But he could not think of any words that would soothe her spirits.

Apparently his silence was telling to her. Her shoulders slumped and tears misted her eyes.