McCallum Quintuplets Read Online Free PDF Page A

okay with this?”
    Madeline, who had been staring at her reflection, half frightened, half pleased, knowing she still wouldn’t give Catherine Zeta-Jones a run for her money—but, then, who could?—just nodded. “Okay. Sure. I mean—” she gave her head a small shake, watched her curls settle onto her shoulders “—sure. Let’s do it.”
    Â 
    I AN LOOKED at his watch, calculating how much time it would take to get across town to the Lone Star in time for their six o’clock reservations.
    He’d had it all planned so carefully. Up early, go for a run. Golf with the guys, a nap, some power shopping to locate a reasonably good birthday gift, dinner at six.
    Except he’d come home to a note Madeline had slipped under his door, telling him that she might be a little late because she had to go back to the mall with April and Annabelle for “some last-minute idiocy.”
    Ian pondered that line for a while, then tossed the note aside, found the channel changer and surfed for whatever sports might be on the tube the week before the NCAA March Madness started next week. He lucked out with a great game for one of the last divisional tournaments and settled in to watch, one ear listening for Madeline’s footsteps in the hallway.
    Not that he wasn’t interested in the game on the screen, because he was. But he and Maddie usually watched the games together. Baseball, basketball, football, ice hockey—anything that wasn’t soccer, because she always fell asleep during soccer games.
    Maybe, after dinner, they’d come back and watch the video he’d rented last night. He’d started to watch it by himself, but only five minutes into it he knew Maddie would love it, so he’d ejected the tape. Then he’d read two chapters of a book. Then he’d walked around his apartment, straightening up, and found one of Maddie’s hair clips under the kitchen table. He put it in the dish on the counter, the Maddie Collection Plate that she raided every time she ran out of hair clips or needed postage stamps, emery boards, even her extra pair of reading glasses. Her sandals he kept in the hall closet, along with a tweed vest he hoped she never remembered she ownedand the crutches she’d used that summer she broke her foot.
    Not that he minded that Maddie, left to her own devices, could quickly have his entire apartment littered with her stuff, because he didn’t. He liked that they were so comfortable with each other that they just about lived in each other’s pockets. Sharing, caring. All that good stuff.
    Except now Maddie was going to turn thirty-five. If he’d thought she’d panicked at thirty, it had been nothing to compare with the teary monologue he’d listened to one night a few weeks ago, wherein Maddie lamented her single state, her ticking biological clock and her conviction that she was speeding headlong into old maidhood.
    He was also going to be thirty-five. Did that mean he was racing down the road to old bachelorhood?
    Not according to Maddie, Ian remembered, as he looked into the mirror above his dresser, twisting his tie into a neat Windsor knot.
    â€œYou’re just entering your prime,” she’d told him—accused him, actually. “Men have it so much easier. You’ll be able to take your pick of women—especially younger women—well into your fifties. But not women. And especially not if we want babies. Do you know how much more difficult it is to even become pregnant for the first time after the age of thirty-five? And the complications of having your first child after forty? Not good, Ian, not good. Trust me. So I’m thinking about getting pregnant. I mean, why not? Women like me are doing it every day. Of course, I’d have to find a donor.”
    â€œYeah?” he’d said, trying to keep the conversation light. “Well, don’t go to strangers.”
    Ian checked