Three Lovers on the Grift - 10

Nigel's thought that there would be more hurdles before the baby arrived proved to be correct. The first one came two weeks later when Vaughn decided Page was not going to be involved in any more cons.

They had rented the house they wanted and moved in, furnishing it from several near-new shops in the area. The fence had been able to dispose of all the jewelry and other items they had gotten from the gala at the mansion, reaping them a fairly substantial amount of cash even after he'd taken his percentage. With the money deposited in a blind bank account, and what they'd had in their last bank transferred over as well, the trio felt secure in the knowledge that they didn't have to pull off another job for at least a little while.

That did not stop Vaughn from making plans. Plans that did not involve Page. When she found this out, she went ballistic.

"I am not some coddled little society chick that has to be pampered and babied," she yelled so loudly that Nigel wondered if their neighbors could hear her. "I'm having a baby, something billions of women have done before me. Hell, it used to be that farm wives would work until the end and then have the kid in the fields."

"You aren't some damned farmer's wife," Vaughn had replied angrily. "You're my woman, and Nigel's, and we want you to take it easy so there are no complications. It's your first kid, Page. You don't know what could happen."

She'd swung around to look at Nigel for backup. He shook his head. "He's half right, Page. You shouldn't be in on any con that could put you in the line of fire."

"When have I ever been," she growled in reply. "You're the one who does the physical parts of them. Vaughn and I are the ones who do the mind games and there's no way I can get hurt doing that."

"What about the time that wife broke into the hotel room while you were setting up the game to take her husband for a sizable amount of cash to keep quiet about his 'affair' with you?" Vaughn pointed out. "If I hadn't seen her going into the room she could have done you quite a bit of harm before I saved you."

"Okay," Page admitted reluctantly, "there was that once, but that was all. Besides, I'm not really going to be in any condition for us to run something like that again for a while. I'm just telling you, I am not going to sit around here, or wherever we move next, and twiddle my thumbs."

"We'll figure things out," Nigel said placatingly.

"You'd better, or you're both cut off for the foreseeable future."

Nigel grinned. "You'd better come up with a better threat than that. After all, we still have each other."

For a moment it appeared as if Page was going to do something physical to him, or to Vaughn who was also grinning. Then she laughed and the tension was broken.