Instant Gratification

by Jill Shalvis

  “I can’t!”

  “Yes, you can, and you will. Push.”

  When she spoke like that, with all that authority and certainness, even Stone wanted to push.

  “I can’t”!” Lilah cried again.

  If he’d been Emma, he might have been tempted to remind Lilah that she’d wanted this, that if she’d gotten herself to a hospital like common sense dictated, she might have been given pain medications, maybe an epidural, but she’d come here.

  By her own choice.

  “Look,” Emma said, in all her glorious New York tough-ass edginess. “Yes, this sucks golf balls, the pain is like being ripped in two. But the baby is here, Lilah. Right here. All you have to do is push and it’ll be over and you’ll be able to hold your baby.”

  “My baby,” Lilah repeated weakly, sweat running down her temples.

  “That’s right,” Emma said firmly, hair falling loose, her clothes smeared with blood and her own sweat, kneeling on the blanket out in the wilderness that Stone knew she wasn’t too fond of.

  It was fascinating to him. She was fascinating to him, and elegant and sophisticated, and so not the priss he’d thought. Not anywhere close.

  “Your baby,” Emma reminded Lilah. “There’s a big prize at the end of this hell, and it’s your beautiful baby. Now let’s do this.”

  Stone watched amazed as Lilah let out a breath, stopped crying and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

  It boggled Stone’s mind. Emma hadn’t coddled. It certainly wasn’t in her nature to be particularly sweet or gentle in her firm determination either, but she was undoubtedly extremely, undeniably, kind as she bulldogged through and got her way.

  Right then and there, Stone felt a little catch in his gut. Not a crush, not exactly, but something that might be worse.

  Far worse. Which was going to be damned inconvenient.

  “A baby,” Lilah murmured roughly to Neely as they kissed. “I actually almost forgot.”

  Neely laughed through her tears, and back on track now, swiped Lilah’s face, stroked her legs, doing the deep breathing with her.

  “On the count of three,” Emma said, in charge of her world, and at the moment, also Stone’s. “One, two, three!”

  Lilah pushed, and screamed, and pushed some more, and Stone thought she was going to break both his wrists, but then she sagged back against his very sore chest, panting for breath. Realizing his pain was nothing compared to hers, he didn’t mention it. “Doing great,” he said, hoping it was true, and also hoping he had some unbroken bones left when she was done.

  “The head’s out,” Emma said, doing something with a suction bulb between Lilah’s legs that Stone didn’t want to know about.

  “Push again,” Emma directed.

  “Oh, God.”

  “You can do this, Lilah. I can see your baby’s beautiful head. Now sit up and push!”

  Stone braced himself, said goodbye to the rest of his bones, and kept his eyes on the sky while Lilah straightened and pushed.

  And pushed.

  This was accompanied by plenty of screaming, more squeezing, and out of the corner of Stone’s eye he saw TJ standing out of the way, his back turned, on the phone to the hospital, the bastard, not getting bled on and not getting his bones broken.

  “Look,” Neely suddenly cried. “Ohmigod, look!”

  Stone instinctively looked. He saw…

  Oh, Jesus. He saw blood and gore, and female parts stretched to limits that boggled his mind and made him want to beg for forgiveness for his entire race.

  The screaming echoed in his head, which suddenly felt detached from his body, and if he’d been standing, he’d be flat on his ass by now, but he had Lilah squeezing the holy hell out of him, keeping him conscious.

  “I’ve got her!” Emma said in triumph. She came up on her knees, cradling her bundle in a towel, vigorously drying the baby and suctioning the nose and mouth at the same time. She expertly swapped out the wet towel for a dry one as the baby began to wail. “A gorgeous baby girl,” she declared, and set her on Lilah’s belly.

  The baby squawked and let out a gusty cry.

  Stone stared down at the sticky, gooped up baby in shocked awe.

  A living, breathing person.

  Emma was evaluating the baby for color, respirations, muscle movement, anything unusual as she clamped the umbilical cord, and then turned her attention to the placenta, while Stone’s head just spun.

  It was truly the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and he lifted his gaze to Emma and found her already looking at him, her eyes suspiciously bright and misty.

  And then she did something totally unexpected. She smiled at him.

  Yeah, she was tough as nails and cynical and blunt. And sometimes just a little mean.

  And she cried over a newborn.

  Neely and Lilah were both laughing and sobbing. Once Emma said that everything was okay, Stone and TJ carried Lilah to TJ’s Jeep. They got her and the baby settled in and TJ drove them down the hill to Neely’s sister, who was a midwife and registered nurse in South Shore.

  Which left Stone and Emma alone.

  He walked to where she stood at the cliff overlooking the open meadow below. “You okay?”

  “Always.” She turned her head toward him and did the damnedest thing. She smiled again, a God-given, sweet, warm, real smile that met her eyes and curved her mouth, and rocked his world. “And how are you?” she asked.

  He let out a low laugh. “I’ll come right out and admit it. My knees are still shaking.”

  She smiled again and blew at least a thousand more of his brain cells, which didn’t leave him with much. But wow, the smile softened her. Made her seem gentle.

  Sweet.

  All the things he’d thought her void of, all the things he tended to love in a woman, and he had one thought as he felt another catch from deep inside him, as his body went still on high alert and his pulse picked up speed—

  Oh, shit.

  He needed to back up. Or better yet, turn and walk away. That was the easy thing to do at this point. But did he ever take the easy route? Hell, no. The hard way was his only way, always, and he stepped close.

  Her smile deepened, and his next thought was hell yeah, here it came, the thank you for his help. He’d shrug and say it’d been his pleasure, and she’d maybe move in for a hug, or better yet…

  A kiss.

  Yeah, a slow, hot, melting thank you kiss would suit him just fine, with lots of tongue and busy hands—

  “So you’re afraid of needles and pass out at the sight of blood, huh?” she asked, amused.

  She wasn’t thanking him.

  She was laughing at him. Openly. He tried to be insulted, but Jesus, when she smiled? It was amazing.

  She was amazing. “Really?” he asked, letting loose of a stupid smile himself. “You’re going to go there?”

  Still laughing, she nodded. “Yeah.”

  “That’s cruel, Emma. Very cruel.”

  “Sorry.”

  Sorry, his ass.

  She wasn’t sorry, she wasn’t anywhere close to sorry. She was cracking up, and he should be annoyed. But she looked so damned sexy as she laughed at him.

  “I thought you were going to pass out a few times,” she said.

  “Well you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve never seen a vagina from that angle before.”

  She only laughed harder and patted his arm like he was a four-year-old, before heading toward his truck in her fancy clothes now streaked with dirt, blood and other stuff he didn’t want to think about.

  God, she was hot as hell.

  They weren’t finished, not by a long shot, so he followed her. “For the record, I didn’t pass out. I was in it, all the way.”

  She stopped at the hood of his truck on the passenger side. “You were, for which I’m most thankful. But seeing as you’re so weak-kneed and all, maybe I should drive.”

  Yeah, she was sweet and gentle and soft, all right. Like a sl
eeping lion.

  “We need to hurry.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m on a schedule here.”

  He leaned toward her, his hands on the hood as he faced her. “What are you in such a hurry to go back to?”

  “I have things to do.”

  He had to laugh. “You ever slow down and smell the roses, Doc?”

  “I’m not a roses kind of woman.”

  “How about relaxing?” he asked, thinking he figured he knew the answer. She wasn’t much into that either.

  “Relaxing bores me.”

  “How about fun. Do you ever have fun?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But not when I’m three thousand miles from home, in a town that pays in cholesterol-laden casseroles and looks at me like I’m an alien.”

  An uptight, anal, sleeping lion, with teeth. “I don’t look at you like you’re an alien,” he said.

  “Yes, but you don’t count.”

  “Why don’t I count?”

  She hesitated. “Because you look at me in a different way.”

  “Like?”

  “Like…” Interestingly enough, she blushed.

  “Like I’m attracted to you?” he pressed, amused.

  Her eyes met his. “Yes. Like that.”

  “Because I am. Very much.”

  She eyed him a long beat before hopping up into his truck without a word. Not exactly a glowing recommendation but she hadn’t slammed the door on that admitted attraction either, a fact he decided meant good things.

  Or so he hoped.

  Chapter 5

  Emma’s dad had called her twice, and she’d missed both calls, so that night she hopped into his spare truck to go visit him.

  His small, remote cabin was outside of town, about ten miles up a dirt road on the shores of Jackson Lake, where he spent his days rehabbing by fly-fishing to his heart’s content.

  The problem wasn’t the dirt road, or the ten miles.

  Okay, that was the problem. As was the fact that she drove like shit.

  She didn’t drive in New York, though she did have her license. She actually liked to drive, but she didn’t have much opportunity to do so.

  Until she’d come here. First of all, the truck was huge. And crotchety. And not exactly easy to handle. She held her breath each of the ten miles, but luckily it was a dry day and she managed only one or two near misses with wayward branches, and that one kamikaze squirrel, but they’d both survived.

  By the time she arrived, she was sweating buckets and her father was just coming in from fishing. He was medium built, with only a slight pudge to belie his years. He had a full head of curly gray hair that stuck straight up, whether from its own mind or lack of a brush, she had no idea. “You called. Twice.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to…connect. See if you were doing okay.”

  “That was my question for you.”

  “I’m doing good. The clinic driving you crazy?”

  “No.” A lie.

  He just looked at her, patient. Understanding. And she caved. “Yes.”

  He smiled sympathetically. “Sorry. I know it’s a different pace than you’re used to. I guess I was hoping you’d enjoy it.”

  “Jury is still out,” she said kindly. No use in telling him how restless she felt. “I brought more casseroles. The healthy ones.”

  “I like the unhealthy ones better.” He had laughing eyes and an easy smile, but she didn’t find this funny.

  “No fat,” she said, and he sighed.

  “Your medical records?” she asked, as she did every visit.

  “I forgot. Next time,” he said as he did every visit.

  After the initial pleasantries, they stood inside his cabin, him in his fishing vest, she in the doctor coat she’d forgotten to remove, staring awkwardly at each other.

  She wondered, as she did every single day—why had she come?

  Because for better or worse, they were all each other had. In spite of being all work and no play, that meant something to her.

  He meant something to her.

  They had nothing in common, nothing to talk about, and he didn’t have cable, but they were family.

  That didn’t mean that they actually liked each other. Truthfully, he looked just as grateful as she felt when she left.

  She sweated off another two pounds on the way back, and then stayed up late reading some medical journals and eating a mystery casserole from the freezer. It was one that had looked like maybe it was too high in fat content for her father, and as she chewed she could feel her arteries clog up as she gained back her two pounds.

  Damn, she needed something to do other than eat, but Wishful tended to roll up its collective sidewalks at sunset. The baby delivery today had been great, but that had been the only exciting thing to happen to her in days. Weeks.

  Two months.

  Already she was drowning in boredom again, as in head under, going down for the count, drowning.

  She didn’t want to resent her father for this, she really didn’t. It wasn’t his fault he’d had a heart attack, that he needed help to keep this place going until he made a full recovery.

  Or that they were all each other had left, which essentially meant he was as stuck with her as she was with him.

  Nope, she didn’t blame him. She just wished things were different. Wished she could look at his records and make sure he was recouping okay, or if there was something—anything—she could do to expedite it.

  She had far too much time to obsess over that. Too much time for everything, especially at night when she had nothing left to do except watch the one channel she got—which ran nothing but screwball romantic comedies.

  Her mom would be pestering her to get the hell out. God, she missed that noisy, pushy, bossy woman with her whole heart. Sandy wouldn’t be happy to know Emma was here, not one little bit.

  Emma wasn’t happy either.

  But…but now that she knew how bad her dad was at the bookkeeping and billing, she was worried that he’d run out of money by year’s end if he didn’t make some changes.

  She had ideas for those changes. He could be treating bigger cases, could be far more successful if he tried to compete with the South Shore clinics.

  But Eddie Sinclair didn’t think like that. He was much more laid-back than she, preferring to just let things happen. Every time she’d tried to bring up business talk, he got an amused look on his face and told her everything would be fine if she remembered to keep breathing.

  She was breathing, dammit, but his lackadaisical ways didn’t help. How he’d ever lived alone all these years was beyond her. He’d chosen to do so. Chosen to let her mom leave, chosen not to have joint custody, or any sort of visitation.

  Old wounds, she reminded herself. She was over it. So over it. She got over things quickly, always had. Except usually she had something to occupy her mind, something like work.