He scrambled for her discarded dress, tossed it at her, and reached for his prosthesis. Even though he had a lot more steps to getting dressed than she did, he was fully clothed before she had even managed to turn her dress right-side out. He ran to the bedroom door and yanked it open. Hawn was immediately in the room, her tail wagging wildly as if she sensed the excitement.
“Where’s your bag?” Chad asked as he dashed into the hallway.
“At the end of my bed.” She had her own room and even her own bed, but she hadn’t slept in it even once.
She rocked back and forth to gain the momentum to get into a seated position and slipped her dress over her head. Lord, her panties were far away. Before she could get her feet under her, Hawn had retrieved her underwear and dropped them into her lap, tilting her furry head to one side as she waited for her praise.
“I’m not going to ask you how you know to retrieve a woman’s underwear after she’s had sex with your master,” Lindsey said.
Hawn barked, smiling her doggie smile.
“That much practice, huh?”
“Where’s the baby’s bag?” Chad called from down the hall.
“In the nursery. Sitting in the crib.” She bent to put her foot into her panties, but couldn’t reach. God, why was everything such a chore?
“Got it!”
She heard Chad race down the steps. The front door opened. Closed. A moment later an engine started, followed by the unmistakable whine of a car backing down the driveway. Tires squealed on the street in front of the house as he hit the gas.
“He forgot me, Hawn,” she said, finally getting one foot into her panties. Getting the second foot into the holes in the right sequence was even more of a challenge.
She heard the vroom of an engine coming up the street and more squealing tires as the car drew to a halt in front of the house. She finally had both feet in her panties and was sitting on the edge of the bed with them around her ankles when the front door banged open and footsteps dashed up the stairs.
“Sorry, sorry,” Chad said, cringing sheepishly as he raced into the room. “I got excited. I was two blocks away before I realized I’d forgotten my most important cargo.”
She laughed, snorting into her hand. “You were well on your way, and I can’t even get my underwear on.”
He rushed over to help her slide her drawers up her thighs. “How far apart are the contractions?”
“I don’t know. I’ve just had the wuh— Owwwwwww!” She clung to his shoulders as another pain caught her by surprise. Shouldn’t there be some sort of warning? Criminy and holy shit, that hurt.
“Another one?” he asked, rubbing her back. Like that helped.
“No, fuckhead, I thought I’d scream in pain for the hell of it.”
He pulled out his cellphone, attention glued to his screen, and she punched him in the shoulder. “Now is not the time for Candy Crush,” she yelled. “Get me to the goddamned hospital.”
“I was seeing what time it was so we can time the contractions. They seem pretty close together.”
Timing the contractions was probably a good idea, but the faster she got to the hospital, the faster she could get some strong drugs or an epidural or whatever it was she’d put in her stupid birth plan before she’d known how bad contractions hurt. What had she gotten herself into?
Once the contraction ended—about forty-five seconds of sheer hell—she started thinking clearly again. “I should go to the bathroom before we leave.” She had to pee—as per usual—and needed some post-coitus cleanup so she didn’t embarrass herself.
She suffered through another contraction on the toilet and was really starting to worry that something was wrong.
“Are you okay?” Chad called from outside the door. “Do you need help?”
“Give me a fucking minute!” she yelled as she curled around her belly and panted through the pain. Lamaze breaths didn’t do shit, she decided.
A few minutes later she emerged from the bathroom a bit cleaner but far surlier. “Are we going or what?” she snapped.
“Just remember,” Chad said as he helped her down the stairs, “that I didn’t do this to you.”
“No. Adam did. And I’m going to cut him if I ever see him again.”
“Should we call him?” Chad asked, leading her out onto the porch. His car was sitting in the driveway, still running and with the driver’s door wide open.
“Probably. Even though I know he won’t come.” He hadn’t seemed too keen on the idea when she’d dropped the news on him just an hour ago.
“If you’re wanting a larger audience, I know Mom and Owen would love to be there,” he said.
She’d thought having her newly acquired adoptive family present for the birth of her child would be wonderful before the fact, but now the thought of witnesses made her want to gouge someone’s eyes out.
“I just want you there,” she said as she took each porch step slowly. She was afraid too much jarring might result in a baby being born in the front yard. Yes, she’d read the books and online articles that assured her that she’d have plenty of time to make it to the hospital. The childbirth classes she’d taken with Chad all reiterated that labor was usually a prolonged process, that it wasn’t the emergency it seemed to be, and she’d only had three contractions so far, but—
As she took the final extra-long step where no sidewalk had been poured yet, a gush of warm water wet the inside of her legs and the ground between her feet.
Oh shit!
Chad’s eyes widened as he stared at the puddle. “Was that supposed to happen?”
“I think so.” She didn’t think it was supposed to happen that quickly after the start of labor, but she didn’t want to panic Chad. He might race off to the hospital without her again. She stood at the bottom of the steps, legs trembling and her mind completely blank. Even with all her planning, she didn’t know what to do. Not really. And she didn’t know how to be a mom. What if she was terrible at it? She could ruin Daisy’s entire life by being a crappy mother.
“Oh, angel,” Chad said, cupping her face gently. “Don’t cry. Everything’s fine.”
She sucked her lips into her mouth to still her blubbering, but she couldn’t keep her tears in check. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m okay. I just . . . just . . . need a towel to sit on in the car.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“But your seat!”
“Will wash off. Or I’ll replace it. Whatever. Let’s get you to the hospital.”
She nodded, but her feet had rooted themselves to the ground, while her knees were like soggy spaghetti. She tried focusing on taking one step toward the car. Just one. Take one step, Lindsey. You can do it. She’d managed to shuffle an inch or two forward when another pain gripped her midsection and doubled her over. Her contractions were definitely too close together.
“I think something’s wrong.” She gasped, clutching her belly between both hands. “I thought contractions were supposed to start an hour or thirty minutes apart. These are like . . .”
“Eight minutes.”
Feels like two.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” he said.
“Your car would be faster,” she said.
“Not if I can’t get you to the car.”
“I’m trying,” she said, gripping his arm to leverage her back straight so she could take another step.
“Sorry, angel, but I don’t have the patience for this.”
She sucked in a surprised breath when he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the car.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since the day I got my leg,” he said.
“Take me to the hospital?”
“Carry you in my arms. I was afraid you wouldn’t let me.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said. “I’d be afraid you’d hurt yourself. But I’m desperate.”
But now that she saw how easy he made it look, she’d let him carry her anywhere. His arms felt so solid and strong wrappe
d around her, his heart beat fiercely beneath her palm, and the skin of his throat was warm against her lips as she kissed him in gratitude. He set her down next to the passenger door and opened it before lifting her again and placing her gently in the seat.
“Next time I carry you, it will be over the threshold as my wife,” he said.
His wife? She sucked in another breath, but not due to pain this time. They’d just admitted to loving each other not many minutes ago. Marriage was quite a leap forward.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “You had to know that’s where we were headed.”
She blinked, unable to process how she felt about marriage to anyone when she had progressed into hard labor so shockingly fast. “Actually, I was hoping we were headed for the hospital,” she said in a surprisingly even voice.
He grinned and kissed her forehead. “Right.” He shut her door and hurried over to his side of the car. She meant to ask him if he was truly serious about marriage, but another pain had her too busy swearing to form a coherent sentence.
Chad drove faster than he should, but Lindsey was too panicked to criticize his risky lane-changing maneuvers. Her contractions were only minutes apart, and if she gave birth in his car, he’d definitely have to replace the seat.
She was glad she’d taken him with her when she’d toured the birthing center of the hospital; he knew exactly where to go to get her admitted. He lifted her out of the car—leaving the sporty Acura in a drop-off-only zone—and carried her into the admitting area.
“I can walk,” she insisted, until another contraction gripped her and she changed her mind, clinging to him as if he could do something to make her hurt less.
A nurse who was unnervingly calm meandered in their direction with a wheelchair. “Looks like someone’s going to have a baby today,” she said. “I’ll get Mom admitted. Where did you park, Dad?”
Chad refused to put Lindsey down. “She needs to be checked out by a doctor immediately. Her contractions are only minutes apart, and her water broke, and she’s in a lot of pain. Do something!”
“Why did you wait so long to come in?” the nurse asked.
“We didn’t. Her contractions started less than an hour ago.”
The nurse scoffed. “Not possible.”
“I think . . .” Lindsey said, panting as she tried to catch her breath. “That my backache earlier, might have been— Ow! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Motherfucking son of a bitch!”
“I’ll tell my mom to bring the swear jar when she comes,” Chad said. “That’s like twelve bucks right there.”
Lindsey half-laughed, half-cried as he held her through the tail end of the contraction.
“Set her down in the chair,” the nurse said, still the epitome of calm. “I’ll take her to get admitted. You need to move your car before it gets towed.”
“Tow it,” Chad snapped. “I don’t give a fuck. I’m not leaving her alone.”
Now that Lindsey’s pain had diminished—at least for another eight minutes or so—Lindsey was thinking a bit more clearly.
“Let the lady do her job,” she said before kissing Chad. “Go park the car and call Owen. Tell him to call everyone else on our list, okay?”
“But—”
“Please hurry,” she said. “You need to get all that done before the baby is born. The longer you wait—”
He set her in the wheelchair and lifted her hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “I love you. I’ll be right back. Don’t have that baby without me.”
“I love you too!” she called after him as he raced away.
By the time Chad returned, she’d been checked by a midwife and found to be dilated to seven centimeters, admitted into her room, and dressed in a hospital gown. Now she was being hooked up to an IV.
He rushed to her side and stroked her hair from her face, kissing her lips. “Sorry I took so long. I couldn’t find a place to park, and I couldn’t get ahold of Owen, so I called Mom and she wanted to chat.”
“It didn’t take you long,” she assured him, fingering the scar over his ear.
“Did they say when she’ll be born?” He slid a hand over her belly.
“Anywhere from ten minutes to six hours from now.” She laughed at his incredulous expression. “But probably an hour or two.”
“Mom says not to have that baby until she gets here.”
“I’ll try not.”
“She also said you should have warned her that you were going to have the baby two weeks early. Your surprise baby shower is tomorrow, and you’ve ruined everything.”
Lindsey covered his hand with hers and squeezed. “A surprise shower. . . She did that? For me?”
“Are you surprised?”
Not really. Joan was good to her.
“It’s been hard keeping it a secret,” he added.
“You knew?”
“She only told me yesterday, but she’s been planning it for weeks.”
“I guess that’s why she was being so nosy about my past family and friends.”
“Nah,” he said with a laugh. “She’s always nosy.”
Now that Lindsey was no longer panicked that she’d end up giving birth outside the relative security of the hospital, she could relax and think and talk. Chad tried to make her as comfortable as possible by offering more back rubs, ice chips, and gentle words of reassurance even when she was cussing through her contractions. An anesthesiologist had been called to give her an epidural but had yet to arrive. She was starting to think she didn’t need one. Not because the contractions didn’t hurt, but because the pain seemed worth it. Soon she’d be able to hold Daisy and see her, smell her, kiss and cuddle her. Lindsey couldn’t wait to meet her daughter.
“Did you mean what you said about getting married?” Lindsey asked Chad between contractions.
Chad had been staring at a monitor but went completely still—as if he’d turned into a possum and thought she wouldn’t be able to see him if he didn’t move.
She plucked at the sheet covering her legs. That was fine. She didn’t need to be married, and she didn’t want to pressure Chad into doing something he wasn’t ready to do. She wasn’t sure that she was ready for marriage either. Being a new mom would be challenging enough without adding being a new wife to the mix.
“I meant it,” he said, still not looking at her. “I shouldn’t have blurted it out the way I did, though.”
“Why not?”
“I should have prepared what I’d say and done something special and gotten a ring. So pretend I didn’t mention it, and I’ll surprise you with a real proposal someday.”
“I don’t need all that,” she said. “And I already have your ring.”
He sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand. “What are you talking about?”
“The ring Josie returned to you. I still have it in my purse.”
He cringed. “You were supposed to pawn that. It’s cursed.”
“It’s pretty,” she said. “And I don’t care that it used to be Josie’s.” As soon as the words were out, she knew she was lying, because she was hit with a bout of extreme nausea.
“Well, I care,” he said. “It’s bad enough that you have to accept Josie’s used fiancé. There’s no way in hell you’re wearing her used engagement ring. Are you in that much of a rush to get a ring on your finger?”
She hadn’t been before, but now that he’d broached the subject, yes! But she said, “No. Take your time. I can—” Another contraction gripped her midsection, and she tried breathing through it to keep the swear words locked inside, but it was no use. “Son of a hell-born bitch. How do I keep forgetting how much these fucking hurt when there are only seven pain-free minutes between these rancid cunt-whores?”
“Six minutes between now,” Chad informed her. He gritted his teeth. “You’re breaking my fingers.”
“Would you rather I shove a cantaloupe up your ass and let you try to push it out?” she shouted at him.
“I’ll pass.”
/>
“I might give it a try,” Owen said from the doorway. “Sounds kinky. Can I come in?”
“I’d wait thirty seconds if I were you,” Chad warned.
“Why thirty seconds?”
“She hasn’t gotten her epidural yet.”
She cursed the anesthesiologist, the inventor of IVs, and the taupe wall color before the pain finally lessened and she took a breath.
“Chad said he couldn’t reach you,” she said, panting in Owen’s direction. She released Chad’s hand, and he gave it a shake.
“I got his message,” Owen said. “Is it safe to enter now?”
“You’ve got six minutes before the scary returns,” Chad said, massaging his knuckles.
“I’m not scary!”
“Of course, you aren’t, angel. Ice chip?”
She was thirsty, so she opened her mouth, and he scooped in a few bits of unsatisfying ice. She’d save cursing out ice chips to accompany her next contraction.
“I’m surprised Mom isn’t here yet,” Owen said as he approached the bed.
“She’s picking up someone from the airport,” Chad said.
Owen frowned. “Who?”
Chad shook his head and glanced pointedly at Lindsey, who narrowed her eyes.
“Are you keeping something from me?” she asked.
Before he could answer, the anesthesiologist arrived with his scary arsenal of long-ass needles.
“I think we should grab a cup of coffee,” Owen said, looking a bit green as he eyed the doctor’s instrument tray.
“I’m not leaving her by herself,” Chad said.
“But you hate needles,” Owen said.
“Does anyone actually like needles?” Chad asked.
“I love them,” the doctor quipped. He held up a frighteningly thick one and cradled it in both palms as if it were a treasured newborn.
Lindsey whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut. Her hand searched blindly for something to cling to and found Chad’s hand again. Owen stepped out of the room when they positioned Lindsey on her side and had her round her back so the doctor could insert the catheter between her vertebrae. She was suddenly rethinking the epidural thing.
Love Me Page 23
