The Bull Rider's Christmas Baby

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Has Cash told you much about his sister, Daisy?”

  “No.” Silently bearing another contraction, Wren took a second to catch her breath. “Just that she lives in San Francisco and you don’t see her as much as you’d like.”

  “I understand she’s busy, and we’re all proud of her for earning her law degree, but for the life of me I can’t fathom what could keep her away from something as important as her baby brother’s wedding.”

  “I’m sorry.” Wren took her hand. “I’m sure whatever Daisy’s doing, you’re on her mind.”

  Hugging Wren, Georgina said, “I’m so happy to have you as my daughter. Even better, as my friend—although that may be on a probationary status if I don’t get a decent craft out of you.”

  “SURE YOU’RE ALL RIGHT?” Helping himself to thirds of the cake he’d selected, Cash worried his bride had overdone it. Her color was off, and her smile no longer reached her eyes.

  “Please, Cash, just let me enjoy—” Her face wrenched in pain, and he had to grab hold of her to even keep her upright.

  “That’s it…” Abandoning his cake plate on the table, he guided his wife to the nearest willow chair. “Don’t move an inch. I’m finding Doc Haven.”

  Wren hadn’t wanted to believe she could be in early labor, but with each new contraction she feared that might be the case. Two weeks before her due date, her baby would be smaller than ideal, but still healthy.

  “This better be good.” All smiles, Doc Haven was clearly winded. “That’s the most fun I’ve had dancing in at least thirty years. Delores does a mean two-step.”

  “I’m sorry Cash interrupted you. I’m sure these are—ooh…” Pain had her gripping the sides of her chair so hard that her nails dug into the soft wood. “Wedding and a baby all in one day.” Slapping Cash’s back, the doctor said, “Good work, son.” To Wren, he asked, “Can you make it to the nearest bedroom?”

  “I—I think so….” She was all at once hot and cold. But on the inside. The pain was escalating. Almost more than she could bear.

  “Wyatt!” Cash called to his brother. “Help me carry Wren to the guest room.”

  “Too much cake?” Wyatt asked. Unaware of the seriousness of the situation, he kept on with his shtick. “Maybe your stomach’s too big from swallowing a watermelon? Or wait—brother Cash, did you have the honeymoon before the wedding and your bride’s preggers?”

  “Lay off,” Cash ground out from between clenched teeth. “She’s having our baby.”

  “Here? Now?” Wyatt paled. “I’m not so hot at this sort of thing.”

  “Would you shut up and grab the arm of her chair?” In case his daft brother still didn’t grasp the plan, Cash pointed where Wyatt’s hands should be.

  A few minutes later Wren had been hefted onto the comfy canopy bed she’d napped on only hours earlier. “Doc Haven, why is this happening?”

  “Who knows why anything happens when it does, dear.” Easing extra pillows beneath her head, he said to Cash, “Fetch my bag from the back of my van. After that, have your mama boil water so I can sterilize my equipment. After that, come right back here. Your wife’s going to need you. Oh—and I also need towels. Dozens, if you can find them.”

  “It hurts,” Wren complained.

  “I know,” the doctor soothed. “Not sure how we’re going to get you out of this dress, but let’s try.”

  “I—I want Georgina. She’ll know what to do.”

  When Cash returned with everything the doctor had requested, he was sent back out to put someone else on boiling-water duty.

  “Honey,” Georgina said, finally by her side, “Cash told me you asked for me? What can I do?”

  “Please help me off with my dress. I want it pretty for m-my—” she rode out another contraction “—my own daughter.”

  “Good idea.” As Wren had known Georgina would, she got straight to work unfastening rows of satin buttons on her back and sleeves.

  Crying and laughing while shimmying out of the gargantuan gown, Wren managed, “Next time we’re wedding-dress shopping, remind me to opt for cocktail length and Velcro.”

  “You got it,” the older woman promised. “Only, let’s hope that’ll just be your vow renewal to my son.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and in walked Stella and Delores carrying a fancy, silver-wrapped box. “Pardon the interruption, Wren, but we thought this might be useful, if not exactly what it was originally intended for.”

  “C-could you please open it for me.”

  Inside was a peach chiffon nightgown and matching robe far too pretty to give birth in.

  “I can’t wear that,” she complained.

  “Of course you can.” Delores assured her. “It’s your wedding night, and even if you’re not feeling your best, you should always look it.”

  “Ladies…” Doc Haven cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind, it’d be helpful for me to get within at least a couple feet of my patient.”

  After much grumbling, Wren’s two friends set off to make sandwiches for the guests, who’d all sobered enough to start a betting pool on the baby’s sex and exact time of birth.

  “All right.” Tossing back the covers, the doctor said, “Now that we’ve got you dressed in something a little more appropriate, let’s see how far along you really are.”

  Having already tucked towels beneath her and alongside her, Doc Haven performed his exam. “For a future doctor, you’re not very in tune with your own body.”

  “Wh-what’s that mean?” Indescribable pain rolled through Wren, making her want to pummel her gorgeous new husband for putting this baby inside her.

  “Honey,” Doc Haven noted, “you’re fully dilated. It’s time to push.”

  “B-but my water never broke.”

  “You should know as well as I do that sometimes that’s the way it goes. Mother Nature doesn’t want us knowing all the answers. This is going to be on your fin al exam, so listen up. What you’re experiencing is a dry birth. Pretty rare, but I’ve seen it a few times. We’ll get you through.”

  The pain had grown so intense Wren didn’t know whether to scream or cry or both.

  Georgina held her left hand and Cash her right. “Come on, honey, you can do it. Not much longer now. You were pretty lucky to have a wedding distract you from all of the long boring parts of giving birth.”

  “Arrgh.” With all her might Wren pushed until she feared she’d black out.

  “Good girl,” Doc cheered. “A few more like that and we’ll be in the baby business.”

  “D-did we remember to b-buy diapers?” Wren asked anyone who’d listen.

  “Relax,” Cash said. “Delores and some of her beauty-parlor friends bought us six months of cloth-diaper home delivery service.”

  “That was so sweeeet.”

  “Uh-huh.” Cash wiped her sweat-drenched forehead with a cold washcloth. “Breathe, sweetheart. Save your energy for pushing.”

  “I’m afraid we forgot a lot of stuff.”

  “Of course we did. That’s why God invented grandmas. Right, Mom?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Less chitchat, more push.” Doc Haven turned to Georgina. “She’s crowning. Did anyone sterilize my surgical scissors?”

  “They’re on the towel on the dresser.”

  “Great.” To Wren the doctor asked, “How about another push?”

  “I don’t think I can….” Thrashing her head, she fist ed the sheets. “It hurts…it hurts.”

  “I love you,” Cash said. “Hang in there, sweetheart. It’ll be worth it. Just think of how good it’s going to feel to hold our son in your arms.”

  “I hate you and we’re having a daughter!” She used the vehemence behind what would hopefully be the end of this argument to be the fuel for her most powerful push.

  “Almost there…”

  Gritting her teeth, Wren fought to bring her baby in to the world—and succeeded.

  “Congratulations, newlyweds! You have a gorgeous baby
girl.”

  “How’s that possible?” Cash asked.

  Georgina laughed, “Because God in all of His wisdom knows this family is desperate for females. I’m happy for you,” she said to Wren. “She is lovely.”

  The doctor wrapped the baby in a blanket, resting her on Wren’s chest. Transfixed, Wren couldn’t stop staring. “Cash, look at her tiny fingers and toes.”

  “She’s off-the-charts beautiful—like her mom….” He kissed Wren. “But I’m telling you now, no boy is ever getting near her.”

  “Slow down,” the doctor said. “Let’s tackle getting this charmer and her mama comfortable before you go pulling out the shotguns.”

  “THOUGHT YOU WANTED A BOY?” Wren crept up behind her husband, who stood at their daughter’s crib, drinking her in. Two days had passed since her birth, yet Wren still couldn’t believe she was really here.

  “Hush it and revert back to our earlier conversation on changing one’s mind. She’s perfect. Everything I ever wanted. She does, however, need a name.” He stroked his daughter’s perfectly pink cheek. “I was thinking Cashita. Cashalinda? Cashley?”

  “Would you be serious,” Wren scolded. “We’ve got to get her birth certificate and social security card.” Wren’s head spun just thinking about the amount of government paperwork.

  Grinning over his shoulder, Cash reminded her, “Let’s not forget to put her on waiting lists for all the best Weed Gulch preschools.”

  “You’re awful.” Taking his hand, she led him from the room. On the sofa, she resumed wrapping Christmas gifts—most of which had been ordered weeks earlier from the internet. “So? Names?”

  He added another log to the fire. “Actually, you’ll be happy to know I’ve put a lot of thought into this subject.”

  “Oh?” She cut a square piece of elf-themed paper.

  “It makes me sad that our baby girl has no history on your side of the family. What she does have, however, is an awesome mom.”

  Eyes stinging, Wren said, “Thanks, but no need to butter me up. We’re already married.”

  “Hear me out. My mom, and her mom, and even her mother’s mom all share the same first initial and middle name—Marie. What if you did the same thing with our baby, only with bird names?”

  “You’re crazy.” She put the singing-bass plaque Cash had selected for Dallas on the paper.

  “A while ago—I think we were in the pool—you told me the women at your orphanage called you Wren because you were plain and sweet and never caused trouble. They made your middle name Katharine because one of them was a huge Katharine Hepburn fan and wanted you to eventually find that kind of brassiness for yourself. So what if we call our baby Robin Katharine Buckhorn. Thus combining pretty with sass and a last name that’s become Oklahoma legend?”

  “Robin…” Wren was beyond touched that Cash not only cared about their daughter’s name having meaning, but that she knew from her first breath she was loved. “I like it. But what if the boys at school call her Robin the Robber? Or Batman and Robin?”

  Cash punched his hand with his fist. “Dare one of them to try.”

  “It’s official, then? We’ll call her Robin Katharine Buck horn?”

  He held out his hand for her to shake, but then used her grip to pull her off the sofa and into his arms. “Didn’t think you were getting off that easy, did you?”

  “I hope not.” When he pressed his lips to hers, no words described the champagne bubbles that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her heart.

  Without the baby between them, all mystery was gone when it came to how ready Cash was to finally pick up where they’d left off in Vegas. As soon as she got Doc Haven’s okay, she planned to reacquaint herself with every one of Cash’s gifts.

  The more he kissed her, the more a sweet, aching hunger cried for more of him. Because he was now officially hers, she took the liberty of sliding her hands under his shirt and up his chest. His pecs were masterpieces in muscle, and before too long she removed the cloth barring her way from kissing every inch of him.

  He groaned, easing his fingers into her hair. “You’ve got to stop.”

  “Why?” she teased, feigning innocence. “All I’m doing is this….” Kissing the line where his jeans hung low against his groin, she unfastened the top button, fully intent on giving her new husband a much-deserved happy ending.

  AN HOUR’S WORTH OF FUN later, Wren woke to find herself having fallen asleep beside Cash on the sofa. “Hi.”

  “Yes, I am,” he said with his grin. Playing with a strand of her hair, he asked, “When you first arrived at the ranch, did you ever dream we’d end up this happy?”

  “No, but before you get too content with the status quo, we both have major hills to climb.” Yawning, she managed to push herself onto her feet. Leaving him, she put a bow on Dallas’s gift and set it under the twinkling tree.

  “Like what? From where I’m sitting it all looks down hill from here. I’ll get my knee fixed and go back out on the road. You get all those fancy initials added on to your name, then we pack up the munchkin—hell, we might have two or three more by then—and we’ll all go on the road together. I’ll buy us one of those tricked-out RVs. You’ll love it. A lot of rodeo wives have them and swear they’re like living in rolling mansions.”

  Freezing in front of the Christmas tree, Wren asked, “Did you think about a word you just said? Newsflash, but I never planned on spending ten years of my life to become a doctor, only to spend my life preggers and cheering from the sidelines while alternately praying I’m not watching the inevitable ride where you fall off a bull and never get up.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I didn’t mean it, okay?” Cash said later that night. Though he and Wren shared his king-size bed, as far as he was concerned he might as well have been sleeping with the ice chunk that’d taken over the front pasture pond. “Of course you’ll do your doctor thing. When you can’t, Mom can stay with Robin. Shoot, we could even pay Stella to take on our kiddo, too. Bottom line, we’ve got months and months till any of this comes to pass. Why are we fighting about it now?”

  “Why?” Wren rolled to face him, in the process inadvertently knocking Prissy from her appointed pillow. The dog shot Cash a look nearly as offended as his wife’s. “When we married, it was with the understanding that you not only knew how demanding my career is, but that you were fine with it. Now all of a sudden you’re spinning cowboy fantasies of the little woman standing by her man.”

  “Ouch.” Cash clutched his chest. “At least you’d be standing alongside a damned good-looking man—rich, too, once I get my sorry ass back on a bull.”

  Growling, she flopped back over. “You’re impossible. Dense as that disgusting concoction you make for oatmeal whenever Mrs. Cahwood takes her days off.”

  Scooting over to her side of the bed, he spooned her, loving that her tummy now fit in his hand rather than the barn wheelbarrow. “Add bad cooking to my list of sins, but I’m still freakishly gorgeous, right?”

  She hit him over the head with her pillow.

  A WEEK AFTER ROBIN’S BIRTH, smack-dab in the center of the Woodland Hills Mall, Cash helplessly watched while the kid screamed bloody murder. He’d just bought her that year’s special-edition Eskimo Joe’s holiday T-shirt and tugged it over her little head. Hell, when he’d been a kid, he’d lived for this annual tradition. “What’s wrong?”

  “How should I know?” Wren jiggled the baby and rubbed her head, but nothing calmed her.

  “You’re supposed to be a doctor,” Cash reminded her. “What good is your fancy degree if you don’t know something as basic as why our baby’s turning red?”

  “Oh, dear…” A blue-haired onlooker shook her head.

  Cash glared at the nosy old biddy.

  Wren glared at him.

  “What?” he asked, barely able to hear himself think.

  “You should be nice to old people.” Rocking and jiggling and cooing only infuriated Robin all the more.
/>
  “Seriously,” Cash said to his new wife, growing more uncomfortable by the second as every passerby stared. “Do something.”

  “What would you suggest? I nursed her an hour ago. She already had her postlunch burp and poo. Want me to whip out a tranquilizer dart?”

  Cash didn’t appreciate Wren’s sarcasm. “Aren’t wives and new moms supposed to be pleasant?”

  “If we weren’t in the center of a crowded mall,” she ground out from between clenched teeth, “I’d beat you silly.”

  “Nice, Wren.” Hands on his forehead, Cash wished himself anywhere but his current location. “Our kid is dying and all you care about is smacking the crap out of me?”

  “Robin’s not dying,” she growled, her pinched expression not as confident as her words.

  With their wailing baby in the crook of one arm, she managed to steer the Mack truck of a stroller his mother had given them alongside a wooden bench. Unfortunately where Robin was concerned, adding sitting to her jiggling, rocking repertoire did little good.

  “That crying is really getting to me,” he confessed. “Mind if I go ahead and get back to shopping?”

  “Y-you’re kidding, right?” His clenched stomach told him Wren’s narrowed eyes weren’t a good thing.

  Meanwhile, now even the kids in line for Santa pics had started to stare.

  “Excuse me.” A fellow mom with two sticky-faced toddlers rolled to a stop in front of Wren. “I see your baby has one of this year’s Eskimo Joe’s shirts. Did you check the inside of the tag? Last year my Lucy got one with a staple that poked her. Luckily she was old enough to tell me what was wrong.”

  Tugging the back of Robin’s shirt, sure enough, Cash found the price tag had been stapled in place. It was positioned just right to stab his baby girl. In under ten seconds he had it removed and his daughter’s screams faded to indignant “what took you so long” sniffles.

  “Thank you,” Wren said to the stranger. “I feel so stupid. She’s only a week old, and we’re just starting to figure out her noises.”