And, the last time I tried to point out her biased thinking. Skylar had gone on an “I don’t see your color” tirade so dramatic and tearful, it had ended with our father hugging her tight at the Christmas dinner table. While saying to me, “I know you don’t think the words that come out of your mouth can be hurtful, Olivia, but Skylar is a very sensitive soul.”
And so here I am, the daughter my mother probably would have sent back after her marriage collapsed, if it would have been socially acceptable. Assuring the sister who thinks my job is completely unnecessary. “I’m just finding the gate, Sky. I’ll be there in a few hours. Hold tight and try not to worry too much.”
“I am trying, but she’s just impossible today. She insisted that I plan everything, but with less than twenty-four hours to go, she’s now questioning all of my decisions. She hates the spa I chose and insists I should have booked the Woodhouse because they have better hot stone treatments. But how could I have known that? I’ve never had a hot stone treatment at the Woodhouse! She’s also trying to make me switch caterers because, according to her, the food from Sweet Lace was too salty at the last Glendaver board meeting. But how was I supposed to know that either?”
“She also failed to hire a stripper!” Our sixty-five-year-old mother calls out in the background of Skylar’s call. Her accent is just as lush and full of magnolia as always, but her words are so slurred, I can only imagine how bad she’ll get at tomorrow’s festivities.
“Oh goodness, she’s come downstairs to harass me now,” Skylar whispers as if the Ring spirit has just crawled out of the TV.
“What kind of matron of honor doesn’t hire a stripper?” Our mother demands in the background.
“I’ll be there in just a few hours,” I repeat, feeling genuinely sorry for my sister, despite our many differences.
“Please get here soon. It’s so tough to handle her when she’s like this.”
Yes, which is exactly why I moved as far north as I could get from Kentucky when it came time to escape—I mean go away to college. But Mama does have a point. This spa day followed by a garden party sounds like it’s going to be boring as hello. And I can’t imagine what Skylar was thinking, trying to force her kind of “aren’t we all just pink and perfect” sort of party on a woman who decided to spend her sunset years with her hard-bodied, thirty-six-year-old personal trainer.
I say a quick goodbye to Skylar and almost hope I don’t ever find this mythical Gate A-5. Sorry Skylar darling, I imagine myself calling back to say. I would have come, but I couldn’t find the gate.
But then, like a dream denied, I round the corner, and there’s Gate A-5.
Ah, well then. With a wistful sigh, I resign myself to getting on the plane to hell—I mean Kentucky, only to have a guy in a black suit stop me in my tracks.
Not because he’s cute—though, he is in a big, hulky Italian way—but because he looks just like the man who escorted me into my first home visit with Amber Reynolds. Exactly the same. However, his energy, as our clinic’s homeopathic doctor from California might call it, is utterly different from Luca Ferraro’s assistant. He’s a lot less affable than the man who introduced himself to me as Rock when I arrived at the well-appointed Tribeca high rise. I can tell that much just by the way he watches me approach without any change of expression.
“Dr. Glendaver?” he asks, with a much harsher Jersey accent than the man I met back in November.
“Yes,” I answer nonetheless. “What’s this about? Is Amber okay?”
“Come with me,” he says. “I’ll explain in the car.”
As it turns out, the man isn’t Rock, but his identical twin brother, Stone. And the “come with me” wasn’t a request. Without waiting for my answer, he all but drags me out of the airport, ignoring my many questions. Like, “May I ask how you made it past security and all the way to my gate?” and “How did you even know what flight I was on?” and perhaps most importantly, “Where are you taking me?”
The third one is the only query he ever bothers to address, and even that question doesn’t get answered until we reach a dark car idling outside the terminal’s sliding glass doors, and I tell him, “I refuse to get into this car until you let me know exactly where you’re taking me.”
“Manhattan Mercy,” he bites out before all but shoving me into the car’s back seat. He then crowds in beside me and tells me, “Mrs. Ferraro has gone into labor,” right before the car peels off from the curb.
“Mrs. Ferraro? I thought he and Amber weren’t married…and why didn’t you call the head of Obstetrics? I’m supposed to be on a plane right now!”
“Mr. Ferraro isn’t the type of man to settle for the B-team when his wife wants the A-team.”
I fume as Stone escorts me onto the Labor and Delivery floor at Manhattan Mercy. This is the clinic’s preferred hospital, so I’ve delivered a good number of babies here, but I’ve never seen it like this. The whole floor sits eerily quiet, with not so much as a physician’s assistant in sight.
Oh God, they cleared the floor, I suddenly realize. It’s a practice I’ve heard about but have never seen. And not for the first time, I wonder if the father of Amber’s child is more than an eccentric millionaire CEO with money to blow on things like cutting-edge ultrasound machines and private doctor visits, so that his partner—now wife, I guess—never has to leave their apartment.
The sound of sobbing rips me out of that speculative thought.
Without thinking, I go into doctor mode, jogging toward the sound of Amber’s cries and bursting through the doors of what turns out to be an extremely swanky birthing suite.
This room is another “heard about but never seen” for me, and it’s just as luxurious as reported. It looks more like an apartment than the usual L&D room, with marble floors, a homey four poster bed, a comfy couch, a separate bed for the father, and even a couple of rocking chairs.
None of which are being used at the moment. Everyone in the room, including Susan, the hospital’s most respected Labor and Delivery RN, and Dr. Acharya, the head of Obstetrics, are gathered around the bed.
It looks like Susan and Acharya are having a tense conversation. But then Susan sees me and says, “Oh, great, you’re here!”
She and Dr. Acharya part like water, unblocking my view of the bed.
“Who’s here?” Amber demands, her voice little more than a croak.
Her back is to me, but I can see she’s on her knees, bent almost to child’s pose with a pillow lodged underneath her chest. There’s a tall, lean man standing right beside the bed, his arms bent as he gently squeezes both her hips, providing counterpressure to what sounds like acutely painful contractions, if Amber’s earlier scream was any indication. Back labor, I guess, even before my quick glance at the chart Susan hands me.
“It’s Dr. Glendaver, Amber,” I call out, handing Susan back the chart. “So sorry for not announcing myself as soon as I came into the room. Susan, could you let any other staff who will be attending to Mom know to announce themselves by name when entering her room?”
“Sure thing,” Susan answers, then she gives me the rundown while I put on gloves. 8 cm dilated, contractions three minutes apart, epidural requested but not administered, she tells me as I come around the bed to perform a vaginal examination.
At least, it’s supposed to be quick. I’m momentarily startled when I get a full gander at Luca Ferraro. I’d only spoken to him on the phone before today, and usually to restate the ins and outs of the HIPAA laws, which didn’t allow me to discuss Amber’s case with him without her written or spoken permission.
From the sound of his accent, I’d been expecting someone on the Jersey Shore end of the attractiveness spectrum. But the guy massaging Amber’s back has to be one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen in real life. He has dark wavy hair and a set of pale blue eyes that make me understand the use of “piercing” as a descriptive in so many romance novels when they land on me.
“She’s in a lot of pain, but they�
�re refusing to give her anything,” he says, his voice as angry and gruff as if he were the one having the contractions.
“Ah…y-yes, I c-an see…see…see that.” I stop, forcing myself to get it together. Yes, this guy is by far the most good-looking father I’ve ever met in a delivery room, and I doubt I’m the first woman to go all a-stutter in his presence. But my primary concern is Amber, and I use that as an excuse to look away from Luca Ferraro’s unearthly beauty.
“Unfortunately, sometimes moms get to a point, where it would be dangerous to administer an epidural because they’re in too much pain to stay still while the anesthesiologist sticks a needle into her spine. And since Amber is so far dilated and her contractions are only coming three minutes apart—”
Amber’s agonized cry disrupts my explanation, her entire body jerks as another back contraction takes over. Make that two minutes now, I think checking my watch.
“Excuse me, Dad,” I say, indicating that he should move his hands away from her hips as I get into position and reach behind her. “Okay, Amber, I’m going to perform a quick vaginal exam.”
Proving why she’s a favorite with the Manhattan Mercy doctors, Susan instinctively starts filling the birthing tub per the birthing plan, while I check to see where Amber’s at…and yep, just like I suspected. “You’re fully dilated. Looks like this baby is ready to come out.”
“It’s too soon, too soon,” Amber gasps.
“Not too soon,” I assure her. “And I assure you NICU is on standby. But we are going to have to get you over to the tub if you still want to fulfill that part of your birthing plan. It might help with the back pain actual—”
“An epidural was in the birthing plan, too” she snaps back viciously.
“Yes, it was, and that goes to show why birthing plans just can’t be set in stone,” I answer, keeping my voice as soothing as hers is angry. “The position you’re in is also just fine for having a baby, especially if you’re in too much pain to get over to the tub.”
Another contraction hits before Amber can answer, and her breath hitches so hard, a lay person would mistake it for choking. This time she doesn’t just cry out, she yowls, tears spilling down her face as the contraction rolls over her.
“Luca!” she calls out when it’s finally done.
He’s beside her in an instant, giving her one hand to grab onto and wrapping the other around her shoulders. “I’m right here, baby. I’m right here,” he murmurs, voice comforting, but eyes glowering.
If Amber’s pain were a living thing, I have no doubt he would have tackled and killed it with his bare hands by now.
“There’s something wrong! There’s something wrong!” she gasps. “It feels like my back is breaking and I think…I think I’m going to shit myself.”
To Luca’s credit, he doesn’t recoil at the possibility of a bowel movement as I’ve seen a couple of fathers do. He stays right where he is, even before I tell her, “That’s most likely the urge to push, Amber. It’s time.”
“No, no,” Amber says, shaking her head, her face a tight grimace of pain and anxiety. “I’ve lost control of my body. I can’t do this. I’m going to hurt the baby. This is all my fault. I’m going to lose him, just like I did the first baby!”
“Ambs, no, no, you can do this,” Luca tells her before I can offer up my usual reassurance. “You’re the strongest women I know.”
Amber shakes her head. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“I know it hurts. Ambs. If I could take on your pain, believe me, I would. And I know you’re scared, baby. I know you are,” Luca murmurs. “But I’m not. Because you’re a fighter and you’re a survivor, and this baby is going to be half of you. You’ve got this.”
“I don’t.” Amber’s sobbing now. “And if I fuck this up I’m never going to forgive myself. I can’t push.”
“Baby, I promise you. You’re not going to fuck this up. You’re going to push this baby out. And even if he has to serve some time in NICU, he’s going to grow up healthy and strong. I promise you…I promise you all of this. All you have to do is push, and we’ll be the family you lost. Just, push, baby, c’mon.”
By the time he’s done talking, Luca’s crying, too, without self-consciousness or apology. And that’s when Amber’s paperwork goes from being just numbers recorded on a page for me. 1 previous pregnancy six years prior this. 0 live births. Without being told, I know that Luca was also the father of that unborn baby. This child is a second chance for this couple.
And that makes my voice even more emphatic as I tell her, “Amber, your body knows what to do. All you need to do is get into position.”
Amber continues to weep silently, because of the pain or because of the baby she lost, I’m not sure. But eventually…eventually…she raises up on her knees and turns into Luca’s arm, holding on to him as she bears down.
For a moment I stare at the two of them, my own eyes shining. Funny, I’d been suspicious about the unseen father of Amber’s baby from the start. Amber never spoke of the man whose assistant had arranged for my home visits. And the birthing plan didn’t include him. Prior to this, I’d wondered if he’d even show up for the labor and delivery. However, I reconsider my original assessment now.
Amber is one of the most independent and strong-minded women I’ve ever met, but in her rare moment of fragility, she turns to this man. And with love shining brightly in his eyes, he murmurs continuous encouragement in her ear, holding her tight no matter how loud she screams, standing firm, even as she bears down with all her weight.
“I love you, baby. I love you so fucking much,” he says over and over again, displaying more passion for Amber in five minutes than Garrett’s shown me in five years.
Being an OB can be hard. I’ve delivered babies for couples so disconnected in the birthing room, if I weren’t such a polite woman, I’d place a bet on their relationship dissolving within the next five years with the rest of the delivery room staff. A few days ago, I would have made the same bet against this couple. But no, they’re the real deal. I realize that now. Loving, and the kind of adoring you don’t see all that often, inside the birthing room or out.
These two will go the distance. I know that. Even before Amber successfully pushes her baby boy. He’s a little angry about getting squeezed through a birth canal to join his parents in the real world, but other that.
“He’s a healthy baby boy,” I tell Amber as Susan places the crying baby in her arms. “His APGAR score is great, and we’ll watch him tonight, but I don’t think we’ll need to bother with NICU.”
“Thank you,” Amber says.
She’s positively glowing now, and she smiles when the baby instantly falls asleep nuzzled against her breasts. “I’m sorry Luca called you,” she whispers over his soft baby snores. “I didn’t know he was going to do that.”
I raise an eyebrow at Luca because he did a little more than call me.
But Luca just answers Amber unapologetically. “You were scared out of your mind and in a shit ton of pain. You think I was going to let that asshole who wouldn’t give you an epidural anywhere near you? Plus, he kept on yelling at you, like you were deaf, not blind.”
Wonder how long Dr. Acharya, who’d left with a terse “Congratulations” for the parents soon after the delivery ended, will resent me for that? Susan isn’t one of his biggest fans, so no doubt the entire floor’s staff will be gossiping tomorrow about how he got sidelined by a young OB at a hospital VIP delivery.
“Dr. Glendaver was on vacation,” Amber points out to Luca, her face taking on a stern look, even as she nuzzles the top of her sleeping baby’s full head of dark hair. “You shouldn’t have made her come.”
“It wasn’t a vacation,” I remind her with a wry smile. “And believe me I’d much rather have been here to see the birth of this exceedingly handsome guy.”
Thank you, Luca mouths, and though I’m a big girl doctor with a perfect boyfriend at home and one VIP birth just filed, I have to work hard not to giggle
shyly and push my hair behind my ear, like a teenage girl.
I quickly shift my gaze back to the baby. Seven pounds, despite his early arrival with a cherub nose and a bow mouth. He’d been born with a set of light blue eyes just like his father—I’d noticed that during the APGAR test. And I have a feeling this boy’s already on his way down the same heart-stopping beauty path as both his parents.
Speaking of which. “Do you have a name picked out yet?”
Luca grimaces, but Amber turns her face in his direction to say, “I’m not going to take your name. I still want to be Amber Reynolds.”
And for a moment, I wonder if I called their relationship right because while wanting not to change your name after marriage is understandable (no matter what Skylar and her internet friends have to say on the subject) this is a weird topic to bring up right after the birth of their son.
“But I’ve been thinking about it, and I think our son should definitely take your name,” she continues. “Your whole name. Is Luca Jacob Ferraro Jr. okay with you?”
From the smile that spreads across her husband’s shockingly handsome face, I can already guess the answer to her question is yes. He kisses her over the baby’s head, then launches into another round of how much he loves her, how happy she’s made him, how amazing their life is going to be.
Yes, I decide irrevocably then and there, these two are definitely a happily ever after.
16
Spring Is Here
Amber
So, this is what happily ever after feels like.
That’s the first thought that pops into my mind when I wake up one morning three months after giving birth, refreshed and…could it be? Yes, I discover with a stretch of my now mostly healed body, horny. Very, very horny.
AMBER_His to Reclaim Page 12
