Baby Business

by Brenda Novak

  She almost wished she could thank Richard for running off. The past couple of years had been tough, but she and Haley had weathered the storm, and now they’d found a beautiful rainbow at the end of their journey.

  Or was it just the beginning?

  Turning sideways, she studied her pregnant profile, smiling faintly. We’re going to have a son. We’re going to raise him together, with Haley.

  “Macy, are you coming?” Thad called from the living room. While she showered, he and Haley had been busy making a picnic lunch for their outing to the park. They were in a hurry to get going, but she was too content to move very fast.

  “I’ll be right there!” She dug in her jewelry box until she uncovered a soft velvet case. Snapping it open, she gazed at her wedding ring for a long time, thinking it more beautiful than ever before. The diamond had once been a symbol of Thad’s generosity. Now it was a symbol of his love, of forever, she thought, and slipped it on her finger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  January

  “IT’S TIME. You need to come get me.”

  “What?” Thad sat on the other end of the line, in his office, staring blankly at Kevin and the clients seated across from him. His secretary had just interrupted his meeting to say he had an emergency, but Macy wasn’t due for another six weeks. What could she mean by “It’s time”?

  “The baby’s coming. Hurry, Thad.”

  Macy had had a healthy, uneventful pregnancy, but the panic in her voice now made it difficult for him to breathe. “But it’s too soon.”

  “I don’t think our son cares. He’s on his way.”

  “Oh, boy.” Thad stood up, sat down, stood up again. Was something wrong with the baby? Why would it come early? “I’ll be right there, Macy. Where are you? Don’t try and walk anywhere. I’ll come get you.”

  She chuckled. “What are you going to do, drive up on the lawn? I’m at the pay phones on campus, near the library, but I can make it to the front, where you usually pick me up. I’m just a little nervous. I’ve had so much backache with this pregnancy that I didn’t realize I was in labor until the pains starting coming hard and fast.” Her voice sounded strangled for a minute, then he heard her pant. “I’m afraid we don’t have much time.”

  They’d been to Lamaze. Thad knew that pant meant she was having a contraction. “Honey, don’t be frightened. I’ll drive up on the lawn if I have to.”

  “I’ll be waiting by the main entrance.”

  He slammed the phone down and started from the room, almost forgetting to explain himself. At the last minute, he said, “I have to go. My wife is having our baby.” Then he ran to the elevators, cursed the damn things for taking so long, considered scaling the twenty stories to the ground floor via the stairs, and decided it would actually be quicker to wait.

  As soon as the elevator doors sprang open, he hit the lobby button, descended and dashed to his car.

  Macy was waiting at the main entrance, as she’d said, but he could tell by her face that all wasn’t well. He pulled up, his heart in his throat, and ran around to help her into the car.

  “You okay?”

  “I think so.” She reached out to squeeze his hand. “Just get me to the hospital.”

  “Maybe we should go to the University Hospital. It’s right here.”

  “No, Dr. Biden can’t deliver there. I’ve called her. She’s already on her way to St. Joseph’s.”

  “What if we don’t make it?”

  She grinned. “Then you’ll get to deliver the baby yourself.”

  “We’ll make it,” he said.

  Other than one construction delay, traffic wasn’t a problem this afternoon. Thad wove through the streets, speeding when he could safely do so, and turned into the emergency entrance of St. Joseph’s Hospital only fifteen minutes later.

  Macy was in the middle of another labor pain. Her eyes were closed and her hands balled into fists.

  “We’re here,” he said gently. “I’ll be right back.” He jumped out and jogged into the hospital to get a wheelchair, but Macy was already waddling in when he returned.

  “Here you go,” he said, helping her sit down.

  They’d toured the hospital shortly after their Lamaze classes had ended. Thad knew exactly where to go. He wheeled Macy down a long corridor, turned left, passed through a set of double doors, and waved to get a nurse’s attention as soon as they entered the maternity ward.

  “What have we here?” The nurse’s badge identified her as Nurse Somerset.

  “My contractions are every two minutes or so apart,” Macy said.

  “When’s your due date?”

  “Next month.”

  She frowned. “Okay. Wait right here. I’ll get you a room.”

  Minutes later, Nurse Somerset returned and showed Thad and Macy into one of the home-style birthing rooms they’d visited on their tour.

  “Has Dr. Biden arrived yet?” Thad asked.

  “Not yet. You’ve called her then?”

  “Yes. She’s on her way,” Macy said.

  “Good.” The nurse handed her a gown. “Change into this. Then I’ll check and see how far you’ve dilated. Has your water broken yet?”

  “No. Is that good?”

  “If we want to try and stop the labor, it is. Once your water breaks, stopping it isn’t an option. But I’m not sure what Dr. Biden is going to do. She might want to let you go ahead and have it. You’re what, thirty-four weeks?”

  “Give or take a few days.”

  The nurse nodded and left.

  Thad helped Macy change and get settled in bed. “The doctor will be able to stop the labor if it’s too early,” he said, hoping to convince himself, as well as Macy, that they had nothing to worry about. “Even if we have the baby now, it should be all right. I mean, people have premature babies all the time, right?”

  Macy was breathing deeply through her nose, at the tail end of another pain. When it released its hold on her body, she took his hand and kissed his palm. “I’ve never seen you so uptight,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  He nodded, but he’d lost too much in a hospital once before to relax now. “Should I have the nurse call an anesthesiologist?”

  “Nope. We’re going natural, remember?”

  He grinned. “I thought you might change your mind.”

  “Maybe I will,” she said, giving him a rueful smile. “But I haven’t yet.”

  “What about Haley?” He glanced at his watch. “She gets out of school in twenty minutes.”

  “I called Lisa from campus. She’s going to pick her up. Everything’s been taken care of.”

  “Did you call your mom? She needs some notice so she can make the drive from Vegas.”

  “Not yet. You can call her if you want, but I’m not sure she’ll talk to you. She’s still convinced you’re going to run out on me.”

  Thad laughed. “She’ll come around.” When I’m old and gray, he added to himself.

  He made the call, then alerted his own mother. “They’re both on their way,” he told Macy just as the nurse, who’d returned while he was on the phone, finished her examination.

  “You’ve dilated to six,” she told Macy. “At this point, I doubt Dr. Biden will try to stop labor.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Dr. Biden entered the room, wearing street clothes, which she quickly covered with a blue smock the nurse gave her. “How you feeling?”

  “Like I need to push,” Macy said, panting through another contraction.

  The doctor pulled on some latex gloves and checked her again. “This is going fast. Bring me a stool and get the bed ready.”

  “You’re not going to stop it?” Thad asked.

  “No. It’s too late for that.”

  The nurse rolled a stool to the doctor and adjusted the bed so Dr. Biden could more easily reach Macy.

  “I have to push,” Macy grunted during the next contraction.

  “Not yet,” Dr. Biden warned. “You haven’t
dilated all the way. I don’t want you to tear.”

  Macy gritted her teeth, letting Thad know the contractions were beginning to run together. “I have to push,” she said again.

  Dr. Biden quickly checked her cervix. “Hang on for just a few more contractions, Macy.”

  “Come on, sweetheart, you can do it,” Thad said, trying to play his part as coach. But he’d never felt more helpless or useless in his life. His wife was lying on the bed, suffering, and the baby he’d wanted for so long was coming six weeks early. Would his son be whole? Healthy?

  Suddenly blood gushed from Macy as though someone had turned on a faucet. Judging from the look of surprise on the doctor’s face, it wasn’t normal.

  “We’re going to need a transfusion here, stat,” the doctor barked to the nurse. “And get an anesthesiologist. She’s hemorrhaging. We’ll do a C-section.”

  Thad stared at the growing pool of blood, the doctor’s words echoing in his head. What did it mean? Surely Macy’s life wasn’t in danger. The fear that it might be shot a pain right through his heart.

  Oh, God, please, not again.

  Other doctors and nurses flooded the room, working with quick efficiency. They ignored him until Dr. Biden cried, “Someone take him out while we move her to an operating room.”

  Thad ignored Biden and clung to Macy’s hand, feeling naked and vulnerable and terrified.

  “Thad?” Macy looked up at him, her eyes dazed by pain.

  God, not Macy!

  “I love you,” she whispered. “No matter what happens, always remember that.”

  “Macy, don’t leave me. I won’t let you go,” he said, but a nurse took him by the arm and dragged him away before she could respond.

  * * *

  THAD’S MOTHER joined him in the lobby of the hospital after thirty minutes of waiting. “What’s the matter, son?” she asked as soon as she saw him.

  Thad let her hug him, clung to her too long, perhaps, then made himself pull away. “She started hemorrhaging.”

  June’s eyebrows knit in worry. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Nothing. A nurse keeps coming out to say everything is going fine, but she won’t get any more specific than that.”

  “And the baby?”

  “I don’t know. They’re doing a cesarean.”

  Tears filled his mother’s eyes, and Thad put an arm around her to comfort her. She talked to him, telling him she was sure everything would work out, but he wasn’t listening. His thoughts revolved around the last time he’d had a wife and child in the hospital. The doctors had told him they couldn’t save Valerie and her unborn child. He’d been forced to choose between them and lost them both, and afterwards, in his bitterness, he’d sworn there’d never be anyone else.

  He’d been wrong about that. Even though his relationship with Macy had initially revolved around the baby he longed to have, he knew, if he had to make the same decision today he’d had to make with Valerie, his wife or the child, he’d choose Macy. He didn’t understand the human heart or its capacity for love, but he knew Macy meant every bit as much to him as Valerie had. She was the cornerstone of his family now, and he prayed he wouldn’t lose her.

  “Mr. Winters?”

  At the sight of Nurse Somerset, Thad jammed a hand through his hair and stood, his gut knotting in frightened anticipation. “Is she okay?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Your wife is in stable condition.”

  He closed his eyes and let his breath seep out. “And my son?”

  His mother took his hand and squeezed.

  “He’s beet-red and angry at the moment, but he’s going to be fine. He weighed in at six pounds, two ounces, not a bad size for six weeks early.”

  Thad couldn’t believe it. He stood staring at his mother for several seconds before he came to his senses enough to ask, “Can I see my wife?”

  “They’re still stitching her up. But you can come and hold your baby.”

  Thad felt a slow smile creep over his face. His baby. He finally had his baby. And he had Macy and Haley, too.

  Feeling as if he was walking on air, he followed Nurse Somerset to the nursery, where a rolling cradle just inside the entrance held an infant squalling at the top of its lungs.

  The nurse lifted the tightly wrapped bundle and placed it in his arms. “Meet your son, Mr. Winters.”

  Glancing at his mother, who’d followed them, Thad smiled. Then he gazed down into the red, shriveled face of his son, smelled the sweet newness of him, kissed the fuzzy round head—and knew he’d never have to worry about clinging to the edge of the pool again. For Macy, Haley and his new son, he’d dive into the deepest part of the ocean.

  EPILOGUE

  “OPEN IT.” Haley’s excited face hovered above the gift in Macy’s lap. She’d already unwrapped all of her own presents. A stack of games, Barbies and dress-up clothes teetered near the Christmas tree, and a shiny new bicycle from Santa waited next to the front door. Baby Joshua, who was crawling now and nearly able to walk, sat in the middle of the floor, cooing and gurgling and generally ignoring his own new toys while making an even bigger mess of the torn paper that littered the room. Thad was trying to make sure he didn’t eat too much of it.

  “Come here, little guy,” he said, scooping up his son and settling next to Macy on the couch. “Mommy is about to open the present Daddy got her.”

  They were all in their nightclothes still, except Thad, who had tried on the new sweater Macy had given him and was wearing it with his pajama bottoms.

  Macy set Lisa’s gift aside—a certificate for dinner at Bellini’s that had come with the wonderful but not surprising announcement of her and Robert’s wedding in three weeks—and made a show of shaking Thad’s gift. He’d placed it under the tree nearly three weeks ago, and she’d eyed it ever since. She’d also hefted it, shaken it and tried to peek through the paper at one end. But all her snooping had come to nothing. She had no idea what was in the box, only that Thad was excited to give it to her.

  “Hmm…it’s kind of heavy,” she said.

  Thad chuckled. “As if you didn’t know that already.”

  “How would I know?” Macy asked innocently.

  “Right.” He rolled his eyes. “With the way you’ve been poking and prodding and shaking that thing, I’m surprised it’s still wrapped.”

  Macy grimaced. Evidently, she hadn’t been as sly as she’d thought. Giving up on her ruse, she ripped off the paper only to find another wrapped box beneath the first.

  “A little guarantee,” Thad boasted.

  Haley laughed in delight at the sight of it. “I helped Daddy wrap them,” she said proudly, letting Macy know there were more “guarantees” to come.

  Thad pulled Haley onto his other knee for a quick kiss, but she was too excited to sit still. When Macy reached the third box, she slid off his lap and clapped at the sight of each new layer, as if her and Thad’s trick was the finest joke in the world.

  Macy enjoyed Haley’s reaction almost as much as she enjoyed the anticipation of her gift—and the sight of her handsome husband watching her so expectantly.

  The present was getting small. Now barely the size of her palm, Macy could guess what it was. The plush velvet box at the bottom of all the layers confirmed her guess.

  “It’s jewelry,” she said.

  “Open it,” Thad prompted.

  Macy snapped the lid open to find a gold chain with a pendant shaped like a mother cradling an infant. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, her throat tightening as she recognized the added meaning in the symbol because of the way she and Thad had met.

  “There’s something on the back,” Haley announced.

  She turned the pendant over and saw two small words engraved on its back: Forever—T.

  Tears burned behind Macy’s eyes as she gazed at it.

  A tentative smile curved Thad’s lips. “Do you like it?”

  She looked at him, and he must have seen what she was feeling in her eyes because
he kissed the back of her hand, then pulled her into his arms for a kiss on the mouth. “I’m so glad I found you,” he murmured. “I love you, Macy. Thanks for Haley. Thanks for Joshua. And thanks for trusting me enough to love me back.”

  “Do you like it, Mommy?” Haley echoed.

  “I do,” Macy assured her. “It’s the best thing Daddy could have given me,” she said, but she knew the love he gave her and their little family every day was far better still.

  * * * * *

  “A rare treat. Brenda Novak draws you in from the first page.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Barbara Freethy

  Looking for more from New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak?

  Be sure to catch up on the complete Whiskey Creek series and join the countless readers who’ve fallen in love with this unforgettable Northern California town!

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  This Heart of Mine

  A Winter Wedding

  Discovering You (June 2016)

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