The Surprise of a Lifetime

by Emilie Richards

  “A hot fudge sundae.”

  “A woman who knows her own mind.”

  “After you’ve had to make a few crucial decisions in your life, the little ones are a piece of cake.”

  He thought about that as he dialed and gave their order. Then he joined her on the sofa, sprawling an arm’s length away. He wanted to ask her what crucial decisions she had made, but it seemed too personal. “Are you from Farnham Falls? Should I remember you?”

  “No. I grew up outside of Columbus. I graduated from Ohio State.”

  “Ohio University for me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry I know so much about you, really. I’d like to hear it all from you, instead.”

  He would like to tell her, too. She was right. She was easy to talk to. She was certainly easy to look at. “Start with your childhood, and when we’ve finished your life we’ll do mine. Then I want to hear all the Farnham Falls gossip.”

  “You must be a remarkably patient man, or a masochist.”

  “I’m just a man hungry for small-town life.” Or for one particularly lovely small-town woman. Devin wasn’t sure which, and right now it didn’t even matter. He smiled la­zily and settled in for the evening.

  * * *

  Robin didn’t know how she ended up in Devin’s arms slow dancing to an old Frozen Flame ballad. He had put on the compact disc to illustrate a point he’d been making about early nineties rock, and the next thing both of them knew, they were moving to the music together. The hour was late. Very late. In fact, it was nearly dawn, and they had been talking without a pause.

  She had told him about herself, and he had filled in the things about himself that she hadn’t learned from her re­search. They had laughed together, each delighting in the other’s sense of humor. But as the hours had passed they had gotten more personal. She had told him about Jeff and the diagnosis of leukemia that had come just one month after their marriage. He had told her about his brief marriage to Wendy, a blues diva who sang with great conviction about love and in real life had no convictions about it at all.

  She couldn’t imagine a woman so cold that she couldn’t love Devin Fitzgerald, if given the opportunity. Either he was the worst of charmers, the one-in-a-million phony who could get through Robin’s personal radar screen, or he was one of the most genuine men she had ever met. She had watched him relax as their time together passed into hours. He was starved for this kind of conversation and intimacy, and she had realized just minutes into the conversation that she was, too.

  She had also watched the expression in his eyes warm, and noticed the subtle shifts of his body so that little by lit­tle they drew closer. She knew he was attracted to her. She had tried from the moment he bumped into her not to be attracted to him. But it had been so long since she had felt this excitement in a man’s presence. She didn’t know if it was Devin the man or Devin the star that she was attracted to, and she didn’t really care. She felt alive for the first time in years; alive and warm in places no man had touched since well before Jeff’s death. She had begun to wonder if she was still a normal woman with normal urges. Now she knew that she was.

  The ballad drifted into another, something she hadn’t quite expected. She raised her head to smile at Devin, and he smiled back. Then, with a slow, fluid sweep, he lowered his head and touched her lips with his.

  “You’re so lovely,” he whispered. “This has been very special.”

  It was just a touch, the briefest of kisses, but she knew it for what it was. He had asked her a question. If she answered yes, she could stay. And if she answered no, their time to­gether had ended. It wasn’t a threat. He was absolutely right. They had reached the peak of this kind of intimacy, and now they parted or progressed to another. Since the be­ginning of time men and women had understood this mo­ment and exactly what it meant.

  Robin didn’t want to leave. Encircled by Devin’s arms, she felt as if she was part of something again. She had known she was lonely; she just hadn’t known how lonely. She had loved Jeff with all her heart, but his illness had been diagnosed before they’d had time to truly unite. And after­ward she had never wanted to burden him with her feel­ings or problems. He had been given enough to bear.

  As if he could read her mind, Devin spoke his question out loud. “Do you want to stay, or shall I have my driver take you back to your hotel?”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve made love to anyone,” she said simply.

  “Me too.”

  She read his eyes and decided he was telling the truth. She believed he was an honorable man, despite constant temptation to be otherwise. “Do you think we’ll remember what to do?”

  “I think it’s entirely possible.”

  She stretched up on her tiptoes and placed her lips against his. His arms tightened around her, and his hands urged her closer.

  She was so quickly immersed in desire that there was no time to rethink her decision. She had no hopes that she would ever see Devin again or that this night would lead to something real and permanent between them. This night was a gift from one lonely soul to another, and she gave it generously, without a single doubt that she was doing the right thing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “When were you going to tell me? Or were you going to tell me at all?” Devin turned the key in the ignition, and the Cherokee started right up.

  Robin heard the slight pause after his first question, a pause where her name should have been. But Devin didn’t remember her name. He might not even have recognized her if she hadn’t called him Devin.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then an­other. The contractions were coming too fast. She was so afraid that the baby had been injured. She had been wear­ing a seat belt when the car had gone into a spin, but there had been little room between her and the steering wheel. She had braced herself the moment she’d realized there was nothing she could do except slide into the ditch, but she wasn’t sure the baby was still all right. She just wasn’t sure.

  Tears slid down her cheeks. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to be calm for the baby’s sake. But she felt as if she was being torn in two, physically and emotionally. She couldn’t believe that Devin Fitzgerald was sitting beside her. She wondered if fate was convulsed in hysterical laughter at her expense.

  “Where are we going?”

  It took her a moment to register his question. Then she realized what he’d asked. “The hospital’s…too far away.”

  “Where is this doctor?”

  “Up the road. Turn right. Another mile or two. Maybe…more.” The last word ended in a moan as another contraction began.

  He shifted gears, and the car began to crawl along the road. He picked up a car phone attached to the dashboard, then slammed it down again. “Damn!”

  She tried to breathe the way she’d been taught. But Judy wasn’t here to help her. Judy had been her partner in the childbirth classes, and Judy was still in Cincinnati. The baby was making its appearance two weeks early.

  “In through your nose and out through your mouth,” Devin said.

  “What…do you know about…it?”

  “I was a labor coach once. For a friend. Just do what I tell you, damn it. In through your nose and out through your mouth. I’ll help you count to ten.”

  “Shut up!” Robin closed her eyes.

  “One! Two!”

  She slapped her hands over her ears.

  He grabbed her hand. “Stop fighting me! I’m trying to help. You’ve got to calm down!”

  “You don’t even…remember my name!”

  “Look, you only said it once. At a backstage party with sixty people breathing down my neck! And I was embar­rassed to ask you again at the hotel. I was going to peek at your driver’s license the next morning while you showered. But you left before I even woke up!”

  “Just drive!”

  He slapped his hand back on the wheel. “One! Two!”

  “Stop! Please stop! It’s stopped.”

  “T
ell me your name.”

  “Please! Just drive.”

  “I’m going to pull over to the side of the frigging road un­less you tell me your name!”

  She knew he didn’t mean it, but his threat of doing some­thing that childish made her realize how childish she was being. “Robin.”

  “Do you have a last name?”

  “Lansing.”

  “And the baby’s last name?”

  She clamped her lips shut.

  “You were going to have my baby, and you weren’t going to tell me. What were you going to do? Wait until it was born and sock me with a paternity suit?”

  “You bastard!”

  “Yeah, you called me that before.”

  She opened her eyes and saw how white he was, and how angry. “I tried to talk to you. Your manager promised he’d give you my message. That’s…all…I owed…you!”

  “What’s his name?”

  She didn’t understand. He turned and looked at her.

  “My manager. What’s his name?”

  He didn’t believe her. She was filled with such fury that she didn’t even consider her next action. She slammed her fist into his arm as hard as she could, then once more. Then she began to cry.

  “Damn it! You’re probably in transition.” Devin pushed down on the gas pedal. The car began to slide. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now we’re just going to help this baby get born. Are you with me? Can we do that much right?”

  “I’m…not…in transition!” Robin knew exactly what that meant. It was the shortest, most intense—and emo­tional—part of labor. Right before the baby made its en­trance.

  “How long have you been in labor?”

  She tried to think, but the accident had ruined her grasp of time. “I don’t…know.”

  “Do you know what time it started?” His voice was calm, now. Deadly calm.

  She tried to remember. “Seven? Eight?”

  “This morning?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Then it’s a fast labor.”

  “The blizzard—” She couldn’t finish. She had expected pain, but not pain like this. She wanted to die.

  “What are you doing way out here, anyway?”

  “I…house-sitting. My managing editor… Florida… I didn’t think there’d be a… And the baby’s not due for…”

  He mumbled something appropriately profane. “Were you going to wait out the storm?”

  She nodded.

  “Robin, breathe with me. Please. It will help.”

  She wanted to scream at him again, but she had no breath to do it. She found herself breathing along with him instead.

  “Is it helping?” he asked.

  “No!” she gasped.

  “Then we’re going to pant.”

  She remembered that technique from her childbirth classes. She was supposed to pant like a dog, then blow out all the air, take a deep breath and start all over again. She had been so gripped by panic that she had forgotten every­thing she had learned. She began to pant with him. Just when she was certain she was going to die, the pain began to subside.

  She took a final deep breath. From the corner of her eye she could tell that Devin was looking at his watch. “We’re not going to make it to the doctor, Robin. I’m not even sure we could get there in time if the roads were clear and the sun was shining. Your contractions are too close, and they’re lasting too long. You’re about to deliver.”

  “No!”

  “My house is just up ahead. I can probably get you there. We’re going to have to do this ourselves.”

  She socked his arm again, but weakly. “No!”

  “I can get you through this. Damn it, we don’t have any choice!”

  She was sobbing for real, now. If only she’d left the house at the first sign of snow. But she’d only had a few twinges, nothing more than mild cramps, and she hadn’t really be­lieved she was in labor. Then later, when she was fairly cer­tain she was, the snow had been coming down hard. She had expected the labor to last well into the next morning, when the storm would subside and the roads would be clear. She’d thought she could send a neighbor for her doctor if the phones weren’t restored. She would have been fine.

  She would never have met up with Devin Fitzgerald again.

  “Five more minutes,” he said. “Just hang on for five more minutes. Then you can have this baby.”

  She wanted to argue. She wanted Dr. Wright, with his calm voice, capable hands and five hundred babies to his credit. She opened her mouth to tell Devin so, when a new sensation nearly overwhelmed her.

  She wanted to push.

  She groaned and clamped her lips together again. The baby was coming.

  Devin glanced at her, then leaned forward over the steer­ing wheel, gripping it harder. He was whispering some­thing. She thought it was a prayer. She needed prayers, and, God help her, she needed Devin’s assistance.

  “Pant,” he said. “Pant as hard as you can. We’re almost there.”

  She panted, but the desire to push nearly overwhelmed her. An alien force had taken over her body. Her body no longer belonged to her, although she could still feel every­thing that was happening to it. She squeezed her eyes closed and panted, forcing out air in a gust when she needed to.

  “Almost there.” The car fishtailed. She could feel it slid­ing beneath them, but she was beyond concern. The baby was on its way whether this car landed in a ditch or not. She was going to have the baby whether she wanted to or not.

  The car stopped, and she heard a door slam. A gust of wind swept over her, and she felt Devin’s arms beneath her again. “Hang on. Just hang on another minute.”

  The contraction ceased, but she knew the respite would be short. Her eyes were still closed, and snow fell against her eyelids. She couldn’t find the strength to open them. She knew she was going to need whatever strength she had to bring her son or daughter into the world.

  She didn’t know how much time passed. Another con­traction began, and Devin gripped her harder. She panted, but she was too frightened and too exhausted to control the pain. She made a valiant effort, but the desire to push over­whelmed her. Her body pushed without her help. The baby was tired of waiting.

  The snow ceased, and so did the wind. She heard another door slam, and she opened her eyes. They were in a dark hallway; then they were moving up stairs.

  “You’re going to have that baby in a bed after all,” Devin said.

  His voice sounded strange. Far away, and sad. She gazed up at his face and saw tears glistening in his eyes.

  She had been so angry at him. She was still angry. But mixed with anger was something else, although she didn’t care enough to figure out what it was. All her thoughts turned inward. She and the baby were in this together. The baby and her own agony were all she could think about.

  She felt something soft beneath her. She opened her eyes again but found she was in darkness.

  “The lights are out, Robin. I’m going to have to wash my hands and find a lamp or some candles. Breathe like you’ve never breathed before.”

  The last words drifted away, as if he was leaving the room. She wanted to call him back. He had gotten her into this predicament, and he could damn well get her out of it. But she couldn’t call him. Another contraction began, and she felt her body bearing down. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t scream when she gave birth. She had han­dled everything life had thrown at her without screaming. But the promise died on a wave of sound that could only have come from her.

  The darkness was shattered by the glow of a kerosene lamp. Devin set it on a dresser not far from the bed. “My hands. Then I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t go!”

  “I have to!”

  Her voice caught somewhere between a sob and another scream. Her head tossed from side to side as if it didn’t be­long to her. Now she could see that she was in a bedroom, but she didn’t care one bit. She just wanted the baby to be born. In a snowdrift, under tr
opical seas, on camelback. She didn’t care.

  “All right, sweetheart. Let’s get this thing done.”

  She looked up and saw Devin’s face. “I can’t!”

  His smile was brave. “You’re going to, whether you want to or not. Your choices are limited.”

  She felt his hands against her hips, sliding her pants to her knees. She wanted to slap away those hands. She re­membered them touching her with this kind of intimacy once before, and then the aftermath.

  “Just another couple of inches.” He slid off her boots, then the pants and panties beneath them. “Good girl. I’m going to slide a couple of clean towels under you. Now let’s prop up your legs. I’m going to have to check your progress.”

  “No!”

  “Robin, sweetheart. Of course I have to check. Unless you want to do it yourself.”

  She called him something she had never called anyone before. His laughter sounded strained. “You’re absolutely right. But I still have to check.”

  Suddenly whether he checked or not seemed immaterial. She felt the urge to push out their child, and she felt it so strongly that she couldn’t do anything except grip the sheets beneath her and bear down.

  “Dark hair. Lots of it, I think.” His voice sounded strained, too, although he was obviously trying to reassure her. “One more push will take care of the head. Every­thing’s completely normal. No arms or legs in view.”

  “How…would you…know?”

  “You did the damned interview. I was training to be a doctor.”

  “You quit!”

  “Not before I sat through half-a-dozen obstetrics lectures and a trio of movies.”

  “Movies!”

  “Rest. Gather your strength for one last push, okay? Then you can relax and let me take over.”

  “Never.”

  She felt a hand against her cheek. “You were there, Robin,” he said softly. “I didn’t do anything you didn’t want that night. And I used protection. You know I did.”

  “It…didn’t…work.”

  “Let’s get this baby born, then we’ll talk.”

  “I’m going to…die.”