Into the Wild

by Beth Ciotta

  River chuckled. “Oh, right.”

  Duke sipped his beer while Lana helped herself to char-grilled artichokes. “I’d like to hear that story,” she said.

  Duke agreed.

  River chowed down on her spicy food, feeling all warm and fuzzy as Jack and Kylie relayed their impromptu wedding at Mount Fuji. She reveled in the laughter, the tender moments, in the affectionate looks passed between each couple. She thought about how Spenser had used his sister and Jack’s and Lana and Duke’s happy marriages as examples while trying to assure her it would be the same for them.

  She placed a hand over her huge belly and smiled. Mommy and Daddy are going to live happily ever after as man and wife. We’ll be together, she mentally assured her unborn child. All of us. Forever.

  Her peace of mind shattered two seconds later when she felt a sharp pain. The another, sharper pain.

  Then whoosh! “Oh, no!”

  “FUCK!” SPENSER disconnected, tossed his cell on the dash and slammed his hand on the steering wheel.

  “I only got one half of that very brief conversation,” Gordo said, tightening his seat belt as Spenser swerved into the opposite lane. “River’s in labor?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s too early.”

  “I know.” Spenser spun the jeep in the direction of Metropolitano, the private hospital they’d planned to visit for the delivery of the baby next fucking month. Heart pounding, he swerved in and out of traffic in his panicked haste. His sister’s shaky voice still rang in his ears.

  “It’ll be okay, Spenser. Duke’s driving. He said he knows a shortcut to the Metropolitano. Lana already phoned River’s doctor and Jack, well, he’s trained in these sorts of things. If it comes to that, which I’m sure it won’t.”

  He’d heard River cry out his name. An anguished cry that tore at his heart.

  “She’s okay,” Kylie had assured him. “Just a little scared and… I have to go. Meet us at the hospital, Spenser. Hurry.”

  “Calm down, Spense,” Gordo said. “You can’t help River if you’re dead. You’re driving like a freaking lunatic.”

  “If anything happens to her…or the baby…” He couldn’t go there. Christ. Over the past year and a half, River had risked treacherous landscapes, extreme weather and heights. She’d survived journeys to Egypt, China and Australia with minimal scrapes and dicey moments. When they’d discussed settling in one place for a while, she’d insisted on Ecuador. She wanted to be close to her dad. It was where she and Spenser had fallen in love. She’d listed a dozen reasons and he’d given in. “I knew we should’ve settled in the States.”

  “Get a grip, for fuck’s sake,” Gordo ordered as Spenser jumped a sidewalk and cut through an alley.

  “Metropolitano’s a fine hospital and Dr. Perez is top-notch.”

  “I know. But what if she doesn’t make it that far?”

  “Jack’s with her. He’s a cop, remember? If he has to—”

  “I know, dammit.” His best friend had delivered more than one baby in the course of his law enforcement career. He trusted Jack, but if there were complications… In spite of Gordo’s warnings, Spenser punched the accelerator.

  Ten minutes later, he stalked into Metropolitano with a frazzled Gordo on his heels. Duke had his arm around Lana. Jack was lecturing Kylie to calm down. Heart in throat, Spenser looked to his childhood friend. Jack was a freaking rock. “Where is she?”

  Jack pointed down a hall just as a nurse came around the corner. “Mr. McGraw?” she said in heavily accented English. “Come with me.”

  Gordo slumped in a chair beside Duke. Spenser followed the nurse. He heard River’s pained cry as they entered the delivery room. Mouth dry, he fol owed the nurse’s orders—sterilized his hands, put on a surgical mask.

  “She’s in good care,” the nurse told him. “But you’ve got to calm her.” Spenser nodded. He acknowledged Dr. Perez, who gave him a reassuring look, before returning to business. Spenser moved to the head of the table, his heart aching at the sight of River’s anguished expression. Eyes squeezed shut, she cried out his name.

  He smoothed her curls from her sweaty face. “I’m here, angel.” She nailed him with her lovely green eyes. “You made it.”

  “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “Too early,” she rasped.

  He listened to the nurses and doctor converse in Spanish, while corralling his own emotions. “Dr. Perez said you’re fine. The baby’s fine. But you have to calm down, River. Remember your breathing techniques.”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know, honey.” If he could take on the pain, he would. “Maybe you should reconsider an epidural.”

  “No! No drugs!” she shouted. “I can bear it. I can bear anything now that you’re here.” He smiled and stroked her forehead, and even though she’d been studying Spanish, he translated Dr.

  Perez’s instructions.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “River, you have to push. Listen to Dr. Perez—”

  “But it’s too soon. He or she won’t be big enough and you and I aren’t married. I shouldn’t have put you off. I wanted…I wanted…” She lapsed into a delirious tirade, something about their baby being illegitimate. Well, hell.

  Spenser flashed back to a few years ago, broached a solution with Perez. The man nodded and Spenser flew out of the room, down the hall. “You,” he said pointing to Gordo, “come with me.” His friends and family blinked in confusion. Gordo turned white. Spenser hauled him up by his jacket and practically dragged him toward the delivery room. “You’re going to marry River and me.”

  “What?”

  “Wash up. Put this mask on.”

  “But, Spense—”

  Spenser dragged his friend into the room, held him steady when he swayed.

  River caught sight of the cameraman, blanched. “You’re going to film this?”

  “What?” Gordo said, glancing at the doctor, the sheet. “Hell, no.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He swayed. “Good question.”

  “Gordo’s going to marry us, angel,” Spenser said. “He went through this spiritual phase a few years back, indulged in a mail-order ministry.”

  She screamed when another contraction hit, then stared at Gordo. “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” he rasped, looking greener by the minute. “But—”

  “You’re certified?”

  “A long time ago…”

  Dr. Perez spoke calmly but firmly. It was time.

  “Do it,” River told Gordo, then she did as Dr. Perez ordered.

  “I think I’m going to pass out,” Gordo said.

  “Stop being such a girl!” River snapped, which made Spenser laugh.

  “The sooner you do this,” he said to Gordo, “the sooner you can leave.” Gordo launched into a stilted, streamlined marriage ceremony.

  One of the nurses turned up the Latin music, a powerful, moving ballad that had been playing in the room. From now on, Spenser thought, Imaginame Sin Ti would be “their” song.

  River squeezed the hell out of Spenser’s hand. He stroked her cheek. They listened and responded to both Dr. Perez and Gordo.

  To have and to hold.

  To honor and cherish.

  “Almost there,” Dr. Perez said.

  “You’ve got no ring!” Gordo said.

  `Spenser calmly took the gold Inca chakana from around his neck and looped it back around River’s.

  “Full circle,” he said close to her ear. “Tree of life.” He brushed a kiss over her lips.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” Gordo said, then crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

  “It’s a girl,” Dr. Perez announced. “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. McGraw.” River burst into happy tears when the baby voiced her first, bawdy cry.

  Spenser swallowed an emotional lump as he watched the nurses clean and fuss over his tiny daughter.

  “She’s small, but stron
g,” Dr. Perez said. “She’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,” he said to River.

  She thanked him on a hiccupping sob, then looked up at Spenser as the doctor left to conduct preliminary tests. “Poor Gordo,” she said as a nurse worked to revive him.

  “He’ll be okay. Although he’ll never let us live this one down.”

  “I don’t care. We’re married. And our daughter has a proper mom and dad.”

  “I don’t know about proper,” Spenser said with a wink, then focused on her mouth. “I could kiss you for a lifetime.”

  “Hold that thought,” she said with a shy smile. “About our daughter—”

  “I’m going to spoil her rotten, you know.”

  Her smile widened. “I know we tossed around a few names,” River said, gasping his shirt. “But I’d like to name her after my dad.”

  He frowned. “Henry? Henrietta? Ah, sweetheart.”

  “No. Kane.” She beamed up at him. “Kane McGraw. It sounds adventurous, don’t you think?” Spenser smiled. “I like it and I love you, Mrs. McGraw.”

  “We’re married,” River said on an exhausted, joyous sigh.

  “We’re a family,” Spenser said as the nurse placed his swaddled daughter in his wife’s arms.

  They stared down at their baby, then met each other’s wondrous gaze.

  They spoke as one. “Eureka.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6557-2

  INTO THE WILD

  Copyright © 2010 by Beth Ciotta

  Al rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mil Road, Don Mil s, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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