by CC MacKenzie
“What? What? Does it hurt?”
God, what a bloody stupid question?
Of course it bloody hurt.
How would he like to pass a football out of his ass?
It cost her to keep quiet, but the fear coming off him in waves was a living, breathing, entity.
She held her breath, then panted in short, sharp breaths as she came down again on the other side of yet another contraction.
“I can’t do this,” she sobbed.
Rafe gripped her hand.
“Yes, you can.”
Her eyes held his. “I want a priest.”
He went grey.
“Why? No. You’re going to be fine. Millions of women, God help them, do this every day.”
She shook her head and gasped over another wracking contraction.
Then she gripped his hand, her eyes wild.
“Get me a priest,” she screamed.
The word went out and the hospital pastor stepped into the room with two midwives and her obstetrician.
“Marry me!”
Rafe blinked. “What?”
“Not him. You. Marry me.”
“Yes, but...”
“I don’t want the baby to be a bastard.”
The priest took a step back. “But it won’t be legal in the eyes of the law.”
And Coco simply bared her teeth. “Do it!”
One hour later.
“Isn’t she just gorgeous?” Coco crooned as she nuzzled downy hair the colour of jet. “Look at her tiny fingernails and tiny eyelashes.”
In bare feet, jeans and T-shirt Rafe lay on his side in the bed next to his wife and daughter. Without shame he’d cried the first time he’d held her, tears of relief and joy that both had come through the ordeal unscathed. It might be the most natural thing in the world for a woman to give birth, but he’d never been so helplessly, wondrously terrified in his whole life.
“She is. And so’s her mama.”
How, Coco wondered, could the whole world change in an instant?
How could just hearing her child’s first cry change a woman like this?
She’d give her life for her.
Hell, she’d do anything to protect her child.
And for the first time Coco understood the depth of Olivia’s love for her son. For Janine’s love for her daughter. And Bronte’s adoration for Luca and Sophia.
Last but not least, she now totally understood her father’s over-protective devotion to her.
She got it now, she truly did.
The door opened and her father and Louise entered the room.
Charles Monroe washed his hands, dried them, then made his way to the side of the bed. His eyes were misty as he kissed his daughter and saw his granddaughter for the very first time.
“She’s beautiful. Even more beautiful than you were.”
Coco wrapped an arm around his neck, looked into his eyes.
“I’d no idea I would feel like this, Daddy. I would lay down my life for her.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead, rubbed his cheek against hers the way he’d always done to comfort her through the ups and downs of her life.
“You are the light of my life. Can I hold her?”
Coco handed her daughter to her father and curled into Rafe’s embrace.
“There now, and who’s a beautiful, beautiful girl then?” Her father gently kissed the baby’s cheek, before his gaze rested on Coco and Rafe. “What are you going to call her?”
Coco glanced at Rafe, nodded.
“Maria Grace. After our mothers,” he said.
Charles Monroe simply let the tears fall unhindered down his cheeks and pressed another gentle kiss on Maria’s downy cheek. “Thank you, it means a great deal. Welcome to the world, Maria.”
Louise’s fingers trembled on her mouth as her eyes filled.
A knock at the door heralded Ethan who held three pink helium filled balloons followed by a nurse carting a huge basket of flowers.
His vivid eyes took in the scene, rested for the longest time on Louise before he grinned at Coco and Rafe.
“How’s the proud mummy and daddy? No more sleep ins for you. Hehehehe.” He peeked inside the fleece blanket holding his niece. “Hey, Grandpa. Can I hold her?”
“Wash your hands,” Louise ordered him over her shoulder as she placed the flowers on a table. Then she moved to take the balloons, but didn’t meet his eyes as she tied them to the end of the bed.
Ethan’s brow creased at the tone. “Okay, bossy. Be nice,” he said before he went to do as he was told.
Coco gave Rafe big what’s-up-with-them eyes, but he merely shrugged.
Charles Monroe hadn’t missed the antagonism between his eldest son and his daughter’s best friend either. And hid a wicked smile as he nuzzled his granddaughter.
He loved it when a plan came together.
THE END
It Doesn’t Stop Here
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The first chapter of the next book in the Ludlow Hall Romance Series ‘A Film Star, A Baby, And A Proposal’ is a Christmas Story’ and starts on the next page
Chapter One: A Film Star, A Baby, And A Proposal
The theme tune to the movie 'Jaws' swam through exhaustion to penetrate Matt's comatose brain.
He seriously hated that freaking music. Every time he heard it he got the heebie jeebies. And his agent damn well knew it. His hand slid out from under his pillow smacked the cell phone hard then tossed the big white to the floor. That was the second attempt to kill the shark this week. But just like the movie that bastard was hard to kill, and the music started up again, this time from somewhere under the bed.
He slung his arm over the side. Long fingers explored the glossy surface of solid oak until finally he gripped the cell and pulled it under the duvet.
"Unless someone's died, you're sacked," he growled.
"Har, har. I was about to tag Nico to see if Ludlow Hall had a famous dead person in the penthouse suite. Actually, if you were found dead the film would make even more moola."
With the duvet over his head, Mathias Carter groaned at the voice thundering in his ear, then yawned hugely. "It's nearly Christmas. Get a fucking life, Tobin."
"My wife, and yeah I love saying that so suck it up, says she had visions of you lying drowned in the bath."
"Bed," Matt grumbled and nuzzled deeper into his pillow. "In bed. Sleeping. Bye."
"Hold it! Hold it right there, sunshine. I've sent you a surprise, something nice."
"Nope. Sleeping. Eighteen hour flight. Tired."
"The reviews of the film are stellar, pal. Stellar," Tobin said with something like glee.
In his head Matt could see his agent doing a bum boogie.
"Fucking don't care."
"Not to worry," his friend yelled in that permanent happy clappy voice he had these days. And Matt was genuinely pleased for him, he was. But all this falling in love shit was pitiful. It was spreading like flu. Every single one of his friends had been hit hard by the love bug. Dimly he heard Tobin continue, "I care enough for the both of us. The surprise will be there in an hour. Shake a leg, shave and shower."
"Yeah, yeah. Happy Christmas to Sophie for me."
Matt turned the phone to silent, tossed it on the floor, burrowed deep under the duvet and sank like a stone into the land of nod.
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