McCallum Quintuplets

by Kasey Michaels

  Chapter Six

  Zach raced through the night. Both of them were silent as they rushed into the hospital. Since she lived so close to the clinic, they beat the paramedics there.

  As they scrubbed up, Zach said, “Layla Drummen has an atrial septic defect. Usually women with this disorder are asymptomatic, like Layla’s been. She’s tolerated her entire pregnancy without cardiac complications. With the accident, though, I’m not taking any chances. She’s thirty-one weeks. It’s risky, but if we don’t take the child, we won’t save the mother.”

  The paramedics brought the gurney in on a run, shouting vital signs, briefing Zach on the injuries, telling him the patient had insisted on being brought to Maitland Maternity Clinic rather than the emergency room.

  Annabelle hooked up monitors, prepared Layla for emergency surgery, her heart racing, wishing Dr. Lee would hurry up and administer the anesthesia. Cut and bleeding, there was no way this woman would have the strength to deliver naturally.

  “Someone call ER and get the attending in here,” Zach yelled over the noise. A nurse ran to the wall phone.

  The heart monitor Annabelle had hooked up suddenly screamed, flat-lined.

  Zach cursed. An eerie calm engulfed Annabelle even as she made snap decisions. Ingrained procedure took over.

  She snatched the cesarean tray and thrust it within Zach’s reach, slapped a scalpel in his hand, then kicked a stool next to the gurney to give her height and leverage and began manual CPR compressions, shouting to the mother. Until Zach got the baby out, she couldn’t use the defibrillation paddles.

  “Come on, Layla. Don’t do this, dammit! You’ve got a baby coming into this world. Hold on for him.” Her arms burned and shook from the exertion. Another nurse squeezed the oxygen pump. Where the heck was the ER doctor? “Come back to me, Layla.”

  The baby was out and gave a single, very weak cry.

  “It’s a boy, Layla. Fight, dammit. Come back.” Her arms were fatigued, her throat going hoarse. “Open your eyes, look at your baby!”

  At last the heart monitor beeped an unsteady sinus rhythm of thirty, then forty. Not great, but it would do.

  She looked at Zach, at the baby who wasn’t much bigger than his palm. He shook his head, shrugged, then handed the tiny infant off to the neonatal nurse who rushed it to NICU.

  Despite the horrendous struggle that child would have clinging to life, Annabelle said, “He’s beautiful, Layla. You did it, sweetie. Good job.”

  And Zach had done a good job, as well. He’d had that baby out in four minutes. That was excellent for the prognosis of the child, less time to be oxygen starved.

  She stood back so the attending physician could check the rest of Layla’s injuries and assisted Zach in closing the incision.

  He glanced at her. “You’re a hell of a woman, Annabelle Reardon.”

  His voice was filled with awe…and something that sounded suspiciously like love.

  ZACH LOOKED for Annabelle in the lounge and frowned when she wasn’t there. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones.

  He headed toward the exit doors, saw her walking across the parking lot.

  Dammit. He jogged to catch up with her, reached for her arm to stop her. “Hey, slugger. It’s customary to go home with the guy who brought you.”

  “I thought you’d be a while, maybe want to stay and monitor Layla.”

  “I’ve done all I can. The rest is up to the internists and vascular guys. Besides, haven’t we had this conversation before about you walking the streets at night?” He tried to tease, but it fell flat.

  “I’ve been taking care of myself for a lot of years, Zach. I don’t need a keeper.”

  He frowned at her tone. “What’s going on, Annabelle?” He hadn’t counted on the emotions that would swamp him when he made love with Annabelle. Like the door to a castle yawning open, letting out all the secrets and knowledge of the universe, he’d known in an instant what he’d been searching for all these years.

  It wasn’t work, or single-minded goals, or money and respect.

  It was Annabelle. It was this enormous feeling inside him that filled him like the heat of surgical lights, bathing him in the glow of love, in a rightness that couldn’t be denied.

  “We had a good time together, Zach. But you’re right. It’s not wise to get involved with co-workers. I think we should cool things down before they get out of hand.”

  “Out of…they’re already out of hand on my part.”

  Annabelle drew in a deep breath, praying for strength. Grabbing at straws, she said, “What about that age difference you’re always harping about? It won’t work, Zach.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Her insides were twisted into knots. She couldn’t hold on. Had to. But one look at the hurt expression on his face, and she crumbled. She shook her head, whispered, “No.” The pain was tearing her up.

  He put a finger under her chin, lifted her face. “I love you, Annabelle. I’ve never said that to a woman before.”

  Oh, God. Tears burned, filled her throat, spilled over her lids.

  “Oh, baby, don’t.” He drew her into his arms, held her. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what this is really about.”

  They were alone in the parking lot, spotlighted by the mercury vapor lights. She wished she could say this in the dark so she wouldn’t have to see the pity in his eyes.

  “I don’t think I can have children. The accident that killed my mom also did internal damage to me.”

  He looked at her as though waiting for the bad part.

  “Zach. You’re a man who’s made to be a father. Didn’t you hear me? I can’t give you babies.”

  He frowned, clearly puzzled. “I don’t remember asking you to. Still, look where you work, Annabelle. This job of all jobs—this place—should give you hope.”

  “Yes, it gives me hope. But it doesn’t give me guarantees. I could never ask you to enter into a relationship when having a child isn’t a certainty. That’s why I insisted on a no-strings relationship—”

  “Relationship?” he interrupted incredulously. “I don’t want a relationship, dammit. I want a partnership. Marriage. I’m not marrying a baby maker, I’m marrying the woman I love. The woman who’s all I need.”

  Just like him to speak as though she’d already agreed.

  “You’re not listening,” she said, but hope made the protest weak.

  “No, you’re not listening. You’ve had my life in turmoil since the minute I laid eyes on you eight months ago. Maybe this will get your attention.”

  He brought her right up on the tips of her toes and gave her a kiss that blanked her mind of everything, a kiss that was filled with promise, with hope, with a love so all-encompassing every last piece of her life fell into place like a completed puzzle.

  “Now tell me you don’t love me,” he challenged.

  How had she ever gotten so lucky? “Eight months?” she asked. “You’ve had a thing for me for eight months?”

  “For every minute of every hour.”

  Happiness nearly brought her to her knees. “We’re a couple of fools and we’ve wasted a lot of time.”

  “Annabelle…”

  She knew what he wanted to hear.

  “Yes, Zach. I do love you. I have…for every minute of every hour since you walked into Maitland Maternity with those sexy dimples and do-something-or-get-out-of-my-way attitude.”

  “And you’ll marry me.”

  “It might be nice if you asked.”

  “I just did.”

  “No. You told me.”

  He took her hand, got down on one knee. Annabelle glanced around the parking lot, giggled. Zachary Beaumont wasn’t the type of man to go for open displays in public—on dirty asphalt.

  “Annabelle Reardon, will you do me the honor of marrying me? Be my wife, my partner and my love for as long as we live?”

  Tears blurred her vision. She tugged at his hand. “Yes. For heaven’s sake, stand
up before security comes over here shining a spotlight on us.”

  He laughed, picked her up off the ground and swung her around. “That’s one of the things I love about you. I know I’ll never have a dull moment around you.”

  After he kissed her senseless, Annabelle pulled back. “Tell me something?”

  “Anything.”

  “What’s with the case of water in your office, the bottles you’re always carrying around lately.”

  He laughed long and loud. “After the McCallum quints were born, I was noticing the difference in Madeline Russell and realizing that half our colleagues were taking the matrimonial walk down the aisle. I had this crazy notion that somebody had put a love potion in the drinking fountain.”

  “And now?” she asked.

  “I’m throwing away my bottled water. Love had bitten me way before that, the minute you fixed those green eyes on me and held out your hand in introduction.”

  “Well, then, it’s nice to know I’ve got such a potent touch.”

  “Oh, you do. Absolutely.”

  He drew her into his arms and kissed her, and Annabelle knew once and for all that what began that hot August night after their special delivery of the McCallum quintuplets was truly real.

  A forever love.

  And with luck, whether through natural means or medical assistance, someday they just might have their own very special delivery.

  Because love was hope…and love healed.

  AND BABIES MAKE SEVEN

  Mary Anne Wilson

  Chapter One

  The first cry came at midnight, and before Maggie McCallum could open her eyes, another cry joined in with the first one.

  “I’m coming,” she muttered as sleep totally dissolved for her and she got out of bed in the master suite. She barely noticed that Adam wasn’t in bed and didn’t bother with her robe, heading through the shadows of the house in an oversize T-shirt Adam had worn in college.

  “I’m coming,” she whispered again as the cries grew in volume when she stepped into the hallway. There was little light, but she knew the way by heart to the renovated game room that had become the nursery for five babies. Her babies. And they were crying.

  Those cries were echoing behind her from the monitor and in front of her, loud even through the closed doors at the end of the corridor. The nursery had been a vast game room in the single-story ranch-style house they’d moved into just before the quints came home from the hospital. But now it was a fully equipped nursery with everything the five tiny lives needed. Including a monitoring system wired directly to the master bedroom so Maggie could hear everything that went on in the room.

  She pushed back the doors she’d painted with rainbows, a symbol of the hope that the babies had brought with them, and went into the thirty-by-twenty-foot room. The idea had been to make the space peaceful, from the pale blue walls to the off-white ceiling and the deeper blue carpeting on the hardwood floors. But there was little peace with five six-month-old babies living in the space.

  Grace Weston, the nearest thing Adam had had to a mother, was with the babies. She stayed overnight several times a week to spell the live-in help Maggie had, and she was wonderful, everything Maggie could want, but that didn’t stop Maggie from going into the room and heading for the cribs that formed a circle in the center of the room. Five white cribs, all of them near the others and easy to get to, with five changing tables at their feet. The setup had taken on the look of a wheel, with the cribs the spokes and the three rocking chairs the hubs, while the changing tables made the outer rim. It worked, at least for now.

  Grace was leaning over the nearest crib, talking softly, her voice almost drowned out by the crying. Maggie went to her, touched her on her back and said, “What’s wrong?”

  The tiny, gray-haired woman didn’t look up from the crying baby, but motioned over her shoulder to the next crib. “I told you to turn off the monitor.”

  “And I told you I wasn’t going to.” She went closer and looked at baby Douglas lying on his back, the covers long ago kicked off and his tiny face scrunched up tightly as he let out another scream. “Is he hungry?”

  “He’s always hungry,” Grace said, scooping up the tiny boy and cradling him against her shoulder. “He’s a bit colicky, that’s all. A bit of a bubble in his tummy.” As she started jiggling him while she softly patted him on his back, the crying faltered a bit and became soft gulps. “Now I’ve got Master Douglas under control, and since you’re here, my namesake seems to need to be changed.” She nodded to the crib directly opposite them. “Why don’t you do that?”

  Maggie crossed to Gracie. As she reached for the little girl, she felt that familiar leap of her heart when she saw any of her children. Five of them. Tiny lives. Hers and Adam’s. Five at the same time. She lifted Gracie, a decidedly damp baby at the moment, and thought about how much it had taken to get them all here safe and sound. So much worry and fear, and Adam having the added worry of knowing his mother hadn’t survived the birth of himself, his sister, Briana, and his brother, Caleb. That was three babies, and they’d had five.

  After three months in the hospital, they were all home and doing well. The last thing she could do when they started to cry was sleep. She cuddled a damp Gracie to her breast and whispered, “Gracie, girl, you are definitely wet.” Remarkably, the baby quieted immediately. “Good girl,” she said, putting the baby on the changing table and stripping off the damp diaper.

  When the baby was changed, she picked her up and cuddled her. She turned to find Douglas in his crib, settling with a sigh while Grace stroked his almost bald head. Maggie glanced at the other babies, Jackson, Daniel and Julia, relieved that they had apparently slept right through their brother’s and sister’s uproar.

  Grace came toward Maggie and slipped Gracie out of her arms. “Let me take the little one,” she murmured, and the baby went to her without a murmur. Grace had raised Adam, loved him, and she loved the new babies. She helped all the time with the quints, but Maggie never quite relaxed, never quite had the ability to turn her back and let someone else do for her children.

  Silence finally ruled in the nursery, and Grace eased the baby into her crib. Satisfied that Gracie was settled, she turned to Maggie and pointed to the door. Maggie took a quick look at all the babies, then followed Grace out of the room into the hallway. Grace closed the door behind them, then faced Maggie in the softly lit hallway. “I told you to turn off the monitor, that I was staying tonight to help Louise so you could get some rest, and so could Adam.” She glanced down the hallway and lowered her voice even more as she smiled slightly. “That man could always sleep through anything.”

  Maggie realized then that Adam hadn’t been in bed with her. His side hadn’t been slept in at all. “He’s not here,” she said.

  Grace frowned. “It has to be midnight. Where is he?”

  She hugged her arms around her. “I don’t know. Work, I guess. He…” She bit her lip. She couldn’t remember what he’d said when he’d called earlier, because Julia had been crying. She’d only half listened, but remembered something about an affidavit that had been wrong. “You know how it is. He’s snowed under at work. The McCallum men don’t seem to know when to stop.”

  Grace didn’t say anything to that, but the slight shake of her head spoke volumes. Then she said, “You get back to bed. I’ll stay in here for a while and read to make sure they’re settled for now.” She urged Maggie toward the master bedroom. “Turn off the monitor and call Adam at work and tell him to get on home.”

  “Thanks,” Maggie whispered and headed for the bedroom.

  She stepped into the shadowed room, glanced at the empty bed and wondered how she couldn’t have noticed Adam hadn’t come home. There had been a time when she couldn’t sleep unless he was with her, even when they’d been under pressure to conceive. Even then, he was part of her, part of her soul. She slipped into the bed, far too big a bed for one person, and was about to reach for the phone on the night table
when the door opened.

  Adam. He strode into the room, and there was an instant connection that wasn’t there unless he was close by. The jacket of his dark suit was gone, and his tie hung undone from the collar of a pearl gray shirt. Shadows touched the man, blurring his features, but she knew them by heart. The hazel eyes, sandy brown hair that was always a touch too long, spiked a bit from his habit of running his fingers through it when he was deep in thought. A faint dimple played at the left side of his full mouth. It seemed forever since she’d touched that dimple. “Hello and welcome home,” she breathed, sitting back against the coolness of the headboard.

  He hesitated in midstride, but kept going as he muttered, “Thanks.” There was an edge to his voice that made her tense. He walked quietly past the bed to the huge walk-in closet. A flash of light came, then he was out of sight in the closet, which was the size of a small bedroom.

  “Adam?” she called. “Why were you working so late?”

  “I told you on the phone, the Rhyder deposition,” he said, his voice vaguely muffled in the distance. “It won’t die.”

  She wrapped her arms around her bare legs, resting her chin on her knees as she stared hard at the open doors of the closet. “Can’t someone else take care of it for you?”

  There was no response for a moment, then Adam was back, all his clothes but his jockey shorts gone. They were vividly white against his tanned skin, and she swallowed hard. Dark hair formed a faint V on his chest, disappearing into the waistband of the shorts. “Probably, but I’m doing it.”

  She jerked her eyes up, startled that at the moment she was feeling decidedly like a hormone-driven teenager. For months, it seemed, the pregnancy and babies had overridden everything, but, at that moment, she wanted her husband with a hunger that was startling to her. “It’s so late,” she said, her mouth slightly dry. “I was worried.”

  He was by the side of the bed, his side, and too far away from her. “Did you need something?”

  For some reason, she couldn’t just say, “I want you.” It would have been so simple before the pregnancy problem got in their way. “I just…I was thinking…” She bit her lip hard.