by Peggy Jaeger
“Are you wishing for one sex over the other?” Clarissa asked.
“If I could wish it, I’d love to have a girl. Don’t get me wrong, I love my boys. But a little girl would be such a welcome change from bathroom humor, bottomless stomachs to keep fed, and war games.”
“Think how I felt growing up in this testosterone nightmare,” Moira said, with a laugh. “I was the only girl between our family and yours,” she pointed to Delilah. “Six rambunctious boys around. Always underfoot. They’d steal my dolls and use them as hostages when they’d play cops and robbers, they’d run through the house whooping and screaming at one another, seeing who could run fastest, jump highest, throw longest, burp loudest. I’d trip over a new video game or action figure every time I came down the stairs. It was mind numbing.”
“You didn’t suffer too terribly,” Delilah said. “If I remember correctly, you could give as good as you got. One particular memory comes to mind about the theft of some swim trunks.”
“Let’s not talk about it in front of company,” Moira said, grimacing. “That was the only time I can ever remember Daddy yelling at me. I wanted to die. I felt so bad I’d disappointed him.”
“I’ll let you in on a little parental secret, Baby,” Serena said, throwing an arm around her shoulder. “Daddy yelled at you because he felt he had to as your father. It was his job to discipline all his children. But when you weren’t looking, he was as proud as a peacock you’d finally gotten one over on the boys. Trust me, you were never in any danger of falling off the daddy’s little girl wagon.”
****
Moira’s laugh billowed through the trees and landed in Quentin’s ears as he caught the football Pat tossed him. He ran it straight down the middle of the road to the barn, Dennis hot on his heels, to score a touchdown.
“Good catch,” Pat told him with a high five. Both men looked over at the seated women’s circle. Quentin sneaked a glance at his best friend and said, “She seems to fit right in. Like she belongs here.”
“She does,” Pat answered.
“I’ve never known you to drag your heels so long before,” Quentin said, swiping at his sweating brow with the back of his arm. “Usually it’s full steam ahead. But not with her. What gives?”
“I don’t know, Q, it’s a mystery to me, too. Something just tells me she’s different and I have to change my tactics a little if I want to get anywhere near her.”
Quentin glanced over at the group of women, but his gaze settled on Moira. She was laughing at something her cousin was saying, her face wearing none of the tension on it he’d seen when she’d first come home. Being with her everyday at the clinic had made it easier for him to keep his eyes on her, gage how she was doing emotionally and physically. She was sleeping better, thankfully. The shadows were starting to lift from under her eyes. She was still too thin, but at least she was eating.
There was nothing Quentin wanted more than to scoop her up and take her somewhere no one could interrupt the two of them. He wanted her all to himself. Knowing how selfish he sounded, he couldn’t summon up any guilt. Her family meant the world to her, a fact he loved her for even more. But he ached to be the only person in her world right now, the person she could trust and depend on.
The person—the man—she could love.
In the next instant, Clarissa sprang up out of her chair and crossed to Tiffany. The rest of the women rose as well all flocking around the diminutive pregnant woman. Quentin saw Moira turn toward the men and call out for Cole who immediately flew to his wife’s side.
“How long have you been having the pain?” Clarissa asked.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it pain. I thought it was indigestion,” Tiffany said. Just then, she doubled over and screamed out Cole’s name.
“I’m right here, Brat. Is it time?” he asked Clarissa.
“Seems so. Can someone call 911? Let’s get her in the house so I can examine her privately.”
Pat pulled out his cell phone and punched in the code.
Just as Cole bent to pick his wife up, a tidal wave of fluid drenched his shoes and pants.
“Oh, Cole, I’m sorry,” Tiffany wailed.
“I guess it’s safe to say this is it,” he said, scooping her up in his arms.
“Bring her into the downstairs guest bedroom,” Serena said, running in front of him to open the door.
“Can you get my bag from the car?” Clarissa asked Moira, who nodded and ran to the front of the house. The entire party had gathered around Cole as he carried his wife into the farmhouse.
By the time Moira entered the guest room, Tiffany had been placed on the bed.
“Everybody but hubby, out,” Clarissa ordered. The total command and authority in her voice had everyone obliging.
When they were all back in the hallway, Moira felt a small hand slip into hers. She looked down and saw a concerned Liam clasping onto her. “Is Mommy gonna be okay?”
She bent down to his level and her heart shattered to see his bottom lip quivering, fat tears pooling in his eyes. He was trying so hard to be brave. “She’s fine, Liam. She’s just having the baby.”
“Oh.”
She scooped him up into her arms and hugged him. Quentin stood across from her, leaning against the wall next to her brother, and the look of intense longing he was sending her way almost made her drop her godson. In a whisper of time it was gone, when Pat leaned in and said something to him. They heard an excruciating, pain-filled wail come from the guest room, and Liam threw his arms around Moira’s neck, burying his head under her chin. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind and all she could do to comfort him was pat his back and coo in his ear.
The bedroom door opened and Clarissa’s gaze swept the hallway. She found Moira and said, “I need your help.” She turned to Quentin. “Yours as well.”
Serena took a shaking Liam into her own arms.
“I can help too,” Pat said, starting into the room.
From the bed, Tiffany’s head rose up from the pillow and she said, “No. Not you, Pat. Just Moira and Quentin.”
“I’m as qualified to deliver a baby as he is,” Pat said. “And I’m your cousin.”
“That’s why I don’t want you. You’re my cousin—my male cousin—and I don’t want you to see me… like…this…oh!”
“Breathe, Tiff, come on, breathe through it,” Cole said from his position behind her, her back propped against his chest. “one…two…three…that’s it…just breathe.”
When the contraction began to abate, Cole lasered his gaze onto Pat and said, “You’re not seeing my wife naked, Pat. Suck it up. Besides, Quentin worked as an EMT when you guys were in college.”
As she shut the door again, Clarissa asked, “Does he always whine like that?”
“Only when he doesn’t get his way,” Moira said. “What do you need us to do?”
Clarissa pulled them into the adjoining bathroom. “I don’t think the ambulance is going to get here in time,” she told them, her voice soft and low. “Cole told me her last delivery was precipitous and this one looks like it’s going to be as well.”
From the bedroom they heard Tiffany call out again, and then Cole’s calm voice counting her breathing. Clarissa moved back into the room and did a quick exam. “This baby is coming soon, Tiffany. You’re about ready to crown. Moira, run a tub full of warm water and get as many towels as you can. Quentin, I’ll need you to help me deliver. This baby may be in distress. Do you have any equipment with you?”
“Out in the truck.” He opened the door and told Pat, “If you want to do something, get my bag.”
When he came back to Clarissa’s side, she was squatting at the foot of the bed.
“Here,” he said, bringing the vanity chair for her to sit on. “I’ve birthed too many animals to know what hell it is on your back to squat for any length of time.”
“Thanks,” Clarissa told him.
Tiffany’s contractions were coming so rapidly now, the only noise in the room w
as her panting and Cole counting.
“Water’s ready,” Moira told her coming back to the bed. “Here are all the towels.”
Pat knocked on the door, opened it just a little, and shoved Quentin’s bag through it.
Tiffany, coming down from a contraction eyed the bag, and between breaths gasped, “Quentin Stapleton, if you use anything in your bag on me that’s seen the inside of a horse I will personally make your life miserable for the rest of your days.”
Chuckling, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Just breathe, Tiff. You’re in good hands with Dr. Rogers.”
Before she could reply, another contraction hit her and she screamed.
“Baby’s crowning,” Clarissa said. “You’re gonna need to fight the urge to push right now, Tiffany. I have to make sure you’re dilated enough.”
“I…can’t…fight…it!”
“Yes you can, Brat,” Cole said. “Moira, grab her hand. Thanks. Tiff, this isn’t your first time at the rodeo. You know what you have to do. Just listen to my voice.”
“Listening to your voice is what got me into this position. I was happy with three. Three, damn you!”
Moira watched him struggle to bite back a laugh. He squeezed his wife’s hand and looked up at Moira, who herself was trying not to laugh out loud. “She said the same thing after Michael. Thomas, too. Tiff, just breathe. Breathe with me. Listen to me.”
Moira’s eyes traveled down to Clarissa’s face. Her eyes were narrowed beneath her glasses and a fine sheen of beaded moisture had developed over her lips.
“I could offer you spreaders,” Quentin said softly, squatting beside her, “But I’m convinced Tiffany really would make my life unbearable.”
Clarissa’s subtle smile was the only indication she’d heard him. In the next instant, Moira saw the doctor’s eyes widen and her breathing catch.
“Okay, Tiffany, this is it. On three, I want you to push as hard as you can. Scream if you have to. This isn’t going to be easy but we have to get the baby out even though you aren’t fully dilated. I’m going to try and make it a little easier on you, but this is still going to hurt. Are you with me?”
Tiffany nodded and Clarissa counted. On three, Moira watched her cousin push against her husband with all her might, and then in the final moment she screamed.
“Okay, baby’s out. Are you with me, Tiffany?”
Exhausted and heaving with every breath, Tiffany nodded and tried to sit up.
“What…” she asked.
“It’s a girl,” Quentin told her with a broad smile. “A big, beautiful red haired girl.”
Skillfully, Clarissa suctioned the baby’s nose and mouth with a bulb syringe and patted her a few times on the back. When she started to cry, Moira felt her own tears starting.
“You did it, Tiff. You did it,” Moira said, kissing her cousin’s brow.
“I need you,” Clarissa told her, glancing quickly up at her. “Get my bag, open it, and bring me the scissors and twine inside it, please.”
Quentin placed the now screaming baby on Tiffany’s belly.
“Well, she sounds like her mother,” Cole said. Crying, he kissed his wife on the mouth.
“Do you guys have a name?” Clarissa asked. She took the needed items from Moira and tied off the umbilical cord.
“Alaina,” they both said.
“After Grandma,” Moira said, a sob choking her. “Oh, Tiff, it’s the perfect name.”
“But I think now its going to be Alaina Moira Clarissa Greer,” Tiffany declared, staring down at her baby girl.
“Let Quentin do a quick exam and Moira can clean her while I get you sewed up,” Clarissa said. “Despite my best efforts, you’re torn here, and you haven’t delivered the afterbirth yet.”
Quentin took the baby into the bathroom, Moira right on his heels. “There’s silver nitrate in my bag,” Clarissa told him.
“Got it.” He quickly instilled the drops, the howling baby’s screams becoming even louder now.
He did a quick overview, checking her reflexes and reactions while Moira watched. “She looks good,” he told her, and handed the baby over to be bathed. Together they dipped her into the warmed bath water and removed the birth muck from her little body. Moira glanced up at Quentin’s face, tears brimming in her eyes. He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. “You’re such a softie.”
She sniffed and smiled. “She’s beautiful. And perfect.”
“I agree,” he said, and when she glanced over again, he wasn’t looking at the baby in her arms. Moira stared into eyes burning so brightly with passion and heat, she could have melted away right there and then. Seeing everything he wanted written so plainly on his face, Moira let go of the last little niggle of doubt, and let herself fall completely and totally head over heels. If one tenth of what he felt for her was written on his face, it couldn’t begin to equal what she felt swimming in her heart at just that instant.
When Alaina was cleaned and still crying lustily, Moira swaddled her in the softest towel she could find. A tuft of curly red hair sprang up on top of the baby’s head.
Moira handed the Greer’s their baby. Just then, Pat knocked and opened the door. “Ambulance is here. So are Aunt Carly and Uncle Mike.”
The room was instantly awash with people.
“Hey, Doc Rogers,” Jimmy Payson said, entering the room with his partner. “Hey Moira. When did you get home?” He asked when he saw her standing at the head of the bed next to Quentin.
“Hey Jimmy. About a week ago.” The conversation she’d had with Quentin regarding her former boyfriend made a warm heat crawl up her face.
“We’ll have to get together and catch up,” he told her, his gaze raking up and down her body while readying the stretcher for Tiffany.
Moira didn’t dare look at Quentin.
The next few minutes were a bundle of confusion and nerves as Clarissa tried to keep control over the transporting of her two patients to the hospital. Once the bedroom door was open, it seemed to be an unsaid invitation for everyone to enter and see Tiffany and the baby. Quentin and Moira were vigilant nurses, though and kept everyone away from Alaina.
As they were loading Tiffany and the baby into the ambulance, Clarissa and Cole the only ones allowed to ride with them, Clarissa turned to Moira. “Can I ask you to drive my car to the hospital? I’m on call anyway, and I’ll stick around while Tiffany’s admitted. Then, I can drive myself home later.”
“No worries,” Moira told her, taking the car keys.
As the ambulance left, Carly and Mike divided up their grandkids into their car and the Greer’s and each drove off to the hospital. Serena and Seamus left next in theirs, with the Stapletons after them.
“Are you going to the hospital?” Quentin asked, coming up next to her.
“I’m driving Clarissa’s car there for her.”
“Okay. I’ll grab my truck and see you there. Then you’ll have a ride home.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him her parents could drive her home, but she remembered her promise to spend time alone with him after the party. She didn’t think he’d forgotten about their plans.
Pat and the younger Cleary and Stapleton boys elected to stay home.
Chapter Thirteen
The hospital’s maternity ward waiting area was filled to the brim. And all for one tired mother and baby girl.
Moira entered the room and went to her mother’s side.
“Is everything okay?” She hugged Serena.
“They’re just doing the paperwork to get Tiff and the baby admitted,” Serena told her. “Everything is fine.”
“Because the delivery was so fast,” her father added, “they’re going to keep them overnight as a precaution.”
“You helped deliver your cousin’s baby,” Carly said, coming to her and enveloping her in a warm and loving hug. “How does it feel?”
“She’s helped at deliveries before, Carlisle,” David Stapleton told her.
“Horses and pigs aren’t quite the same thing, dear.” Delilah patted her husband’s hand and gave him a gentle, tolerant smile.
“Not that different,” Seamus said, taking his wife’s hand and kissing it. “Remember when I delivered her and her brother in that very same bed?”
“What a crazy night that was.” Serena smiled, her eyes warming.
“I forgot about being born at home,” Moira said. “But I didn’t do any of the hard work today. I just gave moral support and a baby bath.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, M,” Quentin said as he came into the room. “Your hand’s gonna be awful sore tomorrow from the death grip Tiffany had on it.” He took it in his own, examined it, and before she could stop him, planted a kiss on it.
Praying hastily no one had seen him do it and knowing in her heart what wishful thinking it was, Moira was saved from embarrassment when Clarissa came into the room. Everyone started asking questions at once, but she merely stood, patiently, hands folded in front of her. After a few moments, they all quieted.
“That’s better,” she said, a small smile playing on her mouth. “Now. Mom and baby are fine. The overnight’s just a precaution because it was a home birth and a quick one. They should be discharged by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Can we see Tiffany?” Carly asked.
“You’re Mom, right?”
“And Dad,” Mike added, rising.
“She’s asking for both of you. You can go in for a few minutes with the boys. But then she needs some rest. Her little body is tired, battered, and bruised.”
“Can we see our new baby sister?” Liam asked.
Clarissa squatted to him. “Sure. She’s in with your mom and dad. Go on down to their room. They’re waiting for you.”
Mike and Carly shuffled their grandsons out. Before leaving, though, Carly took the diminutive doctor by the arms and brought her in for a bone-crushing hug. “I’m so thankful you were there today just when Tiffany needed a doctor. You were a God-send.”
“Ouch. Now I know how Pat felt,” Seamus said, none-too-quietly.
