Decoy Date

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  Gwen laughed, ushering her friend inside. Even without Brody, it was great to see Molly.

  As much as Gwen was glad to be home when her parents needed her, she’d missed the city. She’d missed her friends and the crowds and the late nights. She’d missed the fun.

  “Here, come back to the kitchen. I made some tea.”

  Molly started wrestling her way out of the coat. She was big for having over a month left before Baby Wyse was due, and Gwen couldn’t imagine it was comfortable spending that many hours in the car. So why had she?

  She could only think of one reason, and suddenly, her stomach lurched.

  “Molly, is everything okay? Did something happen to…” She couldn’t even say his name, not when a hundred different horrible possibilities started slamming through her mind.

  Why else would Molly be there?

  “Geez, look at you. Don’t freak out. Everybody’s fine.” Then rolling her eyes, she amended, “Mostly fine.”

  Mostly fine didn’t sound good at all. Mostly fine meant that there was some part of something or someone—and it had to be Brody, because again, why else would Molly be there—that most definitely wasn’t fine.

  “No one’s hurt. At least not physically.” Molly stretched back, rubbing her lower back with one hand as she circled her belly with the other. “But I’ll be honest with you. Brody hasn’t really been himself since you guys decided to call things off.”

  Of all the things for Molly to suddenly get delicate about. “It’s okay. You can say it. Since he broke up with me.”

  Molly tensed, her eyes going wide before a tiny stitch pulled between them.

  “He didn’t tell you what happened?” Gwen asked, unable to believe Brody would be able to keep anything from his friends, most of all Molly.

  “Um… No, he did, though he was kind of spare on details. Not that I need to know. I totally don’t. But like I said, he hasn’t been himself, and I guess I was thinking since we got to be friends while you were together, that maybe you were having a tough time too. And with this stuff with your dad and you being stuck down here, I thought I’d drop in. Check on you.”

  Gwen had known Molly was a little different from the first time she met her, but this? Her eyes narrowed.

  “Did Brody ask you to check on me?”

  There was no way he would be that selfish, asking a pregnant woman to drive three hours alone…

  “Are you kidding me?” Molly scoffed, gingerly lowering herself into her chair while Gwen poured them each a cup of tea. “He’d lose his shit if he knew I was down here. And that’s nothing compared to Sean.”

  This really wasn’t making sense.

  “So what are you doing here? I mean, I’m glad to see you. Believe me, I am,” she assured, stretching a hand across the table to give Molly’s a squeeze. “But why make the drive down. Why not call?”

  Gwen watched as Molly’s face screwed up a little and she pushed back in the chair, trying to adjust to get comfortable. Every shift and wince adding to a sense of unease within Gwen. Something wasn’t right.

  “Stir-crazy, I think. Woke up this morning with a bee in my bonnet about getting down here. So, you seeing anyone?”

  “What?” Gwen coughed, her eyes going wide at that not-so-subtle transition. “No.”

  Another wince, and this time, there was nothing insignificant about the furrow digging between Molly’s brows or the way her eyes went saucer wide and dropped to her giant belly.

  “Molly, are you okay?”

  But already, the other woman was struggling to get out of her seat. Gwen jumped up, helping her to stand.

  “Molly, look at me. Is it the baby?”

  Molly was shaking her head, the movement slow, as if her thoughts were somewhere else. Then suddenly, she was a flurry of activity, waddling out of the kitchen and grabbing for her coat as she mumbled about needing to leave. Gwen was helping her, or trying to, but when Molly reached for the door, only one arm in her sleeve and a sort of shell-shocked look in her eyes, Gwen put her back against it, blocking the way.

  “No way, lady. You’re not leaving this house until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “How’s Ted?” Molly demanded.

  What? Did they even know each other?

  “Ted? Fine, I guess. I don’t know…” she answered, her confusion and concern escalating together.

  “You guess? So he hasn’t, say, been some kind of rock for you during this rough time? Or, like, there for you in a way you hadn’t expected? A comfort you don’t know how you’d survive without?”

  The only one who’d been those things for her in the past year had been Brody. At least that’s how she’d felt. Ted was a friend, but once she’d taken a real look at what was between them, once she’d realized how she felt about Brody, she’d stopped thinking about Ted as anything else.

  “Wait, don’t try to distract me. I’m talking about you, Molly. You’re acting weird, and I don’t mean you driving down here by yourself. I’m talking about right this minute, the way you’re breathing through your nose kind of long and slow… Oh my God, are you having a contraction?”

  Molly swatted her out of the way. “What I’m doing is leaving. I need to get back to Chicago.”

  She muttered something about Sean killing her, but Gwen could barely hear it as she called back into the house, telling her mother she’d be right back. And then she was out the door after Molly, racing down the sidewalk in her slipper socks.

  “Molly, wait. Come back inside a minute. I’ll get my bag, and we can go get you checked out.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m only thirty-five weeks, and when I was at the doctor’s two days ago, they were pretty confident I was going to have a heck of a wait ahead of me. It’s Braxton-Hicks or something like that. But all the same, I want to get home.” She opened the driver side and winced again, trying to lower herself into the seat.

  “Is that another one?”

  Molly scowled at her. “That’s me trying to get this big body into this little freaking car. Relax.”

  “No way. I’m not letting you drive anywhere by yourself.”

  The car started. “What are you going to do to stop me?”

  Gwen looked down at her empty hands and then back to the house. If she went inside, Molly was going to leave.

  Running around to the passenger side, she got in.

  * * *

  An hour later, Gwen was white-knuckling the dashboard with one hand, the back of Molly’s seat with the other. “Molly, we’re still an hour and a half away from Chicago, minimum. You’re not going to make it. Give me that phone right now.”

  “I can’t reach it. It fell between the seat and the door.” A bead of sweat trailed down Molly’s brow, but she wouldn’t release her death grip on the steering wheel to wipe it away. “And we can totally make it. This is a false alarm. First babies always take forever, so even if this is real labor, there’s no way I’m having this baby until well after I get back to Chicago. Sean never has to know that I drove down to see you. We’ll just call him from the hospital. In Chicago. When I get there.”

  “Believe me, Sean is not going to care that you drove down to see me. All he cares about is you and the baby being safe.”

  Molly let out a snort that turned into a gasp. Then after another strained breath, she hissed out, “He’ll care.”

  “Yes, but only about you being safe. Molly, you’re not thinking straight. This isn’t safe for you, it’s not safe for the baby, and it’s not safe for me either. You have to pull over and let me drive.”

  And give her the phone and let her call Sean and an ambulance and Brody. No, scratch that, not Brody. But the ambulance…definitely.

  “Molly!”

  Molly hit the brakes and pulled over to the shoulder of the deserted highway.

  There were tears in
her eyes that broke Gwen’s heart. “There’s nothing wrong. It’s too soon.”

  Gwen nodded. “It definitely is. But still, wouldn’t you feel better having a doctor tell you that?”

  Molly’s chin quivered, and her face crumpled. “Y-yes.”

  Thank God. “Then why don’t you let me get you to one?” Tentatively, she opened the passenger-side door, just a crack in case Molly decided to change her mind. But something told her her friend had begun to see reason. At least to some degree.

  “You’ll drive me to Chicago?” Molly asked.

  “Definitely.” Not a chance. The only place Gwen was driving this car was to the closest hospital. But first she needed to get Molly’s phone, because she hadn’t been able to grab hers, or her purse, or her shoes, or even her jacket when she left with this little firecracker who’d been about to go around the bend.

  Molly’s face was red, her breath coming in short pants. Yeah, those were way too close.

  “Can you help me out of the car?”

  Gwen was out of her seat and rounding the front end in a flash. When the driver-side door opened, she heaved a sigh of relief. And then before Molly had a chance to grab it herself, Gwen pulled the phone from the driver’s side door pocket. “I’ll hang on to this for you. Here, let’s get you out.”

  Slowly, she finessed Molly out of the driver seat, but seeing the lines of strain on her friend’s face, she asked, “Hey, how about the back seat?”

  Molly nodded. She took a step and then froze in place.

  “Molly?”

  Eyes filling with terror, she whispered, “My water just broke.”

  Chapter 25

  As a rule, Brody wasn’t much of a fate-and-destiny guy. He didn’t buy into the idea that the universe had a plan for him or everything was predestined. But after today, he’d be hard-pressed to deny that there was some greater power at work. Because before the incident with Gwen’s dad and her lost phone, when phone numbers came through as unavailable, he didn’t answer them. But for whatever reason, today, when it mattered most, he answered that unknown number even though he’d been meeting with one of Belfast’s distributors.

  And then he’d almost had a heart attack as a calm, controlled voice from the other end of the line relayed what was happening on a back road in the middle of Illinois.

  Molly was having her baby.

  On the highway.

  With the closest ambulance still twenty minutes out.

  And Gwen was delivering it.

  He’d been out of his seat in a flash, his heart slamming as he knocked over his chair and then tripped against another table before rushing for his car. What he knew was this: Gwen had only been able to make the one call, and unwilling to get off the line with 911, she’d given them the only phone number she knew by heart, which was his. He’d given them Sean’s number directly and then gotten in his car to go over and pick the guy up. No way was Sean going to be able to drive himself.

  Hell, when Brody got behind the wheel, it took him a second to get his shit together enough to pull into traffic himself. But then he’d cut through the city and pulled into the Wyse Hotel loop as Sean burst out the front doors, his face a mask of agony, the phone pressed to his ear.

  Every minute was grueling. The helplessness and uncertainty unbearable. Sean stayed on the phone the entire time, holding for each update as it came through. And in between, neither of them wanted to say what they’d both been thinking. Gwen had given them Brody’s number, which meant Molly hadn’t been able to give them Sean’s. And more than that, Gwen hadn’t even been able to go into the contacts on Molly’s phone to look for Sean’s number because there hadn’t been time.

  Then, after a silence that seemed to stretch forever, came the worst moment of them all. Sean buckled forward in his seat, his hand over his eyes, his mouth open as a sob ripped from his chest.

  Brody nearly wrecked the car right there, but somehow, he managed to hold it together long enough for Sean to catch his breath and through the tears choke out, “It’s a girl.”

  Brody blinked, felt the wetness on his cheeks, the burn behind his eyes. He nodded to one of his oldest friends, unable to find words beyond the simplest to convey his relief and joy. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

  Gwen had delivered the baby girl in the back seat of Molly’s car as the paramedics pulled up. From first reports, their daughter was doing well, but Molly had lost a lot of blood. She was unconscious, and the paramedics were getting her back to the hospital. Sean was barely holding it together. More information was exchanged, more questions fired back, more demands made for information that wasn’t available. But eventually, Sean had to let them go. When the phone rang again, it was Gwen. She was with them in the ambulance, and Molly was awake.

  Brody broke more speed laws on the way to that hospital than he could count, but he got them both there by late afternoon, and when he pulled up to the main entrance, Sean was out of the car before it came to a complete stop. Less than five minutes later, Brody was being directed down the hall to where Gwen was seated alone in a small waiting area. Her hair was a mess, caught up in a lopsided bun with loose strands sticking out and falling around her face. She was wearing a tank top, jeans with mud stains around her knees, and a pair of slipper socks that had seen better days. She was so beautiful that it hurt to look at her.

  Her head came up, and she blinked a few times, her lashes still tipped dark from tears.

  She wasn’t his anymore. But when she stepped into his arms and he felt her shoulders quake and her fists ball against his shirt as she finally gave in to the emotions of what had happened, it felt like she was.

  “You never told me you knew how to catch babies,” he whispered into the top of her hair, breathing in the scent of her.

  Giving up a feeble laugh, she whispered, “They tell me I’m a natural.” And then she was crying against his chest, breaking his heart with each quiet sob. “I was so scared. There was so much blood.” She shook her head, pressing further in to him, as if she couldn’t get close enough.

  His hold tightened. “You saved her. You saved them both.”

  And then, because he couldn’t stand not seeing her face for a second longer, he tipped her head back and met her eyes. “You’re a hero, Gwen.”

  She stepped back, giving him a watery smile.

  He didn’t want to let her go, didn’t want to lose the warm, soft feel of the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about within his arms, but he knew he had to.

  The chairs where she’d been sitting were empty. No bag, no coat, nothing.

  “Jesus, Gwen, is this everything you have with you?”

  “Molly was in kind of a hurry to leave.” She picked at one thin strap of her tank and closed her eyes. “I had a hoodie, but Baby Wyse needed it more than I did.”

  He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it had been like for her out there, for all of them.

  He shrugged out of his jacket and held it open for Gwen to slide her arms into. Like everything of his, it was enormous on her, the sleeves hanging well past her fingertips, even when he cuffed them. It reminded him of Christmas Eve in the snow.

  “If you’re not warm enough, I can find a blanket or something.”

  Shaking her head, she pulled the jacket tighter around her. “No, this is perfect. Thank you.”

  She looked so tired. So small. And all he wanted to do was pull her in to him and hold her close again. But she was already moving back to the chair she’d been in when he arrived. Her gaze anywhere but on him.

  He took the chair in the facing row and waited there with her until a nurse in pink scrubs walked over.

  “You can come back with me if you’d like to see them now,” she offered with a smile toward Gwen. Everyone loved her. She was a hero.

  When they got back to the room, Molly was propped up in bed, a tiny pink bundle
nestled against her chest and Sean leaning in close. His brow was pressed to hers as he spoke in quiet tones.

  “We can come back,” Brody suggested, not wanting to intrude on a private moment with this new family. But the nurse shook her head, ushering him in.

  “They asked for you. It’s okay.”

  Brody went to Molly’s side, gently smoothing her corn-silk hair as he smiled down at the precious new life in her arms. And then Sean was wrapping Gwen in a hug so tight and long that Molly finally had to tell him to let the poor girl go.

  When she and Sean had wiped their eyes, Gwen crossed to the bed and, running a gentle finger along the baby’s cheek, murmured, “Well, you sure clean up nice, don’t you?”

  Molly sighed. “She really does, doesn’t she?”

  With five weeks left to their due date, Sean and Molly hadn’t been able to agree on a name yet, so for the time being, the little bundle was going as Princess to Sean, and Pushy to Molly. To Brody, she was just a miracle.

  Another nurse peeked in to check on everyone, and when she left, Molly shook her head. “They’re in and out of here nonstop. If they’re not poking or peeking at me, they’re trying to get their hands on this beautiful girl.”

  “It will only be a couple days, babe,” Sean assured. “And then we’ll be back at home, just the three of us.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in any rush to leave.” She smiled weakly at Gwen. “Pretty sure I made some kind of promise about never dodging a hospital again. But it’s all kind of a blur.”

  Gwen peered up at the ceiling before turning back to Molly. “Yeah, don’t worry, I remember every second. And it was a blood oath, if we want to get technical.”

  Having earned auntie status the hard way, Gwen got to hold Baby Wyse first. And if she was a natural at anything, it was this. Everything about her was gentle and soft as she cooed down at the tiny bundle in her arms.

  Brody took a picture with his phone before Gwen peered up at him with that gorgeous smile he’d been missing every minute for the past month. “You want to hold her, big guy?”