Happy New Year--Baby!

by Marie Ferrarella

  Sherwood obviously believed it as well, or else he and Winston wouldn’t still be here. It had taken very little persuasion on his part to get his superior to agree and extend their undercover work here.

  Romeo saw a cat lounging in an apartment window, absorbing the afternoon sun. Barking loudly, he strained at his leash. Dennis gave it a quick tug. “Sorry, no appetizers.”

  Subdued, the dog returned to examining the patch of grass beneath his paws.

  Dennis hadn’t lost sight of the fact that this was, after all, a personal matter for him. There was no question that Paul Trask was involved in this up to his slimy neck. Paul Trask, the man responsible for his father’s suicide. His father had been found in the alley behind Trask’s casino, a note to his wife in his pocket. It had begged for her forgiveness. Dennis would have liked nothing better than to find a way to bring Trask up on charges that would stick. He was certain that the disk that Craig Logan had stolen would accomplish that.

  If they could find it.

  Dennis continued walking, absorbing everything within his surroundings and cataloging it out of habit. It looked like another normal day in paradise, he thought cryptically.

  Helping Nicole assemble the furniture gave him further opportunity to look around the apartment. Despite the fact that Standish’s men had done a good job of tearing the place apart, there might have been something they missed. Something out in plain sight. After all, the disk had to be somewhere. But where? Where would Logan have hidden it where it couldn’t be found unless he wanted it to be found?

  Offhand, the only thing Dennis could think of was that Logan had hidden it somewhere in his racer. But the car had been destroyed in the crash. It had ignited when the brakes had failed and the car had careened into the wall. There was nothing left of it but ashes and rubble.

  That meant that the disk had to be somewhere else. Standish and his people wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of looking for it if they were confident that it had been destroyed along with Craig.

  Romeo finally relieved himself. He began to urgently sniff around the base of a eucalyptus tree. A low growl drifted through the air. Obviously another dog had marked the area.

  Dennis pulled on the leash, urging Romeo on his way. “C’mon, dog, I don’t want to stand here all day—”

  The tiny beeper he wore clipped to the side of his jeans went off. Dennis shut it off automatically. Winston was trying to reach him.

  With a snap of his wrist, he turned the dog around and quickly hurried back to the complex. As he approached the area where Winston had parked his van, he saw the stocky man in the driver’s seat. Winston waved him urgently on to Nicole’s apartment.

  Dennis ran to the apartment. Damn, had they returned? No, Winston wouldn’t have allowed anything to happen to Nicole. He must have seen something else in the monitor. But what?

  Not knowing what to expect, Dennis knocked on the door. There was no answer. He tried the doorknob. She’d locked it, just as he had told her to.

  “Nicole?” he called. He thought he heard a moan in response. “Nicole?” he called again, this time louder. He laid his ear to the door. Dennis was certain he heard her. She was moaning, calling his name.

  Dennis swore under his breath. He should have never left her. Threading the leash over his wrist, he took out his skeleton keys. His fingers felt particularly thick as he worked the lock. Romeo barked repeatedly, as if he could sense that something was wrong.

  It felt as if it were taking forever, but Dennis was in the apartment in under a minute.

  “Nicole?” Dropping the leash, he rushed inside.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. He tried the bedroom.

  “Here,” he heard her call weakly. “I’m in the nursery.”

  Pivoting, Dennis changed direction. Nicole was lying on the floor. Anticipating the worst, he dropped to his knees beside her.

  As gently as he could, he gathered Nicole in his arms. “What happened?”

  She felt like an idiot, an angry, embarrassed idiot. It was a stupid thing to have done. “I was trying to move that box out of the way.”

  She pointed to the one containing the high chair. There was a small storage closet on the side of the tiny patio. Nicole was trying to pull the box out of the nursery toward the patio when the horrible pain had come crashing over her, sapping her breath and strength away like a tsunami.

  Dennis slid his hands under her arms. When would she learn? “This is the nineties, Nicole. You don’t have to be superwoman anymore.”

  As he began to lift her up, his hand brushed against the edge of her smock. It was wet. Very wet. Dennis looked down and saw the small streaks of blood darkening the pink fabric. This definitely didn’t look like a good sign.

  He raised his eyes to hers. “Nicole?”

  Instinctively, she looked down. When she saw the blood, she froze. No wonder it had felt as if a mule had kicked her. Her water had broken.

  Oh, boy.

  “I see it,” she whispered, unable to look away.

  With his body braced against her back to hold her steady, Dennis reached for the large white embroidered comforter Abrahams had insisted they take along with the baby furniture.

  “Take it as a gift from a grateful man,” he had urged them.

  Nicole had fallen in love with it on sight. Tiny blue lambs chased after pink pigs on a field of white. She looked in horror as Dennis pulled the comforter over to her.

  “No, don’t,” she cried. “It’s for the babies. I don’t want to ruin it.” There was more blood on the floor than she would have expected. A chill passed over her. Was something wrong?

  No, it couldn’t be. She’d just been to the doctor for an examination. Dr. Pollack hadn’t said that she was ready to give birth. She was as healthy as a horse.

  This wasn’t the time to worry about possessions. He wanted her to be as comfortable as possible. “I’ll get you another one.”

  Easing his hand out from beneath her, he rose to his feet. Romeo trotted into the room. The dog went straight for Nicole.

  “Lick her and you’re dead, dog,” Dennis said sharply. The dog lay down immediately. Dennis looked at Nicole. “Don’t move anything,” he ordered, leaving the room. “Including yourself.”

  Nicole bit her lower lip as fresh pain began to pulsate through her. She didn’t want to be alone. She could stand the pain if he remained with her.

  “What are you doing?” she called after him.

  “Ordering pizza,” he yelled back. What did she think he was doing at a time like this? “I’m calling 911 to get an ambulance.”

  Ambulance. People grabbing at her. People staring. She wished that it were already over with. “I’d rather have the pizza.”

  “Later,” he promised. The dispatcher came on the line. Dennis quickly gave her all the necessary details. Hanging up, he hurried back to Nicole.

  Romeo had laid down beside her. The dog raised his head as Dennis approached. There was a protective glint in his dark brown eyes.

  “Easy, boy, I’m worried about her, too,” Dennis said to the dog as he sank on his heels beside Nicole. His expression softened as he looked at her. “They’re on their way.”

  Maybe there was some mistake. Maybe they were just jumping the gun. It was too soon. “I’m not due until the middle of January.”

  It almost sounded like a plea, he thought. Nicole was in denial. “That’s only two weeks away. Didn’t you say that your sister delivered early? And didn’t the doctor mention that twins usually arrive before their due date?”

  At least she wasn’t giving birth in an elevator, like Marlene had. Still, Nicole had thought that she’d have time to mentally prepare herself.

  “Yes, but—”

  There wasn’t any room for “but.” “Looks like you’re making it a family tradition.”

  She laughed shortly. Traditions? Not her family. “We don’t have any.”

  Nicole looked awfully pale, he thought. God, he f
elt incredibly helpless. He could assemble and dismantle twelve different kinds of weapons in record time, but he didn’t know the first thing about childbirth. “Maybe this will start one.”

  She raised her hand to wave away the suggestion. He took it into his. Her fingers felt as if they’d been dunked in ice water. Enveloping her hand between both of his, he began rubbing it.

  Nicole licked her lips, trying not to give in to the panic that was beginning to rise. This didn’t feel right. “I’m scared, Dennis.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Nicole.” At least he fervently hoped there wasn’t.

  His voice was soothing, gentle. But it didn’t help calm her. Pain knotted, hard and demanding, in her loins, then ebbed away after two beats. It was just flexing its muscles.

  She turned her head toward him. “Easy for you to say, you’re a man.”

  He smiled, stroking her damp forehead. “Thank you for noticing.”

  “I noticed.” The words rode out on short breaths. “I noticed a lot.” Her eyes skimmed over his face and she smiled distantly, floating in and out. She was vaguely aware that she was admitting too much. “I don’t know how, in this condition, but I did.”

  He didn’t want Nicole saying things she’d regret once she knew the truth. “Shh, you want to save your strength.”

  “No, I want someone else to have this baby,” she gasped. “These babies,” she corrected after a moment. “God, that’s so hard to remember. I’m having two, not one.” Her eyes widened suddenly with new fear. “You don’t think she made a mistake, do you? You don’t think that there’s more than two in here.”

  It was a possibility, but not one she looked up to exploring at the moment. “No,” he told her firmly, “I’d say two’s your limit.”

  She was grateful for the assurance. Right now, she needed anything she could get to hang on to. “Oh!”

  His hand tightened on hers, wishing he could absorb some of the pain. “Are you having contractions?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had any before.” She supposed that’s what the pain was. Hoped that was what the pain was. She had come so far, she didn’t want to lose these babies. Please God, don’t let anything happen to my babies. “You have to call the doctor. I want her there with me.”

  He didn’t want to leave her, but she was right. The doctor had to be notified. “What’s her number?”

  Nicole screwed up her face as another wave went over her. “Use the phone in the kitchen. She’s number three on my speed dial.”

  He was out of the room with lightning speed. When he returned, Nicole had rolled herself up into a ball as much as possible. She was gasping.

  “Hang on, Nicole, hang on.” The only thing he could do was comfort her. Dennis took her hand again. “You can’t be having the babies already.”

  “Says who?” Nicole let out a long, shaky breath. That had been a particularly bad one. “Marlene had hers in less than half an hour.”

  He felt her begin to squeeze his hand harder again. Here came another one, he thought. “You don’t believe in traditions, remember?”

  She rolled her head from side to side. She couldn’t elude it. The pain followed. “I don’t remember anything. Hold my hand, Dennis. Please hold my hand.”

  He tightened his hold on her. “I am.”

  She had to look to realize that he was. “Harder. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything except this awful pain.”

  If she could have, Nicole would have rocked to and fro to try to hold the pain back. But she was almost paralyzed with the searing sensation that was slicing her in half.

  Finally, it receded. She waited in fear for it to return. “It figures.”

  She was babbling, he thought. “What does?”

  “The baby—babies—were conceived in pain.” Sweat was flowing out of every pore, mingling with the blood. Drenching her. “I guess they’ll be born in pain, too.”

  Dennis wanted to keep her talking. It might help distract her. “What do you mean?” Where the hell was the ambulance, he wondered irritably.

  “He raped me. Craig raped me.” That night returned to her in vivid shades of shame. “Said he was paying for me, he might as well get to use the facilities once in a while.” She bit her lower lip so hard it bled, but she didn’t feel it. All she could feel was the pain of that night. It blended with the present. “So he did.”

  “Oh, God.” It explained a lot, he thought. The wariness in her eyes when he kissed her, her distrust of men. It explained a hell of a lot. Logan had been a worthless bastard.

  She didn’t hear him. She heard nothing but the sound of water rushing in her ears. “I’m glad he’s out of my life. I didn’t want him dead, but I didn’t want him part of this, either. He hated the baby, hated me. Hated everything but winning.”

  She was delirious, she thought, floating above her body, above the pain.

  It was a pattern. The pattern of her life. She cared about the wrong people. “My father hated everything but working. Money did it for my mother.”

  “Money?”

  “Yeah.” Her throat felt dry, so dry. But the words wanted to come out. She couldn’t stop them. “She traded it for me and Marlene. Robby, too. My brother.”

  Her voice was growing faint. Dennis had to lean over to hear. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I. How could a mother just walk out on her kids without even saying goodbye?” She could see herself as a four-year-old running into her mother’s room. The room where her mother slept apart from her father. It was empty. Mommy? Mommy, where are you? Mommy, I need you. “One morning she was just gone,” Nicole whispered. “My father said he paid her to leave and she did. A hundred thousand dollars. That made it thirty-three and a third for each of us.”

  Tears were gathering in her eyes, tears she wasn’t aware of. They trickled out of the corners of her eyes, down the slope of her cheeks.

  “I want her here now. Isn’t that stupid? All these years, and I still want her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” he said softly. “It’s very, very normal.”

  The sound of Dennis’s voice brought her back. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on his face. It swam in front of her. “I don’t think this can hurt any worse. I feel like I’m dying.”

  “You’re not dying, Nicole.” It was an order. He stroked her hair, her face. “You’re not dying.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  It was the last thing she said before she passed out. Somewhere in the distance, someone was calling her name, but she was too weak to answer.

  Chapter 10

  Nicole surfaced by degrees. She was vaguely aware of a rocking motion encompassing her just beyond the perimeter of her wakefulness. As she grasped on to consciousness, pain cut through the disorientation that was swimming around her.

  She didn’t remember opening her eyes, but when she came to, she was looking up at Dennis’s face. Concern was etched into his kind features.

  Even enveloped in a sea of pain, it touched her. He cared. He really cared.

  There was something attached to her. She was having difficulty focusing. Nicole blinked several times before it became clear that what she felt was a tube feeding clear liquid into her arm.

  “Am I dead?”

  Dennis tightened his arms around her. He hadn’t let go ever since he had gotten into the ambulance. She’d had him worried for a while. “Do I look like an angel to you?”

  Nicole smiled weakly, or attempted to. “Yes.”

  She wouldn’t think that if she knew the truth. “You’re not dead.” Suddenly, Nicole gasped, arching on the gurney. If she hadn’t been strapped onto it, the sudden motion would have made her fall. She was having a contraction, he thought helplessly. “You may just want to be for a while.” There had to be a better way than this to have a baby.

  She was vaguely aware that there was someone behind Dennis. “Where am I?”

  “In an ambulance. We’re going to the hospital
.” Just as he told her, the vehicle came to a rather sudden stop. The driver turned the ambulance expertly around, bringing the rear up to the emergency entrance. “Actually, it looks like we’re here.”

  She had been unconscious the entire trip to the hospital. She didn’t even remember the paramedics arriving. The last thing she recalled was Dennis hovering over her in the nursery.

  Dennis saw the urgency in her eyes when she looked up at him. He leaned forward to hear her as the ambulance came to a full stop. “What?”

  “Don’t…don’t leave me,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t that long ago that she couldn’t wait to get rid of him. Guilt bit into him with pointy teeth.

  “Not a chance.”

  The next moment, the doors flew open. A team of nurses, orderlies and an emergency room physician surrounded the gurney as they pulled it from inside the ambulance.

  Dennis jumped down after it, melding with the team as they hurried through the emergency entrance’s open electronic doors.

  A nurse wearing her years of experience with grace looked at him as Dennis ran alongside the gurney. “You the father?”

  There was no hesitation in his answer. “Yes.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dennis saw the ambulance driver give him a quizzical look. When he had opened the door for the paramedics earlier, Dennis had told them that he was Nicole’s neighbor. He waited for the man to say something, but the driver merely gave the physician the pertinent details of the pickup.

  Another lie to add to the others, Dennis thought. But some hospitals had a strict policy about visitors. He might not be allowed to remain with Nicole if he didn’t have some direct connection to her. There was no way he was going to leave her. Saying he was her husband seemed to be the simplest way to go.

  Working his way around the IV, the doctor was checking Nicole’s vital signs. The nurse placed a hand on Dennis’s shoulder, drawing him gently aside. “We’re going to need you to fill out some forms.”

  The words penetrated Nicole’s haze. “I’m preregistered,” she murmured.

  Dennis looked at her. Her expression gave no indication that she’d heard him tell the nurse that he was her husband.