Beauty and the Baby Read online

  Anger flared in her eyes. “All right, then, maybe I’ll just quit.”

  Damn it, this had gone too far. Why didn’t she ever cry “uncle”? “You can’t apply for unemployment if you quit.”

  “Oh, so now you’re worried about me?”

  He flipped the computer back on. He was staying. Adrenaline had just given him his second wind. “Damn it, Lori, I’m always worried about you. Now go home and let me try to squeeze blood out of a stone.”

  “The only stone I see is the rock between your ears. Now if you—”

  She stopped so abruptly, he looked up. She was wincing and her face was pale. “What’s the matter?”

  Lori had trouble drawing the air back into her lungs. It had all but whooshed out of her when the tap dance the baby was doing had turned into a Charleston. At double-speed.

  Followed by an incredible surge of unadulterated pain.

  Lori looked down at the floor and then at him with stunned amazement vibrating through her. This was too early. She wasn’t supposed to be early.

  There was no arguing with the facts. “I think my water just broke.”

  It was happening.

  Chapter Six

  She had to be kidding, Carson thought. Her water hadn’t broken. She wasn’t due yet. These kinds of things happened dramatically only in sitcoms and movies.

  “Look, if this is some kind of ploy to try to get me to see things your way—”

  But the look on her face told him that he had better start taking this seriously.

  Lori splayed her hand over his desk, her fingers spreading out as far as they could reach. Pain was vibrating through every part of her body. This hurt like the devil.

  “Trust me, I’m not that good.” She measured out every word, as if there wasn’t enough air to make it to the end of her sentence if she wasn’t careful. “If you want visual proof—”

  Carson was on his feet instantly. He rounded the desk and hurried over to her side. Damn it, why now? Why not when she was with some female friends who had a clue what to do?

  He peered at her face, hoping against hope that it was a false alarm. “You’re sure?”

  She stared straight ahead, afraid to even move her eyes. Afraid that if she did, the pain would suddenly accelerate. “Uh-huh.”

  His brain refused to absorb the information. Or maybe he was hoping that if he denied it enough, it would cease to be true. “You’re in labor.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She said it with such conviction, all hope to the contrary died. Did he touch her? Offer support? Keep clear in case she needed space? He felt like an alien in a foreign land. “What do you want me to do?”

  The pain was taking a step backward. It was becoming manageable. She slanted her eyes toward him. “Knocking me out sounds pretty good about now.”

  If she could quip, then maybe the situation wasn’t as dire as he thought. But there was one thing he knew for sure. “I’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

  Lori tested the waters slowly and nodded her head just a fraction of an inch. The pain was withdrawing, taking its sharp, pointy instruments with it. Thank God.

  “Second best,” she allowed, although oblivion still held its allure. This was just the beginning and part of her didn’t feel as if she was going to be up to it. No choice, she thought.

  Very slowly, she released her grip on the desk and covered her belly protectively with her hand.

  Carson never took his eyes off her. Should he put her in his chair and push her out to the car? Carry her? He’d never felt so unsure about what to do in his life. “Can you walk?”

  A half a smile curved her mouth. Amid her fear that the pain would return, twice as strong, twice as big, at any moment was a sweetness that was flittering over her soul. She couldn’t recall ever hearing Carson sound this gentle, this concerned.

  “My legs still work, Carson. It’s my middle that’s under attack.”

  If she wasn’t asking him to carry her, he wasn’t going to volunteer. Dignity was an important factor to every human being. He left her with hers. “Okay, then let’s go.”

  “Right.”

  She wanted to walk out on her own power. She’d had a thing about hanging tough, especially since Kurt had died. But the weakness that was assaulting her knees drove nails of fear through her. She looked at Carson, not saying a word.

  She didn’t have to. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, silently giving her the support she needed.

  Lori blessed him for it.

  Once outside, he guided her over to his car. She looked back at hers, parked three spaces over against the building. “What about my car?”

  This was no time to launch into a debate over which car to use. He’d driven the sedan today and his was the roomier vehicle. He had a feeling that she was going to need all the space she could get right now.

  “I’ll have someone drive me back for it and I’ll drop it off at your house.” One arm around her, he took out his key and unlocked the passenger side. “Your car’s the least of your problems right now.” Very slowly he lowered her onto the seat and then helped her swing her legs inside. He didn’t bother masking his concern when he looked at her. “You sure you don’t want me to call 9-1-1?”

  If anyone had ever asked her, she would have said that Carson was incapable of being this gentle. Who would have thought?

  She did what she could to assuage his concern. “No 9-1-1. I’m just in labor, Carson, not in the early stages of delivery.”

  He had his doubts. Lori had this superwoman attitude about her that got in her way more than once. Especially now. He didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. “You sure?”

  He kept asking her that. She could feel the edges of her temper peeling away and knew she was being unreasonable. With effort, she curbed her tongue. “As sure as I can be.” She looked at him as he got in behind the wheel, turning only her head, afraid a new onslaught of pain might start at any sudden movement. “Hey, I’m new at this kind of thing, Carson. I’m playing it by ear.”

  He turned on the ignition. “It’s not your ear I’m concerned about.”

  Lori’s eyes fluttered shut, as if that could somehow seal the pain away from her. “Just drive,” she breathed.

  Something was happening. She wasn’t sure if it was a contraction, but it felt like it might be one. If not, some invisible force was going at her with a giant, jagged can opener in one hand, a sledgehammer in the other. How could women have more than one baby after going through this?

  He started to put the car into drive, then saw that she still hadn’t buckled up. “Get your seat belt on,” he ordered.

  Lori grabbed the strap, trying to pull it around herself but it wouldn’t give. “How about if I just brace my feet against the floor and you drive as fast as you can?”

  Now she was scaring him. Maybe he should just call the paramedics. “That bad?”

  She shifted her eyes toward him and tried to smile, knowing he needed to see the effort more than she needed to make it. “It’s not good.” Her throat felt dry as she swallowed. “Just get me to Blair, please, Carson.”

  It was all she needed to say. He reached over and pulled the seat belt up and over her bulk, then sank the tongue into the groove, snapping it in place.

  “I’ll get you there as fast as I can,” he promised.

  Couldn’t be fast enough for her, she thought. “Sounds good to me.”

  Gunning the engine, Carson peeled out of the small parking lot behind the center. He made his way onto the street, snaking in front of a deep purple Camaro. The latter’s driver leaned down on his horn in protest over the sudden maneuver. Carson never looked back.

  Amber lights blinked, on their way to becoming red as Carson sped through one light after the other, his goal the southbound freeway. Somehow, he managed to make it through each light before it turned red.

  “If you’re trying to scare me into delivering the baby in the car, you just might be successful.”
r />   He didn’t even spare her a look, his eyes intent on the road.

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent.” The last thing in the world he wanted was for her to have the baby with only him in attendance. The very idea scared the hell out of him. All he could think of was that women still died in childbirth.

  He made it to the on-ramp of the 405. Like a racer at the Indianapolis 500, Carson wove his car in and out of the various lanes of traffic until he finally crossed over firmly painted double yellow lines and merged into the carpool lane a full fifty feet before it was legally allowed.

  Lori was afraid to hold her breath, afraid that if she did, if would somehow terminate her labor and throw her headfirst into the delivery. But her pulse was definitely racing as she watched Carson’s progress.

  “You could get a ticket for that.” The words came out breathlessly.

  “A cop would be nice around now.” He glanced in his rearview mirror. No such luck. “He’d get us to the hospital faster.”

  She managed to find the control on the armrest and pressed until the window rolled down. She was perspiring so much she was afraid she was going to dissolve in a puddle soon. “So this racing madly and breaking laws is actually a plan.”

  “I’ve always got one.”

  It sounded good, but it was a lie. Carson liked to think that most if not all of his life was proceeding according to schedule if not some kind of outright plan. But lately, he had to admit he’d been flying by the seat of his pants. It had begun with his divorce, which had hit him with the force of a small-time bomb. His brother’s death the following year had devastated him. And now this thing that hummed between Lori and him confounded him so totally he had trouble remembering what day it was. If there was still some kind of a plan to his life, other than running the center, it had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. The only plan life seemed to have for him was chaos.

  He glanced at Lori as he pressed down on the gas pedal. The speedometer needle was flirting with numbers that went far above the ones posted on the speed limit signs. He saw that Lori had one hand braced on the dashboard. Her knuckles were white. Was that from the pain?

  What else would it be, idiot? he mocked himself. “How are you doing?”

  She was trying to breathe as regularly as possible. All she really wanted to do was scream in frustration. “I’ve been better.”

  He took the connection to the 55 southbound, telling himself that it wouldn’t be that much longer. “Damn it, Lori, why didn’t you go home the way I’ve been telling you to?”

  Here it came again, that pain that took her entire body prisoner, squeezing every part of her. She struggled to stay grounded. “If I had, I’d be going through this alone right now.”

  That wasn’t his point. He zipped around a car that was going too slow for him, mentally cursing at the driver. “You’d also be closer to the hospital and maybe if you weren’t so hell-bent on doing everything as if you weren’t pregnant, you wouldn’t have gone into labor in the first place.”

  That was unrealistic and they both knew it. “I’ve been circling my due date for days now. I would have had to have gone into labor eventually.” She looked at his stony profile. Was he angry at her? No, that wasn’t it. She realized he was worried about her, but she wished he could show it with soft words instead of snapping at her. “Just not around you.” She clenched her hands in her lap as another wave began to roll over her. She pushed the question out before she couldn’t form it. “Would you have preferred it that way?”

  “Yes,” he bit off.

  Well, Carson was nothing if not honest, she thought. He wasn’t given to charming lies, the way Kurt had been. She’d seen that as one of Kurt’s shortcomings. Still, right now she would have liked to be lied to. She couldn’t even say why. Or why she suddenly felt like crying.

  “I see. Well, when we pull up at the hospital, you can just push me out the door,” she retorted. “I’ll roll right in. You don’t even have to come to a full stop.”

  He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. The sting of guilt had his anger flaring higher. “Damn it, Lori, I just mean I’m not any good at this.”

  That made two of them. Lori struggled to get a grip on her fear. “Neither am I.”

  “But you taught Lamaze classes at the hospital,” he pointed out. “You had all that background training. You know what’s coming.” As far as he was concerned, the whole process was as mysterious as plucking a rabbit out of a magician’s hat.

  As if any of her training helped, she thought in disgust. “Knowing what’s coming and being caught right in the middle of it are two entirely different things.” She tried to think of something a man could relate to. “It’s the difference between watching a war movie and being smack in the middle of a real battle.”

  “Point taken.” The off-ramp was right ahead. He’d made a twenty minute trip in ten. “We’re almost there. Won’t be long now.”

  Oh God, here came another one of those things. Even harder than before. It wasn’t supposed to be happening this way. She wasn’t ready yet. Maybe in another year. “Easy for you to say,” she panted.

  He didn’t like the sound of that. Why was she making those noises? He looked at her. “Lori?”

  She shook her head, not answering. Instead, her eyes were fixed on some nebulous point beyond the windshield and she was taking short pants the way she’d shown other women how to do countless times in the class.

  Except that this time, it was for real.

  She began to feel light-headed.

  “Lori, what’s going on?” he wanted to know. “Why are you breathing like that?” Was she going to pass out on him?

  She felt as if all the air had been let out of her. It was over, the strange urge to expel all of her organs at once had passed. For now.

  Lori blew out a long, cleansing breath then looked at him. Why did he insist on annoying her with all these questions? “Weren’t you at your daughter’s birth?”

  He shook his head. It was one of the main regrets of his life. “I was in the middle of a high profile trial.” His mouth twisted grimly. “Jaclyn didn’t want me there. She wanted the prestige of having me win.”

  Even in her present condition, she knew enough to try to navigate past the rapids and toward clearer waters. “Did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her heart went out to him. “Then I guess she got what she wanted.”

  A sigh of resignation escaped his lips. “She always did.”

  Maybe it was dumb, but she’d never really played it safe when feelings were concerned. And she had a very tender spot in her heart for Carson. Jaclyn was cold for having treated him this way, like an object, a means to an end. He deserved better than that. He deserved someone who loved him for the man he was, not the man someone wanted him to be.

  “But you didn’t.”

  That was the mother of all understatements. “I missed Sandy’s birth.” He’d looked forward to that, counting the days. Jaclyn had tricked him. “I didn’t even know she was in labor until after the fact. Jaclyn had gone in and had labor induced to get the whole thing over with.” Those had been his ex-wife’s words. She’d regarded the miracle of their daughter’s birth as something odious to get out of the way.

  Lori clutched the overhead strap, bracing herself for the next tidal wave of pain. “How did you ever get so caught up with such a calculating woman?”

  He shrugged. Because he’d been lonely. Because Jaclyn had been a stunning woman and knew how to ply her trade. She’d seen him as her ticket to the right circles. All she had to do was get him there. But he’d been blind to all of that. All he’d seen was someone whom said she’d loved him, someone who he thought he loved.

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, Jaclyn wasn’t calculating then. At least,” he allowed, “not that I noticed.” He supposed that had been his fault. “I was too busy proving myself at the firm.” It all seemed like it had happened a million years ago.

 
They were off the freeway. There were only five more long blocks to the hospital.

  “Almost there,” he told her again, hoping that would put her at ease. Or as at ease as she possibly could be at a time like this.

  “I’m holding you to that,” she murmured, beginning to slip back into the web of pain with its steel threads. She shut her eyes tight.

  And then she felt a sudden, abrupt jerk.

  Lori opened her eyes and saw the line of cars before them. Just like that, traffic had come to almost a dead stop. It looked as if they were in the middle of a parking lot.

  This couldn’t be happening. She tried to sit up straight and succeeded only marginally. Her body felt as if it was rebelling against her. “What’s going on?”

  Carson swallowed a curse as he made a calculated guess. “Must be an accident up ahead. Maybe it’ll clear up soon.” Even as he said it, he didn’t believe it. He looked at her. “Can you hang in there?”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, but Carson had serious doubts.

  His view was obstructed by the tan SUV in front of him. Frustrated, Carson opened the door on the driver’s side.

  Lori looked at him. Was he leaving? “What are you doing?”

  “Seeing how far this jam extends.”

  He got out and took hold of the roof, and then climbed up on the doorsill. The extra inches of visibility only showed him more traffic. A whole sea of traffic. It looked as if nothing was moving well past the hospital turn-off. In the distance, he thought he detected red and yellow lights, but that didn’t do them any good here.

  He got down again and looked into his vehicle.

  “Well?” she asked.

  He knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to tell her. “Doesn’t look like it’s going to clear up anytime soon.”

  “Swell.” Heat traveled up and down the sides of her body and the pointy instruments of pain were back, jabbing her in all the inappropriate places. She couldn’t remain like this indefinitely. “So how do you feel about my delivering in your car?”

  There was nowhere to pull off, nowhere to go in order to give her even the smallest measure of privacy. The road was straight and completely exposed all the way past Hospital Road.