Beauty and the Baby Read online

  There was only one thing to do. Straightening, Carson closed the door on his side.

  Panic came crashing down, fueled by hormones that had gone completely awry. What was Carson doing? Where was he going?

  She tried to crane her neck as he disappeared from view. The next thing she knew, he was opening the door on her side of the car. She looked at him in confusion. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re going to have to walk there,” he told her. He began to take her arm to help her out of her seat.

  She pulled it back. “Maybe you, but not me.” She was through trying to act tough. “I can’t be John Wayne any longer.”

  Carson laughed dryly. “John Wayne wouldn’t have been in this position,” he assured her.

  He tried to reassess the situation. They couldn’t just stay here, waiting for the traffic to clear and he wasn’t about to have her deliver her baby in the back of his car. It wasn’t sanitary. Besides, all sorts of things could go wrong, not to mention that he didn’t want her to have to deal with the embarrassment of having people possibly looking in and seeing her go through the ordeal.

  He made up his mind. There was only one thing to do. “You don’t have to walk.”

  “Flying is not an option.” She was trying very, very hard to keep her growing panic at bay. Her hormones felt as if someone had loaded them into a slingshot and fired. Right now they were ricocheting all over the place.

  “No flying,” he assured her. Taking her by the arm, he eased her out. The next thing she knew, she was in Carson’s arms.

  Was he crazy? “Carson, you can’t walk to the hospital carrying me like this.”

  He had already begun to walk. She was lighter than he’d expected, even with the extra weight. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m too heavy.” If she’d had the strength, she would have jumped down, but that was really not possible.

  Carson smiled at her. “Been meaning to say something to you about that. You’d better cut out those extra starches.”

  She looked back at his vehicle. Had he even locked it? “What about your car?”

  He was aware of the dirty looks that his abandoning the car had garnered. But once Lori was out of the vehicle, the horn blasts from the cars directly behind him had ceased. Everyone familiar with the area knew how close they were to Blair Memorial and the woman in his arms was very obviously pregnant. Adding two and two together wasn’t difficult.

  “It’s not going anywhere.”

  She threaded her arms around his neck, knowing she needed to put up more of a protest. But it was hard when she was having trouble catching her breath. “I can’t let you do this.”

  If he’d called 9-1-1, she’d be in better hands than his right now. He should have gone with his first instincts. All he could do now was get her there as fast as possible. “Don’t see as how you have much say in the matter. Now stop talking, the hot air is making you heavier.”

  She looked at the road ahead of them. Tree-lined, it still made her think of San Francisco. “Carson, it’s uphill all the way.”

  “Then you’ll owe me. I’ll remind you of this every time you start getting argumentative.” He forced a smile to his lips as he looked down at her. “Guess we’ll be talking about this a lot.” He felt Lori stiffen against him. “Bad?”

  “Not good,” she murmured. God help her, it wasn’t fair to him but she felt safe in his arms. Unable to do anything else, she buried her face against his shoulder. “Thank you, Carson.”

  Her warm breath penetrated through his shirt, spreading small waves of something he wasn’t about to explore through his chest. “Don’t see how I have much say in the matter, either.”

  That was so like him. “Just accept gratitude once in a while.”

  He shifted her weight slightly in his arms as he crossed the street and began up the next block. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter Seven

  Carson’s stride lengthened as he came down the slight incline that led from the sidewalk to the rear entrance of Blair Memorial’s Emergency Room. He knew he was jostling Lori with each step he took, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Her breathing was becoming labored. He could tell by the way she stiffened that she was struggling against another contraction. “Hang in there,” he told her. “We’re almost there.”

  She merely nodded in response, pressing her lips together.

  “I’ve got a pregnant woman in labor here,” he announced loudly the instant the ER electronic doors sprang open for him.

  Within moments an orderly came rushing up, pushing a gurney before him. A nurse followed in the man’s wake. Another nurse was on her heels. Questions were being fired at him from all directions.

  “Are you the father?”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “How far along are her contractions?”

  “Is her doctor on staff here? Has he been called yet?”

  Carson tried to make sense of all the words coming at him. “No. No. I don’t know. I think so. No.” If there were any other questions in need of answers, he couldn’t untangle them from the rest. He looked to Lori for clarification.

  There was pain written across her face, but she was alert. For someone in the throes of labor, she still looked pretty damn good, he thought. But then, she’d always looked pretty damn good to him.

  Lori wet her lips. In contrast to the rest of her, they were horribly dry. She wasn’t even sure she could push the words out between them.

  “My doctor’s Dr. Sheila Pollack,” she told the intern who came up to join the circle of people gathering around her. “There was no time to call her.”

  A low-level din rose in her ears, closing in around her senses.

  Carson was moving back.

  He was withdrawing.

  Panicked, Lori raised herself up on her elbows just enough to grab hold of his forearm. Her fingers gripped it as tightly as she could manage.

  “No.” Dark eyes looked at her questioningly. “Stay,” she entreated.

  Very gently, he tried to disengage himself. For a little thing, Lori had one hell of a grip.

  “Lori, they’ll take care of you.”

  Not like he would, she thought frantically. She wanted him with her. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like a superwoman—more like vulnerable and afraid. She needed his familiar face in her corner, because it would give her something to focus on.

  “No, I want you.” She looked at the fresh faced intern for support. “He’s my coach,” she told the bespectacled man.

  Stunned, Carson stared at her. This was certainly news to him. She’d never even approached him with the slightest hint that she wanted him with her when she went into labor. There were certainly other places he wanted to be, up to and including the hull of the Titanic. “I’m your what?”

  “Coach.” She licked her lips, her tongue almost sticking to them. “Please?”

  “Page Dr. Pollack,” the intern instructed the taller of the two nurses. “Tell her one of her patients is about to deliver.” He raised a brow as he looked at Lori. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  It was Carson who snapped the answer out. “Lori O’Neill.” She’d slid her fingers down to his wrist and had clamped a death grip around it. “Lori, you can’t be serious. Where’s your real coach?”

  A contraction started. There wasn’t much time for her to answer. She twisted and arched on the gurney. Why did it have to hurt like this? She knew that there were women who had gone through almost a painless delivery, why couldn’t she be like one of them?

  “I…don’t…have…one.”

  She never ceased to amaze him. The woman taught Lamaze classes, for heaven’s sake. How could she not have a coach of her own?

  The old saying about the shoemaker’s children going barefoot struck a hard chord.

  The ER head nurse shouldered Carson to the side. “If you’re going to coach her,” the heavyset woman advised, “you’d better come this way.” She looked as if she would bro
ok no nonsense, but her deep brown eyes were kind. “Maternity ward’s on the fifth floor and we need to get her up there right away.” She nodded toward the orderly. “You know the drill, Jorge.”

  A row of brilliant white teeth flashed as the short, powerful man took over the gurney and began pushing it out of the ER toward the service elevators.

  All he had to do was stop walking. Pull his hand out of her grasp and stop walking, Carson thought. That was all. God knew he certainly didn’t want to be part of something so intimate as the birth of Lori’s baby.

  He wasn’t the baby’s father and he and Lori were only…

  They were close. He and Lori were close. And she needed him.

  The argument was over before it was ever begun.

  Easing his wrist out of her grasp, Carson took her hand in his and hurried along beside the gurney as the orderly guided it to the back elevators.

  He wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing. He didn’t know how much more he could take.

  They had placed Lori in one of the small birthing rooms. It was cheerfully decorated in an effort to evoke a soothing atmosphere for the miracle that was wrestling its way into the world. But there was nothing cheerful about what Lori was going through.

  He was standing beside Lori who was writhing in pain on the bed. The battle had been going on for over six hours with no end in sight.

  Carson had never felt so damn useless in his whole life.

  Exasperated, he looked at the maternal-looking woman who had just finished checking on Lori. “Can’t you do something about this?” he demanded. “Look at her, she’s in pain.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.” The nurse’s voice was calm, as peaceful as he felt agitated. “It’s all part of the process.”

  That was no answer. “Well, part of the process is sadistic,” he snapped.

  Carson’s voice peeled away the haze forming around her brain. Taking his hand, Lori offered the nurse an apologetic smile. “You’ll have to…forgive him…. He…means well, but…his…social graces…are…the first…to go…under…fire.”

  The white-haired woman merely laughed, her ample bosom heaving. “Don’t worry about me, honey. I’ve seen and heard them all. After fifteen years in maternity, I’ve got a hide like a rhino.” She smiled at Carson as she exited the room. “Your wife’ll be fine.”

  “She’s not my wife,” he protested, but the nurse had already left the room, on her way to the next station on the floor.

  He said that with so much feeling, Lori thought. She felt guilty about forcing him to stay. “I’m sorry…for…putting you through…this.” She tried to hurry her words out, afraid that any moment, another contraction would cut them short. The effort was draining. “You can…go…if you…want to.”

  Oh, he wanted to all right. Very much. But now that he was here, he couldn’t just leave her. To walk out on her now when she was like this seemed almost inhuman, not to mention damn cowardly. Like it or not, she needed him and he was here for the duration.

  He shrugged, looking down at her. “I can stick it out if you can. You’ve got the tougher assignment.”

  She tried to smile. “Tell me…about it.” And then her eyes widened like exploding cornflowers and she squeezed his fingers hard.

  “Another one?” It wasn’t really a question. The way she was crushing his fingers told him all he needed to know. Carson wondered if he would ever fully regain the use of his right hand once this was over.

  Unable to answer, Lori nodded. Pressing her lips together, she struggled to hold back the scream she felt gurgling in her throat.

  Damn it, why couldn’t he do something to help her? he thought angrily. Why couldn’t someone do something? “The nurse said it wouldn’t be long now,” he repeated. The promise didn’t comfort either one of them.

  “All…depends…on your…perspective.” Right now, it was feeling pretty much like an eternity to her.

  He looked at the pink pitcher on the side table. Water was condensing along its sides like falling tear-drops. “Want some more ice chips?” He was already reaching for the pitcher, needing to do something besides look at her helplessly.

  But Lori moved her head from side to side. Ice chips wouldn’t help. Her mouth was dry the second the chips melted.

  “Only…if they have…knock-out drops…in…them.”

  It was going to be over with soon. Soon, she promised herself. Lori tried to focus on a point in time in the future when this was behind her, but the pain kept anchoring her to the moment. There were only small respites now, far shorter than the waves of pain that came in their wake.

  How much more could she take? she thought in desperation.

  Taking out his handkerchief, Carson gently mopped her brow before the perspiration could fall into her eyes. Suddenly, every bone in her body looked like it was stiffening.

  Lori bit back another scream. “Get…the…doctor!” she ordered, her voice gravelly.

  He clutched her hand, giving her something to hold onto to. She cut off his circulation. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Wrong? What did he think was wrong? She was exploding, that was what was wrong. “The baby’s…coming.”

  He hesitated. She’d said this before. “It’s been coming for the last six hours.” Six years was more like it to him.

  Why was he arguing with her? “Now… It’s…coming…NOW,” she insisted.

  He’d already called the nurse into the room three other times. Each time Lori had been certain that the delivery was imminent, but she wasn’t dilated far enough.

  One look at Lori’s face and any thoughts of trying to reason with her fled. Carson went to the door again.

  He looked up and down the hallway. The nurse was just coming out of the room next to Lori’s.

  “I think she’s ready this time.”

  The nurse was patience itself. There wasn’t even a glimmer of skepticism on her face. “Then let’s go see, shall we?”

  Preceding him into the room, the nurse went straight to the foot of Lori’s bed and positioned herself on the stool placed there. Carson looked away as she pulled back the sheet and examined Lori.

  With a smile, the woman rose from the stool and dropped the sheet back into place. “Looks like this time, you’re going to have yourselves a baby.”

  Carson stared at her in disbelief. He’d begun to feel that the baby was never going to come. “You mean she’s really having it now?”

  The nurse nodded. “That’s what I mean.” She looked at Lori. “You’re completely effaced. Ten centimeters. I’ll go get Dr. Pollack.”

  Lori dug her heels into the bed for traction. “Hurry,” she pleaded.

  The woman was already gone.

  Alone with Lori, Carson sank his hands into his pockets. He glanced toward the closed door. “I should go.”

  She looked at him, not comprehending the words. “What?”

  How could a single word make him feel so guilty? It wasn’t his place to be here. “This is too personal, Lori. You don’t want me here.”

  Her head was spinning. “Yes.” She pushed the word out between clenched teeth. One of the monitors moved as she raised her hips from the bed. There was no hiding place from this. “I…do.”

  Forming an arch, her whole body looked like a sine curve on a graph.

  She put her hand out, her fingers fanning the air frantically, unable to reach him. He knew that all he had to do was just take a step away, then another and another until he reached the other side of the door.

  He moved back to the bed. Back to Lori and what had somehow become his responsibility.

  Taking her hand, he stroked her hair. “It’s going to be all right.”

  She hung onto the assurance as if it was a lifeline pulling her out of the swirling whirlpool. Consumed by another contraction, harder than all the rest. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  The look in her eyes told Carson she was grateful for the comfort. And for his remaining in the room with her.

>   A tall, slender blonde wearing green scrubs entered the room. “I hear we’re having a baby in the next few minutes.” Dr. Sheila Pollack gave off a calming, confident aura the moment she walked into the room. She looked at Carson. “Hello, I’m Dr. Sheila Pollack.” Her smile was quick, confident. “But you’ve probably figured that part out by now.”

  “Carson O’Neill. I’m her brother-in-law,” he felt compelled to add.

  “Nice of you to be here, Carson.” Sheila took Lori’s other hand in hers and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Ready to bring this baby in?”

  “More…than…ready.”

  “Then let the games begin.” Sheila flashed her a smile and positioned herself at the foot of the bed. She moved the sheet aside. One quick look was all that was needed. “Oh yes, I’d say that you were more than ready. It’s a lovely evening for a baby to be born.”

  “I…can…push?” It was all she’d wanted to do for the past half hour.

  Sheila nodded. “Absolutely. On my count.” She raised her eyes to Carson, her smile encouraging. “I want you behind her, Carson, supporting her shoulders. Raise her off the bed,” she instructed. When he complied, she nodded. “That’s it. All right, Lori, this is it. On three. One—two—three. Push!”

  Lori squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed with the rest of her body as well. She held her breath as she pushed as hard as she was physically able.

  She was beginning to feel light-headed when she heard Sheila order, “All right, stop.”

  She fell back, exhausted, against Carson’s hands. They felt strong, capable and all she wanted to do was somehow shrink down into nothingness and hide within them. But then she stiffened as another contraction seized her in its jaws.

  Sheila looked at the monitor, seeing the contraction before it arrived. “Okay, Lori, again. One—two—three, push!”

  Lori had no choice in the matter. It was as if the baby, eager to finally come into the world, pushed for her. Holding her breath, she bore down so hard, bursts of light began to dance through her head and behind her shut eyelids.