Fortune's Valentine Bride Read online

  Wendy, ordinarily so full of energy, had to be going out of her mind with boredom, just lying here, day in, day out, Katie thought sympathetically. But there was something in her friend’s voice that had her thinking there was another reason for Wendy’s need to be distracted that she wasn’t telling her.

  “Why do you need to be distracted more than usual?” Katie wanted to know.

  But Wendy shook her head. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to think.

  “No, you first,” Wendy insisted. “Why do you look as if you just found out your best friend was sent off to the farm in the country?” she asked, using the tried-and-true euphemism of parents explaining to their children why a beloved pet could no longer be found roaming around the house.

  Katie crossed to the window to the right of Wendy’s bed and stared out at the darkness. “You know that Project Brittany that your brother’s trying to get off the ground?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I think it’s about to take flight.” And I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

  Wendy filled in the blanks. “No,” she protested. “You were supposed to turn the tables on Blake and make him fall in love with you.”

  Katie leaned her hands on the windowsill. “That was the plan,” she agreed and then she sighed. “Unfortunately, I’ve succeeded too well. Blake’s sure that he’s going to have Brittany eating out of his hand.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  Katie smiled sadly at what she assumed was sympathy in her friend’s voice. “Yeah, that about sums up the way I feel,” she admitted.

  “Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn!”

  Wendy was almost taking this worse than she was, Katie thought. She felt guilty. Wendy had her own set of problems right now.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to take it that badly. It’s not the end of the world, I guess.” She turned from the window to face her friend. “Wendy, I— Oh, God, Wendy, what’s wrong?” Katie cried, startled as she took a good look at her best friend.

  Wendy’s forehead was drenched in sweat and she had all but wadded up her entire blanket beneath her hands. It was as if she was searching for something to anchor her body to the bed, to keep her from spinning out into a world constructed out of an all-consuming, fiery pain.

  “Ba-bee,” Wendy managed to gasp out between gritted teeth, every inch of her body completely rigid. “The baby’s coming!” she screamed.

  A cold chill washed over Katie, bringing fear with it. She had to get Wendy to the hospital, but San Antonio Memorial was a good twenty miles away. Wendy didn’t look as if she was going to be able to last long enough to get there.

  “Hang on, I’m going to get you to the hospital,” Katie promised.

  She didn’t have a car, but she knew that Wendy’s was parked in the garage, dormant during her forced encampment. Marcos occasionally used it, just to keep the engine functioning properly, but for the most part, it remained in the garage—which meant that she could drive Wendy to the hospital without any delay.

  “C’mon, honey, we’re going to get you up,” Katie told her.

  But as she reached for her, Wendy grabbed her wrist and held it in what could only be termed a vise grip, squeezing it as hard as the contraction was apparently squeezing her.

  There was desperation in Wendy’s voice when she cried, “No time.”

  Ordinarily, Katie would have said that Wendy was being dramatic again, but there was something about the look in her eyes that made Katie believe her. She really didn’t want to take a chance on being wrong. If that baby was coming, it was better that it come here than in the backseat of a car.

  With effort, Katie extricated her wrist from Wendy’s death grip. “Okay, we’ll stay here.” She picked up the cordless receiver from its cradle on the nightstand. “I’ll call nine-one-one. They’ll send an ambulance—and someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  But Wendy shook her head emphatically. “No…time… Baby…now!” she panted, her eyes as huge as saucers.

  Because she didn’t know what else to do, Katie called anyway.

  The maddeningly calm woman on the other end of the line asked the nature of the emergency and then wanted details. As coherently as possible, given that her heart was now lodged in her throat, Katie rattled off the problem and Wendy’s address. She ended with a request for an ambulance. NOW.

  “And a doctor,” she added almost as an afterthought. “I need a doctor on the line,” she cried just as Wendy scrunched up her face again.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have a doctor here,” the dispatcher told her.

  “Call…my…doctor,” Wendy gasped, curling up into a ball and rocking back and forth, “…press three…speed…dial.”

  Katie immediately disconnected her call and then followed Wendy’s instruction, praying that the dispatcher she’d talked to would come through with that ambulance she’d requested.

  The doctor wasn’t in, but given the hour, that was to be expected. Katie prayed she could track him down in time.

  “The doctor is making his rounds at the hospital,” the woman at the answering service informed her routinely. “Dr. Nickelson will be back in his office tomorrow morning at—”

  Grasping the receiver with both hands, Katie said in a barely controlled, desperate voice, “Now, you listen to me. Tomorrow morning’s too late. This baby is coming now and it’s just Wendy and me here. You patch me through to Dr. Nickelson this minute. I need him to talk me through the delivery or God only knows what’s going to happen. Do you understand me?” she demanded.

  “I understand,” the woman replied, suddenly sounding very human and sympathetic. “Hold on, I’m going to patch you through. Don’t hang up.”

  “Not on your life,” Katie said, but she was talking to a temporarily dead phone. Wendy cried out in pain. She squeezed Wendy’s shoulder, feeling incredibly helpless. Praying that the answering service could get ahold of the doctor. “Hang on, Wendy, I’m getting help.”

  Five seconds later, the line came back to life and a deep baritone said, “This is Dr. Nickelson,” into her ear. Before she could begin to give the physician a summary of what was going on, Wendy screamed again. That took care of any necessary introduction. “How far along is she?” Dr. Nickelson asked.

  “Passed the goal line,” Katie answered, as she looked at Wendy’s contorted face.

  Because he needed something concrete, Dr. Nickelson restated his question. “How far is she dilated?”

  Oh God. “Sorry,” Katie murmured to Wendy as she threw back the covers with one hand and then pulled up her friend’s nightgown.

  “Just…get…it…out!” Wendy pleaded, tears she wasn’t even away of streaming down her face.

  Katie’s heart was hammering so hard, she could barely draw a breath. “I can see the head.” Crowning, that was called crowning, she suddenly remembered. “She’s crowning.”

  “Put the phone on speaker,” the doctor told her, his voice calm, soothing. “You’re going to need two hands. Is Wendy lying down in bed?”

  What did that have to do with anything? she thought impatiently. “Yes,” Katie all but snapped.

  “Good. You need to get her propped up against the headboard so she has something to lean against as she pushes.”

  As quickly and gently as possible, Katie pulled Wendy up in bed so that her shoulders were up against the headboard.

  “Done,” she called out.

  “Good,” the deep voice pronounced again. “Now position yourself on the receiving end,” he instructed as if this was an everyday occurence. “On the count of three, I want you to have her bear down and push as hard as she can. One—two—”

  “THREE!” Wendy shrieked, then bore down for all she was worth, desperately trying to expel the baby and the pain
at the same time. All she managed to expel was a gutteral sound that didn’t sound quite human.

  “Now stop,” the disembodied voice on the speakerphone ordered.

  “I…can’t…do…this!” Wendy sobbed.

  “Yes, you can and you will,” Katie fired back in a no-nonsense voice, sensing that if she gave Wendy sympathy, her friend would really fall apart. She prayed that she wasn’t in over her head. Over both their heads, she amended.

  Blake took out the key that Wendy had given him and inserted it into the lock. He’d already swung by once this evening, but that was to drop Katie off. For once, he hadn’t gone in and it was guilt that had brought him back. After all, his initial reason for being out here in the first place was because Wendy was a prisoner in her own bedroom until the baby made his or her appearance in the world. To allow himself to get so caught up in his pursuit of Brittany that he forgot to spend a little time with Wendy was just plain wrong.

  Granted Katie was here with her, but it was Wendy he was really here to see, he told himself.

  He stopped dead a second after he closed the front door. And then, just like that, he heard a baby cry. He ran up the stairs and heard Katie’s voice coming from the bedroom. He burst in and was amazed—and surprisingly, nearly overcome with emotion—at the sight before him.

  “It’s here!” Katie announced, feeling her own body shaking as she held this brand-new tiny damp life between her hands. “You have a girl, Wendy,” she nearly sobbed. “You have a girl.” Her own head spinning badly and it took effort for her to concentrate. There was still a lot more she had to do, but for the life of her, Katie couldn’t think of what that was.

  At that moment the doorbell rang. “It must be the paramedics.”

  Blake turned to her and said, “You’ve done more than enough tonight. I’ll go downstairs and let them in. You stay here.” As he crossed to the doorway, he paused for a moment and looked at her over his shoulder. “You were magnificent,” he told her in a voice filled with admiration.

  His warm smile embedded itself under her skin even before he left the room.

  Chapter Nine

  When she looked back on all this later, Katie hadn’t really intended to go to the hospital with Wendy and the baby, especially not in the back of the ambulance. Now that the baby had been safely delivered, she just wanted to get out of the paramedics’ way and let them see to Wendy and her tiny girl. After all, the EMTs were the professionals and would take good care of both of them.

  But one look at her best friend’s eyes was all it had taken. It told Katie that Wendy, despite her bravado, was still shaken, still in need of reassurance. Still in need of a familiar face to be there with her.

  So, at the last minute, she suddenly heard herself calling out, “Wait up. I’m going with her.”

  The paramedic inside the back of the ambulance looked a little dubious for a second, then nodded. “Okay, come on,” he said as he extended his hand to her.

  Grasping it, she got on and then perched on the tiny bit of space beside Wendy’s gurney. She had no idea how she was going to get back to Red Rock and the house, but that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that her best friend still needed her—at least until Marcos could be reached so that he could come down to the hospital to be with his wife.

  “She’s so tiny,” Wendy murmured, exhaustion and a mother’s concern evident in every syllable. “Do you think she’ll be all right?”

  “She’s a survivor,” Katie assured her. “And look who her mother is. Of course she’ll be all right.”

  Wendy looked up at her. “Thank you.”

  “Just telling you the truth,” Katie replied, shrugging off the thanks.

  “No, I mean for everything. For being there and bringing the baby into the world.”

  Katie smiled warmly. “She brought herself into the world. I was just the cheering section,” she said, looking at the very tiny bundle for the moment sleeping against Wendy’s breast.

  Kissing the top of her baby’s head, Wendy looked back at Katie. There was wonder and disbelief mingled in her eyes.

  “I’m a mother, Katie,” she said in hushed awe.

  Katie smiled. “I know. I was there.”

  When the ambulance finally arrived at San Antonio Memorial’s E.R. entrance, a team of nurses and a doctor were waiting for them. Mother and baby were whisked off to the recovery area, where they were separated and taken in different directions. Since the newest member of the Mendoza/Fortune family was on the rather small side, the physician on duty felt it best to place the infant in an incubator, at least to begin with. Wendy looked stricken when the baby was taken from her arms, but she knew it was for the best.

  Just like that, Katie found herself standing alone outside the recovery room doors, relegated to the hallway. Having nowhere else to be, unfamiliar with the hospital layout and too tired to go exploring at this hour, she resigned herself to remaining where she was until such time as Wendy was taken up to a room on the maternity floor.

  With a sigh, Katie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She hadn’t realized just how very tired and drained she was until this very minute. She wondered if anyone would say anything if she just stretched out on the floor, out of the way. Things were relatively quiet and at a lull right now. Her mind began to drift, floating to different levels as sleep began to creep in around her, taking more and more of her away.

  Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is she inside there?”

  Katie’s eyes flew open. At the same time, she stifled a surprised gasp. The hand on her shoulder belonged to Blake. She hadn’t expected him to come. He hadn’t said anything about following her to the hospital. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

  Blake was by turns surprised and then amused by her question. “She’s my sister, remember? And besides, I thought you might like a ride home—unless you’ve already made other plans,” he qualified.

  But Katie shook her head. “No, no plans,” she admitted. “After what just happened, I’m afraid I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  Blake looked genuinely stunned. “Wow, Katie Wallace without a plan. This really is a red-letter day, isn’t it?”

  She took a deep breath, doing what she could to pull herself together.

  “You might say that.” There was something she needed to ask him—oh, right. Marcos. She turned to Blake and asked, “Did you call Marcos?”

  He nodded. “The minute you took off in the ambulance with Wendy and the baby. He’s on his way. I offered to pick him up, but he said he wasn’t about to wait. I think he started running to the car the second he heard my voice.” The bemused smile on his lips was mixed with concern as Blake shook his head. “I sure hope the roads are clear tonight. This would be a hell of a bad time for him to get into an accident.”

  Maybe it was because she was punchy, but the wording he’d just used amused her. “And exactly when is a good time?”

  Blake stared at her, confused. He was beginning to feel that confusion was a somewhat regular occurrence around Katie these days. She said things that scrambled his brain lately—especially since he’d kissed her.

  “What?”

  “To get into an accident. You said now’s a bad time for him to get into an accident and I’m asking if there’s a good time to get into one?” she asked innocuously.

  Definitely out to scramble his brain, he decided. “Point taken.”

  When he continued just standing in the hallway with her, saying nothing further, she felt compelled to ask, “Shouldn’t you be calling your family?”

  To be honest, Blake had felt so blown away by having taken an active part in the miracle of birth, calling everyone had completely slipped his mind. Trust Katie to remember, he thought. The woman really was very good at details.


  “What would I do without you?” he asked, shaking his head as he took out his cell phone.

  “Start keeping track of your own calendar, comes to mind,” she quipped. Although it was exceedingly tempting, she refused to allow herself to take to heart too much of what he had just said. He hadn’t meant anything by it. Probably didn’t even know he’d said it, she thought, ruefully.

  “You do it better,” he told her seriously. Moving away from Katie for the sake of privacy, he pressed the first programmed number on his cell.

  Instead of making five separate calls, Blake decided to just call his sister, Emily.

  “Hello?” a sleepy voice said after the fourth ring.

  He’d forgotten about the time difference. “Emily, it’s Blake. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. This damn time difference tripped me up,” he apologized.

  Hearing her brother’s voice, the woman on the other end of the line became instantly alert. “What’s wrong? Why are you calling?”

  “Just thought you might want to know that you’re officially an aunt now. Wendy had her baby about an hour ago.” This uncle business was going to take some getting used to.

  “Tell me everything. What does she weigh? How big is she?” Emily asked, eager for details.

  He couldn’t elaborate on any of that, he realized ruefully. “That’s all I know right now. Wendy had the baby at home. Katie delivered it.”

  Emily was immediately concerned. “Oh my God—is Wendy all right?”

  “Wendy’s fine,” he assured her. “She and the baby are at the hospital now. I’ll call when I know more—but until then, could you do me a favor? Could you call Mom and Dad and the others and tell them?”

  “Sure, no problem,” Emily marveled, her voice growing soft. “I can’t wait to see her. Give Wendy a hug for me and tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.” And with that, Emily terminated the call so that she could call everyone else in the family and alert them to this latest development: the Fortunes of Atlanta had a granddaughter.