“Birthin’ babies.” The words echoed in J.T.’s head. What the hell was she babbling about?
The woman was out of her head, J.T. judged. Pain did that to a person. He should know.
At least he hadn’t dropped her when he’d placed her in the rear of her car. Grateful for small favors, he straightened. As he began to leave, he felt his wrist being seized in a steel grip.
He looked at her in surprise. She didn’t look capable of exerting such strength. Her fingers tightened around his wrist, cutting off circulation.
“Where…are you…going?” she gasped. He couldn’t just leave her here, could he? Maddy thought frantically. She couldn’t do this alone.
“Just to my car.” He pointed with his free hand, even though he knew she couldn’t see. “I’ve got to call for an ambulance.”
“Too late.”
This baby wasn’t about to wait for any ambulance to make its appearance. It was trying to make an entrance. Now.
Scared, still holding on to his wrist with one hand, Maddy dug the nails of the other into the upholstery in an effort to somehow ground herself. She arched her back, trying to ease the pain.
He felt sorry for her. Even with her face contorted with pain, she was a beautiful woman. What the hell was she doing out here alone at this time of night? Where was this woman’s husband?
“Look, you need professional help.” Help he didn’t feel qualified to give. “I’ve got to call for an ambulance. They’ll be right here.”
She was afraid. Afraid of being alone. Until he had found her, she’d been struggling to fight off encroaching terror. Her car had died just as she’d felt herself going into hard labor.
Maddy looked at him, her eyes beseeching him. “No…don’t go… Please.” Gritting her teeth, she tried to raise herself on her elbows, and only marginally succeeded. “You’re…part of…911, aren’t…you?”
J.T. didn’t see what that had to do with it. “Yes, but—”
Oh damn, here came another one. Maddy began breathing more rapidly. “Then…do…what you were…trained to do… Help me.”
That was what he was trying to do, but he couldn’t accomplish that by just talking to her. He felt her loosening her grip for a moment and took the opportunity to peel her fingers away from his wrist. He could feel the flesh throbbing, could see the imprint of her fingers on his skin. He thought labor was supposed to make you weak. Labor had apparently turned this woman into some kind of superwoman.
“Maybe we can get you to the hospital.” Harris Memorial was less than fifteen minutes way. Eight if he broke a few speed rules. He glanced toward her ignition and saw that there was no key in it. “Let me have your car keys—”
Maddy moved her head from side to side frantically. “Car’s…dead.” And so would she be in a few minutes if this pain didn’t stop, she thought. How did women do this?
He could carry her to his car, J.T. thought, as long as she didn’t fight him. The distance wasn’t that far, and except for her belly she was a petite woman. “Then I’ll get you into mine—”
But even as he reached for her, Maddy scrambled back against the upholstery. She couldn’t stand the thought of being moved, wasn’t up to it.
“This…baby’s…coming…now.” Her words were framed in short, melodious sounds as she practiced the breathing exercises she’d learned. She was desperate and completely out of options. To her surprise, the exercises helped.
But not enough. She felt like a lobster being cracked open.
J.T. knew he had no choice. He was going to have to deliver the baby. He’d been in this position once before. There’d been a huge storm the November before Lorna had died. They’d been coming back from a concert when the woman’s husband had flagged them down. He’d tried to drive her to the hospital, only to find the roads impassable. The man was practically babbling, saying something about there being no time to circumvent the eucalyptus tree that had fallen directly in the path of his car.
In what turned out to be almost the most incredible twenty minutes of his life, he and Lorna had delivered the couple’s baby. He’d never felt closer to Lorna. Or more convinced that he wanted to begin a family himself.
He remembered how he’d felt, delivering the tiny baby girl born that night. Being the first to hold her in his hands. She’d been such a tiny bit of a thing, her eyes bright, alert. He remembered looking at Lorna over the baby’s head.
The bittersweet memory overwhelmed him for a moment, cutting through the past and the present until he wasn’t sure just what was real.
Why was he just standing there like that? Maddy wondered frantically. Why wasn’t he doing something?
Another contraction seized her in its tight jaws, sucking her breath away so that continuing the exercises became impossible. She was vaguely aware of grabbing his hand, nearly breaking his fingers as she bent them in hers.
“Help…me,” she pleaded.
He saw the terror in her eyes. All thought of racing to his car to make the call for assistance vanished. He couldn’t leave her alone.
“All right.” J.T. climbed into the car with her.
“What’s…your…name?” A woman should know the name of the man picking up her dress and tucking it up around her hips, she thought.
Intense concentration as he tried to remember procedure momentarily blocked her words. J.T. looked up at her. “What?”
“What’s…your…name?” she repeated with effort. “I…need…to know…the name of…the man…delivering…my baby.” She tried to smile, but the look dissolved into a grimace as she fought another contraction.
He raised his voice, knowing she wouldn’t hear him otherwise. “J.T.”
Her lashes were damp from tears or sweat, she wasn’t sure which. “That’s…not a name…that’s…part of…the…alphabet.”
He’d always been J.T., to Lorna and to everyone else. The only person who’d ever called him by his full name had been his mother. He’d been named after both of his grandfathers.
“John Thomas.” When she looked at him with a silent question, he went a step further. “John Thomas Walker.”
Maddy nodded. It was a good name, an unpretentious name. Her husband’s name had been John. Johnny. Oh Johnny, I wish you could be here.
“John Thomas,” she repeated, her lips dry, her body damp. “I…hope you’re…not…the type…to panic…because…I am.” It was all she could do to keep the panic at bay now.
He tried to assure her as best he could. The woman looked to be fully dilated. It shouldn’t be much longer now. “Piece of cake.”
“Right…with…a big file…stuck…in it.” A sharp, pointy file with inch-long teeth that were slicing across her flesh with every breath she took. “Here…comes…another one!”
J.T. grasped her hand, letting her hold on as tightly as she could.
“It doesn’t last,” he promised, her, leaning over so that he could wipe her forehead.
She barely felt his touch. It was too gentle to register. “Easy…for you…to…say.”
There was nothing easy about this for him. He felt as if he was reliving one of the most important nights of his life. And none of it was actually real.
They made eye contact for a split second and his eyes held hers.
“No,” he told her firmly, “it’s not.” He sought for a way to distract her. He vaguely remembered it was supposed to help at a time like this. Lorna had sung to the woman, some ancient Irish lullaby that had helped soothe her. J.T. hadn’t even attempted to join in. He had a voice that could crack eggs. “What’s your name?”
“Mad—” Maddy began giving him her nickname. But Maddy wasn’t the name of a woman who was about to give birth. The name belonged to the madcap person she’d always been, but she couldn’t be that way anymore. She was going to be someone’s mother. Mothers were supposed to be regal, not childish. “Madeline Reed.”
He could see the baby’s crown. The ordeal was almost over for her. “Well, Mad Madeline Reed, looks like you’re about to be a mother.”
She wished she had posts to cling to, something to give her leverage. “Tell…me…something I…don’t…know.”
“Boy or girl?”
She blinked, trying to make sense of the question. “I…get…to…pick?”
“No, do you want a boy or a girl?”
“What I…want…is…for it…to…be…over!” She wasn’t going to be able to make it. Exhaustion was beginning to claim her.
“Almost,” he promised. “All you have to do is push when I tell you.”
“Tell…me…now,” she begged. Maddy didn’t know how much longer she was going to be able to stand this. She hadn’t been prepared for anything this intense. But then, she hadn’t planned this pregnancy, it had just happened. But she was glad that it had, because now at least she was able to have a part of Johnny. “I’ve…got to…push.”
It had to be structured, regulated. Otherwise, he was afraid she would rupture something.
“Not yet,” J.T. warned.
His mind scrambled as he tried to remember everything he’d ever learned about deliveries under adverse conditions.
“Now?” she pleaded. Whether he said yes or not, she was going to start pushing. She had to.
“Now. One—two—three, push!”
He got to three, but there was no point to it. Maddy had begun pushing at one. Pushing with all her might, pushing so hard that she felt everything inside her body was on the verge of coming out.
Exhausted, Maddy fell back against the seat like a rag doll. Any second now, another contraction was going to come rolling in, determined to flatten her. She struggled to draw together what tiny scraps of energy she still had left.
“Good.”
Why was he patronizing her? Wavering, Maddy pulled herself up again. “No…it’s…not. If it…was…good, there’d…be a…baby…here.”
“Almost,” he promised.
How could he say that to her? She felt as if she was doomed to push forever, with no results. “Want…to…take…the…next…shift?”
The baby was practically here. Just a little more, he thought, excitement pulsing through him. Just a little more.
“Not possible.”
“Spoilsport.”
Here it came again, pain. Leaping at her like a panther about to take down a fleeing gazelle. “Oh, God—”
He heard the panic in her voice and moved her face until her eyes were forced to take in only him. “Push,” he ordered. “Harder.”
She didn’t think that was physically possible. Scrunching her eyes shut, envisioning the baby sliding out of her, Maddy pushed with every fiber of her being. And when she was finished, she collapsed, gasping, unable to suck in enough air to keep herself from suffocating.
It wasn’t over.
“Almost there.”
His voice came to her from a distant haze. Why wasn’t the baby here yet? She’d pushed and pushed—it was supposed to be here.
“Something’s…wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he told her firmly, his voice deliberately harsh to keep the panic he heard in hers at bay. “This is a baby, not a can of soda in a vending machine that drops down as soon as you insert the right amount of change. Now you’re going to have to push again. Ready?”
“No.”
He looked up at her. It was hard to tell, but she looked pale. Damn, but he wished he had called for backup the moment he had seen the stalled car. “Come on, you can do this. Close your eyes and push, Madeline.”
“Maddy,” she corrected. She needed to hear someone call her that. Needed to cling to something that was stable in her life. She’d been Maddy when she’d met her husband. And Maddy at his funeral.
“Maddy,” J.T. repeated. It fit her. “Let’s get this baby born.”
Closing her eyes, praying, Maddy pushed until she was completely inside out.
A minute later she heard the cry of a baby.