What’s the verdict?” Hud asked when Nikki pushed Tag out in a wheelchair.
“Ice, elevate, and stay off it as much as possible for four weeks,” she answered. “He’s got a follow-up appointment with the doctor in a month, and he can’t wear a cowboy boot on that foot until it’s healed.”
“Well, that’ll keep your ornery ass in the house.” Hud grinned. “You can use the time to get acquainted with the bookkeeping program Matthew set up for us. This settles the argument about who’s going to do the paperwork for the ranch.”
“It’s my left foot, so I can still drive,” Tag protested.
“Good.” Maverick nodded. “When we need posts or wire or stuff to work with, you can go get it, and we’ll keep working.”
“I’ll bring that shoebox full of receipts and the laptop over to your cabin in the morning,” Hud told him.
Tag groaned. “I hate computers. You know anything about them, Nikki?”
“Not me.” She shook her head. “I’m lucky just to run the little patient tablet that I use.”
The doors swung open, and a nurse pushed a wheelchair with Retta in it down the hall. Nikki stopped in her tracks and asked, “Is it time?”
Retta grimaced and laid a hand on her bulging stomach. “I thought it was false labor all day, but I was wrong.”
“Has everyone been called? Does Emily know? Have you talked to the doctor?” Nikki was so excited that she forgot all about Tag for a minute.
“No one has been called yet. Would you please…” Retta moaned. “The pains are less than a minute apart now.”
“I’ll get a hold of Emily and the rest of the family,” Nikki said.
“Might as well turn around and take me back to the baby waiting room,” Tag said. “Where’s Cade?”
“Parking the truck. He’ll be here real soon,” Retta panted.
The hall was wide enough that Nikki and a nurse’s aide pushed the wheelchairs side by side toward the maternity area.
“You ready to have this baby?” Hud asked. “I bet Cade is a nervous wreck.”
“I’m so ready,” Retta said. “And you’re right about Cade. Knowing y’all are here for him means the world to me.”
“I can’t believe that we’re going to have a new baby in the family. This is beyond exciting, Retta. She’s going to be here before long,” Nikki said.
Retta brushed away a tear. “But she’s a little early.”
“Not enough to hurt her,” Nikki assured her. “She’ll be fine.”
“This is where we part company.” The nurse pushed the button to open the doors into the maternity part of the hospital. “Nikki will show the rest of you to the waiting room.”
Nikki rolled Tag into a large room with sofas and chairs grouped into several seating areas. “I have to get back to the emergency room, but I’ll run by and check on things every chance I get.” She pulled a chair over and propped his leg on it. “I’ll send an ice pack up with Cade.”
“Thanks for everything,” Tag said.
“Hey, I’m not anywhere near even with you for rescuing me,” she told him.
“Then you’ll come over through the week and do all that book work for me?” He looked up at her with those mesmerizing blue eyes.
“I don’t owe you that much.” She blew a kiss as she left the room.
On her way back to the ER, she met Claire and Emily almost jogging down the hall. “Are we too late?” Emily asked.
“I was just fixin’ to call you,” Nikki said. “How did—”
“Cade called Justin about a minute ago. We were all on our way home after the ranch rodeo, so we just whupped a U-turn in the middle of the road and came right back. Can you believe it? We’re getting the first Maguire grandbaby tonight,” Emily said.
“It could be tomorrow if she decides to make an entrance and hold out until after midnight,” Nikki told them, and then gave them directions to the waiting room. They rushed off in that direction, and Nikki turned to find Cade, Justin, and Levi coming around the corner.
“How is she?” Cade looked like he might faint any minute.
Nikki laid a hand on his arm. “She’s fine, but I bet she’ll be glad to have you in the room to hold her hand.” She pointed to the signs on the wall leading to the maternity section and returned to her post in the ER.
Rosemary jerked the curtains back on a cubicle and startled Nikki so badly that she jumped. “Didn’t mean to scare you. We just now got that bean out of my kid’s nose. Damned thing had swollen up and filled his whole nostril. It’s a wonder he didn’t have to have surgery. How’s your cowboy?”
“He’s got two broken toes that’s going to keep him off bulls and out of boots for a month or more. Retta Maguire just checked in to have her baby, so the maternity waiting room is going to be full all night.” Nikki helped Rosemary straighten up the room.
Through the week, nurses’ aides did that kind of work, but weekends were a whole different matter. Not that Nikki minded. She liked staying busy.
“And Sue Ann?”
“Was high and drunk, and Doc sent her right back to the psych ward. Trouble is that she signs herself in, so she has the authority to sign herself out. She said that she had a sister. I wonder where she is. I feel so sorry for her, but I realized something tonight. Mama has plenty of problems, but at least she’s not as bad as Sue Ann,” Nikki said.
“I’ve known Wilma my whole life, and you’re right. But, honey, that don’t make it any easier on you to deal with, just easier to accept. You know it seems like I remember Sue Ann’s older sister. She was maybe sixteen when Sue Ann was born, so she was quite a bit older than me. I wonder if she’s on any of the social media sites.” Rosemary piled the dirty linens into a bin and pushed it out into the hallway. “Now tell me more about this cowboy and the kidnapping. We haven’t had a free minute since we got here. Let’s get a cup of coffee and wait until the next round hits. Bars close at two, so you know we’ll have some business then.”
“It’ll be a miracle if we don’t.” Nikki followed Rosemary to the break room. They’d each poured a cup of coffee when Rosemary’s phone rang.
“I told Steven to call me when they got home. Be right back.” She stepped out into the hallway to take the call from her husband.
Nikki’s thoughts went to the real miracle that was going on in the maternity section of the hospital that night, not in the ER. A baby was coming into the world. One who would be so loved that the waiting room was packed with people who could hardly wait to see her for the first time. Nikki wondered if there’d be that many people supporting her if and when she had a child.
“Hey, that lady out there said I’d find you here.” Tag rolled his wheelchair through the door. “Cade just came to tell us that Retta is ready to push. I don’t know how he’s keeping his cool. If my wife was having a baby, I’d be spinnin’ around on my head.”
“Holy smoke! She must’ve been in labor all afternoon and didn’t tell anyone until the last minute.” Nikki set her cup down. “I figured y’all would be here until morning.”
“Emily swears that Retta knew exactly what she was doin’. If they’d called her mother-in-law this afternoon, she’d be here already and she would be tryin’ to take over the whole show. I saw how bossy that woman can be when we were moving Emily into her new house, so I don’t blame her a bit.” Tag maneuvered the chair around and started back out the door. “I’ll come back and let you know when the baby arrives.”
“I’m not busy right now. I’ll push you.” Nikki grabbed the wheelchair handles. “So you’d be spinnin’ on your head, huh? That brings up a pretty funny picture in my mind.”
“How about you? What if you were the one in Retta’s shoes?”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t let myself go there.”
“You ever go down to the nursery and look at the newborns?” Tag asked.
“Yep. Especially if it’s been a hectic night and I can’t settle the adrenaline rush of running from one patient to another. Sometimes I even volunteer to rock a baby if there’s more of them than the pediatric nurse can take care of,” she said.
“How does that make you feel?” he asked.
“All warm and cuddly,” she answered.
He reached over his shoulder and covered her hand with his. “You’ve got so much kindness in your heart, Nikki, that you’ll make a great mother.”
“How can you know that—not just say it, but know it?”
He removed his hand and tapped his chest. “This right here tells me so.”
Could he possibly be right? She thought again about the way she felt with a baby in her arms. She often sang a simple lullaby that her father had sung to her when she was a little girl and couldn’t sleep. For her thirteenth birthday he’d given her a music box that played the song. It sat on her dresser and had become part of her birthday ritual. She was about to turn the wheelchair into the room when she caught sight of Cade coming down the hall.
“She’s here and she’s perfect, and I’m a father,” he said loudly.
Nikki pushed Tag’s chair, and they followed Cade to the waiting room.
“And we’re the first to know,” Tag said. “Is that the same as catchin’ the bouquet at a wedding? Are we next?”
“Not unless we have another case of immaculate conception,” Nikki said.
Tag chuckled. “I reckon we could have a normal wild child.”
“Tag Baker, are you askin’ me to be your baby mama?” she teased.
“No, ma’am, I want more than a baby mama when I have children,” he answered.
“Our baby girl is here,” Cade announced to everyone in the waiting room.
“What’s her name?” Emily asked.
“How much does she weigh?” Otis wanted to know.
“Is Retta okay?” Justin asked.
“When can we see her?” Patsy clapped her hands.
Poor old Cade had trouble answering them.
“Right now I’d give up all my rebel ways to be in his shoes,” Tag whispered.
“Now that’s a line you should put in your little black book,” Nikki, leaning down, whispered in his ear.
“Didn’t think I’d ever say that or feel this way,” Tag said.
Nikki’s phone pinged. She pulled it out of her pocket to find a text from Rosemary. Two ambulances had been dispatched to a wreck north of town. They’d be bringing in six injured patients in a few minutes.
“Got to go,” Nikki said. “Keep that foot up and don’t be too macho to take the pain pills Dr. Richards prescribed.”
Tag stood up, balanced on one foot, and pulled her close to his chest. “It’s going to be a long weekend, but the light at the end of the tunnel is that I’ll get to see you Monday evening.” Then he tipped up her chin and kissed her, right there in front of everyone.