by Tawny Weber
Harvey started to wake from his nap and looked none too happy to see Nash pluck his keys from the rack mounted above the counter.
“Don’t you worry,” Nash said with an acid smile. “You can use your fifty thousand to buy a nice, new model.”
Harvey fought against his restraints, but experience had taught Nash they’d hold. Mildred would free herself long before Harvey.
In the bedroom, Nash found Maisey even more miserable than before.
“I-I heard a scream . . .”
“If that’s your way of asking me if I killed her—no. She and Harvey will both live to con another day.” He jangled the truck keys. “Ready for a ride?”
Not waiting for her answer, he scooped her from the bed, dragging along the comforter.
Nash bumbled his way outside, got her settled in the truck that was thankfully unlocked, then made one more trip into the house to grab towels, a T-shirt and jeans, a case of bottled water, and all the food and miscellaneous supplies he could cram into a canvas shopping bag. If all went well, they wouldn’t need any of this crap, but if he’d learned anything during his time with Maisey, it’s that luck typically was not on their side.
Spying a cell phone next to a loaf of bread on the counter, he grabbed it and the bread.
Behind the truck’s wheel, Nash gunned the engine and drove the truck hard down the sandy lane. He had no idea where Vicente and his men might be, or how soon they’d encounter them.
Maisey looked scary pale.
With every shred of his being, Nash wanted to hold her hand and reassure her everything would be okay, but he didn’t have that luxury. To maintain their current speed, he needed both hands on the wheel.
She moaned, and he hated himself a little more.
This stretch of road could be a quarter-mile or twenty. If Vicente or his men drove up on them here, they’d be screwed. Assuming they’d have them outgunned was a no-brainer. Their only hope was to make it to the main highway or a viable turn-off before they met.
When their current path T-boned into a paved highway, assuming Vicente would approach from the west, Nash headed east.
Maisey’s breathing had turned shallow and her complexion was gray.
His stomach twisted.
Gun play, wild animals—that kind of stuff he could handle. Well, mostly, if he didn’t count massive snakes.
“I-I have to push,” Maisey said. Her weak voice barely carried over the engine as he pushed their speed to eighty.
“Hold tight, babe. We should meet up with the ambulance soon.” Although considering Mildred’s comment about how beloved Vicente was in these parts, Nash wouldn’t be surprised if the local paramedics and cops were also on his payroll.
“No . . .” She slumped in the seat, parting her legs. “I-I have to push. The baby’s coming!”
He checked the rearview, and with the coast clear, slowed to veer onto a gated park road. Of course, the gate was padlocked, so he rammed it, promising to send an anonymous chunk of cash to the park system earmarked for repairs.
A few yards on the gate’s other side, he parked the truck, hopped out, then dummy-locked the gate to throw off casual onlookers.
Back behind the wheel, with Maisey huffing and panting beside him, Nash drove a sandy, then muddy five miles until stumbling across an abandoned-looking ranger’s cabin that he parked behind.
“Give me a sec, and with luck I might have found you a bed.”
Her only answer was a moan.
He picked the back door lock, and stepped into a world time had forgotten.
For once, he was happy about federal budget cuts. It looked like they had this place to themselves—aside from the odd rodent or two.
Sure enough, there was a lone bed, so he brushed it off as best he could, then layered it in the towels he’d snatched from Mildred. Next, he carried in Maisey, resting her near the end of the sagging mattress.
Trying to remain clinical, he slipped more towels beneath her, then mounded the comforter behind her for a pillow.
After a quick trip to the truck for bottled water, he pulled over a small bench, parking it at the foot of the bed in case he needed it when the baby came.
For now, Nash rinsed his hands, then dampened a washcloth he’d found mixed with the towels. When he rested it on Maisey’s forehead, she gifted him with a faint smile.
“Give me a sec,” he said, beyond flustered when she bore down, “to research emergency childbirth.”
“No—just hold me. Please.” Her pained and pleading expression gutted him. In that moment, Nash had never felt more helpless, yet more determined to see her baby’s delivery safely through.
He wrapped his arm around her slight shoulders and held one of her hands. She squeezed tight enough to cut off his circulation, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered but bringing her whatever comfort he could.
“Remember back in the swamp?” he asked, “When you said you loved me, but I was a dick and said I didn’t love you?”
“K-kinda hard to forget.” She shook from the force of her latest push.
“Yeah . . . Well, I lied. I’ve always loved you, but since Hope died, everything’s screwed up in my head.” Tears stung his eyes, and he found himself hating Vicente more than ever—not merely for being certifiable, but for landing her in this situation. She deserved better than giving birth in a musty-smelling old shack. A long time ago, she’d been his world. He’d have done anything for her, and he still would. He’d harbored such resentment toward her for turning down his proposal that he’d been open to a new relationship with Hope, whom he’d met a couple years after BUD/S training.
“I could have told you that.” She managed a teary laugh. “T-tell me about her.”
“No way. We should focus on you.”
“I’m sick of—arrrgggghh.” She squeezed his hand still tighter. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!”
“Sorry. Lean into me.” Nash tossed aside the comforter, repositioning himself to sit behind her like he’d seen guys do in Lamaze pamphlets. With her back against his chest, he felt her every shuddering effort. “Better?”
She nodded. “T-Tell me about her. I need a distraction.”
“Okay . . .” Where did he begin? “She was different from you. Tall, corporate-career-focused, with freckles and red hair and the temper to go along with it. She was always yelling at me for leaving a trail of dirty clothes and dishes.”
Maisey managed a laugh. “I like her.”
“She wanted kids. Bad. She came from a big family—was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, and all of them already had big families. Over holidays, they’d razz us about being slow in the baby-making department, so when she found out she was pregnant, I’d never seen her happier.”
“Arrrggghhh!” She fought extra hard through her latest push. “H-How did you tell her family? Were they excited?”
“Over the moon.” For a moment, Nash squeezed his eyes shut, recalling how Hope had wrapped her positive pregnancy test in a gift box for him. “For her parents, she’d had me help her fill a big box with pink and blue helium-filled balloons. It was close to their anniversary, and we wrapped it in silver-foil paper. When those balloons rose from the box, her mother shrieked, then burst into tears. It was a seriously great moment.”
“I’ll bet. Did—” She stopped talking to make a terrifying cry. “S-Something’s happening!”
Nash shot into action, standing, then repositioning her, pushing the comforter back in place, then checking out the epicenter of action. “Holy crap, Mais. Your baby’s crowning. Push, sweetie. He’s almost here.”
Perched on the edge of the bench he’d earlier placed at the foot of the bed, he cupped his hands over her knees, hoping his touch conveyed at least a small part of his affection. Their lackluster surroundings faded until all that remained was the two of them in this most sacred of moments.
“Push, sweetie. You can do this. You’re almost done, and then you get to hold your little guy in your arms.”
She nodded and cried and wrenched her face into a mask of concentration.
With each push, the baby’s head escaped a fraction of an inch, and then with one last screaming, crying effort, the tiny precious infant practically tumbled into Nash’s outstretched arms.
Nash was crying and Maisey was crying and he felt he should say something profound, but had no words.
And then he froze in terror. The baby wasn’t breathing.
Chapter 18
“Mais, he’s not breathing. What should I do?”
Adrenaline cleared Maisey’s exhaustion long enough to recall a passage she’d read in one of her baby books. “He probably needs suction, but cradle his chest against the palm of your hand and give his back a light thump with the heel of your hand.”
Nash did exactly as she’d advised and a second later, they were rewarded with her son’s first cry.
She exhaled the terror trapped in her lungs and smiled. I did it.
Her son was officially, safely in her world.
Nash gently nestled her baby boy against her chest, then covered him with a clean towel. “You did good, momma.”
“Thanks.” Whereas moments earlier she’d been in agonized tears, now, she couldn’t stop smiling. “That was intense.”
“No kidding. What do you want to do about cutting his cord? I snatched Santa’s phone. If I have a signal, want me to look it up online?”
She nodded. “Please.”
“Will do.” He rinsed his hands, then refreshed the washcloth with clean water. “Would you like to bathe him, or do you want me to?”
“I’m exhausted. Would it make me a horrible mom if I let you?”
“Not at all.” His sad, sweet smile flip-flopped her stomach. “Plus, I’d be honored. Let me get a fire going, and I’ll heat some water. Don’t want him catching a chill.”
“Sounds good.” She closed her eyes, hugging her son. “Nash?”
“Yeah?”
Maisey opened her eyes in time to see him pause by the door. Maybe it was her relieved, happy glow making her view the world in rose-colored glasses, but even covered in swamp muck, bug bites and bruises, the man was beyond gorgeous. He used to be hers, but she’d given him away. She’d been a fool. “You didn’t have to say you love me. I understand Hope was—still is—special to you.”
“Let’s get one thing straight.” He left the door to approach her, and then pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her chest squeezed with raw emotion. Why hadn’t he kissed her lips? “I didn’t tell you out of a sense of obligation, but because I do—love you. It’s complicated. What I feel for Hope is . . .”
“Unresolved?” she found the courage to ask. Obviously, understandably, he still loved his deceased wife. But would he always? Maisey couldn’t help but wonder if she was setting herself up for yet another romance fail by falling for him all over again.
He winced. “Guess that’s one way of looking at it.”
Maisey’s son stirred against her. My son. The phrase would never get old.
What was old? Being alone. Even when things had been good with Vicente, looking back on it, he’d never been one hundred percent focused on her—not like Nash once had been. Not like he currently was. But his presence was temporary.
As soon as they returned to town, she’d report Vicente to police, and hopefully settle into a satisfying routine in Jacksonville. Maybe she’d one day meet a man who attracted her and challenged her half as much as Nash. Maybe she wouldn’t. Regardless, she had to make peace with that, because she no longer had the luxury of caring about only herself.
With Vicente, she’d made horrendous judgment calls, and that had to stop.
Nash was back. “Fire’s made. I found an old rain-filled cistern so we have plenty of water. Harvey was even kind enough to leave a nice, big crab-boil pot in the back of his truck.”
“That was thoughtful,” she said with a winced smile.
“I know, right?” He winked. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Parched.”
He delivered a bottled water, and helped her drink. “I did some quick studying up on our situation, and you should breastfeed as soon as you’re ready. Plus, you should have delivered your placenta. Since I figure we’re only an hour or two from a hospital, let’s get you and your masterpiece cleaned and ready for travel, then let a doctor cut the cord and figure out what else is going on. Sound like a plan?”
Maisey nodded. Exhaustion made her limbs heavy and sluggish. All she wanted to do was hold her baby and sleep.
While Nash tenderly washed her and the baby with warm water, Maisey drifted in and out of consciousness. The baby fed for the first time, and the sensation swelled a whole new range of emotions. She wasn’t sure whether she was happy or sad or somewhere in between. In a perfect world, her son’s birth should have been a time of elation. But with his father trying to kill her, and take him from her, she couldn’t help but feel all the more on edge.
Though the day was sunny and warm, she also couldn’t stop shivering.
With Maisey holding the baby, Nash carried her to the truck. He draped Mildred’s comforter over the pair, and then climbed behind the wheel.
Had he doused the fire? She lacked the strength to ask—or do much of anything. Her thoughts had turned disjointed and when Nash shut the passenger-side truck door, she rested her head against the cool glass.
Maisey? Mais? Was Nash shaking her? She thought so, but couldn’t be sure.
The baby was crying. Maisey needed to get to him, but her arms and legs refused to work.
Mais! Talk to me. What’s wrong?
Behind her closed eyes, the day’s sun morphed to a chaotic swirl of orange and yellow, and then black . . .
Chapter 19
Nash drove like the proverbial bat out of hell until thirty minutes later reaching a town. He followed blue hospital signs, and then careened the truck beneath the ER canopy.
A guy in scrubs said, “Sir, you can’t park there.”
“My wi—” It had been on the tip of Nash’s tongue to call Maisey his wife, but she wasn’t. To call her his girlfriend felt somehow trite, yet if he were honest with himself, she sure as hell meant more to him than a casual friend. “She had a baby and she’s lost a lot of blood.”
The baby had been fitfully crying, but was now silent. Nash was in terror that something was wrong with him, too.
The orderly had been on the wrong side of the truck to have seen Maisey, but he now surged into action. Seconds later, Maisey and her baby had been moved from the truck to a gurney, then whisked behind glass doors.
Nash parked, then hiked back to the bustling ER lobby, unsure what to do with his hands. Yet again, he found himself in the uncomfortable, untenable position of not being in control, and he hated it.
“Sir,” a woman asked from behind a reception desk. “Was that your wife you brought in?”
No. But his twisted heart said, “Yes.”
“I’ll need you to fill out insurance information, then I’ll have someone take you to obstetrics to see her.”
He nodded, though his brain couldn’t quite process what she was saying.
Insurance? He clamped his hand to his forehead. He hadn’t even thought about it.
“Sir? If you’ll give me your ID and insurance card, I’ll get your wife—”
“We don’t have insurance.”
She raised her eyebrows, looking at him as if sprouts grew from his ears. “You’re sure?”
He nodded, then handed her a credit card.
What minimal part of his brain still functioning told Nash that even if he had lots of tidy documentation for Maisey, the last place he could use any of it was here. If Vicente had gone to the trouble to solicit help from his neighbors in finding Maisey, it wasn’t a great stretch to assume he probably had a guy in every ER within a couple hundred miles.
After running Nash’s card, the clerk asked an ungodly amount of questions that he answered with lies. She next presented him
with a stack of papers to sign, which he did. And then a perky volunteer teen dressed in pink scrubs and a bouncy ponytail jabbered a mile a minute about how excited he must be to have a baby while leading him through a maze of corridors.
Nash tried his damnedest to memorize turns, but after about ten, gave up.
All he could think about was how gutted he’d feel if Maisey didn’t make it.
He’d already lost one woman he’d loved, because he hadn’t been with her. To now lose another? It was unthinkable.
The teen led Nash to a crowded waiting room, handed him a beeper, and told him someone would contact him soon.
Nash stumbled into a dark corner’s chair.
A couple of kids stared. Their mom took one startled glance at him, then barked at her rugrats to stay close.
He caught his reflection in the glass of a framed print, and saw why the woman had been alarmed. He looked like a serial killer. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was covered in blood, his clothes were muddy and torn. His face and bare forearms were scratched and bruised and covered in bites.
His chest tightened to think poor Maisey looked even worse.
Pocketing the beeper, he headed for the nearest restroom to at least wash his hands and face. Finished, he looked a little more presentable, but not by much.
What was taking so long? Why hadn’t someone let him know the status of Maisey and her baby?
He paced the hall for a good ten minutes, then couldn’t tolerate the inaction a moment longer.
A nurse passed with a meds cart.
“Excuse me, ma’am . . .” Nash forced a deep breath and wielded the smile Maisey used to tease would charm the scales off a snake. “My wife and son were taken back a while ago, and I haven’t heard any news. Could you please check for me?”
“What’s the patient’s name?”
“Maisey Adamson.” The lie of her being his wife rolled easier and easier off his tongue. She typed the information into a laptop mounted to her cart. “She’s in surgery. But your son—”