12
When the call disconnected, Ian pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it.
Nick glanced at his front-seat passenger and noted his frown before returning his gaze to the road before him. “Something wrong?”
Devon was operating the SUV behind them with their mother onboard. All members of Trident’s Alpha and Omega teams would be in the air as soon as they were cleared to take off. Carter and Jordyn had Xiao at a secure location, waiting for their MSS contacts to pick him up and return him to China. Nick doubted the man would ever see the inside of a courtroom—odds were, he’d be tortured during an interrogation. After he gave up his secrets, he’d finally be rewarded with a swift death.
Before heading back to Scotland, the Steel Corps team was escorting Jocelyn to the clinic and then putting her on the next commercial flight to Manila where her parents still lived. Although she was still shaken from the entire incident, she was unharmed. Nick wondered if she would stay with Operation Smile after this or find a permanent position in a nice, safe hospital somewhere.
Tucking his phone into one of the thigh pockets of his black BDUs, Ian shook his head. “Angie said no, but . . .”
“But what?” Nick’s eyes widened as he split his attention between his brother and the road. “You don’t think she’s in labor, do you?” He met Jake’s gaze in the rearview mirror. His husband’s eyes narrowed in a “shut-up” expression. Yeah, Nick probably should have kept that question to himself. There was nothing Ian could do for Angie from the Philippines, and verbalizing that fact, even in a roundabout way, was going to do nothing but freak him out.
Biting his bottom lip, Ian whipped out his phone again and hit a speed dial button. When the call was answered, he said, “Egghead, get a location on my wife’s cell phone.” He paused. “Tell me if she’s at the compound or at the fucking hospital having my kid, damn it . . . no, I’m not kidding, asshole. Find out now or you’re a dead man.”
A few minutes later, the vehicles pulled into the hangar where Chuck was waiting with the two pilots. The relief Nick saw in his father’s eyes when he pulled his wife from the first SUV and into his arms almost brought him to tears. From the back seat, Jake tapped his shoulder. “Let’s get the family back to Tampa in time for Little Bit.”
Nick glanced around and saw they were the only two still sitting in any of the three vehicles. Everyone else had poured out and were quickly transferring all the bags and weapon cases into the jet. He hesitated a moment to wipe his eyes, and Jake squeezed his shoulder in support. “That’s going to be us in thirty or forty years—hopefully not on the tail end of a kidnapping, though—but our love will still be going strong, just like theirs.”
He met Jake’s green eyes in the mirror again. “Think we’ll have grandkids by then?”
His husband snorted. “Now there’s a scary thought. I guess that’ll be up to our kids if we do or not, but I’d like to think so.”
“So do I.”
“Come on. Let’s get going before Ian starts bitching.”
From the relaxed look on his older brother’s face when Nick and Jake got out of the vehicle, it was clear Angie was still at the compound. Good, she wasn’t in labor yet. Hopefully she’d stay that way until the jet landed in Tampa.
Thoughts of Jake and him having a child or two occupied Nick’s mind as he helped load the gear until well after they’d taken off. Should they adopt or use a surrogate? Either way, they’d have at least a year or so to plan for the arrival. That seemed so far away and yet it wasn’t. Images of Jake holding a baby had Nick smiling to himself. It was probably a good thing they lived right next door to his brothers and sisters-in-law and their growing families because Nick and Jake had a lot to learn about raising a kid.
“What’s that smile for?” his mother asked as she took the seat next to him that Jake had just vacated a few minutes ago. Nick’s father had finally released his wife’s hand—he’d been holding it for well over an hour, as if she’d disappear again if he let go. The couple had been sitting on one of the jet’s couches toward the back of the plane, while Nick and Jake had been relaxing in one of the rows of first-class-style seating toward the front of the cabin.
Grasping Marie’s hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Just glad to have you back in one piece.”
“Nicholas Charles Sawyer, I’ve been able to read your expressions since you were a toddler. I always knew when you were up to something.” She winked before adding, “Like now.”
He smirked and shook his head. “I never could hide anything from you. But . . . for now, I’m not ready to talk about it. Soon, but not yet. There’s nothing to worry about; it’s a good thing.”
She stared at him for a few moments before nodding and smiling. “I can wait, but just remember, I’m not getting any younger.”
“Arrrgghhhh! Son of a flying beach ball! Shit, shit, shit!” Angie rode out the contraction as Kristen finally pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. Harper and Jenn were back at Angie and Ian’s apartment with JD and Mara. When she’d realized the contractions were coming at fourteen minute intervals, Angie had panicked and called her obstetrician’s twenty-four-hour hotline, even though she knew most women didn’t go to the hospital until their contractions were around five minutes apart. It hadn’t taken long for Dr. Monique Sellares to ascertain that one, Angie was in labor, two, she was freaking out, and three, she had someone available who could drive her. Monique was a sub at The Covenant, but she was a take-charge woman when she was in doctor mode. She’d assured Angie she’d meet her in the maternity ward and that it was highly doubtful she’d give birth in Kristen’s SUV—definitely something Angie didn’t want to do.
Her sister-in-law chuckled as she pulled into a parking space near the hospital main lobby entrance. “Been there, done that. Feel free to curse your head off, Ang. I won’t tell. And if Ian demands you fill up the swear jar when he gets here, I’ll gladly take a spanking from Devon when I tell your Dom to take a flying leap off a fucking pier.” She put the vehicle in park and opened her door. “Sit tight while I get someone with a wheelchair.”
“I can walk.”
Kristen’s eyes narrowed. “No, you can’t. Pampering starts now—you’ll thank me later. Trust me when I say if you’re not in a maternity room by the time the next contraction hits, you’ll be thrilled I insisted on the wheelchair.”
She let out a sigh as the last of the intense waves of pain eased. “Fine. But hurry—I don’t want my water breaking in your car.”
Laughing, Kristen climbed out of the driver’s seat. “You and me both. That’s why I put all those towels under you and on the floor.”
When the door shut, Angie leaned her head back and waited, trying to pull herself together and not being very successful. Tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks, and she quickly wiped them away before squeezing her eyelids shut to stem the flow of new ones. “Damn it, Ian. Make CC fly that plane as fast as he can. I don’t want to do this alone.”
But she wouldn’t be alone. Kristen, Harper, and Shelby were all her backup Lamaze coaches. All three of them had gone through the course and knew what to do. Kristen and Harper had done it while expecting their own children, and Shelby had coached a friend of hers whose boyfriend had left her high and dry hours after she’d told him about the baby.
Angie would never fault Ian for not being here in her time of need, nor would she ever be jealous that his mother had taken precedent for the first time in their marriage—there was no one to blame except whoever had abducted Marie and her nurse. Shit happened, more often than not, when it came to the Trident Security teams and their families. Angie had known that from the start. While it really sucked Ian was somewhere over the Philippine Sea heading toward the skies above the Pacific Ocean, there was nothing either one of them could do about it but pray Little Bit waited for his or her daddy to get there.
The passenger door opened, and Angie jumped as her eyes flew open to see Kristen ho
lding out her hand. Behind her was a male orderly with the wheelchair. If she didn’t have other things on her mind, she might have found him intimidating. He was huge, almost as big as Travis “Tiny” Daultry, the head security guard of the compound and club. Tiny, a former professional football player, was six-foot-eight and about two-hundred-eighty pounds, most of which was muscle. He was also the biggest mush in the world. JD wasn’t old enough yet, but Ian’s employee would lay down on the floor for little Mara and let her climb all over him. Angie hoped he found someone special one of these days—she’d love to see him married with children. He’d make a great father.
By the time the next contraction hit, Angie was lying on a bed in one of the labor and delivery rooms and admitting Kristen had been right. If she’d been on foot, she would’ve ended up on the ground, begging for a wheelchair. A nurse named Ginny, dressed in scrubs with whimsical panda bears all over them, was getting ready to hook Angie up to all sorts of monitors and an IV port. “Just breathe through the pain.”
Angie almost punched her.
Obviously used to death glares, the nurse waited until the contraction was gone, then helped Angie change into an ugly hospital gown. A fetal monitor was attached to Angie’s swollen belly, and after a few moments of listening to the beep-beep-beep, Ginny announced Little Bit was doing just fine. Fifteen minutes later, Angie’s last contraction had been assessed via another monitor, an ultrasound had been done to see if there had been any significant loss of amniotic fluid, and Ginny had checked for dilation. At only two centimeters, she had a ways to go, but she was still afraid Ian wouldn’t make it on time.
Kristen came in with a large cup of coffee she’d found somewhere for herself, and a plastic pitcher filled with ice chips for Angie. The woman had been a godsend since the moment Angie had called her to say she was in labor. She’d quickly taken charge, and, after leaving instructions about JD with Jenn, she’d grabbed the go-baby-bag, as Ian had called it, and gotten Angie to the hospital. Once upstairs in the Labor & Delivery ward, she’d double-checked Angie’s admission paperwork that’d been filled out in advance and unpacked a few things, putting everything in an orderly fashion on a bedside tray-table within Angie’s reach. Then, before she’d stepped out to find the pantry available to patients and their coaches, Kristen had turned the room’s television on, finding reruns of Friends on one of the channels.
As she sat in a comfortable chair in the labor room, Kristen’s phone chimed, and she swiped the screen to answer it. “Hey, Jenn. We’re all settled in. She’s not dilated much, so it’ll probably be a while. How’s JD?” Whatever the answer had been, Kristen smiled. “Great. Now go get some sleep. I’ll call if anything happens, but I think that’ll be way after the sun comes up . . . I will. Bye.”
She disconnected the call and blew Angie two kisses. “Those are from Jenn and Harper. JD went right back to sleep after his bottle and a new diaper. Mara didn’t wake up at all.” Since the little girl had been sleeping through the brief chaos, after Angie had roused Harper and then called Kristen and Jenn, it’d been easier for them to bring JD downstairs instead of carrying Mara up to Kristen’s apartment. Harper had a court hearing first thing in the morning for a few hours, so Jenn would be babysitting both kids.
Reaching into her huge purse, Kristen pulled out her iPad. “I think you better call Ian and let him know.” Before Angie could protest, she held up a hand. “I know there’s nothing he can do from thousands of feet in the air, but if your husband is anything like mine, and I know he is, then he’s going to be mad if you wait.” She held up the device. “I brought this and the charger so you can Skype with him for hours. If Little Bit refuses to wait, then I’ll record the birth for you. This way, even if it’s over the airwaves, Ian will be here with you.”
Angie smiled, knowing Kristen was right. “You know, you’re my favorite sister-in-law.”
“I’m your only sister-in-law, and I love you too. Now let me call Devon and tell him to get you and Ian patched into each other.”
She nodded, then bit her bottom lip as another contraction hit.
13
“Whattaya mean she’s in labor?” Ian knew that was a stupid question to ask Devon, who was on the jet’s phone with Kristen, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Apparently, he hadn’t kept his voice down because everyone in the cabin was now awake and staring at him. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way—he should be by Angie’s side every second until after Little Bit came into the world. He’d promised her he’d be there. While she’d understood his need to fly twenty hours away to the Philippines, it still didn’t make him feel any less guilty. He’d been torn between the two women who meant the most to him in the entire universe. One’s life had been in danger, while the other was bringing a new life—his child—into the world.
He jumped to his feet and began searching for where he’d left his cell phone in the area behind several rows of first-class-style seats, which was designed to look like a living room. It even had a built-in bar, and, right now, he could use a stiff drink. “Shit, where the hell is my phone?”
“It’s in your thigh pocket,” Devon responded, “but don’t call her, she’s having a contraction. And calm down. She hasn’t been in labor for long, they’re at the hospital, and everything’s fine. Kristen says it’s going to be at least several hours—Angie’s barely dilated. Egghead, patch him into Kristen’s Skype. She has her iPad, and this way he can see Angie while he talks to her. That should keep him from punching a hole in the ceiling and sending us crashing into the ocean.”
Thrusting his hands into his hair, Ian glared at Devon as he started to pace. The wise ass shouldn’t throw stones in a glass house. He’d been freaking out much worse than Ian was now when Kristen had gone into labor with JD, since that’d finally happened after several false alarms. But this was the real thing with Angie. They wouldn’t have admitted her if it wasn’t, right? “This can’t be fucking happening!”
When he pivoted once more to go back in the other direction, he stopped short when he came face to face with his mother. She patted his chest. “She’s going to be fine—she’s a strong woman, and the female sex has been doing this since the beginning of time.”
“I know.” She has to be okay. “How . . . how long before . . .” A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed hard. “I wanted to be there, but there’s no way we’ll—”
“Ian, stop. It could be a few hours, or it could be much longer. I was in labor with you for twenty-seven hours.”
“What?” His mouth gaped as he stared at her in disbelief. How had he not known that? “Seriously?”
She chuckled. “Yes, seriously. Your father was such a basket case, they almost had to sedate him.”
“She’s making that up,” Chuck retorted, but the smile on his face belied his statement. “All right, maybe I was a little nuts, but that was because you, boy, weren’t easy on your mother. At least Devon, John, and Nick were much faster. Nick was the longest labor next to you, and he was out within six hours.”
“That’s because he weighed the most out of all of you and the fact I hadn’t been pregnant in years.” Nick had been a surprise pregnancy, nine years after John had been born, since their parents had thought they were done having children.
“Hey, Boss-man, I’ve got Ang on Skype.”
After giving his mother a swift kiss on the cheek, Ian hurried over and took the laptop and seat Brody offered him. In his rush, he fumbled the computer. Brody snatched it before it hit the floor and handed it back to him. “Chill and channel your inner Dom—she doesn’t need to see you freaking out.”
Knowing his friend was right—Ian had to be calm and strong for Angie—he took a few deep breaths. A pair of noise-cancelling headphones had been plugged into the laptop, and he put them on to drown out the jet’s white noise and the few conversations taking place. The video feed was bouncing around while he waited for Angie to come into view. Kristen’s voice filtered through. “Hang on a sec
, Ian.”
Finally, his wife was there, looking more beautiful than ever, but a bit upset. Her eyes were red, and her face had a sheen of perspiration. Her long, blonde hair was up in the ponytail he loved to tug on when they were scening. “Hey, Angel, can you hear me?”
“Ian, I’m sorry—”
Her sob and sudden tears almost ripped him to shreds. “Hush. There’s nothing to be sorry about. You can’t control Mother Nature—trust me I’ve tried on many occasions.” Just not in terms of procreation. “If Little Bit decides to come into the world before I get there, then I’m going to stay with you on here for the entire time and watch and coach you as best I can, okay?”
The video tilted a little as she wiped her eyes with a tissue. “Okay.”
“So, give me a sit-rep. Is Monique there yet?” She better be.
Angie shook her head. “Not yet, but she’ll be here in a little while. The nurse told her I’ll be in labor for hours, so she’s getting some more sleep but said to call her if I start to progress. I’m only two centimeters dilated, and the baby’s heart rate is good. The contractions are still about fourteen minutes apart.”
“What do they feel like?” He wanted to know everything she was experiencing. The wonder of giving birth was the most special gift God had given women—men couldn’t handle it, of that Ian was certain after watching Angie’s body change and react over the past nine months as Little Bit grew inside her. Give Ian and his teams a mission, they had it covered. Make one of them push something the size of a peanut out their cocks, yeah, they’d be screaming and begging for morphine. Make it the size of an orange, and C-sections would’ve been performed for every delivery since ancient times. And, God forbid, they had to give birth to a baby the size of a watermelon, like Angie would be doing soon, because the human race would’ve been extinct not long after it’d been created.
Torn in Half: A Trident Security Novella: Book 8.5 Page 8