A Little Bit Engaged

by Teresa Hill

  It got stronger all the time. It got harder to pull away every, single time. Something inside of her said that this was her place in the world. Hers and no one else’s. That she was perfectly safe in his arms.

  Need pushed her on. They kissed frantically, hungrily for a long moment, and then backed away from each other, both of them breathing hard.

  “I think we need to go now. Two of your neighbors’ porch lights just came on. I see faces pressed against the windows across the street.”

  “Doing your part to liven things up in this town?” she asked.

  He shrugged, still grinning. “Somebody has to.”

  Heads turned as they walked into the restaurant.

  Whispers followed them.

  Kate didn’t care. She was through worrying about what people thought of her every move. Besides, she wanted to be with this man. Nothing was going to stop her.

  The hostess led them to a quiet table in the back, and when they sat down, their knees bumped together. He left his there, against hers, then took her hand. She could have just sat there quite happily, not saying or doing anything, just looking at him, him grinning at her.

  The waiter arrived. They realized at the same time that they hadn’t so much as glanced at the menu. He gave them an indulgent look, then looked surprised.

  “Kate Cassidy?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Jax’s sister? The oldest one?”

  “Yes.”

  His mouth hung open for a moment before he managed to close it. “You look different.”

  Should she thank him for that? Kate wasn’t sure. Then she realized who he was. “You ran track with my brother? Ryan Wilkins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good to see you again.”

  “You, too,” he said, then seemed to realize where he was and what he was supposed to be doing and excused himself to go take care of a couple at another table.

  She and Ben went back to gazing at each other and grinning.

  So the man was good in a crisis. He was good at taking care of people. He was honest and kind, really cute and a great kisser. She felt safe and beautiful with him, both at the same time.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “That I’m really glad I walked into the Big Brothers/Big Sisters office that day.”

  “Me, too.” He leaned over to kiss her when her phone started ringing.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll turn it off.” But when she looked down at the number on her Caller ID, it was her own house. Kate answered the phone and said. “Shannon?”

  “I think something’s wrong,” the girl said. “Something with the baby.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Something was wrong.

  The baby was coming.

  “What do you mean, the baby’s coming?” Kate said forty minutes later, after they’d gotten to Shannon, panicked and called an ambulance, rushed with her to the hospital and had the doctor examine her.

  “I mean, the baby’s coming.”

  “It can’t come now,” Kate said. “It’s not due for three weeks.”

  Shannon didn’t say anything. She looked speechless for once in her life.

  The doctor, who looked about fifteen himself, looked amused. “You know that due date they give you is just an estimate, right? A best guess? We’re not talking an exact science here.”

  “Well, it should be. We’re not ready,” Kate complained. “The baby can’t come now.”

  “You want to try to tell the baby that? I know it won’t work, but I doubt you’ll take my word for it. So you tell the baby, and if you have any luck, let me know. Me, I’m going to have someone find her a bed on the maternity floor, just in case. How about that?”

  Kate fumed silently as the doctor left.

  Shannon, huddled into as much of a ball as she could manage around her belly, lay on the gurney looking scared to death. “I don’t think I like him.”

  “Neither do I” Kate said, putting a hand on Shannon’s bony shoulder. “Does it really hurt?”

  Shannon nodded. “It’s awful.”

  She’d been crying already. Kate was panicking, and Ben was outside, because the doctor had wanted to examine Shannon, and that got him out of being in the room. Not for long, because Kate was going to drag him in there. She and Shannon weren’t doing this by themselves.

  “Okay,” Kate said, hating it when someone dared interfere with her timetable. “I guess I just need to have a talk with this baby.”

  Shannon gave her a funny look. “Did you just make a joke?”

  “I don’t know. Did I?”

  “Because the doctor was joking. He was making fun of you. He was thinking, ‘Sure, lady, you just try to tell this baby what to do, but it’s not going to listen.’ You know that right?”

  “I think I was trying to make a joke,” Kate said. “I’m a little nervous.”

  “Oh, great. Now you’re scared? Miss I-Can-Handle-Anything? Now you can’t?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Kate argued.

  Shannon moaned and held her belly. Another contraction was coming. “Get Ben,” she cried. “Just get Ben.”

  Kate did, practically running out of the room and finding him in the hallway, not looking as confident as she’d hoped.

  She grabbed him by the arms and said, “Don’t you get scared now. Because I’m scared, and Shannon’s scared, and you’re the only one left to be calm, so you’re elected. You’re going to be the calm one, the one who copes.”

  “No, no, no,” he said.

  “Yes. You got me into this—”

  “I did not!”

  “You’re the one who just had to help her. You’re the one who keeps saying everything will work out. We’ll, it’s time for it to work out,” Kate cried. “Now!”

  “Okay,” he said, taking a breath. “We’ll just do it. People have babies all the time, right? Your mother had babies. My mother had babies. How hard can it be?”

  He didn’t look like he believed it completely, but she appreciated him saying it and being there for her to hold on to. “No getting out of this because you’re a man,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  Then from the examination room, Shannon yelled, “Ben!”

  It was agony.

  Sheer agony.

  And it went on for what seemed like forever, although the clock told Ben it had only been about seven hours of labor.

  He and Kate sat on either side of Shannon, holding her hand, feeding her ice chips, rubbing her back, breathing with her, counting for her, begging with her, pleading with her, to just hang on and get through this.

  Ben decided he’d rather burn in Hell than ever have a baby. He didn’t know how anyone did it.

  The doctors hadn’t wanted to give Shannon any medication at first, because it was too early in her labor, and then all of a sudden, it was too late in her labor.

  She’d screamed and cried and seemed more like the child she was than at any time since he’d met her. Poor baby. She was sobbing in her bed, lying on her side with her head buried against her pillow, Kate holding on to her as best she could.

  The doctor was gone. The nurses were gone.

  And Ben was standing by the window holding her baby, a little girl, born nearly three hours ago. Barely over five pounds and weeks early, but perfectly formed, perfectly healthy.

  She was wrapped up in a pink blanket, and she had a silly little pink knit hat on her bald head. She’d come out all splotchy red and wrinkled, but cleaned up beautifully and was now sleeping, as content as she could be in Ben’s arms. He swayed back and forth slowly on his feet in a motion that had put her to sleep earlier and gazed down at her now-pink cheeks and her little button nose.

  It was a miracle, really, that something so perfect could come out of so much pain and heartbreak for Shannon. She’d been completely overwhelmed by the birth, by how much it hurt and how long it went on, and hadn’t so much as looked at the baby.

  Ben glanced down i
nto that perfectly innocent face, sleeping so peacefully, oblivious to the turmoil surrounding her and whispered, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll figure it all out.”

  She made a little squeaking sound and stretched for a moment, two tiny fists thrust up into the air and her face scrunching up into a silly frown, before she settled back down and slept some more.

  He glanced over to the bed where Kate, tears in her eyes, tried to soothe Shannon, who was sobbing, saying, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it,” over and over again.

  Ben walked over to the bed. “Shannon?”

  The girl lifted her head just long enough to see the bundle in his arms, then hid her face again. “I told you, take her away. I can’t see her. I can’t look at her.”

  He said a quick, silent prayer that he’d know what do say, know the right thing to do, for both Shannon and the baby, then turned to Kate.

  “Will you take her?”

  “Sure.”

  Kate stood up, tear tracks on her pale face, and before he did anything else, he leaned down and kissed her softly, then tried his best to hand the baby over to her without disturbing the sleeping infant.

  It was harder than it looked, and he wasn’t at all sure of how to do it. She was so tiny. Kate finally had her, looking down at the baby as if she was terrified of breaking her. Ben understood the feeling.

  “She’s tougher than she looks,” Ben said, touching the baby’s cheek with the back of his hand, then kissing Kate once again.

  “Look at us,” Kate whispered, going to the door so that Shannon might not hear over her sobs. “Thinking we could handle this. When we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. What were we thinking?”

  “That somebody had to do it.”

  “And you just stepped forward and did it.”

  “So did you,” he reminded her.

  She let out a shaky breath. “I’ve never felt so inadequate in my whole life.”

  “But you did it.”

  “Still…poor Shannon. She was hurting so much, and she needed so much more than any of us could give her. She needed her mother. A real one. Someone who’s been with her her whole life and taken care of her and loved her, and instead she gets us. She deserves so much better than that.”

  “Hey.” He put his hand on the side of her face. “We got through it. We got her through it, and look at what’s in your arms right now. She’s perfect.”

  One of Kate’s tears fell onto the baby’s cheek, and Ben wiped it away.

  “She is, but what do we do now?”

  “Just be here for both of them,” he said.

  “Be here? That’s—”

  “Shhhh.” He kissed her to silence her. “You’re going to wake up the baby.”

  “I’m terrified of the baby,” she confessed. “And Shannon is, too. She wants to give her up right now. She told me so, the last time you went out of the room for the doctor to examine her. She wanted me to go call Tim and Tina right then, to come and take the baby the minute she was born.”

  “That’s what you wanted, for her to give the baby up.”

  “Yes, but not…not like this. I wanted her to think about it carefully and rationally and make a decision about what’s best for her and the baby. This is just because she’s exhausted and panicking. Ben, you can’t let her do it. Not like this.”

  “I won’t. Promise.”

  He held open the door for her and then turned back to Shannon, still huddled into a ball on the bed and sobbing. Ben took the seat Kate had just vacated, pulled up to the side of the bed and put his arms around the girl as best he could, then laid his head on top of hers.

  “Oh, Shannon. I’m sorry.”

  “Did you take her away?”

  “Kate took her to the nursery.”

  “No, you have to really take her away. That couple, the ones with Emily, tell them they can have her, but they have to come get her now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…I can’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Anything. I can’t do anything. This was awful. It hurt so much, and I didn’t think it would ever be over. I thought I’d die before they got her out of me, and it still hurts all over, and she’s…she’s—”

  “What?”

  “I can’t do it. I can’t take care of her. You were right. I didn’t know what I was getting into. It’s crazy thinking I could do it. You have to make them take her away!”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “If you still feel this way tomorrow, I’ll call them.”

  “No. Today,” she insisted.

  “Shannon, this isn’t something you can do because you’re scared right now. This is a decision you’re going to have to live with for the rest of your life. You don’t want to make it while you’re exhausted and upset—”

  “I’m not going to change my mind,” she claimed.

  “Fine. Then there’s no reason not to wait until tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to see her,” she cried.

  “Why?”

  “I just think it’ll be easier if I don’t have to see her.”

  “It’s not going to be easy, no matter what,” he told her.

  “Ben, please,” she sobbed.

  “Okay, I’ll tell the nurses not to bring her in unless you ask for her.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Okay.” He was fairly certain she’d change her mind, but there was no sense arguing about it. He put a hand on her head and smoothed down her hair, which was going every which way. She looked as if she was ready to give up on everything, as if she couldn’t do one more thing. “How do you feel? Still hurt?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me get the nurse. She said they could give you something if you were uncomfortable, and then you can sleep.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me!”

  “I won’t. Either Kate or I will be right here,” he promised. “If we’re not in the room, we’ll be across the hall with the baby.”

  She nodded, still crying.

  “I’ll go get the nurse.”

  Kate was in a small sitting room outside the nursery, one fitted with comfy couches and rocking chairs. The room was empty except for her. The nurses had taken the baby to the baby warmer, something they’d wanted to do right after she was born, but Ben thought it was important to try to get Shannon to see her, maybe to hold her.

  Not that they’d had any luck with that.

  She heard someone open the door to the room and looked up from her spot on one of the love seats, leaning over the soft, cushioned arm half-asleep, and there was Ben.

  She felt as if they’d been through a war together, that had lasted a couple of years at least. Every bone in her body ached. Every one was screaming with exhaustion, and she had a dozen things she needed to do. She’d been trying to make a list of what they’d absolutely have to have, in case Shannon changed her mind and wanted to bring the baby home with her, but Kate felt like she could hardly keep her eyes open.

  But she wanted Ben beside her.

  He took a seat at her side, put his arm around her, and she leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist, her face against his chest.

  “How’s Shannon?”

  “The nurse gave her a shot. She should sleep for a while. I promised we’d stay.”

  “Of course,” Kate said. “The baby’s in the warmer for the next hour or so. Does Shannon still want you to call Tim and Tina?”

  “I said I would tomorrow, if she still wants me to.” He took her piece of paper from her hand. “What’s this?”

  “A list. Things for the baby, just in case. I can’t believe how ill-prepared we were. We don’t have anything.”

  “Kate, you’re dead on your feet. The baby has everything she needs right now. This stuff can wait.”

  “I know, but… You know me. I like lists. I haven’t made one in at least a week, and that’s so unlike me.”

  She felt a laugh well up inside of his chest. “What’s got
you scared now?”

  “I’m not scared. I’m just trying to be organized about this—”

  “No, you’re scared, and I know because the first thing you always do when you’re scared is make a list.”

  “Okay, I’m scared. I’m completely freaked out about what happened in that room. It was so intense. It was nuts. It was like…I don’t know. I wasn’t sure she was going to get through it, and then I thought, what if she can’t? I mean, there’s no backing out. You can’t turn around and go home. It didn’t matter if she wanted to go through with it or not, because she had absolutely no control over it. It was awful!”

  There, she’d said it.

  It was terrifying.

  She could have made a hundred lists when she’d walked out of that room, and not one of them would have helped.

  “It was tough,” he admitted.

  “But you’ve been through worse?”

  “I’ve sat with parents while their children died. I’ve officiated at children’s funerals. Those are the worst things. In that room with Shannon, it was intense, and it was scary, but it’s a miracle, too. There’s a brand-new life, and that little girl could be anything. Do anything. The possibilities are endless. And the way she’s brand-new and absolutely innocent and pure… She’s perfect right now. She’s never been hurt. She’s never been sad. She’s never been disappointed. She’s a blank slate, just waiting to be, to live, and that’s amazing to me. That’s a miracle.”

  “She is. You’re right about that. But poor Shannon. Fifteen years, and she went from being just like her baby, a blank slate, to someone who’s lost people she’s loved and who’ve loved her. She’s been abandoned by her father and her boyfriend, and now has to face giving up her baby. All that in fifteen years.”

  “Yeah, it’s awful.”

  “I didn’t think it would be this hard for her. Not having the baby…although, that was harder than I imagined, too. But giving the baby up. I mean, she’s fifteen. She could very easily be living on the streets right now. She has nearly three years of high school left. There’s no way she can take care of a baby. I thought by the time this day came, she’d see that, and it wouldn’t be so hard to give the baby up.” Kate buried her face against him. “How could I be so stupid as to think it wouldn’t be that hard?”