by Wendi Felter
“I won’t.” His eyes closed as he held her. “You need to trust me.”
“I do.” Her heaving chest calmed and she nestled further into his skin, her breasts pushing into his muscles. “You make me feel safe.”
He steeled himself, knowing he had to be a paragon of strength. For all of them, really. “I’ll stop the next car that drives by if I have t-to throw myself in front of it.”
“Don’t you dare! You can’t help anyone if you’re hurt or dead.”
He couldn’t think about his own well being right then. “I have to stop somebody, Heaven,” he said.
“Not that way.”
He remained silent, unwilling to frighten her, but he would do anything, even endanger himself, to get her help. He attempted to lighten the dark mood. “T-tell you what,” he said, speaking into her hair as he stole one kiss, “as your boss, I demand you not go into labor.”
“Oh, yes, sir!” She laughed softly against the side of his face, pulling back a little to smile at him.
Their eyes locked and he held his breath. Even now, in this horrible situation, he felt himself hardening. That damn stare…Should he allow this closeness? This was an emergency, not the time to push her away. He could do that later, after this predicament resolved. And it would resolve.
“When did you see Susan last?”
“Dr. Miller? A few days ago.”
“And everything was all right?”
“She told me to stay on bed rest because of the cramps.”
A stab of guilt knifed through him. “But you didn’t.”
She disengaged from him, although he kept his arms around her. “How could I stay on bed rest? Who would’ve watched Kendra?”
He could feel a twitch in his jaw. “Me.”
Her eyes narrowed. For the first time that day, Damon scathed from her anger.
“I didn’t know what you’d do. You’ve been…”
“I’ve been a bastard.”
“Yes.”
He removed his arms from around her body, placed his elbows on the steering wheel, and then lowered his head. He’d been a bastard for her own good, he’d thought. But he’d played the part too well. She’d been afraid to approach him when she’d needed him.
A soft hand touched his shoulder. He wanted to shake it off, feeling undeserving, but he couldn’t move. Disgusted with himself, he stared out the front window at the empty road.
“Don’t blame yourself,” she said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “It wasn’t just you. I doubt I could have stood complete bed rest. I did try to take it easy.”
He peeked over at her.
“I don’t like that look,” she said.
“What look?”
“Like you hate yourself. I see it sometimes, and, every time I do, I just want to make you smile again.”
“You’re so damn sweet.” He needed her warmth to feel less dirty. He gathered her into his arms, large stomach and all, and she didn’t resist him. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck.
So many emotions and indefinable feelings assailed him and he pressed her cheek to his, wanting to speak of his love; knowing he shouldn’t, especially at a time like this, but…
She gasped and threw back her head.
“Another pain?”
“In my back, and now I’m feeling some pressure below. Damon!” She sounded more alarmed than he’d heard her yet, and a strange calm filmed over him. “Heaven,” he said, in a no-nonsense voice, “I’m going to see what I have in the trunk. I w-want to make the back seat comfortable, s-so you can lay down on your left side—sometimes that helps.” He would have gone on, but he noticed her mouth hanging open, “I’m not an expert, but I – I know a little about labor and birth.”
“How?”
He had to tell her. This was no time to fret over embarrassment.
“When I went out at night, I didn’t go t-to bars.” He made sure his eyes didn’t meet hers. “I went to the library.” He glanced over at her, face flaming.
She looked amused, in spite of the seriousness of her situation. Then she grimaced again, and fell back against the seat of the car.
Alarmed, he grabbed her arm and spoke at her, quickly. “I read a lot about pregnancy, childbirth, even parenting – and I’d take out books and read them at this tw-twenty-four hour restaurant after the library closed. So I know more than you think.”
Still gasping from her last cramp, she asked, “Restaurant?”
He waited until her face and body relaxed, then grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket and started swabbing the drops of perspiration on her face. “Yes, but I wanted you t-to think I was out on the t-town.”
“Seriously!”
“Yes.”
With her hands folded over her abdomen and her eyes shut, she burst out laughing. “You’re unbelievable.” Her eyes shot open and he saw that, behind her laughter, tears had formed. “You cared about me and the babies all along, didn’t you?”
He nodded. His plan to make her hate him had worked so well, but was over, and he accepted that. “I d-did care.” He shook his head as he removed his handkerchief from her skin. Carelessly, he stuffed it into his back pocket.
She laughed and cried at the same time, tears spilling down her cheeks as her lips formed a huge grin. Then she reached up and touched his jaw with so much tenderness that his insides turned to putty. “The library,” she said, and her eyes caressed his face with kindness this time. “My kind of nerd.”
“I’ve explained enough. It’s t-time for me t-to do my best to make you comfortable.” His voice had softened. “I don’t think I’ll have to deliver the twins, but let me get the car set up. Thank God we aren’t in the truck. This back seat is long and comfortable.”
As he left the car he heard her laugh and say, “If we had the truck, it wouldn’t have broken down.”
Well, at least she was holding up well between contractions. Strangely, he was too. He felt driven and focused. Damon went to the trunk of his car, and scanned what he had. An old woolen blanket and a beach towel, thankfully both relatively clean. They’d have to do. His hands full, he climbed halfway inside the back of the car and spread the blanket over the seat.
“What are you doing?” Heaven asked her voice laced with pain.
He didn’t answer; had no time to talk. He folded the blanket over, doubling the thickness. Running a hand over it, he felt satisfied of its potential for comfort. In less than a minute, when he was happy with the results, he’d assisted her into the back seat. A second later, he handed her a half-filled bottle of water that he’d purchased the day before. It had been sitting in a cup holder on the passenger side.” It’s probably warm, b-but I read that sipping water also helps.”
Groaning, she took the bottle with a trembling hand. “So lying on my left side and drinking this is supposed to curb my labor?” She spoke, as she turned away from him to be resting on her left side.
“I hope so. If it’s even labor.” He sat in the front, and twisted around to watch her.
She lifted her head to sip from her water bottle. In the worst way, he wanted to lie beside her and hold her to him. She’d always calmed in his arms.
“Talk to me,” she said her voice shaky. “I need a distraction. Tell me; tell me something about you that I don’t know.”
“You know everything.”
“There must be something.”
“No. I have told you everything.”
A silence filled the air.
“I told you everything about me, too.”
“I know.”
“That sort of intimacy scares you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to go into this now.
“Is that why you left my bed that night?”
“Not entirely.”
Suddenly, she cried out. “Damon! I feel pressure down below! Damon!!”
He climbed over the top of the seat and fell to the ground in front of her. Without a word, thinking of his readings, hoping t
o Hell he had the right idea, he felt her abdomen. The hard rock feel of it alarmed him.
“Christ,” he mumbled, and then he started pulling off her undergarments and maternity pants.
“What are you doing?” Heaven moaned.
“I need to t-take these off. Quiet!” He threw them to the floor and put his hand against her abdomen again. It had softened.
“I’ve had contractions before, but not like that one.”
Damon barely heard her. “Love, you’ll have to spread your legs. I need to see.”
Heaven placed one leg on the floor, allowing him access to her.
“I have to check.” He knew he sounded apologetic.
“I feel more pressure.” She sounded panicked.
He lowered his head to the seat and looked at her, relieved that he didn’t see a little head emerging.
“Damon.” Her voice wavered. “What if I have the babies now?”
Another surge of strength encompassed him. He found her eyes and met them dead on. “Sweetie, everything will be all right.” He grabbed her trembling hand and squeezed it. “Honestly, it will.”
She managed to squeeze his hand in return. “I believe you, Damon. I trust you.”
Her words went straight to his heart, and he felt more determined than ever to protect her and the babies.
He loved her so.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A few cars drove past during the next couple of hours and Damon tried to flag them down. His desperation escalating, he even threw himself in front of the last car. Instead of stopping, the driver screeched around his outstretched body, cursing at him through her window as she sped by. He heard Heaven crying his name and quickly ran back to her.
“Don’t do that!” She grabbed his hands and cried. “Please don’t get hurt!”
“All right. Sorry,” he muttered. “Somebody’s got to stop for us.”
But he didn’t know if he believed his own words.
Suddenly her pupils dilated and she gasped.
“What is it?” Damon asked quickly, scanning her from head to toe.
“Damon, my water broke!”
Damon quickly checked. “Damn,” he mumbled to himself. His throat worked hard. In as calm a voice as he could manage, he said, “I’m ready, babe.”
“Damon, I know they’re going to be born soon.” There was no hysteria in her voice. She meant it.
He nodded and forced his racing adrenalin to subside. “I’m ready,” he repeated, in a firm voice that he hoped calmed her. He tried to block all outside stimuli. “I can do this. I will.”
He heard her scream and let out a string of curses he’d never dreamed he’d hear from her.
“Breathe! Breathe like they taught you in class!” he called out.
She tried breathing correctly. “The pressure!” she cried out. Then she screamed. “Oh, the pressure!” She let out more four-letter words, but he tried to drive her voice from his mind as he stared at the opening where an infant would emerge. Feeling grounded, but steeped in unreality, he recognized the crown of a baby’s head.
“I see a head with brown curls,” he said, both in awe and in an attempt to calm them both. His steady hands readied to catch the baby.
“Damon!” he heard her calling out. “This isn’t the time! Not here! Not now!”
Remaining steady and focused, he didn’t blink an eye. “Darling, the baby won’t listen. He’s disobedient, like his mother. I’m going to catch him, and it will be all right.”
He didn’t know what she said in response. As the head emerged, then the shoulders, he instinctively put one hand under the slick baby’s head and another on the abdomen.
Nothing in the world existed except for the angry cries of the tiny baby boy. As if in a dream, he wrapped the infant in his towel. It seemed so natural and the baby so warm and wonderful. By the time he used the knife he always kept in his pocket to cut the cord, his throat was clogged and his chest tight. Heaven held out her arms and he handed the little miracle to his mother, who was laughing and crying at the same time. “Damon!” she whispered in disbelief. “Little Damon! He’s so tiny! His head is so big, but – he’s so perfect; so beautiful!”
Damon didn’t let himself lose track of the second twin. “Are you having more cramps?”
“Not yet. I should have taken my shirt off. Maybe the baby wants to nurse.”
Damon stood up, his head banging against the top of the car. Pushing her oversized shirt above her breasts, he mumbled, “Oh, no bra, thank God.” He took his place again, waiting. “How’s the boy doing?” he asked, as he stared at the opening.
“I don’t know! Not sure about his breathing.” She sounded frantic again. “I’m so afraid, Damon.”
“Don’t be.” He glanced up at the baby and something strange and indefinable swept over him. A fierce wave of protectiveness towards the baby boy flowed through his veins, engulfing and warming him, touching a place he’d never known existed. “My God,” he whispered as he caught Heaven’s eyes, “it’s as if he’s my son. I delivered him and he’s mine.” Breaking his trance he forced the unexpected thoughts out of his head. “Now we have to get his sister to join him. Tell me when the cramps start again, Love.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Soon she let out another scream. Damon quickly grabbed the swaddled baby boy and placed him on the floor of the car, right near his heel. The baby, not liking his new spot, started to scream too and, for a moment, all he could hear were intense, piercing screams.
Then the trouble began.
The second baby attempted to join the world, but Damon didn’t see a head. Instead, he saw buttocks and Damon sucked in a deep breath. “Breech,” he muttered to himself.
“Damon, tell me what’s going on!” Heaven yelled. “Please! I have to push! Oh, God, I have to push!” Again she shouted a string of desperate wails and obscenities.
The baby didn’t come out, like the other one had.
Should he reach inside to pull her out? Would she eventually emerge? Would he harm Heaven? God help him, would this little baby die? Would Heaven die? Blood drenched the white blanket under her.
Acting purely on instinct, he reached inside of her and grabbed the slippery baby, and she slid into his hands. The next thing he knew, a police woman had a hand on his shoulder, urging him out of the car. “I’m an EMT,” she said. “Good thing that woman called that there was a lunatic in the middle of the highway. Hang on. We’re going to get all of you to the hospital.”
Damon looked at Heaven. She’d passed out. A fear, like none he’d ever experienced, washed over him, chilling him to the very core.
“Get out!” he heard another police officer saying, this time a male.
At that moment, Heaven came to. “Thank God,” he heard her whisper. “Thank you, God.”
Damon ducked out of the car, hoping that nobody saw the tears in his eyes.
Heaven awakened, frightened and disorientated. She tried to lift her eyelids, but they seemed glued shut. Panicking, she squeezed the hand that grasped hers, hoping that somebody would talk to her.
“Heaven? You’re awake?” A low, soothing male voice caressed her ears, echoing through her head, and everything rushed back to her in a flash.
Her body instantly calmed. “Oh, it’s you. Good.” She managed a hoarse response. With significant effort, she forced her eyes open. A heavy-lidded, unshaven, worried Damon Steele stared at her, clearly an exhausted man. He sat on the edge of her bed; both of his large hands clasped around one of hers. He took a quick breath, then lifted her fingers to his lips and grazed them with kisses.
“Welcome back,” he said, his throat working hard. “Y-you scared me. Bled a lot, but you’ll be fine.”
All at once she panicked. “The babies…”
“Fine specimens and large for pr-preemies. That Angela is a hellion, like her mom. My namesake is, of course, as good as g-gold.” He gently set her hand over her blanketed abdomen, stroking some loose strands of hair behind her
ear.
She noticed his clothing still muddy from their ordeal. “You didn’t change.”
“No t-time.”
“You stayed with me.”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” She smiled.
“An Army couldn’t have kept me away. I only left to go d-down the hall to see the babies.”
“I want to see them!” She tried to get up, but an anchor rested on her head.
Damon laid a hand against her chest. “No, Love. You lost a lot of blood. N-needed a transfusion.”
For the first time she noticed, with detached interest, that she’d been hooked to an IV. “I – have a rare blood type.”
“Mine’s the same. I donated.” He managed his first smile, tender and caring. “We’re blood brothers now.”
“You saved our lives.”
He shifted in his chair. “If I hadn’t t-taken you on that long ride out in the middle of nowhere…”
“Oh, sure. Make yourself the villain in this.” She forced her leaden arm to move and managed to graze his cheek with her hand. “I wanted to be alone with you and Aiden helped me.”
Damon’s tense features relaxed and he shook his head. “I guess – nobody suspected you’d go into labor.”
“When I did, you were wonderful.” She tried to affect big moony eyes. “My hero,” she teased.
His face colored. “Stop it.”
Her grin widened.
Damon grabbed her hand again and caressed it with his thumb. “Everyone assumes I’m the f-father. In my mind, I am.”
Her heart sang. “I’m glad. I think so too.” She pressed his hand to her cheek, trying to stifle a yawn. Fatigue swept over her. “Does this mean – you won’t send them away? Us away?” As much as she wanted to hear his answer, her body rebelled against wakefulness and her eyes shut. “Damon?”
She felt his lips press her forehead. “G-go to sleep, Love. We can talk another time.”
As he heated her hand with his, she shut her eyes, feeling at peace.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The following day, Damon and Heaven stood in the neonatal nursery, both dressed in green scrubs. As they watched the twins, they wrapped their arms around each other. Both of the tiny babies had large heads, IV’s, suctions on their chests, and gauze on their tiny bodies, but Heaven had never seen two sights more beautiful than her children.