The Baby Mission

by Marie Ferrarella

  There was no energy left to breathe, much less to push. “Can’t…you…just…pull?”

  “C.J., push,” he ordered.

  Swirling through her head was the vague thought that she was going to hold Sherry and Joanna accountable for not telling her that giving birth was like trying to expel a giant bowling ball through her nose and that everything inside her body felt as if it was being ripped apart by a pair of giant hands.

  “C.J., you have to push!”

  She had to die was what she had to do, C.J. thought in despair. No, a faraway voice echoed in her head, the baby, the baby needs you. Your baby. You can’t quit now.

  “Now!”

  Hating Warrick, C.J. propped herself up one last time. She knew in her heart that if the baby didn’t completely come out with this effort, she was going to die this way, midpush.

  She glared at Warrick. “Count,” she gasped angrily.

  If looks could kill, he’d be dead right now, Warrick thought. “One—two—three. Push!”

  Glancing at her face just before he gave the command, Warrick saw the sweat pouring down into her eyes, saw the look of complete exhaustion on her face. If he could have, he would have changed places with her.

  Just like he would have been willing to take a bullet for her any day of the week. She was his partner, his friend, and the person who knew him better than anyone, warts and all. He cared about her more than he cared about anyone else in the world.

  The next moment, he was holding her daughter in his hands.

  The wailing increased. Was something wrong? Was there something wrong with her baby? Oh, please let the baby be all right. C.J. was lying in a heap on the floor. There wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t ache and wasn’t all but smothered in utter exhaustion. It took all she had to raise her head.

  “What—”

  He grinned, making sure the baby’s passageways were all clear. That much he remembered from his training. She was breathing. The life he held against his chest was breathing. He couldn’t describe the feeling going on in his chest. “A girl.”

  A girl. She had a daughter. She felt like crying. “What…what does she…look like?”

  “A guppy in Jell-O. A beautiful guppy,” he qualified, looking up at C.J.

  Something very strange was going on inside of him. There was relief because it was over and because C.J. was still alive. He could afford to admit to himself now that he had been laboring under the very real fear that something could have gone wrong during the childbirth. Something could always go wrong.

  But there was also something else, another feeling that he couldn’t readily identify. Something he was unfamiliar with.

  It felt as if there were suddenly a rainbow inside of him. A rainbow that seemed to be also raining sunshine.

  Quickly he did a tally of the baby’s fingers and toes. All were accounted for. He looked up at C.J. “Want to see her?”

  She barely had enough strength to form the word. “Please.”

  Holding the moments-old infant against him, Warrick moved on his knees until he was level with C.J.’s face. But as he began to transfer the baby into her arms, he looked down at the small face. The infant had ceased crying and was simply looking up at him, her eyes as wide as spring flowers sunning themselves.

  He felt as if she was looking right into him, right into his heart. Which only seemed fair since it was already hers.

  “This is your mother,” he whispered to the infant. “Be kind, honey, she’s still a work in progress.”

  He was surprised the words came out at all. It felt as if his throat was constricting. For all the different experiences he had gone through in his life, he had never had a moment quite like this before and he wasn’t altogether sure what to make of it.

  Amid the waves of exhaustion washing over C.J. was a sense of elation. It spread out, covering her completely as Warrick tucked the baby into her arms.

  She was here, C.J. thought, her baby was finally here. Her impatience, her fears, everything she’d lived with all these months were fading into the mists as if they hadn’t really existed.

  Without a hand to wipe them away, C.J. blinked back her tears.

  Her baby was finally here.

  “Hi, baby,” she said softly to the infant warming her breast. “That was just Warrick. Don’t let him scare you.” And then she raised her eyes to her partner’s face. There really were no words that seemed adequate enough. “Thank you.”

  He grinned, rocking back on his heels. “It’s not as if the two of you left me much choice.”

  The two of them. It had a nice ring to it, C.J. thought.

  Her heart swelling, she tightened her arms around the baby.

  Chapter 4

  The paramedics arrived ten minutes after he called them.

  It occurred to Warrick, as he rode down in the elevator with C.J., the baby and the attendants, that had he gotten on the phone and dialed 911 to begin with, he would have been spared all the trauma he’d just gone through.

  And missed out on what was probably the greatest experience of his life.

  He smiled to himself as they all got out and he hurried behind the gurney. It made him glad that for once he had been slow to follow through on his original instincts.

  Warrick stepped out of the way to allow the paramedics to slide C.J.’s gurney into the ambulance. At that moment, as he watched, she looked very vulnerable. It placed her in an entirely new light for him. She’d probably punch him out if she knew what he was thinking, he thought. But that didn’t change the fact that he had an overwhelming desire to be there for her, to somehow shield her, although from what he hadn’t the vaguest idea.

  Had to be the high he was still running on because of the delivery, he decided.

  With the gurney secured in place, Warrick started to climb into the ambulance.

  The paramedic beside C.J. placed a hand out to block his entrance. “Only relatives ride in the back with the patient.” He cocked his head, scrutinizing him. “You her husband, buddy?”

  “That’s Special Agent Buddy,” C.J. informed him. “And he’s my partner.”

  Unconvinced as to the propriety of all this, the attendant raised his brow. “Like a life partner?”

  Warrick glanced toward C.J. and saw that she was looking at him, amusement highlighting her exhausted features. That she could smile after what she’d just been through amazed him.

  “Maybe as in life sentence,” he cracked. “We work together.”

  That settled it for the attendant. He reached for the doors, ready to pull them shut. “Sorry, then you’ve got to follow behind in your car.”

  Warrick was quick to get his hand up, blocking the doors before they closed. He looked at C.J. Hers was the only opinion that mattered in this. “You want me in the ambulance?”

  Under normal circumstances, her answer would have been flippant. But these weren’t normal circumstances. She was feeling elated and teary and a hundred other things. She needed someone there with her to run interference until she could pull herself together. “Yes.”

  Warrick looked meaningfully at the paramedic. “Then, it’s settled.”

  The paramedic raised his hands, surrendering and backing off. “Sorry, just stating company policy, Special Agent.”

  “I’ll take it up with your boss,” Warrick said, climbing on.

  The trip to Blair Memorial Hospital took just long enough for Warrick to make the necessary call to her parents. He left it up to Diane to notify the others, knowing it would probably take a matter of seconds.

  He was right. C.J.’s family converged on the hospital less than ten minutes after the front desk had found a room for her on the maternity floor.

  The six-foot-two nurse with the kindly smile had no sooner helped C.J. slip into bed than Warrick was knocking on the door. He peered into the room just as she said, “Come in.”

  Some of C.J.’s color was returning, he noted. She was beginning to look like her old self again. Feisty a
nd contrary. He felt relieved. “Got some people out here who for reasons beyond me seem to be awfully anxious to see you. Can they come in?”

  As independent of ties as she liked to pretend to be, C.J. had to admit that it felt good to know that she had family close by who cared about her. “I guess we can’t keep them out, can we?”

  “You just try, sweetheart,” her father said, pushing past Warrick as he sailed into the room. Nodding at the nurse who was a shade taller than he was, James Jones elbowed his way next to the bed and took one of his daughter’s hands into both of his. His blue eyes crinkled, barely disguising the concern etched on his face. “How are you, darlin’?”

  “Tired.” C.J. tried to rally, summoning what energy she could. Her brothers surrounded her bed, leaving a space for her mother directly opposite her father. “How did you all manage to get here so fast?”

  “Dad broke a few speed limits,” Diane told her, attempting to look annoyed but not quite pulling it off. “What are you doing, having this baby without me? I thought I was supposed to be your coach.”

  C.J. glanced at Warrick who was standing at the foot of her bed behind one of her brothers. “I had to settle for second best.”

  Diane turned her attention to the man she had taken aside and charged with her daughter’s care the very first time she’d met him. “Thank God you were there to help her, Byron.”

  C.J.’s eyes shifted toward her partner. As ever, the use of his given name didn’t seem to faze him when her mother called him by it. It still amazed her. She supposed he more or less considered her family to be his own. Her brothers were his friends, and her mother and father were like a second set of parents to him.

  Or maybe even a first set from the little she’d managed to get out of him about his childhood. Warrick had been an only child. An accident of nature was the way he had put it once. His parents had kept him, much the way a customer keeps an item they’d accidentally broken in a shop and were forced to pay for. The relationship was that sterile.

  There was no mention of love, of affection existing in his past, even remotely. He rarely spoke about them, even when she asked him direct questions. His father had died some years back and his mother had remarried and was living out of the country. Even that had not come firsthand to her. Warrick had told her mother one rainy Sunday afternoon after watching a football game on TV with the male contingent of her family.

  It amazed C.J. how much information her mother could get out of her closemouthed partner. There were times when she honestly thought her mother had missed her calling, although, to hear Diane Jones tell it, being the wife of a prominent criminal lawyer and the mother of three more, plus another potential up-and-coming barrister as well as an FBI agent, was more than satisfying enough for her.

  That her mother added her as an addendum was just a trademark of her sense of humor. C.J. knew that her mother doted so much on her that it was difficult for the woman not to show it.

  Warrick shrugged carelessly at her mother’s comment. “C.J. did most of the work.”

  “Most of it?” C.J. hooted. “Ha! I did all of it.”

  “Knowing C.J., you’re lucky to have come out of the ordeal alive,” Brian, her oldest brother, said to Warrick.

  Warrick poked his tongue into his cheek. “She did get a little testy.”

  “Spoken like a typical man,” C.J. countered. “You try pushing out an elephant through a keyhole, see how cheerful you stay.”

  Ever the referee even after her children were grown, Diane held up her hands, waving all involved parties into silence.

  “Enough. The bottom line is that the baby’s here, Chris is all right, and we’re all together.” She laced her arm through her husband’s, glowing with contentment. “So, have you decided what my new granddaughter’s name is?”

  C.J. shook her head. Ever mindful of the possibility that something might go wrong, she had refused to think of any names for either sex while she was pregnant. “No, not yet.”

  Her father looked at her, his disappointment apparent. “Not even one name? Oh, Christmas, you even put that off?”

  C.J. shut her eyes. Christmas Morgan were her official given names, laid on her by an act of whimsy on her father’s part because she’d been born on Christmas morning.

  When she opened her eyes again, it was to look at the guilty party. “Well, when I do come up with a name, it’s going to be a hell of a lot better than ‘Christmas,’ I can promise you that.”

  Warrick grinned. He knew this was a really sensitive topic for her. “What’s the matter with being called Christmas? Although I have to admit, it doesn’t exactly suit you.”

  “And just exactly what is that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

  Ethan nudged Jamie, the baby of the family. “Nice to see that the miracle of birth hasn’t changed you any, Chris.”

  She was feeling better already. Having her family here was the best medicine of all. “Maybe growing up in a houseful of boys had something to do with that,” she pointed out. “I had to be twice as good as each of you just to hold my own.”

  “Your own what?” Jamie cracked. As the youngest, he was forever struggling to find his own place in a family of overachievers. The fact that at six-five, he towered over all of them helped to help balance things out.

  “Her own everything,” Wayne said. With two brothers born before him and a sister and brother born after, Wayne was the most even tempered of the family, given to thinking twice before speaking once. It was a trait his mother often wished out loud had been spread out amid her other children. Moving forward, Wayne brushed a kiss on his sister’s forehead. “Get some rest, kid. You look like hell.”

  “Thanks.” Her eyes met her brother’s. “You always did know what to say to perk a girl right up.”

  “Why don’t we all leave and let Chris get some well-deserved rest?” Diane suggested.

  “Which way’s the nursery?” Brian wanted to know.

  “Can we see the baby?” Ethan chimed in.

  “Do they have her in an incubator?” Jamie wanted to know.

  “No.” C.J. finally managed to get in a word. “She weighed in just over five pounds. The doctor said she’s strong and healthy.

  “Of course she is,” her father said. “She’s my granddaughter.”

  “Yes, dear,” Diane patted his face. “You deserve all the credit here.” Turning her head, she winked at her daughter.

  One by one her family filed by, kissing her and taking their leave. Diane waited for them at the door, making sure her brood made it into the hallway. But when Warrick moved to follow, she shook her head.

  “Why don’t you stick around a little while longer, Byron? She might like the company. Maybe even get around to apologizing for being so testy with you earlier as you put it.”

  Warrick glanced over his shoulder toward C.J. She nodded. “Okay, just for a few more minutes.”

  Diane paused at the door, the men in her life waiting for her to join them in the hall. Placing a hand on Warrick’s shoulder, she raised herself up on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you for being there for her.”

  His smile was almost shy. “Just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.”

  “I’m glad it was you.” She turned toward her daughter, beaming. Her baby had had a baby. “You did good, honey. I’ll see you in the morning. And don’t forget, think of some names.”

  C.J. nodded. Warrick let the door close and then crossed to her. “You really don’t have any names?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. The hospital gown slipped off one, and she tugged it back into place. “Not a one.”

  He shook his head. She had been damned determined not to allow her pregnancy to interfere with her work. No one knew until it was absolutely necessary. The only reason he’d found out before the others was because he’d stumbled onto her condition completely by accident. While on a stakeout, she would periodically bolt out of the car and dash for the closest
bathroom. It didn’t take him long to figure out she wasn’t battling food poisoning but morning sickness.

  Warrick leaned against the wall, studying her. “Never knew you to be this unprepared before, Jones.”

  She offered him a wan smile, her mind half a world away. This was supposed to have been a happy time. Instead she’d just joined the ranks of single motherhood with all its scary ramifications. Served her right for veering from her course and thinking that maybe she’d been one of the lucky ones to find someone special. What had led her down this primrose path was that her parents seemed so happy together. It had made her believe that marriages, if not made in heaven, certainly created one of their own. Well, Thorndyke had certainly set her straight about that.

  “Some things,” she murmured, “you’re never prepared for.”

  Something inside of his gut tightened. He knew she was thinking about Thorndyke. Warrick could feel his blood pressure going up several notches at the very thought of the man and his emotional abandonment of C.J. This time he kept his comment to himself. She’d been through hell, and he didn’t want to agitate her right now with any negative comments about the poster boy for slime. Thorndyke had obviously made her happy once and whatever did that was okay with him.

  At least, he tried to tell himself that, although how she could be happy, even for a moment, with that shallow pretty boy was beyond him. If he didn’t know better, he would have said he was experiencing a bout of jealousy. But he did know better.

  Rather than use the chair beside her, Warrick sat down on the bed and looked at C.J. for a long moment. That strange, funny feeling he’d gotten the moment he’d held her daughter in his hands hadn’t completely dissipated. On the contrary, alone with C.J. like this, it seemed to take on more depth and breadth. He still couldn’t put a name to it. Maybe it was better that way.

  He looked at her pointedly. “He should know.”

  She’d expected another put-down of her ex-lover. She certainly didn’t think Warrick was going to push for any sort of contact. C.J. raised her chin defensively. “He knows.”