“You’re right. It’s not the sunrise—it’s the baby. I think it’s time,” she said, laying her head against Adam’s chest, hearing his heartbeat, strong and steady, beneath her cheek. “The contractions are about eight minutes apart. I want to stop at the clinic before I check myself into the hospital. I have to leave a note for Dessie to cancel my morning appoint—” Another contraction caught her off guard. Adam held her close as she breathed through it. “That hurt,” she gasped.
“It hasn’t been eight minutes since the last one, has it?”
She glanced at the bedside clock. “No.” A shiver of excitement mixed with a little anxiety shot along her nerve endings. It was her first baby, after all. She had a right to be nervous. “It’s only been five.”
“Time to go, Leah, and we’re not stopping at the clinic,” Adam said as he pulled on his pants. “I’ll call Clint from the car phone. We’re checking you into the hospital now. I’m not going to deliver another baby at home. I’m not licensed to practice obstetrics in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
“You did a wonderful job with Cade,” she said, braiding her hair while he pulled the overnight bag she’d packed a few days ago from the shelf in the closet. She decided not to argue with him, because the last contraction had been strong. Very strong.
“I’m perfectly willing to let Clint do the honors. Now come on. Hurry up.”
“I’m ready. Just let me get my purse. Oh, dear, I should call my mother. She and Dad have had their bags packed for a week. Dad’s got the driving time planned to the last minute.” Another contraction followed hard on the last. “Heavens. Maybe you should tell them to fly.”
Adam’s face lost a little color. “C’mon or you’re going to be having this baby in the front seat of the car.”
“My brothers, and Brian and Juliet—we have to let them know.”
They had moved Juliet and the baby to Lexington just a few days earlier, so she and Cade could get settled into their little efficiency apartment off campus before classes started. Brian was there, too, camped out on the living-room floor, helping Juliet paint woodwork and put up new window blinds.
“No,” Adam said forcefully. “We will call everyone from the hospital.”
“Yes, sir.” She caught his hand. “I love you, Adam. I’ve loved you since that night in Vietnam, and I’ll love you till the day I die.”
“And God, I love you.” He pulled her as close as her stomach would allow and dropped a kiss on her lips. “Now get moving, soldier.”
“Yes, sir.” Leah took his hand and together they walked out into the brand-new summer’s day.
“GET THE PHONE, WILL YOU? I’m right in the middle of this,” Brian called from the tiny bedroom of Juliet’s apartment where he was attempting to hang a curtain rod. The sun was in his eyes and he was getting hungry. It was already an hour past lunchtime, but he wanted to get this done so Juliet didn’t have to stumble around in the dark when she got up to feed Cade in the middle of the night. The apartment house sat right on the street, and anybody walking by could look into the bedroom.
Privacy issues aside, the place wasn’t bad. It was close to the campus, and the Baptist preacher, from back in Slate Hollow, had a niece with a toddler of her own living nearby who would baby-sit Cade while Juliet was in class.
Brian would be around to help her, too, because he’d transferred to the University of Kentucky. He was going to give premed a try. He might never be the kind of neurosurgeon his dad was, but he intended to give medicine his best shot.
And he was paying his own way. It hadn’t seemed right to take money from his mom and stepfather for tuition after he’d sold the Lexus they’d given him and refused to return to Harvard. Besides, he wanted to see if he could make it on his own, the way his dad had done. He’d worked in construction all summer to earn his tuition money. Of course, he wasn’t such a fanatic about this making-it-on-his-own stuff that he’d turned down the secondhand Ford pickup his dad had given him, so he didn’t have to borrow the new Cherokee all the time.
“I’ve got it,” Juliet sang out from the living room, and then a moment later, “Brian! Come here!”
The excitement in her voice made him jump, and he banged his elbow on the window frame. He climbed down off the bed, edged his way past the dresser and crib, and walked into the living room, where Cade was lying on the floor on one of Aurelia’s quilts. “What’s up? You didn’t have to yell.”
Cade waved his little arms when he saw Brian, and Brian took a moment to drop to his hands and knees and tickle his belly just where he liked it. He was a good baby. He slept all night and wasn’t colicky or fussy. Juliet seemed to be handling motherhood pretty well, and Brian wasn’t doing so badly as a substitute big brother, either.
Everything Aurelia had told him that night had come true—and something even spookier had happened. Juliet had had the same dream. She called it a miracle and said it helped her feel not so bad that Aurelia had died before she could see Cade. And maybe she was right.
“Brian, quit making him laugh. He’ll spit up. Come here! It’s Leah. She’s got something to tell you.”
“What? Is she having the baby?”
Juliet laughed and shook her head. “She’s had the baby!” She gave him a quick, shy kiss. Their first. “Congratulations! You’re a big brother again, and I’m going to be a godmother.”
“But what is it?” Leah hadn’t wanted to know ahead of time whether the baby was a boy or girl, so they’d all been playing guessing games.
Juliet held out the phone. “It’s a girl of course, a beautiful little girl. Just like Granny said.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5347-6
WINTER SOLDIER
Copyright © 1999 by Carol I. Wagner and Marian F. Scharf.
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
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