Finn kissed my sweaty forehead and let me suck on some ice chips. “I fired Heather,” he said softly. “If it weren’t for her, I would have known about this sooner. I would have been able to be there for you; to support you.”
“She—she was…” I shook my head; the process going on inside my body was too much for me to be able to form real sentences, or even real thoughts.
“She was looking out for herself,” Finn said flatly. “She wanted to be in charge of my whole life and then take credit for my success—I don’t need someone like that in my life. I’m just sorry it took so long for me to realize it.”
“I still can’t believe that you…that you want to…” I gestured to my writhing, twisting lower body.
“If Heather hadn’t screwed things up for us, I would have been there to take care of you,” Finn said firmly. “I would have given you a place to live, and the best doctors.” He shook his head. “I’m going to make sure she never gets another star client again.”
After that, everything became blurry; my labor became so intense that I couldn’t even think about anything other than the need to push. Finn stayed by my side, letting me grip his hand as hard as I wanted to, soothing me and encouraging me. Jen was in the room too, and her encouraging words floated through my mind without me really noticing.
I pushed, and pushed, and tried to catch my breath to push some more. I gave into the impulses of my body, and some time later—it felt like an eternity, but I found out after that it was less than an hour—I heard Dr. Killian telling me that the baby was crowning, that it was only a few more big, hard pushes.
I felt the pressure build to its highest point, and then, all at once, I felt the heat of the baby against my skin, leaving my body, and I heard the most glorious sound in my entire life: the first sharp, offended, screaming cry, as it took its first breath.
“It’s a girl!”
“Oh, God,” I said, falling back against the pillows. “Thank God. Thank God.” I opened my eyes and glanced at Finn, then at the doctor and nurses in the room. “Is—is she okay?”
“Perfectly healthy,” Dr. Killian said a moment later. “Six pounds and five ounces.” Smiling broadly, she brought the baby—still sticky and a little bloody—to me, and I cradled my darling, beautiful little girl in my arms.
“She’s beautiful,” Finn murmured.
I nodded, tears flowing from my eyes as I stared down at the tiny little bundle, the perfect combination of Finn and me: her eyes were the darkest blue I’d ever seen, and she had a sparse little tuft of dark auburn hair, and ten perfect fingers and toes.
“Did you decide on a name?” Finn asked.
“We do need to put something down on the temporary card, here,” Dr. Killian said. “If you haven’t come up with anything, she’ll be Baby Girl Michaels for now.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I looked at Finn. “Do you—do you want to give her your last name? I know we’re not married, but…”
“If you’re okay with her having my name,” he said, nodding. “Of course I want her to be my daughter—legally, fully.”
“I thought I’d name her Claire Elizabeth,” I told Finn shyly.
He beamed at me. “Claire Elizabeth McClane—I love it.”
“Did you hear that?” I looked at the doctor.
“Beautiful,” Dr. Killian said, writing it down onto the forms. “Now—you’ll have to let us take her for a little bit, but we’ll bring her right back.”
Jen took that as her cue to leave, and I hugged her and thanked her tearfully for all she’d done for me throughout the pregnancy, telling her that I’d see her soon with little Claire. Then, the nurses cleaned me up, and Finn didn’t leave my side.
In a matter of moments, I was in a clean bed, with our baby in my arms, and I felt the burst of love and absolute satisfaction as I got my little Claire to latch on, and she started to nurse. I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks before I even fully realized I was crying again; Finn rubbed my shoulders, watching over me and his daughter.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying—it’s like there’s a leak in my eyes,” I told him.
“You’re fine,” Finn assured me. “You’re totally fine. And Claire will have everything she could ever want.”
When Claire finished nursing, Finn helped me put her into the bassinet. “You’ve only known you’re going to be a dad for a few hours,” I said quietly. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“I’m more than okay with it,” Finn said. “I’m overjoyed.” He sat down in the chair next to my bed. “Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Both,” I admitted.
“Let me get a nurse,” Finn suggested. “I am not leaving your side—unless you want me to.”
“I want you to stay right here,” I told him.
Finn called the nurse to bring me something to eat, and he sat with me as I ate it, looking over at our baby, touching me on the arm, the shoulder, my hand. I barely paid attention to what I was eating; all I cared about was that it satisfied my hunger, and that the man I loved was by my side, with the baby he’d given me.
“You know,” Finn murmured, as we watched Claire sleep, “I think this is probably the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten in my entire life.”
I grinned. “I think I’m going to head to bed, but I’ll sleep better if you lay with me,” I told him, feeling shy and daring all at once.
Finn smiled and rose from his chair, kicking off his shoes before he carefully climbed into the bed next to me. I shifted and curled up next to him, able to feel the aches and pains that had come with giving birth to my new daughter, but not caring about them for the moment. I had Finn, I had Claire, and everything had worked out better than I ever could have imagined.
NINETEEN
Amy
By the next day, it was clear to everyone that I was recovering just fine from the delivery, and that Claire was as perfect as any baby could possibly be. She took to nursing as if it were easier than breathing, and slept like a log in her bassinet in between.
“I want you to move in with me,” Finn said, after he’d changed Claire’s diaper and settled in the chair next to my bed once again. I’d asked him earlier in the morning if he thought it was wise to be spending so much time in the hospital when he had no one to manage his public image—there would be rumors galore before I even had a chance to check out. He’d insisted that he would handle it himself, and hire someone to take care of the press on the issue.
“We barely know each other,” I countered. “I mean—not that I’m not overjoyed that we finally managed to connect again, but how do we know that we can work out as a couple?”
“I want to be part of this baby’s life,” Finn said. “I want to be part of your life, Amy. I’ve spent the last nine months wondering what you were doing, wondering if there was something I should have known about the whole, screwed-up situation. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“I have your baby,” I said playfully. “You’re not going to lose me, Finn.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Finn said, frowning. “I want to get to know you better. You’re right that we didn’t have much time to learn about each other. But I want to do it together. I want Claire to have two parents from the very beginning.”
“Well, changing diapers is a pretty solid start,” I said. I still couldn’t quite believe that everything had changed so quickly. I couldn’t believe that my spur-of-the-moment decision to chase Finn down on his birthday, in the middle of a ritual that I wasn’t even certain he really did, had turned into such a sweet reunion.
“You’re impossible,” Finn said, smiling. “I want to be part of your life, and part of Claire’s. I want her to have everything that I didn’t have growing up, and I want to be there for her right from the beginning.”
I smiled at him in return; I could still remember everything he’d said, nine months before, about growing up at Maclaren. I’d heard the hunger in his vo
ice when he talked about parents. We hadn’t had much time to get to know each other, but I thought I understood certain aspects of Finn McClane very well indeed.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”
Finn beamed at that. “You can move into my place for right now,” he suggested, “and when you’re all recovered we can figure out what to do more permanently.”
We sat there in my hospital room, hashing out the basics, and I realized that for most people, who did it the traditional way, all this was out of the way before they gave birth. It was a little bizarre—a little absurd, even—to talk about how we were going to raise Claire together. It was an odd way to get to know someone.
We had to stop talking after a while, because in spite of the fact that I was recovering—in the words of Dr. Killian—beautifully, I was exhausted. Finn never left me alone for more than a few minutes, to go to the bathroom or to get me something to eat. His coach came into the room at one point with a suitcase for him, along with a list of different agents that he could consider.
For two days, I stayed in the hospital, recovering from the delivery, with Finn at my side. Before he’d been involved, I had counted on being there for twenty-four hours at the most, unless there were complications. But Finn had had a word with someone in admitting, and apparently Jen’s offer to pay for my treatment had fallen by the wayside.
I was relieved that Finn was willing to take financial responsibility for the delivery—I already felt far, far too indebted to Jen as it was, and even if I’d ever been able to pay off the cost of the hospital stay, I would have felt guilty that she had had to help me pay for it in the first place.
I was surprised when Jen told me that she considered herself lucky for having been in the position to help me; she’d met someone in the waiting room—someone she thought was interesting, and they’d hit it off. I couldn’t help laughing at that, but I was warmed to hear that she’d met someone and had already planned a date with him—it made me feel less guilty about imposing on her.
Instead of going back to Jen’s place after one day in the hospital, I stayed with Finn at my side, talking about how we were going to raise Claire, and catching up on each other’s lives in the nine months since we’d been apart. I got to see him holding Claire—under the watchful eyes of the nurses, who chided him to make sure he supported her head, even when he was already doing it—and Finn changing her, jumping to his feet whenever she started the hiccupping, indignant cries that meant that she was wet, as opposed to hungry.
I almost wept with relief when Dr. Killian left the room after telling me that everything was fine, that I was making a full and rapid recovery, and that Claire was thriving. She’d brought the paperwork from the hospital’s billing department, and Finn had grabbed it from her without letting me look at it.
“I don’t even want you to know how much it costs,” he told me, almost scowling in his insistence. “I want you to spend the rest of your life blissfully unaware of it. You did the hard work, Amy. This part is easy.”
He left the room to make payment arrangements with the staff, and came back in time to help me pack up what little I needed from the room, and to help me out to the car he had waiting for us.
I had no real idea what our living situation would look like—all of my stuff was at Jen’s still, and I didn’t know how Claire and I would fit into life at Finn’s—but I had faith that somehow, some way, everything would work out.
TWENTY
Amy
The front of the house glittered with the lights Finn had put up the day after Thanksgiving, and I grinned to myself as I shifted Claire in her carrier, being careful not to wake her up. It was hard to believe that I lived in a proper house once more—that I had a baby in my arms, a devoted boyfriend, and a happy, contented life.
That man has put so much Christmas cheer into this place that we’ll be taking down decorations throughout all of January. I wanted to feel annoyed, but there was something so charming about it that it made me smile even more as I approached the front door.
Finn had insisted on buying the house within weeks of Claire’s birth. He’d told me that he had always dreamed of living in a real house, and that if he was going to help me raise her—and he insisted that he would do just that—that he was going to do it in a home, not an apartment. I had still been recovering from the delivery, so Finn had taken dozens of pictures of each of the properties his real estate agent took him to, and shown them to me one by one.
“How’s my little goalie in training?” Finn greeted us at the door, giving each of us a soft kiss.
“Dr. Havers says that she’s as healthy as any baby that ever lived,” I replied.
Finn moved to carefully untie the straps on the baby-wearing carrier I kept Claire in, and I supported our little three-month-old daughter with my hands as the tension on my shoulders dropped. I brushed my lips against her forehead, brought her to the portable crib we kept in the living room of the big, beautiful house, and laid her down as gently as possible to keep her from waking up.
“Thank God you didn’t have to take her in tomorrow,” Finn remarked when we went into the kitchen together. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and we had big plans for it.
“She might be a bit grumpy,” I told him. “She had to have some shots today.”
“No wonder she’s fast asleep,” Finn said, nodding. “How are you feeling?”
I shrugged and sat down at the table. Finn went over to the center island in the kitchen, and started the kettle, grabbing my favorite mug from the hook above the drink station and a sachet of the tea I liked; ever since my pregnancy, I’d cut back on caffeine drastically.
“I’m glad it’s Christmas soon,” I told Finn. It was strange to feel that way; while I loved my adoptive parents, and I had always enjoyed spending Christmas with them, I had always felt sort of weird about the spirit of the season, wondering what my real parents were up to.
But Finn seemed to be determined to make Claire’s first Christmas—which she wouldn’t even remember—the most amazing thing ever. We had the best-lit home on the entire cul-de-sac we lived on, and inside the house he’d insisted on decorating everything as much as I could stand—money was no object, as far as he was concerned. So, with some help from Jen, I’d put up garlands and ribbons, mistletoe and holly, and Finn and I had gone on the first weekend of December to buy the biggest, fullest Christmas tree we could find in the state.
We’d decorated it together that same night, with Claire sleeping in the living room, and we’d played all our favorite Christmas songs. The tree was covered in strands of lights, along with tinsel and ornaments. I’d almost hesitated to suggest an idea that I’d had for a Christmas craft—one I’d wanted to do long before Claire had come along—but as soon as I’d told Finn about it, he’d taken me and our baby to the craft store right away to get the supplies to make it happen. So, amongst the different store-bought ornaments, we had one little handmade one: a mold of Claire’s foot, pressed into plaster, with her name and the year on it, tied up with ribbon.
“Are you sure you’ll be up for tomorrow night? And Christmas Day?”
I grinned at Finn. “It’s been three months,” I said, sipping the tea he’d made me. “I’m pretty much as good as new.”
“You’re perfect, and beautiful as ever,” Finn said, giving me a little smile. “But I meant more the stress of it, and how tired it might make you.”
“Claire is sleeping more or less through the night,” I pointed out. “I think we’ll be okay. She’s barely even going to remember anything about it, but it’s more for us than her anyway, isn’t it?”
Finn nodded. “So tomorrow night?”
I nodded. I’d told my parents about our plans, and we’d be seeing them on Christmas Day for a few hours; long enough for breakfast, and for them to spend some quality time with their granddaughter, before Finn and I went on to our other plans for the day.
“We should invite them to di
nner with us tonight,” I said. “I know they’re okay with missing the usual meal with me, but I want to do something with all of us.”
“I was going to suggest that we go out to Richie’s tonight,” Finn said.
“Can you change the reservation?”
Finn rolled his eyes and grinned. He was still the hottest player on the Magpies; he had standing reservations to just about every one of the major restaurants in the city—he just had to call and tell them he was coming in.
“Can I change the reservation,” he said smugly, taking his phone out of his pocket and dialing the restaurant.
I sipped my tea and listened for Claire to wake up in the next room while Finn let the staff at the restaurant know that we would need a table for four—not two—for that evening. From what I could hear of Finn’s side of the conversation, they were, as usual, only too happy to oblige.
Baby Maker - A Secret Baby Sports Star Romance Page 12