Colton's Cinderella Bride

by Lisa Childs

  Dugan grinned to himself. Anyone overhearing him would have thought he was three sheets to the wind. Truth was, he wasn’t even quite one sheet. Despite coming out to Malone’s and hoisting a few beers, he wasn’t drunk, just feeling very good.

  And relaxed.

  But he wasn’t intoxicated. Dugan knew better than to get behind the wheel of his car if he were. The beers, both of them, had been consumed over the course of six hours, and given the fact that he was six-three and had a physique that would have made a bodybuilder envious, those beers had less than no effect on him. It just felt good to get together with a number of his friends and family.

  This was what it was all about for him, Dugan thought. Friends and family. And keeping the world safe for those friends and family—as well as the public at large.

  But right now, it was time to go home and get some very well-deserved sleep so that tomorrow morning, he could get up and do it all again. For him, as well as most of the members of his family, that meant finding ways to put the bad guys away—the faster the better. In his particular case, that involved getting the goods on drug dealers.

  He stifled a yawn. Man, he was more tired than he thought, Dugan realized. He’d also parked his car farther away than he’d thought. But when he’d arrived six hours ago, the parking lot behind the bar was packed and there were cars lining both sides of the street. It turned out that there was an impromptu bachelor party being held at the bar, so the place was really packed. That made the owner quite happy, Dugan thought, remembering the wide grin on the former police officer’s face as the man tended bar. But the extra customers had made parking a particular challenge.

  “Maybe I’ll walk off some of those calories from the beer,” Dugan murmured as he crossed what was normally a busy intersection. At the moment, the streets were totally deserted.

  His upbeat attitude was due to the fact that he’d been taught to always look at the bright side of things, even when things appeared to be dark and bleak. It was something his late mother, Eva, had instilled in him, as well as in his three younger brothers, and while none of them could be accused of being mindlessly happy-go-lucky, her philosophy had helped all of them weather the personal storms that came their way.

  There it was, Dugan thought, finally sighting his pride and joy, an old 1965 Mustang he had personally rebuilt and restored over the course of three summer vacations in between juggling part time jobs while he was going to college.

  A warm feeling filled him the way it always did whenever he looked at the cherry-red product of all his hard work.

  “I’m almost there, old girl,” he said, as if the car could hear him. “Almost—”

  A screeching sound suddenly disrupted the otherwise still April night.

  Dugan stopped short, instantly alert—just in case. Turning his head toward the sound, he listened, trying to discern where it was coming from and, more importantly, what it was.

  Was that awful noise coming from a cat being attacked or—

  The sound came again, louder this time and definitely filled with agony. It wasn’t a cat, it was human—of a sort.

  It was the kind of sound that, had he been lost in the Alaskan wilderness, he would have attributed to coming from a Yeti, a mythical creature sometimes equated with the equally mythical Big Foot.

  All this was going through Dugan’s head at lightning speed as Dugan broke into a run, heading toward the source of the unearthly screeching.

  In short order, he realized that the gut-wrenching noise was coming from a car that was pulled up, askew, against a curb in an alley that was a block away from where his own car was.

  The car’s lights were on, but the engine appeared to be off.

  Another scream, even more powerful this time, ripped though the air. Dugan pulled out his weapon just before he reached the vehicle.

  Cautiously, not knowing what he was about to find, he looked into the car and saw a woman, gripping the steering wheel. Her face was contorted with pain and she was screaming. There was a gun lying on the passenger seat beside her.

  She also had to be the most pregnant woman he had ever seen.

  * * *

  Dugan knew he was taking a chance.

  Ordinarily, a gun on the scene demanded that certain protocol be adhered to. But unless the woman was smuggling a double order of watermelons, she appeared to be in just too much pain to be a threat. She certainly didn’t look like any drug dealer he had ever come across.

  So, taking a breath, he lowered his weapon and rapped on her partially opened window to get her attention.

  “Ma’am? Do you need help?”

  The woman instantly jerked at the sound of his deep male voice, looking his way. Fear telegraphed through her with the speed of a lightning bolt.

  She was not about to die in this car tonight, she thought.

  Working her way through the searing pain, she reached toward the gun on the passenger seat, stretching and groaning.

  Dugan reached in through the open window even though it was tricky and managed to grab the gun before the woman could get her fingers around it.

  “Give...me...that!” she managed to grind out. She was breathing hard now and every word took effort. She felt as though her dark blond hair was plastered against her forehead. Even the top of her head felt as if it was coming off at any second.

  “Look, lady, I heard you shrieking and I came to see if I could help, but I’d like not to get my head blown off while I’m doing it.” Dugan saw the terror in her face. It was after midnight and she was alone. He couldn’t really blame her. “I’m a cop,” he added, hoping that would reassure her.

  She definitely didn’t believe him. “No...you’re... NOT!”

  The woman had one hell of a set of lungs on her, Dugan thought, opening the passenger door. Rather than argue with her, in the interest of expediency, he took out his badge and showed it to her.

  “See?” he asked her.

  She still wasn’t convinced. “You...could have...gotten...that...in any...toy store,” she bit off.

  “Fair enough.” He took out his ID next and held it up almost in front of her face. The woman was sweating profusely, he noted. This had to hurt like hell, he thought. “Okay?” he asked, nodding at his wallet.

  “O...kay,” she panted. Her eyes widened as she saw him get in and reach over to her seat belt, releasing it. She was wary again and there was nowhere to retreat. “What...are...you...doing?” she demanded with as much indignation as she could manage.

  Before he could answer, she shrieked again, pushing against the floor with her feet as she arched back in the seat now that she was no longer restricted by the seat belt.

  It didn’t help. Nothing helped. The pain just couldn’t be escaped.

  “I can’t help you from outside the car,” Dugan told the woman.

  “Get...away!” she ordered, panting so hard she was getting dizzy. It took everything she had to keep from passing out.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her, “neither one of us wants to be here, but you need help and I’m the only one around.” He weighed his options, then shook his head. “I don’t think I can get you to the hospital in time. If it’ll make you feel any better, my aunt drives an ambulance.”

  He was talking about Aunt Maeve and she actually owned the company at this point, but he didn’t think the pregnant woman was in any condition to listen to any lengthy explanations. Not the way she was screaming and certainly not the way she was arching her back and moving from side to side. The simplest explanation was the best one.

  “She taught all of us a few basic emergency procedures,” he told the pregnant woman in a calm, friendly voice. “One of which was what to do when a woman went into intense labor.”

  There was still skepticism in her eyes. “You...swear?” she demanded.

  He told himself that she was scared and tha
t made him feel for her. “I swear,” he told her with all the solemnity he could manage.

  “O-KAY!” she screamed.

  Her contractions were coming closer and closer. There was hardly any time between them at this point. And this time, because he was close, she grabbed his hand and held on to it so hard Dugan thought his fingers were going to snap off.

  When the contraction passed and she breathed a little more regularly, she released his hand.

  Dugan flexed his fingers, surprised that he still could. “Hell of a grip you have there. What is your name, anyway?” he asked.

  He could tell by the way she was breathing that she was bracing herself. The next second, she was being seized by yet another massive contraction.

  “Scarlet,” she managed to say just before she was once again writhing in pain.

  She’d grabbed his hand again. This time he tried to go with it, waiting it out and hoping he still had use of his fingers when she finally let go. He felt really awful for her, and not too keen for himself, either.

  Dugan looked toward the backseat. It looked relatively empty. If he could just get this woman to go into the back, it would be better for both of them, given the situation.

  “Ideally, we should get you into the backseat. There’s a little more room to work with—”

  By the time the words were out of his mouth, she was arching her back again and definitely trying to get away from the pain, even as she tried not to scream at the top of her lungs.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” Dugan rethought the situation. He had to work with what he had. “Okay, I need you to lie on your back.”

  She was huffing, trying not to push. She didn’t want her baby born in a rental car. That wasn’t right. It was bad enough that it had been conceived in one. Her eyes shifted toward the cop.

  “That’s...how... I...got...this...WAY!” she ground out.

  He could tell that she wasn’t very happy with him. “You know, if this was just eight hours from now, that scream of yours would have brought a whole bunch of people running, but right now, I’m all you’ve got, so let’s see if we can get this done as painlessly as possible.”

  Too late Dugan realized what he’d said. “Sorry, wrong choice of words. Just lie back,” he told her again. “Please.”

  This time, she listened.

  He left the passenger door open so that he had some space to do what he needed to do. She didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Okay, I apologize ahead of time,” he told her.

  She was moaning loudly, trying her best not to scream, and he doubted if she’d really heard him, but that didn’t matter. He’d said it just to make sure he was covered.

  As swiftly as possible, he got rid of her underwear, pushed back the oversized blouse that was covering her swollen belly and took a closer look at what he was up against.

  “Good news, you’re crowning,” he told her.

  Her eyes felt wet and there was a ringing noise in her ears. She tried to concentrate on what he was telling her.

  “What’s...that?”

  He looked up and tried to smile encouragingly at her. “It means that you’re going to be a mama soon,” Dugan said.

  That wasn’t good enough. This pain was ripping her in half. “HOW... SOOON?”

  “Very soon,” he assured her. “As a matter of fact, it won’t be long now,” he said, feeling almost as amazed as he figured she probably was right about now. Hope you were right, Aunt Maeve. “Okay, Scarlet, when I tell you to push, I want you to push. Push!” he ordered.

  The woman grabbed on to part of the steering wheel with one hand and the back of the headrest with the other. Breathing hard, she arched and pushed down hard for all she was worth.

  Mentally, Dugan counted up to five.

  “Okay, stop. Stop!” he ordered her again when she didn’t. “Scarlet, I know this is hard, but you have to stop when I tell you to stop,” Dugan told the frazzled woman.

  The look she gave him said a lot more than she was able to at this point. It didn’t take him much to fill in the blanks.

  “Yes, I know, it’s your body, you’re in pain and I’m just the jerk issuing orders. But if you push too hard, you’re going to wind up tearing things I can’t repair here,” he warned her. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  Her eyes were on him and then she finally nodded.

  “Okay, ready?” he asked. She looked at him with wide eyes and he told her, “Push!”

  “I...am!” she cried, squeezing her eyes closed as she pushed down for all she was worth.

  She fully expected this to be it—but it wasn’t.

  She fell back against the seat cushion, breathing hard and ready to give up.

  As if sensing what was going on through her head, Dugan told her, “You can do this, Scarlet. You know you can. C’mon, just one more time.”

  “I...don’t...believe...you,” she whimpered, panting and trying very hard to catch her breath.

  Her head was spinning, making her feel as if she was going to go on like this forever, in pain and pushing until she died.

  “C’mon, Scarlet, you’re made of better stuff than this. Just one more time,” Dugan urged her, repeating the words he’d already used.

  “I...hate...you!”

  “I can live with that,” he told her. “Now push!” he ordered.

  She had no choice. It was as if the baby had taken control of her instead of the other way around. The baby was pushing its way out.

  “It’s...coming!”

  “It sure is,” Dugan agreed, excited. “One more push,” he told her. “Just one more—that’s it,” he encouraged. “That’s it!”

  And then, just like that, he found himself holding a baby in his hands. For a second, Dugan was in complete, mind-numbing awe.

  Despite everything he’d told her, he had never been in this position before. He’d never actually had to put his training—which was far from recent—to use like this before.

  And then Dugan came to life.

  “Here,” he told the brand-new mother, placing the baby on her stomach. “Hold her and don’t move,” he ordered.

  “It’s a girl?” the woman asked him, relief highlighted in her face.

  “Oh, yeah,” he answered, realizing that he hadn’t said that before. “It’s a girl.”

  The next moment, he was taking out a knife from his pocket. It had been a gift from his mother for his fourteenth birthday, the last gift she had ever given him and he was never without it.

  “Do you have a paperclip?” he asked the new mother.

  She was holding the baby in her arms, totally stunned and totally in love with the baby girl she was holding. She blinked as she looked up at him.

  “A what?”

  “A paperclip,” he repeated. “I’m going to need something to temporarily stem any blood that might start flowing from the cut.” Dugan was already several steps ahead in his mind.

  “What blood?” she asked, looking at the baby, panicking. “Is there blood?”

  “No, but there will be when I cut the cord,” he told her.

  “Oh.” She thought for a moment, then asked, “Will a hairclip do?”

  He put his hand out. “It might. Let me see it.”

  “It’s in my hair,” the woman told him. She was still having trouble catching her breath. “You’re going to have to get it out,” she told him, almost apologizing. “My hands are full.”

  He grinned at her. “Right.”

  Leaning over the baby and looking closely at the new mother’s head, he saw the hairclip. She’d had it loosely holding back her dark-blond hair. He took it out as best he could, trying not to pull. He failed.

  “Sorry,” he apologized for the umpteenth time. “Got it,” he told her. “Okay, now for the last part.”

&nbs
p; She eyed the knife, her apprehension growing again. “Is this going to hurt her?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Dugan said it in such a way that she felt she could believe him. “Okay,” she said tentatively.

  Taking the knife back in his hand, he quickly cut the cord, then swiftly placed the hairclip just at the baby’s end of it. Once he was sure the clip would hold—he watched it for a minute—he stripped off his hoodie.

  “Now what are you doing?” the woman asked him, not sure what to think.

  He had delivered her baby, but she knew nothing about this man, other than he’d said he was a cop. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. But even if he was one, that still wasn’t enough to convince her that everything else was all right.

  She looked up at him now, wondering if she could get away with her baby if she had to.

  “It’s chilly,” Dugan told her. “The baby’s going to need something wrapped around her while we wait for the ambulance,” he explained.

  “The ambulance?” she repeated. She’d forgotten about that. Forgotten about everything except for this baby she was now holding.

  “Unless you’d rather stay here for a while,” Dugan told her, looking perfectly serious.

  No, it was definitely better for her to be around other people. “No, I—”

  “I’m kidding, Scarlet,” he told her, waving away his previous words. “Just hang on. We’ll get you and your girl to the hospital and all of this will seem like just one bad dream,” he promised.

  “No, I didn’t mean that—” the woman began, but Dugan was already on the phone.

  Holding up his hand as a silent request that she should hang on to her thoughts until he was able to get off the phone, he started to talk to the person on the other end.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a female dispatcher asked.

  “This is Detective Dugan Cavanaugh,” he said, then gave the woman on the other end of the phone his badge number. “I need a bus sent out right away to the corner of Dyer and Santa Rosa. I’ve got a mother and a baby here.” He smiled at them as he said it. “The city just gained a new citizen about three minutes ago. Mother and baby seem to be doing fine, but I’ll leave that up to you to determine,” he told dispatch.