“Cash?” she said again. “Are you all right?”
He shook off the nightmare. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice unsteady.
“You are not fine.” Nadine sat beside him and ran her hand down his back and up again, her fingers easy against his spine. “You’re trembling.”
“It was just”—a memory, a nightmare—“hell, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
He had never before questioned what was real and what was not. His world was black and white. There was no room for gray, for hazy nightmares that were part memory, part nightmarish fantasy.
Nadine laid her lips on his back, a brief, comforting kiss. “Believe that I love you.”
He shook his head gently. No, that was too easy. Too impossible.
“Believe that I wasn’t truly alive until I came here and fell in love with you all over again.”
He turned and took her in his arms, pulled her around so she’d be forced to look him in the eye. The only light in the room was carried on pale moonbeams shining through the window, but it was enough. He saw her beautiful face and knew that she was telling the truth, or what she believed to be the truth. He could also see that this wasn’t easy for her. She didn’t know what to expect next, but he knew too well how he had to respond.
“I can’t love you back.”
She didn’t flinch or cry or pull away from him. Instead, she laid a hand on his cheek and whispered, “I know you think you can’t. I believe you’re wrong.”
He did love her. Deep down, he had no doubt that was true. But it didn’t matter. She thought it would be so easy for him to change his name and his appearance and become someone else. Someone who didn’t live his life waiting for a bullet. Someone who didn’t put anyone he loved in danger.
But he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, deny who he was and what he’d become.
He felt too good when he was with Nadine, and that meant he’d let his guard down. If he let himself claim her, if he allowed himself to love her, one day a man like the one in Webberville would come to their door. He’d be sleeping deeply with Nadine in his arms, and he wouldn’t be fast enough. Content, happy, he’d grow lazy and vulnerable.
And when the door burst open and a man with a pistol appeared there, he wouldn’t be the only one who ended up dead.
It came to him, then, what he had to do. He’d hand the job of curing JD of his obsession over to Reese or Sullivan or Nate. Nate would know what to do. Any one of them would do a better job than he could, anyway. He’d tell Nadine that he had somewhere to be, and he’d ride away. She would stay in Rock Creek until Hannah delivered, and he wouldn’t come back until she and JD had gone home to Marianna.
And he needed to go today, dammit. Before he came to depend on her any more than he already did.
He wanted to love her one more time before he left. He pulled her bare body tighter against his, lowered his mouth to hers. He didn’t want to talk about the damned dream, or love, or leaving. He just wanted to be inside her. She melted against him as they kissed, knowing too well what he wanted. What he needed.
They both jumped back when a loud thud sounded at her door. The door shook as someone pounded a fist there.
Cash jumped from the bed and reached for his guns. The fact that he had to cross the room to reach his holster and the weapons there was proof that he’d already lost his edge. As he grabbed a weapon from the holster, a voice called out.
“Nadine?”
Cash relaxed and returned the six-shooter to its holster. Jed.
The big man didn’t stop pounding. “Wake up, Nadine. It’s Hannah. I think it’s time.”
“I’ll be right there,” Nadine called, stepping from the bed and grabbing her wrapper, slipping it on and pulling it snug at her waist.
And still Jed pounded. “Hurry. She—” The door gave way under his incessant pounding, swinging sharply inward and banging against the inner wall.
Jed stood there, wearing his trousers and nothing else, his fist raised and his eyes on a naked Cash.
“She doesn’t look too good,” Jed finished in a lowered voice.
“I’ll be right there,” Nadine promised, and Cash crossed the room to close the door.
Well, hell.
* * *
Jed was right, Nadine thought as she stepped away from her patient. Hannah didn’t look good. Giving birth was never easy work, but she had a bad feeling about this one. As the hours of Hannah’s labor wore on, her face went too pale. She didn’t make enough noise. She should be screaming.
Mary and Eden were there to assist, had been in and out of the room all morning. Jed refused to leave. He hovered over Hannah and got in Nadine’s way at every turn, and was almost as pale as the pregnant woman on the bed.
A number of towels lined a laundry basket awaiting the arrival of the Rourke baby or babies. Midday sunlight streamed into the room, marking the hours that had passed.
Jed Rourke left his wife’s side and stalked across the room to stand before Nadine. “Do something,” he hissed.
“There’s nothing more I can do,” Nadine said, feeling helpless as she waited.
“You have to be able to do something!” Jed’s hands balled into fists as he glared down at her.
Hannah screamed. It wasn’t a strong cry, but she definitely drew Nadine’s attention away from the impatient husband.
Again Jed got in the way. It was almost as if he were trying to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Come on, Jedidiah,” Eden said softly. “You need to go wait downstairs.”
He shook off the suggestion.
Mary stepped in. “The boys are in the lobby. You kept a couple of them company while they went through this. Let them do the same for you.”
Again, he dismissed the suggestion and bent over Hannah, almost as if he were willing her to be strong, to have the baby now.
Nadine shoved him aside. “Get out,” she said firmly, not bothering to be as nice as the other ladies.
“I will not.”
Nadine threw open the door. All morning, whenever Mary or Eden had opened that door, Cash had been there. Peeking in, pacing in the hallway. In the dark hours of the morning he’d pulled on his trousers and shirt and boots, but the rest of his clothing and his weapons were still in her room, just across the hall.
She kept expecting the door to open on an empty hallway, but he was always there.
“Cash,” she said sharply. “Get your friend out of this room. Now.”
Cash stepped to the doorway. Judging by the expression on his face, he knew making Jed Rourke do anything he didn’t want to do was going to be impossible. “Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s go make some coffee.”
“I’m not leaving,” Jed insisted.
“Jedidiah,” Eden began.
The big man spun on his sister. “I am not leaving!”
Cash stepped into the already crowded room and laid a hand on Jed’s arm. While everything else was falling apart, Cash remained calm. “Come on,” he said again. “Let Nadine do her job.”
Jed looked down at a pale, sweating Hannah. “Go with Cash,” she whispered. She tried to give him a smile, but it didn’t quite work. “We’ll be fine here. This is woman’s work, Jed. No place for a man.”
“I don’t want to leave,” he said softly.
“We won’t go far,” Cash said calmly. “We’ll sit in the hall so we’ll be right here, close by.” He turned Jed around, and the big man actually allowed that to happen. “We’ll be right here, and when the baby is born, Nadine will tell us, won’t you, Nadine?”
“Yes. The minute the baby is born, I’ll let you know.”
“If Hannah asks for me, you’ll holler for me, right?” Jed asked anxiously.
“Of course,” Nadine said as Cash led Jed into the hallway. Hannah screamed, and she closed the door on two very helpless-looking men.
* * *
Cash sat on the floor, his back to the wall, his eyes on Jed.
Jed sa
t, too, after a couple of hours of ceaseless pacing. Cash had tried to keep the expectant father downstairs, where the others guys came and went with words of encouragement and lighthearted teasing that didn’t go over well. Jed wanted to be as close to Hannah as he could be. His head hung between his knees, and whenever there was a cry from the room at his back he cringed. Hell, except for those flinches, he hadn’t moved for the past half hour. And he hadn’t asked once what the hell Cash had been doing in Nadine’s room.
Like he needed to ask.
“Do me a favor,” Cash said softly.
Jed lifted his head, moving slowly. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. “What do you want, runt?”
“Don’t tell anyone that I was in Nadine’s room last night.”
Jed planted cold blue eyes on Cash’s face. “What’s the matter?” he snapped. “Afraid people around here will start expecting you to behave like a decent sort just because you took up with an honest woman?”
“There is that,” Cash said with a half-smile, trying to be flippant. The smile didn’t last. “Mainly I don’t want JD to hear that his mother has taken up with the town scoundrel. He’s a good kid. I don’t want him... doubting his mother.”
Jed’s eyes widened just a little. “You’re worried about what the kid will think?”
“And about what the people in town will think of Nadine,” he added. “She’s a good person. She doesn’t need to have her name whispered in connection to mine.”
“Then you shoulda left her alone,” Jed growled.
“I know,” Cash sighed. “I wish I had.” I wish I could.
Jed leaned his head against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course, everyone that matters already knows.”
Cash sighed. Of course they did. He’d known that all along. Trying to keep a secret around here was damn near impossible. Still, he knew his friends and their wives wouldn’t spread malicious gossip. They were like family, and family secrets stayed close.
Jed looked like he was being tortured, and Cash knew exactly how the big guy felt. Battle was easy compared to this. Helplessness was damn hard for men who were accustomed to taking charge.
What Jed needed was something to think about besides what was happening on the other side of that wall. “The plans for the wedding are going well,” he said softly.
“I shoulda told you to forget it, once Nadine ordered Hannah to bed.”
“I thought you might want to have the ceremony anyway, after the baby is born. A celebration of sorts.” Jed actually smiled. “That might be a good idea.”
“Down by the river,” Cash continued. Hannah screamed, and Jed flinched. “At sunrise,” he continued. “You know, down there by that big flat rock that juts out over the water. The ceremony will be followed by a picnic. White cake and champagne, with lemonade for the little ones.”
Jed closed his eyes as if he were picturing the scene in his mind.
“Nate will perform the ceremony, of course,” Cash continued. “And I assume Millie and Fiona will expect to be flower girls. Matching pink dresses for those two, I imagine.”
Jed actually smiled, until Hannah screamed. Loud, this time.
“Son of a bitch!” Jed said, jumping to his feet. Cash was right behind him. “I am not going to sit here while...”
The door opened briefly, and a wanly smiling Eden glanced out. “It’s a boy,” she said. Jed stepped forward, and Eden slammed the door in his face.
Jed, shut out of the room once again, turned around with a crooked smile on his pale, stubbled face. “A boy,” he said. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” Cash said with a grin of his own. “Congratulations.”
“They’ll let me in soon, right?” Jed asked, glancing nervously at the door.
Hannah screamed again, making it clear she was not done. There was a pause, and the baby’s cry sounded again.
The door opened and Mary stuck her head out. “Another boy,” she said quickly, and then she slammed the door.
Jed went impossibly white. “Two boys. Well, Nadine said it might be twins.”
“Two at a time,” Cash said with a smile. “I’m impressed.”
“Damn right,” Jed said, sounding tough even though he swayed on his feet.
The minutes passed, and Jed paced with an increasing turbulence. “What’s taking so long? Shouldn’t they be done by now?” He laid horrified eyes on Cash. “Something’s wrong with Hannah.”
Nothing could stop Jed from opening the door, but Cash did try. The door swung open, and in a matter of seconds they took it all in. Mary on the floor by the laundry basket, Eden at the head of the bed, holding Hannah’s hand, and a bloody Nadine bent over her task at the end of the bed.
“That’s too much blood,” Jed whispered.
“Get out,” Nadine snapped without lifting her head from her duty.
Cash grabbed Jed’s arm and pulled him into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
“Everything’s fine,” he said calmly.
“That was not fine,” Jed whispered. “What I just saw wasn’t anything close to fine!”
“Nadine knows what she’s doing,” Cash said, trying to keep his voice low and easy.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a nitwit!” Jed shouted. “Hannah is in there bleeding to death, and I can’t do a damn thing to help her.” He looked like he wanted to hit something. Hard. “I don’t need you to pat me on the back and tell me everything’s going to be fine when I can see for myself that—”
The door opened again, and Eden stuck her head out. She wasn’t smiling this time. “It’s a girl,” she said before retreating into the room again.
“I thought they said two boys,” Jed said, his voice a croak.
“They did.”
“Two boys and a girl?” The big man slumped to the floor, his back to the wall, his knees drawn up. “Three? Good God, three babies. That can’t be right. We must’ve misunderstood.”
A moment later the door opened. Jed could not see from his position on the floor, but Cash had, for a few seconds, a clear view of Nadine bent over a very still Hannah.
Eden stepped into the hallway, the laundry basket in her hands. Inside the laundry basket, three very tiny babies were nestled in blankets and lying on a bed of soft towels.
She placed the basket on the floor beside Jed and sat beside him. Eden, who was always so full of energy, looked dead on her feet.
Jed stared into the basket. “There are three,” he said in wonder. “And they’re so small,” he whispered.
“Small, yes,” Eden said. “But Nadine says they’re perfectly well formed and healthy. We’ll have to keep them warm, and—”
Jed’s head snapped up. “How’s Hannah? You haven’t said a word about Hannah.”
Eden looked suddenly uncomfortable. “It was a long labor, and there were a few complications. Nadine thinks Hannah will be fine.”
“She thinks?” Jed glanced down at the babies, reached out an incredibly large finger and touched the cheek of each baby. Then he stood up and looked over at Cash. “Try to stop me and I’ll break your arm.”
“I won’t try to stop you.” Like he could!
Jed opened the door and stepped inside, and this time when Nadine lifted her head, she did not order him out.
* * *
It had been touch and go for hours, but Hannah was finally looking good. Jed had been an angel through it all, holding Hannah’s hand, telling her he loved her and that the babies were beautiful. Remaining calm through it all.
The day had come and gone and the sky was dark again, and Nadine was so tired, she could barely think straight. She sat in a chair at the end of the bed. The sheets had been changed, the patient cleaned and dressed in a fresh nightgown, and the three babies, wrapped in little blankets, were currently nestled in their father’s arms as he sat at his wife’s bedside. Hannah was sound asleep.
“Do you know how rare triplets are?” she whispered.
Jed nodded.
“The fact that Hannah is thirty-two and that twins run in her family make her more likely to have a multiple birth, but... I never expected this.”
Jed smiled tiredly. “Neither did we.”
Time to get down to business. Oh, she hated this part. “There were some complications.”
“I know,” Jed breathed.
“And I have to tell you”—she took a deep breath.
Heavens, she did not want to do this—“Hannah can’t have any more babies.”
Jed lifted his head and laid frightened eyes on her. “You mean, if she tries to have another baby it’ll be dangerous?”
“No,” Nadine said tiredly, realizing she’d chosen her words poorly. “Hannah will be unable to conceive again. There was some damage...”
“Thank God,” Jed said, closing his eyes in evident relief. “I couldn’t go through this again; I swear I couldn’t bear it.” He glanced down at the babies in his arms. “Three kids will be plenty for us.” He barely lifted one baby with a shift of his arm. “This is Vincent,” he said, “the name we agreed on for a boy. Since he was the first born, he’s Vincent. This little guy,” he said with another shift of his arm, “will have to wait on his name. Hannah would never forgive me if I named him while she was asleep.” With a soft smile he leaned over and kissed the third baby’s forehead. “And this is Annabelle. Annabelle Nadine Rourke.”
Nadine smiled, relieved that he had taken the news so well. Some men would not have. “Thank you.”
Jed lifted his head and laid very serious, very blue eyes on her. “No,” he said softly. “Thank you. If you ever need anything, anything at all, you ask and it’s yours.”
Can you make Cash love me? She kept that question to herself.
* * *
Cash paced in the lobby. Damn, this place was quiet. Had it ever been like this before? Dark and silent, echoing like a tomb.
He spun around when he heard footsteps on the stairs, expecting, hoping it was Nadine. But Eden, with Alex in her arms, walked gently down the stairs, her husband behind her.
Cash (The Rock Creek Six Book 6) Page 14