“I mean it,” she whispered sadly, her voice tight and quavering.
“You mean what?” He couldn’t remember what she’d said. “I’m sorry, but I need you to bend your knees, spread your legs, and—” He lifted the sheet to take care of business. Not a second too soon. The tiniest head of dark brown hair had crowned, as well as a trickle of blood and...
Shit. It’s coming. What do I do? Adam clamped down on his bottom lip as he watched the miracle of childbirth. Man, that’s gotta hurt.
Shannon writhed, clutching her backside with both hands. She leaned forward and—
Whoosh. Adam caught the smallest human being he’d ever seen in his life, a very tiny, very perfect baby boy. The world flooded with light, but it wasn’t from the sun. Oh no. This light was more pure. Brighter. Whiter. It seemed to pour straight down from heaven on this warm, wet, bloody, and reverent man-child. Brilliantly, awesomely precious.
Adam held his breath, afraid to disturb the spirit this birth had brought with it. Time stood still. Hallelujahs bubbled up in his heart with this fragile, little guy in his big, callused hands. The perfect juxtaposition of light and dark, this newborn life so pure and clean in his scarred, ruggedized warrior’s hands. Hands that had taken life. Fingers that had pulled the triggers of more guns than he could recall. Now holding this perfect child. This brand new—life.
The tiniest feet he’d ever seen in all of his years nestled snug against a skinny butt, the infant still very much in the fetal position. Adam wanted to sing for joy, but the child hadn’t made a sound. He held the baby’s chest to his ear and listened intently. No breath. Not even a whisper. He panicked. Not on my watch.
Carefully, he turned the boy face-down in his hand. Adam spread his fingers so the infant’s head and neck were supported between them, his mouth and nose exposed. Very gently, he massaged a tiny circle between fragile shoulder blades. “Come on, little guy. Breathe for me. You can do it.”
Nothing.
No! Adam commanded the universe. Not today. This baby will not die.
Yet he trembled at the very real knowledge that Shannon might have delivered a stillborn. “Come on, little guy,” he whispered against the babe’s bloody cheek, massaging what he hoped was life into this man-child. “Breathe. Your mama really needs you.”
Shannon whimpered. “Is it alive?”
A tiny gasp answered. A sputter.
“Talk to him again, Shannon. He knows your voice.”
“No,” she murmured softly. Sadly. “You’re wrong.”
The infant jerked in Adam’s hand and wiggled like that gentle touch on his back was extremely uncomfortable. “Good boy,” Adam crooned. “You can do it.”
Another careful circle with just the tip of his index finger, and finally, the baby sputtered and coughed. He opened his eyes and cried. THEE best sound in the whole world.
Adam grinned. Turning to Shannon, he raised her son up so she could see him. “It’s a boy,” he said proudly. “You have a son, Shannon.”
She shook her head and refused to look. “No.”
He remembered then. Oh, yeah. She doesn’t want this baby. We’ll just see about that. “It’s okay. It’s perfectly natural. Don’t worry. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Adam laid her newborn child on her stomach. He had work to do, even though he hadn’t a clue exactly what that work was. He knew the basics; he’d seen the movies. There was still an umbilical cord, and a placenta, but real life was different. Shannon needed to be cleaned, but more importantly, she needed to want that baby. The sooner, the better.
Man, was he pumped. A baby! A beautiful baby boy!
He hurried back to Izza and Connor’s three-walled hut and brought Izza’s first-aid kit to Shannon’s side, along with another piece of the best damned parachute on the planet. The tiny child still lay untouched and unloved. His hands and feet jerked. He whimpered.
Adam kept one eye on the newest addition to his team while he tied off the umbilical cord and severed son from mother with a quick slice from Ramsey’s knife. The little guy mewed with such a scratchy voice. He didn’t sound much like a baby at all, more like a creaky door.
Shannon hadn’t made a move, other than to cross her arms over her chest. In doing so, she’d effectively created a wall between herself and her son. She tucked her fingers into her armpits, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping though. No sleeping woman bit her lip like she was biting hers. If she’d only touched that tiny baby boy, Adam knew she’d fall in love with him. He bided his time.
The placenta came next. Adam quickly removed it from the scene. Very discreetly, he finished cleaning her, which probably added to her embarrassment. She’d covered her eyes with one forearm, so Adam hurried. He wiped her down and applied a nice thick bandage-type pad to her female parts. He had no idea how to hold it in place, but once she lowered her legs, the problem solved itself.
The beauty of the moment didn’t escape Adam. His initial panic had evolved into a tremendous feeling of honor at assisting this frightened new mother in delivering such a perfect little man from her body. It was a miracle, plain and simple. He wouldn’t trade it for anything, not even his best HALO jump.
New life had brought an unexpected rush to an otherwise downer of a day. His heart pumped like a happy beast in his chest at what he’d witnessed. Adam turned his attention to the still unclaimed child.
“One of those linen napkins from the galley will make a good baby blanket. What do you think?” He tried to keep the conversation light. After her heartwarming prayer over Donavan’s grave, this side of Shannon wasn’t what he’d expected. She was better than this. He needed her to come to that conclusion on her own, but how?
After washing the tiny fellow with the lukewarm spring water, he dried him gently, using Shannon’s stomach for a changing table. She might as well get used to it. Her son was there, hopefully to stay.
The linen napkins made perfect baby accessories. Adam easily fashioned another into a diaper, but he had to cut it in fourths, and even then, it was still too large for this preemie. The tiny guy squirmed and let out another creaky, crabby screech.
“You know what? I’m going to call you Squeaks,” Adam told the little fellow as he tucked him into his first and only baby blanket. It seemed fitting that the linens were embroidered with an elegant R in the corner. R for Reagan. “Squeaks Reagan. Yup. That’s your name from now on. That’s who you are.”
He’d learned long ago that the best way to win an argument wasn’t to argue, so Adam sat next to Shannon with Squeaks bundled in the crook of his arm. Snuggling a three-pound baby boy, if he weighed that much, was a feat unto itself. The bundle took up all of six inches of Adam’s muscular arm. It felt as if he were snuggling a hamburger instead of a football, and not a quarter-pounder, either. Squeaks was a plain burger. No cheese. No pickles. No lettuce or onions.
“How are you doing?” he asked the unwilling mother.
“Fine,” Shannon whispered, her voice tight, and her eyes still closed.
“I’m guessing you didn’t know you were pregnant, did you?”
“I found out,” she said sadly, “the day I met you.”
“So that’s what morning sickness looks like. You were pretty green.” He meant to tease her out of this conundrum she’d gotten herself into.
“I guess.”
“Well, you done good, Shannon. Real good. This little guy’s smaller than one of my old coonhound’s puppies, but he’s breathing, and he’s going to be just fine.”
Adam thought back to Mable Lou, the best coonhound in South Carolina. She hadn’t wanted her first litter neither, just ran around the yard scared, yelping and dropping her puppies as if they were what she usually dropped in the yard. Of course, he’d run behind her, collecting every little puppy in his mom’s laundry basket until he could corner Mable Lou and get her settled down. It had taken a few minutes, but once she’d decided those ten puppies weren’t so scary after all, she’d been the best mother. It just
took her a spell to wrap her head around the notion of motherhood. That was all.
The same thing was going on with Shannon. She’d been plenty brave and tough for days now. She was just tired and overwhelmed. She’d come around.
He gazed at the tiny new life cupped in the palm of his hand. Squeaks lay with his arms crossed like skinny hockey sticks across his chest, all five fingers on each hand stretched wide. He looked more like a miniature old man, his translucent baby skin full of wrinkles. Tiny blue veins spider-webbed over his bald head. Now that he was breathing on his own, Adam checked for toes and fingers. He relaxed. The skinny little guy had ten of each, all except for that other little guy part. He only had one of them, and Adam was proud as hell. Squeaks had a big one for such a little guy.
Pressing the boy against his ear, Adam held his breath until he heard the soft pitter-pat of another heart. He closed his eyes, grinning like a fool. Who wouldn’t? This brand new heartbeat was the coolest sound on the planet.
Adam couldn’t help himself. The songs bubbled out of him, a stream filled to overflowing breaching its banks. First, a soft version of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” then “Danny Boy.” Squeaks calmed with the crazy choice of music.
Adam racked his memory for others, settling for “Itsy Bitsy Spider” when he couldn’t remember the beginning of “The Minstrel Boy.” Squeaks sputtered once, then yawned, and Adam’s heart was full. Despite everything else that had happened on this speck of sand in the Pacific, this was a good day.
A damned good day.
Shannon knew it would be a boy. Somehow, she just knew.
She couldn’t win. It was here, and Adam was loving it as if it were the dearest thing ever. Only it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It was Brit’s son. She thought she’d feel different when it was actually born, but the spot Brit had killed in her heart was still dead. The thing in Adam’s hands couldn’t bring it back to life. It would only make everything worse. Stop hugging it, Adam. Set it down somewhere. Walk away. Let it go.
The baby wasn’t supposed to be due for two, maybe three months. She’d planned to be rescued and home before this happened. Why was it here now? Why did it come so early? She hadn’t gotten used to the idea of being pregnant yet, and now this? It wasn’t fair.
Adam sang to it with the deepest, softest baritone that all but melted her heart. His southern drawl had barely surfaced until now. She looked twice at the gentle man streaked with ash and grime singing so sweetly to what was most likely a dying infant. And yes, beast and baby made for an awesome tender sight, despite the bleakness of the day. Strange. He actually knew lullabies, singing ‘too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra’ as if it was no big deal for a grown man to nurture a child, then “Rock-A-Bye Baby” like he meant for the boy to live.
Shannon stilled. Adam seemed an unlikely gentle giant. He’d been built to play tackle football, charge through walls, and fight to the death. Yet he held the child as if it was the most precious thing ever, and he sang to it as if it could hear him. He had his nose pressed into the linen napkin, softly crooning with his lips on its forehead, rocking back and forth and smiling.
How long could it live? Maybe hours? Days? It’s awfully small. Nothing that tiny can live for long. Can it? Will it?
Adam started the sweetest version of “You Are My Sunshine,” his voice mellow and rumbling. The way he sang those familiar words, as if he poured his heart into every sweet note from his throat, touched her. He wasn’t just singing to it. He was loving it. Encouraging it to live. The tender melody came from deep inside of him, like a promise. A vow.
Shannon wriggled against the ground, her shoulder blades uncomfortable and her back sore. How embarrassing. And yet, her unseemly declaration that she didn’t want this little boy child embarrassed her more. She’d wanted that sweet little gummy bear before? Why not now that it was here? She honestly didn’t know, except that it came so fast. So unexpectedly quick.
Note by note, Adam’s deep baritone dripped honey and warmth into her soul, drawing her into the tiny circle he’d created for himself and that little boy-child. She didn’t want to go into that circle with them. It would hurt. It had always hurt, the abysmal natural order of things, of man, woman, and child. All of her life it had done nothing but hurt. Her mother died. Her father rejected her. Brit rejected her. Family meant nothing but pain and loneliness and hurt and yet…
She craved it most of all, and she knew that she did. It was a hunger she’d lived with most of her life, an unquenchable thirst to belong—somewhere. To be unconditionally loved by someone instead of just her chauffeur.
When a tiny pink hand jerked into view above the linen napkin, all five fingers stiff and straight, Shannon couldn’t look away. Something was happening and she was caught in the ebb and flow emanating from Adam. Tendrils of his gentle but very masculine call to order had breached her defenses, and flooded the barren place inside of her, that hard spot deep in her soul where her father’s deceit and Brit’s lies lingered, reminding her of pain and heartache. The unwritten story of her life. That place.
Adam started a quiet chorus of “Ninety-one Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” still smiling that glorious smile she’d only seen once before on his handsome face. He’d been holding her in his arms then. And now he held—it.
Was there any possible scenario where this could be a good thing? Where it could survive such an early birth? Where she could turn the cursed Reagan luck into something better for this next generation?
Its tiny fingers reached up to the edge of Adam’s whiskered chin, and her heart melted. Those five little fingers clutched the man who’d saved its life, and it seemed to recognize that fact. It made a tiny sound, but within the scratchy infantile voice of Brit’s offspring, she heard the plea intended for her. I am so little. The world is so big. Where’s my mama?
Inexplicable warmth surged through Shannon’s heart, igniting a firestorm of maternal instinct. That tiny hand with five tiny fingers belonged to her son. She wanted it—him—to live. He’s my son. My baby.
It hit her hard. She’d called her baby it, just like Brit had. What was she thinking? He was Squeaks, not just an it, and he’d never be anything like his father. No. He’d be like Adam, if only because Adam was the man sitting there with him, pouring his love into that tiny newborn chalice that had just breathed his first breath. And her baby boy drank it in, the same as she did.
“You named him?” she asked, ashamed of her confused feelings.
Adam turned to her with that otherworldly light in his eyes. He grinned and held her baby boy alongside his cheek. “You see that pretty lady there, Squeaks? That’s your mama. Isn’t she the most beautiful woman in the world?”
Adam’s blue eyes were red-rimmed and extra shiny. He’d been crying. Rivulets of tender emotion dripped off his chin. With the back of his hand, he wiped them away, but it only smeared the black mask of a warrior. Her heart stuttered. No man had ever looked as masculine as he did then and there.
Hunger for that little child in his large hands roared through her soul.
“Hey, Mama. Don’t cry.” Adam leaned in with the baby carefully secured in the crook of his arm. “It’s okay to be scared. Us boys are scared, too. It’s not every day we get to do something great and wonderful like this, you know. You wanna hold him?”
She nodded, feeling like the biggest failure on the planet. “Yes, please. Give me my baby.”
Passing the boy into her shaking hands, Adam bowed his forehead to hers and kissed her nose. “Congratulations, Shannon Reagan,” he said huskily. “He looks just like you.”
She choked at his kind words, more so when the weight of that tiny infant nestled safe and sound against her. Like a mother bear, she wrapped her firstborn son inside of her arms and breathed the smell of him into her soul. My son.
“I have a son, Adam,” she announced to the man who already knew, a catch in her voice. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he muttered. “I’m just the wide receiver. I caught
what you threw. You’re the quarterback.”
She honestly didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but it sounded wonderfully masculine and exactly like Adam. He’d not only caught Squeaks, he’d caught her. “I love you,” she said, her heart full and her lips loose.
“You do, huh?” Adam still hung over her, his elbow in the sand beside her and his face warm and tender and close. “I meant it, you know. You are beautiful.”
Very slowly, he leaned in. She moved Squeaks to the side and watched Adam descend, his dark blue gaze full of that same glorious light of love. He palmed her cheek and his thumb wiped the tears out from under her eye. She prepared as much as she could, her barriers breached and her heart willing to try again, but he paused, and she couldn’t understand how he would want to kiss her. Not then. Not after she’d rejected her child.
“May I?” he breathed huskily.
She’d barely nodded when his lips were on hers, soft, warm and exquisitely tender. His tongue traced her mouth while his breath warmed her soul—not what she’d expected from the man who’d witnessed her cowardice. But then he lifted her and her baby onto his lap. She was a mess, but he didn’t seem to care.
Adam pressed her under his chin, and rocked her and Squeaks as if it was his place to do so. Like he was father and husband. He smelled of sweat and sand and this forsaken desert island. Squeaks smelled of blood and birth, but both scents were the same. They were life. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Shannon snuggled her tiny firstborn child against her heart, amazed at the swell of motherly love for him. And then she heard it. Mingled with the steady beat of a very strong man were the soft strains of an old English melody. “Greensleeves.” Only he sang the Christmas version. “What Child is This?”
Chapter Seventeen
Adam couldn’t stop smiling. His cheeks seemed pinched in perpetual bliss. Not his child. Not his wife. Still—best day ever.
He’d heated more water over the coals and got Shannon cleaned up again, this time with some of that body wash Izza had packed into that carry-on of hers. That woman had literally thought of everything, and Adam was glad for the very feminine trait. Most guys would’ve maybe packed enough underwear and socks. She’d packed a little bit of everything.
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