“But I haven’t closed the shop yet,” Erin protested.
Terry waved Erin toward the door.
“Don’t worry about a thing. If you’d acted normally in the first place and given birth today, I’d be running the show, anyway. There are only a couple of hours left. Juanita and I can handle everything.” Terry inclined her head so that her voice carried to the back room. “Can’t we, Juanita?”
A small, dark-haired woman of about forty stuck out her head from the rear of the store. She was holding the last of the pink roses, which she was fashioning into an arrangement that was destined for the glass vase on the worktable.
“Is she still here?” Juanita looked at Terry incredulously. “I thought she was supposed to have gone by now.” She shook her head in disapproval as she looked accusingly at Erin.
Erin exhaled loudly, but there was no missing the pleasure in her eyes. “That’s what I love, support from the people around me,” she murmured to Brady.
In reply, Terry handed Erin’s shoulder bag to Brady and gestured toward the door.
Brady threaded the strap onto Erin’s shoulder, ushering her along. “C’mon, I’ve got reservations for us for five-thirty.”
He was serious. “Where are we going?” As if she didn’t know.
“Aphrodite’s.” It seemed appropriate, seeing as how this was also their one-week anniversary. “Gus said he might drop by later,” he added.
She laughed, twirling her bouquet in her fingers. “How romantic.”
Romance. Of course, she wanted a romantic dinner. How romantic would it be for her if there were other people present, he thought ruefully. “If you don’t want him to—”
Erin laid a finger to his lips, freezing the apology. The man was almost too perfect, she thought. “No, it was a joke. I like Gus. Demi, too.” She knew it was important to him that she like his friends, and she was glad that she could be honest about it.
“You can always send him here,” Terry called after them as they walked out the door. “I could use a curly-headed Greek with eyes like midnight in my life.”
The door closed behind them. “She likes him,” Erin told Brady.
His car was parked at the curb. He ushered her over to it, then opened the door. His eyes glinted. “How can you tell?”
Humor, she thought. He had a really nice sense of humor. That hadn’t been in plentiful supply the first time around.
The first time around. The phrase echoed in her head. It sounded as if she had had him recycled. In a way, she supposed he had been. The best parts had remained, augmented by a whole new side of him that had never been there before.
Erin couldn’t help wondering just how much would remain once Brady remembered everything.
For the first time since Brady had returned, she wasn’t all that certain she wanted him to remember. Perhaps it was selfish of her—perhaps?—but she had to admit, at least to herself, that she really did like him better this way.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Brady remarked as he drove down MacArthur Boulevard. At this hour, the traffic was heavy. It had absorbed his attention for a while. He glanced at Erin now. Was she feeling ill? “That isn’t like you.”
No, she supposed it wasn’t. “I’m counting my blessings.”
“Now that is like you.” It hadn’t taken him long at all to realize that she was optimism personified. “What’s the total?”
Lightly, Erin placed her hand on his arm. He glanced at her as he made a left turn. “Oh, I’d say it’s way past infinity.”
Infinity. He looked at her face and knew she actually meant that. “Do I fit in there anywhere?”
Was he serious? Erin stared at his profile. Yes, he probably was. “You’re right at the top of the list. You’re what makes it infinity.”
Erin sucked in her breath as another strange twinge hit her unexpectedly. Wow, this baby had a kick like a mule with steel-tipped boots.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Brady reconsidered, looking at Erin’s expression. Maybe he should just take her straight home and order in. “What’s wrong?”
It was all right now. Erin blew out a breath, steadying herself. He looked really worried, which she found endearing. It also made her feel guilty. Erin shook her head. “Just a twinge.”
Normal people had twinges. Pregnant women did not have twinges on their due date. They had warning signs. He debated turning around and going home. “What kind of twinge?”
She could tell by his tone what he was thinking. “Relax, this has been going on for two days now. It’s nothing, just another pain to add to the ever-growing list.” Erin ran her fingers along the swell of her stomach. Right about now, her abdomen felt as if the skin was stretched to its limit. “Having a baby might be natural, but it’s certainly not fun.”
No, he didn’t suppose that carrying one around for these last few months had been easy. Still, he liked the idea of her having a baby. Their baby. “Do you want to have any more children?”
More children. More swollen ankles. More morning sickness. More pain. Yes, probably. She grinned. “Let me have this one, okay, and I’ll get back to you on it.” The meaning behind his question suddenly hit her. She stared at him. “Why, do you?”
He turned into the parking lot behind Aphrodite’s, examining the idea. “I think so.” Brady parked between two sports cars, pulling up the hand brake. He sat for a moment, thinking. Imagining. “One thing I know for sure.” He smiled at her. “I definitely want to remember getting to that state the next time around.”
The words all but seduced her. She had a feeling in her heart that this Brady was a better lover than he had ever been. It certainly was something she was more than willing to find out.
She couldn’t believe the change that had come over him. Erin grinned to herself as Brady opened the door for her.
“Want to let me in on the joke?” He extended his hand to her. Erin wrapped her fingers around it and drew herself up slowly to her feet.
She supposed it was time to tell him everything. It was only fair. “You know that argument we had the last day?”
Her phrasing amused him. “You mean the one you said was about nothing?”
She supposed she had that one coming. “Yes, that’s the one. Well, it wasn’t about nothing.” She took a breath to fortify herself, for once hoping that what she said wouldn’t trigger anything in his mind. “It was about having children.”
There was something in her voice that alerted him. “What about having children?”
Erin looked up at the sky. There were no stars tonight. She would have thought there would be on Valentine’s Day, so that lovers could stop and make a wish. She licked her lips. There was no way to work up to this.
“You didn’t want any. You told me that you thought the world wasn’t a place that you wanted to bring children into.”
That sounded awfully callous to him. He tried to imagine himself saying something like that to her and couldn’t. “But you were pregnant then.”
“Yes, but you didn’t know that,” she reminded him.
He felt awful for her. Brady took her arm as they walked toward the restaurant. He could imagine just how she must have felt, hearing him say something like that.
“It must have been terrible for you.” She nodded. “How did you put up with me?”
She had no difficulty answering that, especially not now. Stopping on the steps before the restaurant, she touched his cheek. She hadn’t thought that she could ever love anyone as much as she did then, but she loved him even more now.
“Because I loved you, remember?”
Brady remembered because she had told him. He just didn’t understand why, despite her little explanation about the “X factor.” From the pieces he had put together, he sounded pretty damn stuffy.
Her words played themselves in his head like a delayed message. “Loved?”
Erin twirled the bouquet he had given her in her fingers. Terry, bless her, had placed the stems into a tiny plas
tic receptacle filled with water, and then subtly camouflaged it so that she could keep the flowers with her tonight. Terry knew how Erin’s mind worked.
Erin raised her eyes to his. “Love,” she amended. Maybe she should have waited until he told her first, but she had never been one to hold back. She didn’t now. “I love you.”
Incredibly moved, Brady threaded his hands through her hair. “And I—”
“Hey,” a loud voice boomed, shattering the moment. “Sorry to break up this little conversation, but are you going in there, or what? We’d like to get some dinner before we grow old.”
Brady and Erin turned to see a heavyset man standing behind them. An embarrassed-looking woman was on his arm. She shrugged a mute apology.
“We’re going in,” Brady told him, taking Erin’s hand. He pulled open the heavy wooden door.
She wished that the man had made his appearance just a minute later. A minute would have been long enough for Brady to tell her what she wanted to hear.
So much for hearing the words, Erin thought, resigned. Maybe later.
Please, later.
As she stepped inside the restaurant, the warm air immediately caressed her like an old friend. It was heavy with the scent of aromatic food mingling with the smell of candles and the presence of bodies.
Erin opened her coat, feeling a little too warm. Brady was leading her toward the back. It seemed very crowded tonight, she thought, looking around.
“We have the best table in the house,” he assured her, bringing her to a booth. He laid the “reserved” sign facedown on the edge of the table. “Away from the kitchen and the meandering traffic.” He waited until she had taken her seat before sliding in opposite her. “Tonight, I want you to myself.”
“I think Gus might have other ideas.” Erin nodded behind him. Brady turned around to see that Gus was on his way over.
“Oh.” He had completely forgotten about Gus. Brady wanted a few minutes alone with her to finish what he had started saying at the door. “I can send him off.”
She was touched that he offered. “In his own sister’s restaurant? I don’t think so.”
Besides, there would be time to be alone later. Right now, she just wanted to savor this completely new side of him. Brady hadn’t particularly enjoyed socializing before, and she enjoyed watching him with Gus, enjoyed the lighter side the other man brought out in him.
Gus joined them, surprising Erin with a small box of chocolates. “Oh, boy, more calories,” she teased. “Thank you, Gus, but shouldn’t you be saving this for your own girl?”
“By the time I find one, the candy will be stale,” he assured her. “You keep them.” He looked from Brady to Erin. “So, still no baby, eh?”
Erin shook her head as she looked down at her stomach. Another twinge passed through her like a swift-footed animal. She was pretty confident that she hadn’t winced.
“I think he or she’s decided that it’s safer in here.” Erin sighed. It was getting so that she couldn’t remember not being pregnant. She turned the conversation toward more interesting things. “So, why doesn’t a good-looking man like you have a date on Valentine’s Day?”
“Too many to choose from,” Gus quipped.
And none of them serious, he thought. Being the carefree bachelor was fun for a while, but now it had grown old. A lot of his friends were either getting married or already married and starting families of their own. Like Brady, he thought, looking at the man beside him. Oh, well, maybe his day would come soon.
“Poor baby,” Erin teased. He could be settled in an instant if he really wanted to be, she thought. He was that type. Right now, she figured, he just really didn’t want to. When he did, the right woman would be there, probably directly beneath his nose.
She shifted in her seat, wishing that there was a comfortable niche for her. But that continued to elude her these days.
“So, how’s my favorite valentine couple?” There was affection in Demi’s voice as she joined them. She nodded at her brother, her expression purposely solemn. “Gus.”
It drew out a satisfied grin from him. “She always gets grumpy when she has to serve me,” he confided to Erin.
Demi fisted her hand at her waist as she stepped back to look at her brother. “So, what’s changed since we were kids?” She looked at Erin. “Gus always liked bossing me around.”
Brady opened the menu out of habit, then closed it. He already knew what he wanted. The same thing he always had. He was a creature of habit. When he found something that he liked, he thought, looking at Erin, he stuck with it.
“It’s good for you,” Gus was saying. “Builds character.”
Demi rubbed Gus’s head. “Better to build it than to be it.” She looked at the others. Brady had his menu closed and Erin hadn’t opened hers. “So, what’ll you have?”
Erin opened her mouth to protest that for once in her pregnancy, she didn’t feel very hungry. But the words she was about to utter turned into a very audible moan as the twinge blossomed into something far more lethal, far more hot, twisting her into a knot.
Demi glanced around, hoping no one else heard. “Hey, the special of the house isn’t that bad,” she protested with a smile. Then her eyes narrowed. Even by candlelight, Erin’s complexion had grown very pale. She took her hand. “Erin? Are you all right?”
She couldn’t really answer that. “I’m not too sure,” Erin heard herself saying quietly. Everything felt a little out of focus. “I—oh!”
Her skin felt clammy, then burning hot. For just a moment, the room became blurry. All she saw was the yellow flame flickering above the candle. The room was shrinking down to a pinpoint. She struggled to keep the darkness from engulfing her.
Erin.
Her name.
Someone was calling for her. No, to her.
The darkness retreated, and Erin realized that Brady was repeating her name over and over again. Concern. She heard concern in his voice.
She mustered strength from somewhere, attempting to smile at him. “It’s okay. It’s nothing.”
“The hell it’s nothing.” Gus was sliding out of the booth, with Brady directly behind him.
“Cancel dinner, Demi,” Brady told her. “It’s time to take Erin to the hospital.”
They were forgetting the most important player, Erin thought, struggling to focus on them. “Hey.” Both men looked at her. “I’m the one who says it’s time,” she informed them.
Another very strange twinge began in her loins and ran a course down her legs, bearing down hard.
“Time,” she breathed.
Gus nodded as Brady gently brought Erin to her feet. “I thought so.” He buffered her other side. “Do you think you can walk?”
Without waiting for an answer, Brady picked Erin up in his arms. “She’s not walking.”
“I’m too heavy,” she protested with far less feeling than she’d intended.
He wouldn’t have expected her to show vanity at a time like this. He decided he still had a lot to learn about her. And he intended to, slowly, carefully. He figured it would easily take one lifetime.
“You haven’t had dinner yet, so it’s okay.” Brady shifted her in his arms. He waited for Gus to lead the way out. “Demi, alert the hospital that she’s on her way. Harris Memorial in Newport. And call her doctor,” Brady added as an afterthought. “Dr. Sheila Pollack.”
Even though she was in pain, Erin couldn’t help being impressed. Brady actually remembered her doctor’s name. “Very good.”
He smiled at her. “I paid attention.”
She winced again before she could answer.
“C’mon, Erin. I’ll even let you run the siren,” Gus said over his shoulder as he led the way.
10
Gus broke the connection with the dispatcher, then glanced into his rearview mirror. Brady had one arm around Erin. He was holding her hand with the other. From where Gus sat, it looked as if she’d cut off all circulation to Brady’s fingers.
> “Are you all right back there?” Gus asked.
Erin let out a breath as another contraction faded. If she bit down any more on her lower lip, it was going to resemble Swiss cheese.
“I’ve been better,” she gasped. A lot better, she thought.
Brady tightened his hand on hers. Damn, he felt so helpless. It wasn’t a feeling he was happy about. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You can get someone else to have this baby.” She shifted, moving from side to side, trying to find someplace where the pain wouldn’t find her. There was no such place. “I don’t think I’m going to like this experience.” Another contraction was beginning. Oh, God. “As a matter of fact, I’m sure of it.”
After enduring two days of strange, fluctuating sensations zipping through her like stunted electricity, this was happening much too fast for her. And yet, not nearly fast enough. She wanted it to be over with.
“Demi called the doctor,” Gus assured her for what was probably the third time. “I’m sure she’ll be at the hospital by the time we get there.”
Brady looked out the window. He had his doubts about that. Gus was flying. The hospital was only minutes away. “Only if she lives close by.”
Erin tried to concentrate on what was being said around her, and not on what was happening to her. A fragment of what the doctor had once mentioned in passing returned to her.
“She does. In the condominiums located just beyond the hospital.” Erin gasped as another pain seized her. She pressed her lips together. “Boy, I really hope she’s home tonight.”
Gus brought the car to a screeching halt by the emergency-room entrance.
“We’re about to find out,” Gus announced as he got out quickly. He stopped long enough to issue an order. “Stay here.” The next moment, he ran through the electronic doors.
Within two minutes, Gus returned with a nurse and an orderly following in his wake. The latter was pushing a wheelchair.
Brady squeezed Erin’s hand just as Gus opened the door for her. “I guess this is it.”
She felt damp all over. Her water had broken. Erin couldn’t remember ever being this uncomfortable. “If it’s not, I would hate to be here for the real thing.”
The 7 Lb., 2 Oz. Valentine Page 12