Accidental Fiancé

by R. R. Banks

  Soft tears were sparkling on Rue’s cheeks now and I reached up to brush one away as she nodded. She grabbed onto my hand and held it to her skin, tilting her face to press more into the touch and closing her eyes softly as if just enjoying the feeling. When she opened her eyes again, she was smiling.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  “You do?”

  She nodded and laughed.

  “Yes,” she said. “I thought that dreaming of a life with you and this baby was far too much. I thought that I was just fooling myself even pretending that it was a possibility. I tried to convince myself that I had known what I was getting myself into at the very beginning of all of this, and that anything that I was feeling was just part of it, that I didn’t have a choice and there was nothing that I could do. I hoped that I would get over it and be able to move on one day.”

  “I never want you to move on,” I told her.

  She shook her head.

  “I never want to, either.”

  I leaned forward, drawn to her by all of the emotions that I had been feeling and the promise of love and shared passion that I saw in her eyes. She moved toward me, meeting me in the middle so our mouths touched and melded together, allowing us to melt into one another. I felt no urgency in the kiss, nothing rushed or hurried. We didn’t need the desperation now.

  When the kiss ended, I reached back for one of the bottles of Cletus’s Clementine Moonshine that I had sat down and popped it open. Despite Rue’s warnings, I put the bottle to my lips and took a massive swig. The moment that the burning liquid touched my tongue, I knew exactly why the festively decorated bottles had been relegated to holding open doors. I gagged, pulling the bottle away from me as fast as I could. Rue laughed, the full, rich sound of her voice filling the air around us. The moonshine seared my throat and landed in my belly like an ember and I coughed, choking on both the feeling of the raw alcohol and the taste made all the more unpleasant by the eponymous twist of clementine at the end.

  “Does MacGregor grow anything in this field anymore?” I asked when I felt like I had recovered enough to force my voice through my tender throat.

  “No,” Rue said, shaking her head. “Why?”

  “Good,” I said, putting the bottle over the side of the bed to pour the rest of the contents onto the ground. “I just wanted to check. I’m fairly certain that nothing will ever grow again on the ground that this stuff touches.”

  This sent Rue into another gale of laughter and she tossed her head back, her hands grasping at her belly as she laughed. Suddenly the sound stopped, and I looked at her to see a wide-eyed look on her face.

  “Um,” she started.

  “What is it?” I asked, instantly concerned.

  “I think my water just broke,” she said.

  I felt my heart leap up into my throat, but I shook my head.

  “No, no,” I said. “That can’t be. You still have a couple of weeks to go.”

  “Well, you might want to tell your daughter that because I am pretty positive my water just broke and I’m starting to feel a…” her eyes squeezed shut and her face twisted as she drew in a breath and then gasped it out, “contraction.”

  “What do I do?” I asked, in a sudden panic as I realized that she really was in labor in the back of a broken down pickup truck in a dark field. “How are we supposed to get you to the hospital in time?”

  “Calm down,” she said, breathing slowly now as she seemed to be in between the pains of her contractions. “There’s plenty of time. A first-time labor can last for a day. Even if it’s not that long, I’m sure that we still have hours. Just call for an ambulance that can come out here and transport me to the maternity center.” She looked up at me. “That center does have an ambulance service, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “Um,” I said sheepishly. “No. That’s one thing that I didn’t arrange for yet. Since you were the only person who was going to use the center until the baby was born, and I figured that either I would be the one to bring you there when you went into labor, or you would get induced, I didn’t set up an ambulance service.”

  “Fantastic,” Rue said, her hands squeezing at the sides of her belly again as she went into another contraction.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’m going to get you there. Just keep breathing.”

  I made a fast phone call and then tucked my phone away so that I could hold Rue’s hand, going back in my mind to the class that we took so I could try to coach her through the pain. Relief flooded through me when I heard the blades of a helicopter chopping through the air as it came toward us.

  “You called a helicopter?” she asked, her voice high with surprise.

  I nodded.

  “We have to get you there somehow,” I said. “And that’s the fastest and safest way. Unless you want me to call up Jeb and see if he can fix Big Blue really quick.”

  Rue glared at me and shook her head.

  The helicopter landed a few hundred yards away and two men jumped out with a stretcher. I took Rue by the hand and helped her to her feet so that she could be ready when they got to her.

  “Hey,” she said just before the two men reached the side of the truck. I looked at her and she gave me a soft, meaningful smile. “We’re going to meet our baby tonight.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rue

  All those things that I had read about labor in a first-time mother taking hours, and sometimes even days? Lies. All of it. I thought that I was going to be just fine and stay in absolute control throughout this labor. After all, I had so much time to get into that place in my mind and to settle into the big, beautiful maternity room Richard had designed specifically for me before it was time to deliver.

  Instead, I was already well into the deep breathing by the time the helicopter landed at the center and the contractions were piling one on top of the other as they wheeled me through the doors into the bright, shining new center. A staff that had had literally nothing to do but sit around and wait for this moment seemed positively flabbergasted that I was actually in labor and started scurrying around as if they didn’t know what they were supposed to do. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, trying to block out everything around me, and concentrated just on the feeling of the contractions rolling through me. Every moment of pain was my body bringing my baby closer to birth, I reminded myself, trying to channel Kathryn and the energy that she said she was sending each of us.

  I wished that I had gone to more of those classes. I shouldn’t have let my own emotions get in the way of me doing what I knew I should be for the baby. There wasn’t anything that I could do about that now, and all I could do was try to remember everything that I possibly could about what she said and how she told us we would get through labor, and then hope that the doctor had even the slightest bit of that type of energy in her so that I could power through. I could feel deep, aching pressure in my hip joints as we rolled into the labor room and I gritted my teeth against the pain as they picked me up and lowered me to the bed.

  “She’ll be right with you,” a dark-eyed nurse who seemed to be the only one of the bunch who didn’t go into a complete panic when I got there said as she attached me to a monitor.

  A moment later the door to the room opened and Kathryn stepped inside. I nearly sobbed with relief and turned to Richard, who smiled at me from the side of the bed.

  “Somehow, I thought that you might want to have her here,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Kathryn came to the bed and patted my arm. Just that touch comforted me and helped me to relax. I felt stronger and more in control now that she was in the room with me.

  I’ll be damned. She really did have energy that she could send to us.

  “How are we feeling?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Fine.”

  “Well, let’s just take a peek and see what’s going on,” she said.

  She was so completely calm, unflust
ered and seemingly unfazed by the situation that I felt any reservations that I did feel disappear. Beside me Richard took my hand and I knew that everything was going to be perfect.

  Kathryn went to the end of the bed and a few seconds later lifted her head to look at me.

  “It seems we’re going to be having a baby very soon. Let’s get you up and walking around, and see if we can get you through this phase.”

  She detached me from the monitor and I let her help me get out of my dress and into one of the hospital gowns before we walked out of the room. Richard came along with me and we roamed up one hallway and down another, pausing occasionally for me to get through a contraction. When one particularly difficult one hit, I turned and tipped forward into his arms, wrapping mine over his shoulders and leaning my head to his chest. I felt him take my hips with both hands and sway with me, making soothing sounds as the strength and warmth of his body helped to soothe me through the painful peak of the contraction and then down the other side until I was back to normal again. Something occurred to me as the pain eased and I lifted my eyes to look at him.

  “You took the classes,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “I went back and finished them. It was a little more difficult without someone to actually coach, but I wanted to be as prepared as I could be. Just in case you let me be with you during this.”

  I pressed a kiss to his lips and breathed in the scent of him, enjoying that single moment of quiet before another contraction hit me.

  “Let’s move her back to the labor room so I can check in on her,” Kathryn said.

  As we were nearing the room another woman came rushing up to me.

  “I know that your birth plan says that you want to have a completely natural birth without the assistance of medication.”

  “Yes,” I said, instantly wanting her and her grating little voice away from me.

  “But by law I am required to discuss your options with you so that in the event that you change your mind about how you wish to proceed through labor, you will be able to make an informed and safe decision.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, but I am obligated to tell you that this type of support is available to you and will be administered according to your wishes if and when the need arises. I personally will be available to administer the medications and provide further support throughout the labor process to ensure that both you and your baby will remain healthy and safe.”

  I looked up at Richard.

  “You couldn’t have just had a private midwife on call to come to the house, could you?” I asked him.

  He laughed.

  “Somehow I don’t think that that would be the best option.”

  Another contraction hit me, and I clenched my jaw at its intensity. The woman started talking again, but I held up a finger to silence her. When the pain eased I opened my eyes again and looked at her. She was staring back at me with a quizzical look on her face.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “A contraction,” I told her.

  “I don’t think you’re going to need me, so I’m just going to go back to the lounge and wait” she said. She leaned closer so that she could whisper conspiratorially to me. “You appear to be kicking labor’s ass.”

  Damn right I was.

  I got onto the bed in the labor room and rested my head back against the pillow while Kathryn examined me.

  “Well, everybody. We’re not going to have time to switch over to the delivery room. This baby is going to be making her grand appearance right here.”

  It felt like the world slowed around me, and yet, everything was moving so fast. I hadn’t even been at the hospital for an hour and already Kathryn was telling me that it was time to start pushing. At the beginning of this journey I thought that I was going to be afraid in this moment, but I wasn’t. I suddenly felt completely at ease, totally confident in myself and what my body was supposed to do. I could hear Richard and the nurse on either side of me cheering me on, encouraging me through every push, but I couldn’t hear the individual words that they were saying. It was all a blur of sound, blending with the beat of my heart and the rush of my own thoughts.

  Suddenly I heard a cry and I looked down to see Kathryn gathering a tiny baby into her hands. I gasped, tears flowing freely now, and reached for her. In seconds I was cradling her to my chest, watching her relax as she listened to the sound of my heartbeat, the sound that she knew better than anything else.

  When I was finally transferred into the recovery room I lay back in the bed, a fresh cool sheet over me, and watched as Richard cradled the baby to his bare chest. He rocked her softly, his head ducked down so that he could whisper to his daughter.

  Our daughter.

  ****

  Richard

  The feeling of the tiny baby, only minutes old, curled against my chest was the most indescribably amazing experience that I had ever had. I was in awe of Rue, stunned at what I had just witnessed her do. I had only ever watched babies be delivered in movies and was geared up for the screaming, thrashing, and creative profanities that were always shown during those scenes. Yet, none of that happened. Rue had seemed almost impossibly calm throughout the entire process. I had seen the pain on her face and heard her as she focused on long, slow, deep breaths to carry her through the contractions, but never once had she screamed or fought. It was almost as though she and the baby had linked together, understanding one another and peacefully bringing each other through to the moment when she took her first breath and became a part of our family.

  Our family.

  I still couldn’t believe how this night had unfolded. When I first started toward Whiskey Hollow with the goal of talking to Rue, I could only hope that she would listen to me. I hoped that maybe she would let me get all the way through everything that I wanted to say to her and then would say that she needed some time to think through it all. I couldn’t bring myself to even begin to wish for anything more than that. And I would have accepted that. After all she had gone through, I would have been willing to have that be the first step, and to continue to pursue her, to do anything that I needed to do to show her that what I had said to her was the absolute truth.

  Yet by some miracle she had opened her heart to me. She had not only heard what I had to say to her, but she had taken it within her, found the place inside of her heart that had always belonged to me, and returned it to me fully and completely. I touched a kiss to our daughter’s head and glanced across the room at Rue. She had rested her head back and was sleeping peacefully, a look of contentment unlike any I had ever seen on her face. I had never seen her look more beautiful. I heard a gentle coo from my arms and realized that the baby had fallen asleep as well. As I brought her over to the bed and nestled her into Rue’s arms, it occurred to me that we hadn’t yet given her a name.

  The topic was something that had never come up between Rue and me. When we first started discussing the possibility of having a baby Flora and I had batted around ideas, but there had never been anything that had stood out to me, nothing that ever sounded like what I would want to call my daughter. I knew now that was because I was never intended to share a child with Flora so in my heart I didn’t really care what she thought of a name. Now I had an idea in mind, and all I needed to do was convince Rue that it was the right choice for the little one that we shared.

  I walked over to the window of the birthing center room and parted the sheer curtains to look out of it at the sunlight that was now starting to come up over the horizon. This was the sun that would shine on the first full day of my daughter’s life. This would be the first sunlight that she ever saw, the sunlight that warmed the first outside air that she would ever breathe. And suddenly I knew that it was the only thing I was seeing through that window that I wanted her to grow up around.

  The maternity center around me had been built with such a purpose. It was meant to give Rue a place where she was going to get
the very best in care throughout her pregnancy and during delivery, and that would keep her here close to my home and my work so that it was convenient for me to be involved with the process and then to bring my daughter right into her new world. Now, though, I wasn’t seeing the world that I wanted for her. The city below was magnificent. It was filled with opportunity and the sizzling, almost frenetic energy that came from every person who scurried along the streets and filled the buildings doing what they needed to do to get by and reach for their aspirations. It was a place that meant a lot to me and one that had done incredible things in my life, but it wasn’t childhood.

  Of course, someday I would introduce our daughter to everything that the city had to offer and help her to find all of the opportunities that could possibly await her there. For now, though, she deserved to be where she wouldn’t be bound by societal rules and class warfare, where going outside to play didn’t mean having the driver bring you to the local park and trying to lose yourself for a time in that tiny patch of nature among the glittering glass towers and concrete sidewalks. As soon as Rue woke up, I was going to tell her that my mind was fully made up. I wasn’t just willing to try to live the kind of life that she did in Whiskey Hollow. I wanted to make that my home. Our home. I could afford to cut down on my work and slow my pace, and I knew of a few projects that could use my attention, starting with getting the plans underway to restore Grammyma’s house and build our own home on the property. After that, I was going to explore the Hollow and get to know the people and the businesses a little better. It was time that I started investing in something other than myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Dear Clementine,

  I can’t believe that you finally have a name. After so long of just thinking of you as “Baby,” it’s strange to have something else to write out. Your father was so excited when he told me his idea for giving you that name, and it immediately just seemed so perfect. I’m guessing that about eighteen years from now when I give you the scrapbook that I’ve been making for you that you will hate how you came to have that name and I will hear all sorts of complaints about it and declarations that I absolutely must let you change it, but for now I love it, so I’m not going to worry about that.