When he walked through the door, every light was on in the house, but there was no Lorna. Where would a pregnant woman go at nine o'clock on a weeknight? Was she so disgusted with him she'd left him?
It was possible, he realized, calling her name as he walked through the small house. In his short time at the job, he hadn't been the greatest husband.
And according to his ex-wife, he'd never been good at that job to begin with, but would Lorna leave him over a less-than-romantic Valentine's Day? There was no note. If she was having the baby she would have contacted him.
When the phone rang, Jess lunged for it. George Bennett's calm voice explained everything, but Jess only heard the first sentence: Lorna was in the hospital having the baby.
He turned on the siren and the lights and drove faster than he ever had in the call of duty. The same thoughts went over and over in his head: the baby was going to be born too early, Lorna had high blood pressure, the labor had been sudden and, worst of all, Carter and Chelsea were in charge.
All of this could have been avoided if he hadn't lost his pager. At least he'd remembered to grab the flowers and the card on his way out the door.
* * *
Some sadist told her to push, and to keep pushing. Lorna concentrated on pushing and panting and following directions while Emily stood next to her and quietly cheered her on.
"This pushing thing actually works?" Lorna asked. "Yes, Mrs. Sheridan," a nurse assured her. "This is the way it's done most of the time. Just hang in there a few minutes more."
"Good news," Emily said. "Your husband just walked through the door."
Lorna blinked and, sure enough, Jess was heading toward her. He wore blue scrubs like the nurses and Emily, but his face was pale. "You're not going to faint again, are you?"
He swallowed and avoided looking anywhere but into her eyes as he hurried toward her. "No. Except maybe with relief." Emily stepped back and Jess brushed his fingers across Lorna's damp cheek. "Are you okay?"
"Where have you been?"
"There was an accident outside of town. I lost my pager. Are you really okay?"
"Push," the doctor said. "And keep pushing until I tell you to stop."
She pushed, but managed to grit her teeth and spit out, "Do-I-look-okay?"
"They get cranky at this stage, Mr. Sheridan," a nurse explained. "Oh, boy, here's the head."
"Stop pushing," someone said.
"What are they doing?"
"Cleaning its face," Jess said. "It's okay."
Nothing was okay. She was being split in two after being driven to Marysville by a suicidal deputy. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Push again, Mrs. Sheridan, and we'll have a baby here!"
She pushed for what seemed like a century. She braced herself, dung to Jess's hand, and pushed until she heard Dr. Bradford announce, "It's a boy."
"A boy," her husband breathed.
"A boy?" She didn't have a name for a boy. "Really?"
"He's got all the right equipment," a nurse said, right before the baby started screaming.
"Can I see him?"
"In two seconds," the doctor promised. "Somebody help the father out of here," she said. "He's the delicate type."
Lorna didn't want to laugh, but she couldn't help it. She felt as if she'd run a marathon and won first place. Her son was placed on her chest. He was tiny and red, screaming and waving his little fingers, but he was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. She choked back tears as she tried to comfort him. "Is he going to be all right?"
"He's looking good," the pediatrician said. He picked him up and tucked him into a waiting blanket. "We're going to check him out now and I'll be in to see you later."
Emily patted Lorna's shoulder. "He's beautiful."
"He is, isn't he?"
"Absolutely."
Later, when she'd been settled in her room in the maternity ward, Lorna waited for her husband. And waited for her son. And, before she dozed off, wondered how on earth she'd ever thought they could become a family.
* * *
Jess walked a few laps around the hospital parking lot and inhaled lots of fresh air before venturing inside. The nurses had fussed over him, given him an ice pack and made him breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes. Then he'd rushed to the nursery, only to discover that the doctor was still examining the baby.
He stopped when he got out of the elevator. He needed to find Lorna. And he thought about calling his parents, who were still in the Grand Canyon as far as anyone knew. He should call Ricky. And he had to find Chelsea. The last time he'd seen her she'd been giving her phone number to a muscular paramedic while Carter looked suicidal.
The elevator doors pinged to announce more arrivals, so Jess moved out of the way as a stocky bald man shoved his way past a couple of nurses' aides.
"Texas Tom?" Jess drew himself up to his full height.
"Yeah?" Clearly he didn't recognize the man he'd hit with barbecue tongs last July.
"What are you doing on the maternity ward?"
Tom's chest puffed up with pride. "What the hell do you think I'm doing? I'm here to see my son."
"Like hell you are," Jess muttered, right before he took a swing at the BBQ King's ruddy oversize nose. "That kid is mine."
The crunch of bone under his fist was extremely satisfying.
* * *
"Should I arrest him?" Carter turned to Chelsea and grabbed his handcuffs.
"Which one would you arrest?" she asked. "The innocent bystander barbecue creep or your boss?"
"Well, since you put it that way," he said, and tucked the handcuffs into his belt again.
"No one's arresting anyone," Jess declared, flexing his fist. He'd forgotten how much a good punch like that could hurt. "We're just settling an old score."
"We are?" Tom asked, seated on the floor with an ice pack on his nose.
"You hit me from behind Last summer. I owed you." And there was no way in hell that Lorna had just had Texas Tom's baby. So what if the baby was eight weeks early. So what if Tom was there to see it. Circumstantial evidence didn't mean a whole lot.
"He's insane," Tom grumbled. "I never hit no one."
"And stay away from my wife," Jess warned. "And my son."
A nurse replaced Tom's ice pack with a bandage for his nose. "No one be-lieveth me," he complained. "Inthane. He'th inthane."
Jess ignored him and felt queasy again. He'd just realized he was in love with his wife and he damn well didn't want to find out that she'd married him under false pretenses. "Where is she?"
"Room 214," Chelsea said. "Don't wake her up."
He was pretty good at waking her up, Jess thought. That's how they made a baby. But he tiptoed into the double room, empty on the left side, and watched his sleeping wife until she woke up and smiled at him.
"I love you," he said, which made her stare at him with those wide blue eyes. "And if that boy is Texas Tom's, I don't care. We're married and we're going to stay that way." He set the drooping roses on the nightstand, but somewhere along the way he'd lost the card. "Happy Valentine's Day."
"Jess," she said carefully, as if she was coming out of a fog. "What does Texas Tom have to do with anything?"
"I don't know and I don't care. I don't want to know." He grinned. "I think I broke his nose. Don't worry, he won't be bothering you."
"You think the baby is Texas Tom's?"
"I don't care if he is or not," Jess insisted. "Though all of the evidence – never mind," he said, noticing her frown. "We'll never speak of it again. I do love you. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. And I have your Valentine's card in the car."
"I think you'd better leave," was all his wife said. "Before I take your gun and shoot you."
"Huh?"
"There are bullets in that thing, right?"
Jess backed up and left the room. He'd read about postpartum depression and it didn't sound like a hell of a lot of fun. Good thing there was medication for it. He'd have to as
k the nurse to get some.
* * *
"He looks like Grandpa," Ricky said. "All skinny and bony, with that forehead and those knobby knees."
The infant was the spitting image of James Sheridan, rancher and truck driver, terrific storyteller and lousy fiddler. Obviously there was no barbecue sauce in his genes, unless Lorna had cooks in her family.
"What a relief," Lorna muttered, holding her baby with gentle hands.
"Yes," Ricky said, misunderstanding. "He's doing really well for a preemie, isn't he?"
"I don't get to have him much," Lorna said. "They're keeping an eye on him, but his lungs seem okay. As soon as he gains some weight they might even let him come home."
"Your in-laws will be descending upon you real soon," Ricky promised. "They'll probably camp in the parking lot until the baby goes home."
"My father can't stay away either," Lorna said. "I sent him home this afternoon to rest."
"Speaking of rest, I should let you get some." Ricky stood and took another peek at her nephew. "He's darling. I wonder if he'll be musical. With those long fingers he might be a pretty good guitarist."
Lorna smiled down at her son and Jess thought his heart would explode. He'd never in his wildest dreams thought that such a thing was possible. The only problem seemed to be that Lorna wasn't talking to him, so Jess said goodbye to his sister and shut the door behind her. There wasn't much privacy in the hospital, but he'd have to do his best.
"So," he began, watching Lorna rearrange the baby's blankets, "I guess I made a fool of myself."
"Yes." She didn't look at him.
"Not the first time."
"No." She sighed and looked up at him. "You hit Texas Tom."
"Yeah." There was no sense denying something that everyone in the hospital was talking about
"Good," Lorna said, flashing a brief smile. "He deserved it. But his wife is going to wonder how he broke his nose while she was having a baby."
"Am I forgiven?" He stepped closer to the bed, within touching distance of his wife and his son.
"Only if you meant what you said last night" She gave him that come-to-bed smile that never failed to cause his body to read. He should have been ashamed of himself, but he figured he'd be like this until he was ninety, as long as Lorna was around to smile at him.
"The 'I love you' part?"
"The 'more than I thought I could ever love anyone' part."
"Absolutely." He sat on the edge of the bed and kissed his beautiful wife's mouth. "More than I've ever loved anyone."
"Wait a minute," she said, once she caught her breath. "Are you buying your old ranch back because you wish you still lived there with your first wife?"
It took a second for that to sink in. "I'm not buying it at all," he said. "I think we have everything we need right now." He looked down at his sleeping son and knew he would give his life to protect him, then faced his wife. "Don't you?"
"I love you," she whispered. "I always have."
"Honey," Jess said, cradling both of them in his arms, "do you think they'd let all three of us take a nap in this bed?"
"No. They're going to kick you out." She leaned against him. "But in about six weeks, I'm going to wake you up and make you show me how much you love me."
"Yes, ma'am," the sheriff said to his wife. "And I'll be right there ready and waiting for you."
* * *
Epilogue
«^
Six weeks to the day after his son's birth, Jess Sheridan made love to his wife. His son, Benjamin Michael, slept soundly in the other room and nicely gave his parents several hours of peace and quiet.
"Now," Jess said, rousing his sleepy wife. She smiled but didn't open her eyes. "I've waited long enough."
"For what?" She snuggled deeper under the covers, her naked body touching his in a most satisfactory way. "You just got what you've been waiting for, didn't you?"
"For these," he said, and leaned over the bed to find the bag he'd left nearby. Jess dropped the velvet pouch near Lorna's nose. "A gift of love. Isn't that what you said?"
She looked at him, then at the bag. And then she sat up, revealing a body he'd never tire of admiring. "Jess?"
"Will you wear them now?" He watched as she turned the bag upside down and let the three rings fall into the palm of her hand. And then he watched her start to cry. "Oh, no. Not the hormones again."
"No," she sniffed. "I was thinking of Mike. And how much he loved his wife. I can't believe he left us his house."
His house…and one of the sweetest ranches in the county, Jess wanted to add. He was still reeling over the reading of the will. Turned out that old man had no family and a sentimental streak a mile wide.
"I didn't mean to make you sad. You don't have to take the rings if you don't want them," he said, trying to hide his disappointment. "I thought since I screwed up Valentine's Day, I'd try to make up for it."
"You did, you idiot," his loving wife replied. "You gave me the sweetest baby in Beauville."
"He also has your temper," Jess pointed out. "Do you want the rings or not?"
"Of course I do. And I hope Ben didn't inherit your way with words." She leaned over and kissed him. "I love the rings. Thank you." She inched closer. "Want to let me go to sleep so you can wake me up and make love to me all over again?"
"The last time that happened we made a baby," he warned, settling himself under the covers so that his body stretched against her.
"And look how perfect it turned out," Lorna said, closing her eyes. Within seconds she was asleep, so Jess picked up the rings that had fallen onto the quilt and tucked them into their pouch for safekeeping.
"I love you," he whispered, trying not to wake her up, but Lorna snuggled closer and mumbled something he couldn't understand.
"What?" he said, not sure if she was awake or not.
"Stay," she said, her hand on his chest. As if she thought he was going to leave her?
Jess wanted to laugh, but instead he covered his wife's hand with his own and, even doubting she could hear him, solemnly promised, "Honey, I'm not going anywhere."
Jess Sheridan might have had no use for weddings, but he was a man in love with his wife.
* * * *
BLAME IT ON BABIES Page 14