“I’m so sorry beautiful,” I told her.
“Well, you should be. Our child doesn’t want a herd of buffalo for a mom.”
“Do women actually go crazy during labor?” I asked Deck from over my shoulder.
“How the fuck should I know that?”
“I don’t know. Call Lucy and ask her. Tell her I need her to meet us at the hospital quick-like.”
“They’re already on the way. At the rate we’re going, they’ll probably beat us there and we’ll be rolling in with a kid we delivered on the front stoop,” he rushed out in an exasperated tone. Then, before either of us could stop him, Deck reached down and picked Anna up. He carried her all the way to the truck. “Sorry, Anna Banana. I don’t plan on playing catcher for my niece or nephew today though. Let’s make the doctor work for his paycheck, yeah?”
I couldn’t argue with that and managed to get us to the hospital in under fifteen minutes. Anna still had three weeks until her due date, but we were still well within the range where a healthy delivery wasn’t out of the question.
“Has her water broken?” A nurse was asking as she was getting us checked in. We had already pre-registered after Anna had been admitted the first time when premature labor started.
“Either that or she pissed the bed like a toddler,” I told her.
“Joker!” Anna yelped. I knew she was pissed about it since she failed to use my given name and instead used my road name. I just grinned down at her.
“It’s okay, beautiful. I’ll get you some depends and baby wipes from the gift shop.”
“Son of a biscuit! I’m going to shave your genitals and glue it to your face. Ball hair eyebrows. I’m going to use Gorilla Glue so that crap really sticks too.”
The nurse chuckled at Anna’s creative threats. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll help you out. Sister solidarity!” She was cheering my woman’s nutso behavior on like it was the norm. Who knew, maybe it was. I gave the nurse a weary look and took a step back, covering my sensitive areas as I did. I noticed Deck did the same. Neither of us were feeling too secure any longer.
“Sugar Honey Iced Tea!” My woman yelled out as she clutched her belly. “Oh my sweet lord,” she managed to get out after some heavy panting. “I think I feel something down there,” she told the nurse.
“I don’t think so. This is your first baby, I’m pretty sure…”
The loudest grunt I have ever heard a human make came from my wife then as we all looked on in horror. “Get my panties off, the baby’s gonna get stuck in them.”
“Never want to hear those words in that sequence ever again,” Deck chimed in as he turned to go to the waiting room, or another state, if he was smart.
I reached down and moved to take Anna’s panties off and that’s when I saw it. A head of brown hair was staring at me from between my woman’s thighs and I don’t mean her pussy hair that she hadn’t been able to reach to trim either. “Holy fuck! There’s a baby’s head down here!” I shouted the words and everything stopped even though we were in the middle of the hallway with my wife sitting in a wheelchair. I moved my hands in front of her to catch our daughter just in case she fell out. “Can babies just fall out? Jesus fuck!”
“Oh my word!” The nurse declared as she started barking orders and then there was a rush of bodies all around us and I was being nudged out of the way as a doctor took my place.
The flurry of activity pushed me even further from Anna, but when her eyes popped open after the last push they met mine immediately, like she knew exactly where I was at all times. She gave me a quick smile and then pushed again. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat and, before I could really take in the fact that her face changed immediately from pain-laced effort to tranquility, I heard it. A squall that shattered my heart to pieces and rebuilt it all at the same time. That was when I started pushing the staff out of the way. Hell, with the clusterfuck of people converged on my wife, there was no way to know who actually worked here and who didn’t.
“Oh my goodness! Did my baby just deliver my first grandchild in the hallway?” Lucy and Double-D were running down the corridor to get to us as a woman snatched the baby from the doctor as he attempted to hand her over to Anna. I moved to block her exit immediately.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re taking my baby?”
“We need to measure her and clean her up,” she stated coolly.
“This is not a secure fucking hospital room we’re standing in and I don’t know you from Dick or Jane. That shit is not happening. You put the baby in wife’s arms right this fuckin’ minute and we’ll worry about everything else when we get to a room.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, we have protocol,” the woman stated as she tried to back away from me only to find Double-D standing at her back now keeping her from moving away.
“I will not tell you again,” I seethed through clenched teeth.
“Carmen!” The doctor snapped in her direction. “Do as they say, and don’t ever grab a baby that I am handing to its mother like that again or I will see that you no longer have a place here. Mr. Masters is not wrong.” He turned his attention from the nurse in question once she handed the baby over to Anna, refusing to put her in my arms after she was scolded in front of her coworkers.
“Get her out of here. If I see that bitch at all again while my wife and daughter are here, I will sue this fucking hospital and that will feel like a slap on the wrist compared to what I do personally.”
Everyone stopped briefly to glance at me and see how serious I was. Then the buzz of movement swept through the crowd once more. “Let’s get them moved into a room, quickly. Anna still needs to deliver the rest,” the doctor told them.
“The rest? There’s another one in there?” I heard Double-D ask.
I saw, out of the corner of my eye, as Lucy popped his head with her hand as she giggled at him. “He’s talking about the afterbirth dummy. You would know if you had stuck around after Anna was born.”
“You told me to follow the baby,” he argued back.
“You’re darn right I did.” She winked at me then. “Look, your son-in-law didn’t have to be told to do that.”
“What? Luce, that’s not funny.”
We were in the delivery suite and Anna was quickly transferred to a bed that had been broken down into one of the chairs that she sat in during her prenatal visits. The nurse helped her get her feet in the stirrups and the doctor went to town doing something down below that I quite frankly did not want to have nightmares about, so I didn’t look.
What did catch my attention was the fact that Anna had popped a boob out, not caring who was looking, and our little girl was rooting around on her tit like she had been training for it all her life. When my baby girl latched onto my woman and started suckling from her, my heart leaped into my throat, choking me with emotion. I didn’t even realize I was crying until Lucy leaned over and handed me a tissue. “That’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?” She whispered to me.
“That is the best thing I have ever seen in my life,” I told her.
**
Dear Diary,
It’s hard to believe that our daughter is four months old already. Tabby is an angel who was sleeping through most nights. The girl loves to eat and sleep, but she does not enjoy being messy at all. Evan thought it meant she was going to end up being super high maintenance when she was older. As a third generation MC Princess, I had no doubt that was true. She was already loved by more people in her short life than most people had in a lifetime.
Enough about that though, because I’m really writing to talk about our special day. My daughter and I both wore white gowns with peach flourishes through them. My gown was fitted through the bodice and the silky peach material underneath was topped with intricately designed lace swirls and flourishes. From a distance, it appeared the beautifully crafted lace portion of the dress was all that there was until it swept out loosely at the bottom. There, the lace fading into the sil
k slip of the dress where it trailed behind me as I walked. It didn’t quite trail half-way down the church aisle like I once dreamed of, but it was stunning all the same. I didn’t wear a veil, tiara, or any other adornment in my hair. It was curled and pinned back off my face to trail down behind my back. It was very similar to the style I had worn the first time I had been married.
Tabby was wearing an ivory dress with a pretty little peach satin ribbon tied around the waist into a big bow in the back. Her shoes matched the bow, as did the one holding up her little duck fluff tuft of chocolate brown hair on the top of her head. I leaned down to kiss my darling little girl and was rewarded with her giggles for my effort before my momma barged into the room we were getting ready in.
“Look at the two of you!” My momma breathed the words out as she took us in from head to toe. The shimmer of tears in her eyes couldn’t be hidden as she spoke. “This is what…” My momma caught herself before as she saw my smile slip. I had forbidden anyone from mentioning the previous wedding at the courthouse. That disaster of a day took place exactly one year ago today. Instead of continuing on with whatever she’d been about to say, my momma changed her mind and added to my beautiful memories of the day. “This is what every bride dreams of looking like on her wedding day,” my mother finally managed to get out. Even though she changed her wording I still got the gist of the meaning.
Everything about today is what last year was supposed to be like for me. It was what I had often dreamed of when I was growing up. I had even written about it my other diaries over the years. While my daughter and I might have looked fancy for this wedding it was not much more extravagant than the one we had in the courthouse. It was a simple affair in the little church just down the road from where my parents’ house was located with only a few special guests in attendance. Once my momma had seen that we were settled and ready for our walk down the aisle, she opened the door to my father. He stood proudly in his tuxedo with arms out to hold my daughter. Once she was in his left arm, he crooked his right for me to place mine there so he could walk us to my husband who was waiting at the altar.
Merc, Tiger Lily, Deck, Ever, Kane, Gretchen, Beth, and J-Bird were the only people in attendance besides my parents. It was important to me that only the people who I had wanted to see our union happen. Crow and his old lady had been hurt that they hadn’t been invited, but I couldn’t see the man the same way I had growing up after hearing about the way he treated Ever all those years. The way he continued to treat her, as if she were a pariah, didn’t sit right with me either. He could either love and have us all in his life, or none of us. At least, he wouldn’t have me any longer. I readily admit I had my head stuck firmly in the sand for a long time. I was always so lost in my own worlds that I didn’t notice the different way people treated my sister. I just assumed they felt the same about her as everyone did about me.
Part of growing up was learning that some of the things you thought were true as a child just aren’t so. Today was all about that realization too. I always thought this was what my first wedding would have looked like. It didn’t. Despite that, I was lucky, because this wedding was our do-over for the time when we were too young, too immature, too angry to get it right. We both failed one another in different ways in the beginning, and then we both also took a leap and hoped that things could be different. They have been different.
Tears began to mist my eyes as we started walking toward the man who I had pledged my heart to. The man who had given me the precious baby in my father’s arms. The man who couldn’t take his eyes off of me as I made slow progress getting to him while trying not to trip on the stupid long train. Why had I ever thought that would be cool?
I saw the sheen of wetness in Evan’s eyes too as we approached those final steps that would put me back in his arms. He too had worn a tux today with a peach Dahlia stuck into his lapel. His eyes met mine and I got lost in them as my father placed my hand in Evan’s before leaning in to kiss my cheek, and taking my daughter to sit in the front pew with my momma.
We said our vows to one another with everyone watching as we placed rings on each other’s fingers this time. I could also hear the snapping shutter of a camera as Beth, no doubt, caught the moments for us. Then the other missing piece from our previous wedding was upon us.
“You may kiss your bride.” A fog had been lifted as the man spoke, because honestly I couldn’t remember much before that besides staring into Evan’s eyes. My husband didn’t hesitate to take me fully into his arms, and with a smile that lit up his entire face, he brought his mouth down on mine in a searing kiss that took my breath away. As he pulled away he whispered, “I am yours. Always and only yours.”
It was my turn to kiss my groom because there were no more perfect words than the ones he had just spoken. When we broke free of the kiss I returned his words to him, promising the same. “Always and only yours.”
My first acknowledgment goes to every one of you who will undoubtedly ask me “but what happened with this (enter information you want here)?” I promise, there are two more books in the series, and all of the loose ends will be tied up nice and tight by the end. Some you think are tied already might not be, so just hold on tight… I’m getting there!
The second acknowledgment is for the scene where Anna is giving birth to Tabby. I can already hear my critics shouting to the heavens about child birth never being like that. Well, this is one of those cases of art imitating life, because when my youngest daughter was born I kept telling the staff that I could feel her coming out and they didn’t believe me. Then the man who was there to do my epidural (the first time I tried to get one of those too) told the nurse to humor me and look. Guess what? She was shocked by the head full of black hair she could see down there, and the doctor barely made it in the room to play catcher! Everyone has a different experience. I have four children, and they all left me with interesting child birth stories from early labor to late arrivals, and a kid who managed to get stuck because he had a giant head. It can, has, and does happen.
Now that my little anecdote is out of the way…
This book wasn’t supposed to be finished until sometime in 2020. I say that, because I need to in order to acknowledge everyone here that deserves it. The Charleston Chapter of the Aces High MC World was not supposed to be written until LAST. I was saving it because I knew it was going to be a bit different from others of its genre. The problem with my “best laid plans” is always that my creativity rules me. Sometimes, that’s an amazing thing. Other times, it is a burden that forces me to have to change those plans I had intentions of keeping. I plotted out what was originally about a 17-25 book world way back in 2016, with some of the ideas having been sitting around since 2014 just waiting for me to get the time to dive in. I had originally planned to release my MC world of books like this:
The S.H.E. Series first with the Aces High books coming in as a sort of spin-off world.
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