“Son, that’s a mighty fine gift,” Harlan said, clapping Clint on the back. “Mighty fine.”
Just then Angela gasped and clutched her stomach.
“Baby?” Harlan asked, regarding her worriedly. “Are you OK?”
“Honey, what is it?” Jessie said, rushing over.
Clint hunkered down beside her. “Angel, what’s going on?”
He didn’t like the way she looked one bit. Her complexion was pale, her eyes stricken as she met his gaze.
“I could be wrong,” she said, “but I have a feeling that cradle arrived in the nick of time.”
Clint stared at her, his heart slamming against his ribs. “What are you saying?”
“Unless I’m very much mistaken, I am about to have a baby.”
13
If she hadn’t been quite so panicky, Angela might have been amused by the stunned reactions to her announcement. Clint went absolutely white. Her father and grandfather, normally the most unflappable men she knew, started barking orders, most of them contradictory.
Her normally calm mother finally shouted over the commotion. “Enough!”
Angela grinned as everyone fell silent and stared at her mother. No one in the room knew any better than Jessie about the unexpected arrival of a baby. She hunkered down beside Angela and smiled reassuringly.
“You OK?”
“Just surprised.”
“It could be false labor,” Kelly offered helpfully.
The suggestion was echoed by Janet and Melissa.
“Clint, why don’t you get her a glass of chipped ice?” her mother suggested.
Visibly grateful at being given an assignment he could cope with, Clint practically raced from the room. He came back with a glass of chipped ice and two excited housekeepers. Maritza and Consuela arrived chattering in Spanish, aprons flapping and hands waving.
“Harlan, how are the roads?” her mother asked. “Can we get her to the hospital?”
“I’ll check,” he said promptly. “If not, I’ll call the snowplow driver and have him clear the way ahead of us. I pay enough taxes to get a few special privileges.”
Just then another pain ripped through Angela. She latched on to Clint’s hand and cursed a blue streak. He stared at her in shock.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she grumbled when she had caught her breath. “I swore I wasn’t going to do this.”
“Do what?” he asked.
“Have this baby close to Christmas, much less on Christmas Day. Good grief, we’ll be celebrating everything at once. My birthday, Christmas, everything.”
“You should have thought about that before you got pregnant when you did,” her mother said dryly.
“I should have thought about a lot of things before I got pregnant,” Angela said, then cried out with another pain.
“How close?” she asked, panting. “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have ignored that backache during the night.”
“Three minutes,” her mother replied. “Harlan, forget the hospital. She’ll never make it. Let’s get her into one of the bedrooms. Dani, you come, too.”
“Me? Why me?” Dani asked, turning pale. She looked as if she wanted to flee.
“Just come, please,” Jessie said.
When Clint had carried Angela upstairs and settled her into bed, her mother turned to the obviously wary Dani. “Honey, you’ve got the most experience delivering babies of anyone in this room.”
Angela wasn’t sure whose wail was louder, her own or her cousin’s.
The last bit of color washed out of Dani’s face. “Me? I’ve delivered litters of kittens. I’ve delivered puppies. I’ve even delivered baby bunnies. Under duress, I’ve even managed to help out with foals and calves, but I have never delivered a child,” she protested. “I really, really don’t think this is the time to start.”
“I agree,” Angela said emphatically. In fact, the very idea horrified her. It was ludicrous, insane, totally out of the question. Fortunately, Dani seemed just as appalled as she was. Surely her well-educated, professional cousin could make them see reason.
Sweat beaded on Angela’s brow as her body was wracked with another labor pain. Panicked, she clutched Clint’s hand and demanded, “Get me to a hospital, damn you. I am not having this baby with the help of a veterinarian, even if she is the smartest, nicest cousin on earth. The baby will wait, if I have to hold it in with both hands.”
“I don’t know,” Clint said worriedly. “He seems a little impatient to me. The roads are an icy mess. Snow’s still coming down. You heard what your mother said. Maybe we’d better play it safe.”
Angie panted, trying to ease another pain. As soon as she had breath to spare she glared at him and at her cousin. “I want a real hospital and a real doctor. No offense, Dani.”
“None taken. Nothing would please me more than to accommodate you and turn you over to a real doctor,” Dani said fervently. “Maybe Grandpa can get his helicopter pilot to swoop in and take you.”
“Not in this storm,” Clint insisted. He squeezed Angie’s hand. “Darlin’, we have to be sensible.”
“You should have thought of that nine months ago,” she declared. “That was the time for straight thinking and protection.”
Clint grinned. “Angel, that particular horse is already out of the barn. Let’s deal with the crisis at hand, OK?”
“Maybe we should just get my father in here. He has more experience at delivering babies than any of you do. He brought me into this world.”
“I’m not sure how much help he would be,” her mother retorted. “The last time I saw him, he was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands muttering something about history repeating itself.”
She gazed up and found Clint hovering a few feet away from the bed. He looked so worried and ill at ease that she would have shipped him off to join the others if she’d had the heart. Instead, she figured what he really needed was something to do.
Resigned to making the best of a lousy situation, she called out to him. “Clint?”
He was by her side in an instant. “What? Are you OK? What can I do?”
“Help me breathe,” she said, thankful that she’d at least had the sense to take the Lamaze classes in Seattle before she’d left. Of course, the coach she’d planned on having was still in Seattle, too, but hopefully Clint would be a quick study.
“Here’s the deal,” she said, and explained what she needed him to do. The explanation took a long time because she kept having to stop for the increasingly severe pains.
After a particularly bad contraction, Clint said, “That’s it. No more babies. I don’t ever want to have to go through this again.”
“You?” all three women protested in a chorus.
He grinned sheepishly. “OK... Angela. I won’t let her go through it again.” He gazed at her mother worriedly. “Are you sure this is the sensible thing to do?”
“Sensible or not, we don’t have a choice,” she said, then looked to Dani, who’d just returned after finally conceding defeat and going off to scrub up for the impending delivery. “Do we?”
“Afraid not,” Dani said irritably. “I’d say this Adams is about to make an entrance, like it or not. Aunt Jessie, can you find a blanket and some towels? Sterilize some scissors, too. And hurry, for goodness’ sakes.”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.” She feigned a scowl at Angela. “Don’t you dare have this baby while I’m gone. I want to be right here when my grandbaby comes into this world.”
“Then I think you’d better hurry,” Angela said, her voice catching, then altering into a muffled scream. She didn’t know a lot about the duration of labor. What she’d read said first babies tended to take a long time arriving. Hers didn’t seem inclined to play by the rules. Typical of an Adams.
“Pant,” Clint ordered. “Pay
attention, darlin’. You remember the drill.”
Fortunately she did recall there was more to it than panting. Since it was obvious everything else she’d just taught him had flown out the window. He watched her intently, then nodded. He grinned sheepishly when the pain had passed.
“Now I remember,” he murmured.
With the next contraction, Dani murmured, “Here we go. Push, Angie. Do it,” she said more sharply. “Push now.”
“I am pushing, you lousy, no-good animal doc.”
“Don’t knock the help, kiddo, or Clint will find himself in my place.”
“Be nice,” he said hurriedly. “Dani’s your best shot at getting this baby delivered with professional assistance.”
“Oh, I think you could handle it, just as well as she could,” Angela shot back. “How many calves and foals have you delivered?”
“A few.”
“More than a few,” she reminded him.
“Then get down here and take over,” Dani pleaded. “I have absolutely no ego here. I’ll take whatever help I can get.”
Clint released her hand and was about to move when Angela latched on to it again and let out a shout that shook the rafters.
“Oh, my,” Dani murmured. “Come on, Angie. Once more with feeling. That’s it. Come on. Do it now!”
Angela felt as if her insides were being torn apart. Then suddenly, barely an hour after the severe pains had started, it was over. She tried to lift herself on her elbows. Clint was on his feet.
“My baby,” she whispered urgently. “I don’t hear anything. Dani?”
Just as panic was setting it, she heard a feeble cry, followed by a lusty wail.
“That’s more like it,” Dani said triumphantly. She took one of the towels that Jessie had brought in just that second and wrapped the baby. Her expression triumphant, she walked to the head of the bed.
“Angie, Clint, may I present your son.”
“A boy?” Clint whispered, gazing awestruck at the chubby, red-faced newborn Dani placed in Angela’s arms.
“Told you so,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Clint, he’s beautiful.”
“Handsome,” he corrected, grinning. “Boys are handsome.”
“Not ours. He is absolutely beautiful.”
“He is, sweetie,” her mother said. She turned and hugged Dani. “You were terrific. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“We won’t be able to thank you enough,” Clint said.
“No problem,” Dani said, then sank into a chair as if her legs had suddenly turned to water. “I don’t ever, ever want to do anything like this again, do you hear me? I’ve never been so terrified of messing up in my entire life.”
“Now she tells us,” Angela teased.
She glanced at Clint. “I have an idea.” She beckoned to him and whispered. Clint nodded.
Angela grinned. “OK, then. Don’t fall apart now, Dani. Come here and officially meet your new godson,” she said.
“Oh, sweetie, you don’t have to do that,” Dani said, but her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She rubbed the back of her fingers across the baby’s soft cheek. “But I’m glad you did. Have you decided on a name?”
“I have,” Angela said. “Clinton Daniel Adams.”
“Brady,” Clint amended, a determined scowl on his face. “Clinton Daniel Brady.”
“Do you see a ring on my finger?” Angela asked, looking at her mother and her cousin. “Either one of you? Is there a ring here?”
The two women exchanged a look.
“Bye-bye,” Dani said. “Glad to be of help.”
“Call us if you need us,” her mother said, brushing a kiss across her forehead. “You were great, sweetie.”
“You’re abandoning me?” she protested. “How can you do that? I just had a baby.”
“Clint’s here.”
“Yes, but he has his own agenda at the moment. I want somebody who’s on my side.”
“We are,” her mother insisted. “That’s why we’re going. You two need time alone with your baby.”
It wasn’t the prospect of being alone with her child that scared the daylights out of her. Clinton Daniel was the kind of miracle it would take a lifetime to study and appreciate.
No, what terrified her was the glint of pure cussedness she saw in Clint’s eyes. He’d been possessive and determined enough before. Now there was no telling the lengths to which he’d go to claim his son.
* * *
For a long time after Dani and Jessie left Angela’s bedroom, Clint couldn’t form a coherent thought. He kept staring at the tiny infant, who was now wrapped in a huge yellow blanket. His son. Practically bald except for a few strands of soft blond fuzz, eyes as big as saucers staring solemnly back at him, a tiny pink bow of a mouth. He was in awe of him.
“Would you like to hold him?” Angela asked.
“I...um, I don’t know,” he said warily. “What if I do something wrong?”
“Are you planning to drop him on his head?”
He stared at her aghast. “Of course not.”
“Then you’ll do just fine,” she said, holding the baby up in the air for Clint to take.
He gingerly accepted the baby and his tangle of blanket. His gaze locked on his son’s face as if he were mesmerized.
“Hi, kiddo,” he said softly. Everything else in the room faded into the background as he concentrated on this tiny gift from God.
“I’m your dad,” he said. “You and I, we’re going to have a great time together. I have this little spread up in Montana and one day it’s all going to be yours. I’m going to teach you every single thing I know about ranching.”
“You might have to wait just a bit for that,” Angela said dryly. “At least until he can walk.”
“You’re never too young to know that there’s a plan and what your part in it will be,” he insisted. “It makes a kid feel secure.”
“You never had that, did you?” she asked.
He glanced at Angela, surprised by her accurate guesswork. “My mother did the best she could. Besides, the past’s over and done with,” he said, his gaze never straying from the beautiful face of his boy. “This child right here, he’s the future. He’s all that matters now.”
“You can’t build your whole world around a baby,” Angela argued.
Something in her voice, a surprising hint of testiness, alerted him that her mood was rapidly disintegrating and that he was the cause of it. Suspecting he knew why, he glanced at her. “You OK?”
“Just peachy.”
“Did I forget to mention how you fit into this future?” he inquired, giving her a lazy grin.
“Don’t try to charm me, Clint Brady. All you care about, all you’ve ever cared about is your baby.”
The accusation confirmed his own guesswork. Her feelings were hurt by what she perceived as his priorities. “That’s not true, darlin’. You’ve just given me the most precious gift on God’s earth and you will always have a place in my heart for that.”
“I didn’t have this baby to accommodate you,” she grumbled, reaching for their son. Staking her own claim, he imagined. Clint reluctantly put the baby back into her arms. Her expression softened at once.
“He is precious, isn’t he?” she whispered.
“He is, indeed, though I have a feeling you and I had better enjoy him while we can.”
“Meaning?”
“I think I hear a thundering herd on the steps. My guess is we’re about to have company. That boy’s going to get passed around like a football.”
“Over my dead body,” she said, visibly tightening her embrace. “They can look, but nobody’s getting this baby out of my arms today.”
Before Clint could stake his own claim in what was becoming a knee-jerk reaction of possessiveness, th
ere was a hard knock on the door, followed by a muffled burst of excited chatter. He supposed they might as well give in to the inevitable.
“You ready, angel?”
Her expression was clearly torn. “Not really,” she said finally, “but I suppose it’s only right to share on Christmas morning.”
Clint opened the door and found Jessie trying to hold off the entire Adams clan.
“One at a time,” she said forcefully. Then at a plaintive look from her husband and her father-in-law, she relented. “OK, two. Luke and Harlan, you can go in.”
Clint grinned at her. “You think you can keep control of this mob by yourself?”
“You ever seen a mother bear protecting her cubs?” she retorted.
“I get the picture. Call if you need backup.”
“You call if you can’t budge those two men out of there in five minutes.”
Clint went back into the room just in time to see Angela handing their son up to her grandfather.
“Your first great-grandbaby,” she said.
As he cradled the infant, Harlan’s expression was filled with the kind of fierce pride and tenderness that Clint had once longed to see in his own father’s face. He thought he saw Luke surreptitiously wipe a tear from his cheek before he took his own turn holding the baby. This was the kind of tight-knit family, bound by love and respect, that he’d always wanted. If Angela would only say the word, he would be a part of it.
“How’re you feeling?” Harlan asked her.
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck,” Angela admitted. “But I’ve never been happier. He’s perfect, isn’t he?”
“The most beautiful baby boy I’ve ever seen,” Harlan declared.
“Grandpa, you say that every time there’s a new baby.”
He winked at her. “But this time I mean it.” He turned and held out a hand to Clint. “Congratulations, son. He’s a fine-looking boy. He’ll do the Adams name proud.”
The Heart of Hill Country Page 16