Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“I brought you a change of clothes,” she said.
I looked at the clothes on top, then down at my uniform.
“Thank you,” I said as I grabbed the clothes and walked into the bathroom.
When I was slipping my boots back on, I heard a commotion.
Coming out, I found Malachi standing out in the hallway and Frankie’s bare ass hanging out as she peeked out of the room.
I walked up behind her and tugged her gown closed.
She tossed me a look of exasperation over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” I heard.
I looked up to find a frazzled looking nurse running around looking lost.
“What is it?” Frankie asked, sounding focused and not in pain at all.
Even though I’d heard from Malachi that she was apparently six centimeters dilated and in active labor.
“The doctors are all delivering other babies!” the nurse cried.
Frankie took a step out of the room, and I made sure to hold onto her gown.
“Grab me another gown,” Frankie ordered.
Malachi and the nurse looked at her as if she was crazy.
Me, only getting half of the story, was more confused than they were.
“I said, get me a gown!” Frankie ordered tersely.
Just then Coke, Cora, and my parents exited the elevator.
Frankie didn’t spare them a single glance.
Instead, she was busy shrugging on another gown, only this time so it was covering her backside.
Then she was marching down the hallway toward the room two down from hers, her gown flapping in the wind.
At some point, she’d taken off the IV that she’d been hooked up to, as well as the monitors that’d been on her belly.
“What the fuck…” I said.
“There’s a baby in distress,” Malachi said as he watched my laboring wife walk away right along with me. “The woman and the baby aren’t doing good. All the other doctors on this floor are delivering babies. Apparently, there are five of them delivering right now.”
Frankie disappeared into a room and I walked to the door as well but didn’t enter.
I could hear crying and people frantically talking.
It was Frankie’s calm voice that had them all settling down, though.
And, five minutes later, the sweetest sound we’d ever heard came through the closed door.
A baby crying.
Five minutes after that, Frankie walked out looking pained.
“Okay,” she said. “I need an epidural.”
“Let me help you get hooked back up,” I heard.
I turned to find an older woman smiling wide.
Peyton.
My aunt stared at me with a smile.
I squeezed Frankie’s hand as Peyton led us back into the room and helped her hook back up to the monitors.
“Oh, boy,” Peyton said, looking at the monitor that was showing her contractions. “I’m not sure how you just delivered that baby while you were having these kinds of contractions but…”
“Oh, fuck,” Frankie cried out.
My eyes went straight to Frankie who was looking at me with horror.
“What?”
“Are all the other doctors still delivering?” Frankie asked calmly.
Peyton nodded.
“Yes, they…”
“Everybody, turn around!” I suddenly barked when Frankie frantically started yanking her gowns up.
Malachi, Coke, and my dad left the room completely.
My mother, Peyton, and Cora helped Frankie get her gown up.
That was when I saw Frankie’s need for urgency.
“Ummm,” Cora said, sounding worried.
“Catch her!” Frankie yelled.
And that’s exactly what I did.
Seconds after Frankie ordered me to do so, I had a screaming, pissed off, blue-eyed baby girl in my hands and I had no clue what in the hell I was supposed to do.
Peyton, luckily, did.
Frankie did, too.
Thank fucking God.
***
Two hours later
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said for what had to have been the fourteenth time in the last two hours.
“Would you give it a rest?” Frankie cried.
I was shaking my head before she’d gotten the words out of her mouth.
“I just… shit,” I said. “Shit.”
Frankie snickered and ran her finger down our baby’s cheek.
The baby’s eyes opened, and once again, I was struck with the eerie cerulean blue eyes that stared back at me.
“It’s weird,” I said. “Eyes this blue.”
She snorted.
“You and your dad have them,” she pointed out.
“I know,” I answered. “It’s just weird.”
She pressed a kiss to my throat, then laid her head down on my chest.
We were alone in the room for the first time in a while.
Malachi had gone home.
Our parents and my sister had, too.
Leaving us alone with the baby that was now our sole responsibility.
“I don’t feel like I’m equipped enough to be this person’s everything,” I said. “I don’t want to fuck her up.”
She snorted.
“We won’t,” she promised. “We have some great parents to lean on in case we lose our way.”
That we did.
Not only had they helped after everything had gone down in Florida, but they’d been there every step of the way since.
And I couldn’t ask for better grandparents—though it was really fucking weird that my sister was kind of a grandma—for my new little Isabelle.
“We’re lucky, baby,” I rasped.
She pressed a kiss to the baby’s cheek that was only inches away from her face.