LITMIR.BIZ

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out the wallet, she panted. “Soon… nothing…I…want this…over with…now.” Exhaustion threatened to overpower her as she fought to bring life into the world. “What’s…taking…so…long?”

      Long was a relative word, he thought. To him this was happening almost at lightning speed. “All right, I see a head, Stevi. On the count of three, I want you to push. You hear me?” Glancing up, he saw her nodding her head. “One, two—”

      Pulling her shoulders in, Stephanie was pushing before he ever reached the last number, digging her knuckles into the thin floor padding and practically lifting herself off the floor.

      “Three,” Sebastian said even though it was after the fact. He glanced up to see her face growing red as she held her breath and strained with all her might. “All right, stop.”

      Like a punctured balloon, Stephanie collapsed against the side of the van, panting not because it was part of the exercise, but because she couldn’t draw in enough air into her lungs. It felt as if she’d just run a ten-mile marathon in less than a minute.

      “I’m…beginning…to…understand…why…they…call…it…labor.”

      His mouth curved and he found himself wanting to hold her, to comfort her, but that wasn’t his function in this, nor was it his place. There was a husband out there somewhere, a husband who should have, by all rights, been attending this instead of him.

      The flash of jealousy was unexpected, uncalled-for and unprofessional. But it was there, nonetheless, red-hot and hard.

      Sebastian forced himself to think like a doctor. “You’re doing fine, Stevi.” They were almost there. “Now I want you to push again. This time,” he cautioned, “wait until three.”

      She sneered at him. She was being torn apart and he was trying to make her obey orders like some kind of tin soldier or lapdog. She’d like to see him get through this insane tug-of-war she was experiencing.

      With a new contraction overtaking her before the old one left, Stephanie didn’t even wait until the count of two before she began to push again with all her might, this time lifting herself off the floor.

      “Stevi—” But it was too late. Sebastian could only pray she hadn’t ruptured something. “I’ve got the head, Stevi. Now push, push a little more.”

      She didn’t think she could. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she bore down again, biting back a guttural sound that echoed in her throat, demanding release.

      “That a girl, Stevi, the baby’s coming.”

      “I…already…know…that.”

      She had to push out the shoulders now. The hardest part. He tried to divert her attention from the pain he knew had to be consuming her. “Do you know the babies’ sex?”

      “Didn’t…ask. It was…supposed to be…a surprise.”

      Holly and Brett had opted not to know, so she hadn’t asked to be told, either. Now she deeply regretted that they hadn’t found out when they’d had the chance. At least they would have known if they were the parents of boys or girls, or one of each. She ached for their loss. And her own.

      Perspiration poured into her eyes, stinging them. Wasn’t this ever going to be over?

      Out of the haze of pain, she heard Sebastian ordering her, “Push, Stevi, push.”

      “I am!” she shrieked, the cry bursting from her swollen lips.

      Smooth as butter, Sebastian thought as the baby all but slid into his hands.

      Of course, he doubted that Stephanie felt that way about it, but then she was on the side that was doing all the work. Experiencing a myriad of feelings that only marginally had to do with the customary ones he felt whenever he attended the miracle of birth, Sebastian looked down at this latest citizen of the world.

      “Still want it to be kept a surprise?”

      “No…damn it.” Was he cruel enough to play games when she was so exhausted? “What…is…it? Boy or girl?”

      “You have a girl, Stevi.”

      He heard Stephanie suck in her breath. The second twin was on its way. Unable to hold the newborn, Sebastian took off his shirt and wrapped it around the baby. Quickly dumping out the canned goods, he placed her into the laundry basket.

      “All right, let’s see if she has a little brother or sister.”

      “Easy…for…you…to…say,” Stephanie managed to reply before the process began again in earnest, even harder this time than before. The pain ripped through her with long, sharp knives. “Oh, God, I’m…going…to…die.”

      Stephanie heard him draw in his breath, as if bracing himself for a fight. “Not on my shift you’re not.”

      She sincerely hoped Sebastian had learned to keep his word better than he had before.

      Chapter Three

      Stephanie could have sworn she heard the distant wail of sirens in the background.

      Or maybe those were just the noises ricocheting in her head, mixing with the vast array of lights and pain all swirling around within her mind and her body as she strained to give birth to the second twin.

      This baby felt larger than the first. Too large to push out. Even her scalp began to tingle as she strained. Sharp needles ran up and down her body, pricking her from the inside out.

      She would have never thought she could endure this much pain and still survive.

      Sebastian’s command of “push” echoed in her brain. Stephanie dug her elbows in close to her side, searching for some small scrap of energy to draw on. There seemed to be none within her reach.

      Tense, on his knees in front of Stephanie, Sebastian placed his hand beneath the small head, supporting it as it emerged.

      She was almost there, he thought. But there was a mile of pain between “here” and “there.”

      “That’s it, that’s it, Stevi, just a little more,” he coached, feeling his own breath hitch within his throat. “Just a little more. We’re almost there.”

      “We?” she panted, opening eyes that had been almost screwed shut with the effort she was putting forth. What was he doing without his shirt on? Had he been like that all along? She couldn’t remember. “You…want…to…take…over?” Breathlessness notwithstanding, the question had a sarcastic bite to it.

      Sebastian flashed her a grin as a fragment of the past echoed through his mind in response to the arch question she’d thrown at him. There was no daunting her fighting spirit, even now.

      “Wouldn’t know where to begin, Stevi. You’re doing much too good a job yourself.”

      Before his eyes, Stephanie stiffened, her whole body growing rigid. He recognized the signs. The final thrust was coming whether she was up to it or not. He forced himself to ignore the exhaustion imprinted on her features.

      “Now, stop stalling and get those shoulders out, Stevi.”

      He would have never spoken to any of his patients this way, no matter how well he knew them. But Stephanie always did better when she was goaded, when someone challenged her. It seemed only natural that she’d approach giving birth the same way.

      So he goaded her.

      He saw the flicker of anger in her eyes. God, but he had missed her. Missed the sound of her laughter, even the sound of her raised voice as she rode headlong into verbal battle with him. She’d never been anything short of magnificent.

      Sebastian banked down his thoughts—thoughts that were not his to think about. She was another man’s wife now and the past belonged where it was, in the past.

      The myriad

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