LITMIR.BIZ

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the labor horror stories that Dylan vaguely recalled hearing came back to him now. Wasn’t the process supposed to go on for interminable hours? “You’re kidding, right?”

      Unable to answer, Lucy moved her head from side to side, her teeth sinking into her lower lip so hard he was afraid she was going to bite straight through it. Momentarily at a loss, Dylan took her hand and felt his fingers immediately caught up in a viselike grip. The strength of it took him by surprise.

      “No,” she said, finally managing to breathe, “I’m not. I can feel the pressure…it’s like…I’m being…pulled apart…like a giant…wishbone.” Lucy shrieked the last part of the word as a salvo of pain thundered through her. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.

      He saw the fear and forgot his own. He forced himself to stop thinking of her as Lucy and start thinking of her as a woman who needed his help. After all, he was a cop and that was what he did, he helped people in need. He couldn’t let it get any more complicated than that.

      But it was, a voice whispered inside of him. No matter how hard he tried to block out the truth, this was still Lucy. And he was going to have to help her give birth to another man’s child.

      The realization hit hard into his soul.

      With fingers that were in danger of going numb, he managed to squeeze her hand, reassuring her the only way he knew how. Silently.

      “Okay, Lucy, if he’s going to come now, let’s get this going.”

      Dylan thought a minute, trying to remember a class he’d been forced to take in his earlier days as a policeman. The particulars he needed now were obscure. All he could recall was thinking that he hoped he’d never have to face the situation himself. And now here he was.

      Yes, here he was, and at the moment, he was all that Lucy had to cling to. It was probably his fault that she’d gone into labor in the first place. Maybe if he’d had a better way of telling her…

      Water under the bridge, Dylan admonished himself. Speculation wasn’t going to change what was happening now. And that was what he had to deal with.

      “I don’t think…I…have a choice.” Without consciously meaning to, she dug her fingernails into his flesh as he tried to disengage his hand from hers. Another contraction had seized her, holding her prisoner. Torturing her.

      Freeing himself as gently as he could, he turned her face so that she was forced to look at him. He willed his strength into her.

      “Breathe, Lucy, breathe. Small, shallow breaths. Concentrate on breathing.”

      “I can’t.”

      His voice was stern. “Yes, you can.”

      It wasn’t encouragement as much as an order. That was what she needed right now, someone strong to help her find her way. He stowed away any stray feelings that might have still been lingering and galvanized his resolve.

      Mechanically, Dylan lifted the hem of her dress and pushed it up to her waist, then as quickly as possible, he removed her underwear. He saw her body stiffen, not from his touch, but because the next contraction had begun on the perimeter of the one that was only now releasing her. She writhed in agony, holding her breath, as if that could somehow make it go away.

      “Breathe, dammit!” he ordered. Catching her chin in his hands, he forced her to look at him again. “Like this.” His eyes holding hers, he took in a long breath and released it in short pants. “Okay?”

      Anger, anchorless and sharp, raged through her. At him, at Ritchie, at the pain. But there was no outlet and she was not master of her soul right now. The pain saw to that.

      Lucy did as she was told, holding on to Dylan’s order as if it were a lifeline, a single thing to focus that would lead her out of this ring of fire she found herself in. She had a life inside of her. A life that was struggling to be brought into this world, and she owed it to her child to help in any way she could.

      And Dylan would help both of them. For this one thing, she could count on him.

      Closing her eyes, listening to the sound of Dylan’s voice echoing in her head, she began to push.

      She’d stopped breathing. His eyes darted back up to her face. It was contorted. Dylan realized that she was pushing. Damn it, where the hell were the paramedics? Why weren’t they here yet?

      “Okay, you’re doing fine, just fine,” Dylan said. “I can see it, Lucy. I can see the top of the baby’s head.”

      Dylan’s voice and the words he said barely registered inside the haze of pain surrounding her. And then they seemed to take on a breadth, a thickness of their own. The baby. Her baby. It was almost here. Hunching her shoulders forward, she fought off the waves of exhaustion that had come from the dark to encircle her and forced herself to push again. Harder this time. Longer. Until finally, too drained to continue, she fell back against the sofa cushion, gasping for air.

      “Don’t stop now,” he ordered.

      “Dylan, I’m so tired….”

      “He can’t do it alone, and he wants to be here now.” Dylan moved behind Lucy, gathering together the decorative pillows she’d scattered around and shoving them under her shoulders to help prop her up. “Finally know what it means to want to be in two places at once,” she heard him mutter under his breath. She opened her eyes to look at him and saw him smiling encouragingly at her. Then he slid back to take up the position where he’d been.

      “Okay, on the count of three, I want you to push again. Ready?”

      “No.” The response was more of a sob than a word.

      He raised his eyes to hers and the short, abrupt order on his lips softened in the face of the pain he saw. Damn, but she could still get to him like nothing and no one else ever had.

      “Yes,” he told her softly, “you are. Okay now, one, two, three. Push!” He felt every fiber of his own body tightening in concentration as he gave her the order.

      Lucy pushed. Pushed so hard she felt as if she had ejected every fiber of her body, turning it completely inside out. Pushed so hard she thought she was going to faint again as a border of blackness began leeching into the feverish red haze that was engulfing her.

      The final push came with a whining scream.

      Falling back, she barely had enough strength left to gulp in air. Lucy heard a small, piercing cry. Was that coming from her? Or somewhere else?

      But her own lips were closed now and the tiny, reedy wail persisted. Her lashes felt damp as she forced her eyes open. She could barely focus on Dylan. He was holding something in his arms.

      Her baby.

      She tried to wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, barely able to move it. “Is he…is he…all right?”

      When Dylan didn’t answer, a sliver of panic wedged itself in her breast, going straight for her heart like a sharp dagger. With her last ounce of strength, she raised herself up on her elbows.

      “Dylan?”

      He couldn’t ever remember feeling like this before. Awed, overwhelmed with something very odd squeezing at his heart. And all because of the tiny life he held in his hands.

      As if it had been stored on a delayed relay system, Lucy’s tone played itself back to him. He raised his eyes to hers. A hint of a smile tugged on his lips, as if afraid to intrude on a moment this sacred.

      “He’s a she.” His mouth curved a little more. “Your son is a daughter—and she’s more than all right. She’s beautiful.”

      Deprived of the warm shelter that had been hers only moments earlier, the infant began to squirm and cry. The thick thatch of black hair on her head was matted and plastered to her, and when she opened her eyes, they were the most incredible shade of blue Dylan had ever seen. He raised his eyes to look at Lucy.

      “Are

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