LITMIR.BIZ

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      But by then, she was pretty much beyond mortification. Actually, between the excruciating, never-ending contractions, when she could think again, she was grateful. That he was there. That she hadn’t ended up doing this impossible job alone.

      Her heart hurt, knowing that Rowdy wasn’t behind that wheel instead. That he’d died before he even knew they were finally going to have the baby they’d been trying for since they got married. When she closed her eyes, she could still see his beloved, craggy face and hear his rough voice.

      Oh, she did miss the way he would call her “sweetheart,” so shyly, with that look of adoration and wonder in his kind hazel eyes. She could see him as he left her that last time, kissing her at the sink and then going out the back door to check some fences, favoring his right leg, which had been injured in some long ago rodeo accident.

      “Rowdy, oh, Rowdy…” She was crying, the tears streaming down her cheeks. She tasted them, salty, on her tongue. And she must have said Rowdy’s name out loud, because Gabe turned around in the front seat.

      “Mary. It’s okay. Almost there…”

      She dashed the tears away and tried to sit up straight. “No problem. Really. I’m doing fine back here.” Another contraction struck. Gabe turned back to the road and Mary concentrated on riding out the pain.

      After the time he turned around and saw the tears running down Mary’s face as she cried for her lost husband, Gabe kept his eyes on the road. He figured if there was an emergency going on in the backseat, she would let him know.

      Otherwise, better to give the poor woman a little privacy. It had to be hard to have a baby without your husband. He guessed. It wasn’t the kind of thing he knew much about. Not being a woman, in the first place—and being a total bachelor, in the second. Gabe just didn’t see the point of marriage and settling down with one woman. Well, for other guys, sure. But not for him. He liked women and they liked him. And he was real fond of variety. He never hung around one woman all that long. He enjoyed his freedom and he liked to keep his options open.

      Behind him, Mary moaned in agony. And Gabe stopped thinking about how much he enjoyed being single and concentrated on getting to the hospital fast.

      The ride seemed interminable, but it really wasn’t that long. Nine minutes after leaving Mary’s place behind, he was pulling into the turnaround in front of Wulf City Memorial, under a wide porte cochere. They had a wheelchair waiting in the vestibule behind the first set of glass doors. An orderly wheeled it out, another orderly at his side.

      Gabe helped Mary out of the car and the orderlies settled her into the chair.

      “Thank you,” she told him, hooking her purse over her shoulder. “Thank you so much…” And one of the orderlies turned the chair around and wheeled her through the doors. The other followed, with the suitcase and the red diaper bag.

      Gabe knew it was time to leave her. He’d done what he could for her. No one was going to fault him if he got back behind the wheel and got the hell out of there.

      He could stop by her house in a couple of days. Mentally, he catalogued the contents of the briefcase he’d left under her table: nothing in there he couldn’t do without for forty-eight hours. Everything on the laptop was on his computer at the office and most of it was on his Black-Berry, too. It would be perfect. He could visit after she got home from the hospital, see how she was doing, give her the towels that were still in the backseat, pick up the briefcase, admire her new baby. And continue with his campaign to get her to sell the Lazy H.

      His BlackBerry vibrated again. He got it out and checked to see who it was: Carly Madison, his date of last Saturday night. They’d attended a dinner, a high-profile event to raise money for cancer research. Black tie. And then they’d gone to his place for a private party of their own…

      And he couldn’t stop worrying about Mary.

      He glanced up at the doors they’d wheeled her through. Somehow, it just didn’t seem right to him, to leave her alone in the hospital, without a friend or a relative to look after her.

      He put the BlackBerry away unanswered and went to park his car. Five minutes later, he was pushing his way through the two sets of glass doors.

       Chapter Four

      Mary was still in reception, still sitting in that wheelchair. They’d wheeled her into the waiting area and left her there, her suitcase and diaper bag at her feet. Someone had given her a clipboard and a pen and she was trying to fill out a damn form, of all things.

      He went to her. “What is going on?”

      She let out a cry of surprise and almost dropped the clipboard. “Gabe. Wh.. .what are you doing here?”

      “I decided it was a bad idea to drive off and leave you alone.”

      “But I’m not alone.” She gestured with the pen, indicating the others in the reception area with her, and the counter with the clerks behind it. “There’s a whole hospital full of people here to take care of me and you don’t need to—”

      “What is this?” He took the clipboard from her and riffled the forms clipped to it. “There must be ten pages of crap here.”

      “Give that back.” She grabbed for it.

      He held it out of her reach. “It’s no time to be filling out forms. You need to be in a hospital bed. You’re having a baby. Don’t any of these people realize that?” He started for the front desk.

      She called him back. “Gabe.”

      He hesitated, and made a low, disapproving sound to let her know he was listening.

      “It’s just procedure. Since this is happening earlier than planned, I’m not pre-admitted. So I have to fill out the forms. Then they admit me. And the longer you kick up dust about it, the longer until I get the paperwork out of the way and they take me to an examining room.”

      He dropped into the chair next to her. “This isn’t right.”

      “Gabe.” She glared at him. “Give me the…” The sentence became a groan as another contraction struck.

      “Damn it, Mary.” He offered his hand. She took it and set about grinding the bones.

      When that one passed off, she whispered between clenched teeth, “Give me the clipboard. Now.”

      He saw that a compromise was in order. “How about this? I’ll read you the questions and write them down for you…”

      She made a growling sound. But she did give in. “Fine. Whatever. Do it.”

      “All right.” He read down the page to where she’d stopped and then asked the next question. “Ever smoke cigarettes?”

      “No.”

      “Drink alcohol?”

      “Not in the past eight months.”

      “We’ll call that a no…”

      They were finished in about three minutes. He wheeled Mary up to the desk and the clerk took the clipboard.

      The woman thumbed through the forms, nodded, and sent them a disinterested glance. “Have a seat. We’ll call you in a few minutes.”

      Gabe opened his mouth to tell the clerk that “a few minutes” was completely unacceptable. He wanted Mary in the business end of that hospital and he wanted her there now.

      But Mary tugged on his hand. “Gabe. No.” He glanced down into her upturned face. The look in her eyes made it more than clear that he was not allowed to ream the clerk a new one. “I’m fine,” she said firmly. “Okay? Fine.”

      So he wheeled her back to the waiting area, figuring if they didn’t come get her good and soon, he’d be kicking some ass and taking some serious names—whether Mary wanted him to or not.

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