Page 7 of Doctor Holliday

“Logan.”

“Okay, Logan.” She drew in a deep breath. Right now, the hard cement beneath her knees was mildly uncomfortable. By tomorrow, her knees would ache like she had run a marathon. Just one of the perks of getting old. “I’m Lucy Holliday. I’m an ob-gyn at the Eastport Women’s Medical Group. I deliver babies at Eastport General.”

“Please don’t make me,” Logan whispered.

“Make you what, hon?” Lucy let her eyes roam over the girl’s pale face down over her swollen belly and finally to the huge wet spot in her jeans. Lucy flinched when she realized Logan was lying in a puddle.

“Go to the hospital. Have this baby.”

“Sweetie, your water broke.” Lucy glanced at Keaton Thatcher. “You’re having this baby whether you want to or not.”

Logan sniffled and raised her hands to cover her eyes. Lucy shot another pointed glance in Keaton’s direction.,

“What do you need?” he asked immediately.

Chapter 4

Thursday,December 7

Keaton

He alternated between hovering over the dark-haired doctor and laboring girl and stepping away both to give them privacy and to keep what he thought was his long-gone lunch down. Something about watching Alyssa deliver Ruby was a hell of a lot different than watching this young girl squirming in pain in his stockroom.

Keaton had found clean towels and entire packages full of new paper hand towels in lieu of the maxi-pads the doctor had asked for. Luckily, he had a bathroom in the stockroom, and since he was getting the store ready to open, there were still buckets scattered around—even a few unused and brand new. The doctor had demanded everything be sterilized. Keaton didn’t have a stove to boil the water, but he had let the sink run until the water was scalding hot. When the doctor asked him to get a kit from the back of her SUV, he had grabbed her keys and ran to the fancy little vehicle and popped open the hatch. He had foundthe black bag immediately and hurried back into the stockroom, careful to shut the door behind him.

The doctor had stood and walked a few steps away when he returned. He held his breath while she tied her hair up in a knot on the back of her neck and then slipped into the bathroom to wash her hands.

When she helped the girl—Logan—when she helpedLoganget her jeans down and slipped them off the girl’s ankles, Keaton had turned his back. He heard the snap of sterile gloves, heard the doctor’s soft, calm voice announce that she had to check the girl, and heard the sharp intake of breath that indicated the doctor had indeed slipped her hand inside her to check her cervix. Keaton had squeezed his eyes closed, pushed away thoughts of what was happening behind him, pushed the memories of Ruby’s birth from his head, and mentally recited football stats.

“Have you had any prenatal care?”

“No.”

Keaton winced, feeling connected to the doctor when she muttered something that sounded helpless and frustrated.

“She’s a hundred percent effaced and fully dilated,” the doctor announced.

“What’s that mean?”

Keaton knew what it meant, but the girl’s innocent question enraged him. He would like to get his hands on the man who had messed with her. It was possible the girl had said yes to a boy her age, that she and a boy she thought she cared about had let things go too far and ended up creating a baby.

But it was possible, too, that she had been taken advantage of.

More than likely, in his opinion.

“It means you’re ready to have this baby,” the doctor said calmly.

“I don’t want…” The girl groaned. Even from where he stood several feet away, Keaton heard her snap her teeth together. “This baby!”

“I know.”

“Get it out of me!”

“I will,” the doctor promised. “But I need your help.”

Keaton glanced at her, relieved to see she had her eyes on Logan, not him.

“How old are you, Logan?”

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