Page 52 of Bride for Keeps

“We’ll get her all cleaned up now, okay?” the nurse said, picking up the baby and wiping up the mess.

“Okay,” Sierra agreed reluctantly, watching with desperate eyes as they moved to the other side of the room and cleaned the baby up and measured and weighed her.

“Six pounds, ten ounces,” the nurse announced cheerfully. “Twenty inches long. She’s looking good, Mom and Dad.”

“Six pounds, ten ounces,” Sierra repeated.

“Mom and Dad,” Carter repeated.

They looked at each other then and half laughed, half sobbed.

Carter pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You were amazing. Perfect. Strong and—”

“I wanted to give up.”

“The great thing about childbirth is it’s really hard to give up halfway through.”

She sank back into her pillows, clearly exhausted even as her eyes watched the nurses.

“What was the name you came up with?” he asked, still standing next to her bed and holding her hand. He wanted to collapse into a heap, but he couldn’t seem to take his hand away from Sierra.

“Kaylin. Some of Kaitlin’s name, some of Lina’s. Then maybe we can work Jess’s name into the middle name. Jessmin. Jess and Mindy, like my mom. Would that make your mom mad to not have her name in there?”

“We don’t have to tell her.”

Sierra smiled a little at that. “What do you think? Kaylin Jessmin McArthur. Even Dr. Kaylin McArthur sounds good.”

Carter laughed. “Oh, so you’re going to be the doctor pusher, huh?”

“She can be whatever she wants,” Sierra said, holding her arms out as the nurse handed Kaylin over, bundled in a blanket with a little pink knitted hat on her head. It even had a bow on the front. “But I bet she’ll want to be like her daddy.”

Daddy.He was adaddynow, and this amazing little being washis. To love, to protect, to raise. Maybe his earlier proclamation of never doing this again was a little premature, he decided as dark blue eyes looked out at him from under a knit cap. Maybe they could do this a few more times.

Because he’d learned how to be a husband, with the help of his family and his wife, so he had no doubt he could learn how to be a pretty fine dad.

With Sierra at his side, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind.

Epilogue

Present-day Marietta

Sierra sat inthe uncomfortable plastic chair of the hospital waiting room, about at her wit’s end trying to keep Kaylin occupied without touching every germy surface in the place.

“We should have waited,” Sierra said to Carter as Kaylin fussed and tried to wriggle out of her lap.

Carter pawed through the baby bag trying to find a toy that would hold Kaylin’s interest. “Cole said it’d be any minute now. You said you wanted to be here.”

“I should have realized waiting with a one-and-a-half-year-old would be like waiting with a rabid octopus.”

Carter grinned at her. “Rabid octopus. Now, that’s a new one.”

“Pam-paw!” As Dr. McArthur and Mrs. McArthur approached, Sierra let Kaylin down. The one-and-a-half-year-old toddled over to Dr. McArthur and wrapped her pudgy arms around his legs.

His MS had progressed a little aggressively in the past few months, so he didn’t pick her up, but he did give her head a pat and greet her cheerfully. Mrs. McArthur reached down and took Kaylin’s hand.

Kaylin babbled happily up at her grandparents, and Sierra didn’t catch any of the words she seemed to be picking up at a rapid pace, but Kaylin was more than happy to hold court.

It was still strange, even all this time later, to watch the McArthurs interact with her child. Sierra’s relationship with them wasn’t roses and rainbows. It was polite, at best, but the McArthurs had proved to be good grandparents. They’d only overstepped a few times, and Carter always told them to back off, and they did. It had taken trial and error, a few arguments, and things weren’t perfect, but they were good. Sierra hadn’t really sat back and fully realized that until right now watching them entertain Kaylin while they waited.

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