Page 39 of Heart of Danger
And the world stopped. Simply stopped.
Catherine looked down into the small red face, eyes scrunched closed, mouth open, and felt her entire being suffused with light. Pure, golden light spearing through her. This little girl was hope and joy and innocence. Was light in darkness, joy in sorrow, hope in despair.
There was no precedent in her life for what Catherine was feeling, holding the tiny baby girl in her arms.
She was connected to the earth, to the sun, to every human being who had ever walked the earth. All their hopes and dreams—everything a human could be—was contained in this tiny little creature.
“Hello,” Catherine whispered, dazzled beyond bearing. Her cheeks were wet and her vision was blurred, but she didn’t realize she was crying until that handkerchief appeared again.
There was no thought in her of the origin of that handkerchief, of who wiped her face. Of what the huge man behind her might be thinking.
Of the fact that she was a prisoner in a hidden location. She might have days—hours—to live. The man behind her was powerful in every way there was. Physically and mentally. He was armed and dangerous and that didn’t even cross her mind until later because right now she was holding everything good and true about the world in her arms.
Red bent forward and kissed Bridget and that small act broke her out of her reverie.
“What is it?” Bridget asked, eyes half-closed. She must have been exhausted, but she had a dreamy smile on her face.
“A girl. A beautiful, healthy little red-haired girl. Ten on the Apgar Scale. Probably fifteen, actually, on the scale of one to ten.” Catherine laughed from the sheer joy of it. “What are you going to call her?”
“Mac,” Bridget and Manuel said together and the big man behind her made a low sound in his throat.
“Mac.” Catherine cleared her throat discreetly. “That’s, um, an original name. For a girl.”
Bridget met Manuel’s eyes and spoke. “She would have been Mac if she’d been a three-headed Martian. We owe Mac our lives. There’s never been any question of what to call our baby.” Darkness crossed her tired features. “Not that her birth will ever be officially registered.”
Oh. If the little girl’s birth wasn’t going to be registered, that meant—that meant they were on the run. One more secret of this secretive place to tuck away. But secrets didn’t matter right now. What mattered was the tiny creature in her arms.
Catherine walked over to the basin, carefully washed the baby. Mac. It was really hard to think of her by the name of the huge dark warrior in the room. She wrapped Mac up in another clean blanket and walked over to Bridget, who was sitting up, Red’s hand supporting her back and placed Mac in her arms.
She didn’t need to touch anyone to understand the emotions between the two. You could almost see the waves of love washing back and forth between mother and child.
Quietly, Catherine disposed of the placenta and cleaned up the birthing area.
“Try putting her—Mac—to the breast,” she suggested softly. The baby could wait, but Bridget couldn’t. Catherine didn’t understand what was going on but it looked like though this baby was clearly wanted, they were having a child in difficult, perhaps dangerous circumstances. Nursing her child would reassure Bridget that the sacrifice was worth it. Skin to skin contact—there was nothing like it. “Babies should nurse as soon as possible after birth.”
Catherine reached out and gently guided Mac’s little head to Bridget’s breast. In her stint in OB-GYN she’d heard a nurse describe how a newborn crawled up her mother’s abdomen to her breast and latched on all by herself, finding the nipple with a little sigh of relief.
Mac opened her little rosebud of a mouth and latched onto her mother’s nipple. She suckled contentedly, tiny hands kneading her mother’s breast like a kitten’s paw, her father’s hand cupped over the back of her head.
Everything Mac needed to know she knew already.
She was loved.
It was there in her mother’s eyes and her father’s gentle touch. Catherine watched the small family fold in on itself, secure in their love for each other. Every touch had confirmed that the love was genuine, the kind that lasted a lifetime. And the little girl—pure magic.
Whatever dangers this family faced, they’d face them together.
Feeling all of that even second-hand dazzled her. She’d never encountered that connection between two people, as if they were one. And now a third person—tiny but so powerful Catherine could still feel the effects of her luminescence—had joined the circle.
Powerful emotions rushed through her.
Catherine usually controlled who she touched, controlled the effect they had on her. But being responsible for the safety and health of Bridget and her child had opened her up in a way she’d never been before.
There hadn’t been any energy left over for any kind of self-defense.
All through medical school she’d had a carapace around her that grew impenetrable, letting in only the information she needed as a physician.
Then she’d moved into research where there was no need to touch anyone. But during this birth there’d been no shield she could throw up, nothing between her and Bridget, Red and the child struggling to be born. Suddenly the effect of all these powerful emotions filled her, weighed her down.
