Page 83 of Stowaway Whirlwind
“I said I’m fine.”
“And you’re straight lying through your teeth. You’re already up to three spankings. Keep it up and—”
Goldie grips theoh shithandle above her window and my forearm with her other hand, digging her fingernails into my skin, jerking her hips up from the seat.
“I fucking knew it,” I hiss. “How long have you been having contractions?”
Goldie groans and finally drops the charade. “Since breakfast.”
“Since…” My head swims. “That was seven hours ago! Has your water broken yet?”
“No—yes—I don’t know! At the rest stop—” Goldie grits her teeth through a contraction.
A tiny fraction of my panic eases when the massive road signs start advertising the hospital’s exit coming up soon, and I switch lanes to the right, speeding down the ramp. “Ten more minutes,” I tell Goldie.
“Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Davis!” The alarm in her voice almost has me swerving off the road.
“What? What?!”
Goldie groans a long, low, primal sound and lifts her hips to shove her black leggings down. “Pull over!”
“Oh god, baby, hang on. We’re almost there.”
“Pull over now!” she screams. “I think the baby’s head is crowning.”
“I can’t!” I’m already midway through the intersection, turning left, and the hospital comes into view. “We’re almost there!”
Lily is wailing from the back seat, scared by her mother’s painful screech. I wrench the wheel to the right and pull into the hospital’s goddamn labyrinth of a parking lot, telling Goldie tobreathe, baby, as I follow the signs for the emergency room.
Goldie holds her belly, curling forward. “Davis.” Her voice cracks.
I swerve around the idiot who pulls their car out of the lot ahead of me, cutting me off, and I blare my horn. “What, baby?” I slam on the brakes when a young woman in scrubs pushes an older man in a wheelchair across the lane. “Goddamnit!”
“Davis,” she grits between panting breaths, though I can hardly hear her through the blood pounding in my ears.
I pop the curb to swerve around the pair, two wheels on the sidewalk, the Explorer thumping when I get all four tires back on the lane. “What?” I slam to a stop at the emergency room doors, throw the gear in park, and look at Goldie.
Her arms and light blue maternity shirt are streaked with blood, and a tiny wail pierces through the whirling chaos in my mind. “A boy.” She cradles the wet, purplish-pink bundle with a tremulous smile on her exhausted, reddened face. “Our son has red hair, just like Lily.”
“Rowan Ronald Freeman,” I say with whispered awe, and I think I smile before I pass out.
Chapter 29
Davis
“At least you waited a little longer this time,” Wyatt grumbles, taking a pull of his beer before helping me blow up the remaining balloons for the combined party we’re hosting for Rowan’s first, Lily’s second, and William’s fourth birthdays. His lectures about waiting eighteen months between giving birth and getting pregnant again went out the window when Goldie all but attacked me in the hallway after putting the kids to bed when Rowan was eight months old, telling me she threw out her birth control pills and begging me to cum inside her.
I laugh at the sour look on Wyatt’s face, but it dies in my throat in an instant when our house alarm goes off. I race for Lily and snatch her off the living room floor, where she had been playing with her building blocks. Goldie is already running out of the house ahead of me in her hoodie and jeans with Rowan planted on her hip. I quickly bundle the three of them into the Explorer, then toss Goldie her keys.
Goldie is backed up halfway down the driveway before I turn to run back inside the house to assess the threat. Ms. Judy comes tearing past me on the porch. Her boyfriend, old Freddy’s son, Mr. Monroe—Christian—is right behind her, both of them waving their hands high in the air to get Goldie’s attention.
TheGranny’s Girls, alongside Ms. Ellie, filter out of the house with the rest of the kids out on the front lawn, William barreling past the adults and down the driveway, yelling Lily’s name. Inside, Russell and Harold are running around opening the windows while Jared waves dish towels at the smoke alarm closest to the kitchen. Past him, the back door is thrown open, and I run out to find Wyatt stomping on a blackened mess in the grass.
“What the hell happened? What is that?” Crouching down, I find what’s left of our large wooden chopping board that had somehow caught fire. I hadn’t smelled it burning over the scent of the overcooked fries and chicken Dolly had been frying on our stove, assuring Ms. Ellie and Goldie that she didn’t need help.
Wyatt points his finger and mean mugs me. “I will kick your ass if you tease Dolly about this.”
I hold my hands up as I straighten. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” The corners of my lips twitch, and it’s a struggle to keep the smile off my face.
