Page 51 of One Night Bride
Vee hopped up and paced the room. A doctor in a white coat came in, her smile calm and confident.
“Are we ready to have a baby?” she asked the room at large.
“Yes!” we all answered. Minus Amelia, who was currently huffing and panting through another contraction.
The doctor came over to the end of the bed and had a seat on a rolling stool, lifting the blankets and doing her thing to Amelia. Us girls shifted closer to Amelia’s head. I loved my sister, but I didn’t need to see all that.
“Ten centimeters and ready to push, my dear. Well done.” The doctor smiled at Amelia, standing up and putting her hand on Amelia’s knee. “When I say push, I want you to push like your baby’s life depends on it. Got it?”
“This is it, darlin’,” Dad said gruffly. “Make us proud.”
Amelia nodded, wide eyed yet determined. Titus clenched his jaw and whispered something in Amelia’s ear. Izzy grabbed my hand and squeezed tight. I grabbed Oakley’s hand and Vee followed suit, the four of us standing in a connected line. My abused eyes filled with tears again, this time for my sister and the amount of pride I had in what she was about to do. I lost my business and my husband in one day. Yet here she was bringing life into this world like an honest-to-God miracle worker.
With each push, Mom and Titus would support Amelia’s head. Dad would cringe and bark out some sort of encouragement in the form of a phrase that made zero sense. The girls and I would lean forward collectively, like maybe we could help our sister push that much harder.
The longest half an hour later, the doctor pulled a baby into the air, her little lungs letting loose a cry louder than her mama. The doctor placed the baby on Amelia’s chest. Her skin looked purple, her head was misshapen, and she was covered in a weird film, but she was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen. We all rushed to the bed to get a closer look.
Amelia sobbed and laughed, her tears mixing with the sweat. Mom beamed with pride as Dad hugged her from behind. Titus kissed the top of Amelia’s head over and over, looking a little green around the gills.
“Congratulations to the mom and dad,” the doctor announced before having a seat again and doing whatever had to be done down there.
Amelia covered the baby in the towels the nurse handed her, rubbing her back and cooing nonsense words to her already.
“Have you two picked a name yet?” Mom asked gently.
Amelia and Titus locked gazes before Amelia announced, “Since Mom already used up all the vowels with us girls, we decided to go with consonants. Everybody…meet Lily Susanna Jackson.”
Mom gasped. “Really?”
Everyone called her Susie, but Susanna was Mom’s proper name. And now Amelia and Titus had named their firstborn after Mom.
Amelia pulled a hand away from little Lily’s back to squeeze Mom’s hand. “You’re the best woman I know. I want my daughter to be named after you.”
Mom lost it then, burying her head in Dad’s chest while she cried. The rest of us took turns getting a closer peek at Lily. Then Amelia’s doctor had some words for her, so Titus stepped closer to intervene.
“Here. Let me hold her.”
With care, Amelia handed Lily to Titus, letting him hold their daughter for the first time. Titus held his hands so carefully, even though Lily was small enough to fit in his two palms. The look he gave his daughter was so beautiful, I stepped back from the physical pain in my chest.
I could have had that.
I saw the life I could have had with Remington flash before my eyes. We would have had children he would have gazed at with all the love in the world in his eyes. We could have built a life of kids and work and a love so great, it blanketed all our worries. He would have been the best father. He would have been the best husband.
And I had totally and completely blown it.
Wyatt popped his head in the door, startling me from my thoughts. The doctor had left and only one nurse was still in the room, helping to weigh Lily and get her cleaned up. Mom was wiping a wet washcloth on Amelia’s face, while Dad read out the menu of what Amelia could order to eat.
“Safe for me to come in?” Wyatt asked.
Oakley’s face split into a wide smile and she pulled him inside. “Come meet Lily.”
Wyatt clapped Titus on the back, peering around him to check out the new baby. My sisters were building their families while I was building a business set on quicksand. How could I have been so stupid? So narrowly focused that I’d missed the most important thing?
Becoming a leader like Dad had always been my aim. But in doing so, I’d completely missed the part where he left the job and came home to us. The family that mattered more to him than any badge or job title or paycheck. Being chief of police didn’t make him a leader worth emulating. Being a father and a husband did.
“Izzy said Remington left?” Oakley asked quietly from right next to me. Wyatt had his arm around her waist, his gaze serious.
I nodded, and she patted my back sympathetically. I was too overcome by emotion to lie. “Yeah. I pretty much screwed up everything.”
