Page 11 of Fatal Love
Chapter Three
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“WHERE ISCAL?”Beatrice said, sitting on the edge of her bed. She didn’t know what to do with herself. If she stood up and walked, the labor pains were too intense, making her want to lie down and curl into a ball. When she did lie down, her nerves were too agitated to stay still and she fought her way up to standing, her feet demanding she pace. “I need him.”
The bedroom was softly lit from the overhead lighting coming from the bathroom. She could smell the lavender oil Maria had put in the birthing tub’s warm water.
“He went to make you some chamomile tea,” Maria said, positioning herself at Beatrice’s feet. “How about a foot massage? It may help with the contractions.”
The last time Maria had touched her feet, she’d started the labor. “Will it make this process go any faster?”
“Maybe.” Maria’s smile was patient. “It can’t hurt.”
Her feet weren’t usually touchy and she wasn’t ticklish, but another contraction hit at the exact moment Maria grabbed her right foot and Beatrice jerked like a mule who’d been tazed. Her foot flew out, nailing Maria in the nose and sending the midwife sprawling onto her backside.
“Oh, crimeny,” Beatrice said, curling up from the pain. “I’m so…ugghh…sorry.”
Maria was holding her nose with one hand and waving off Beatrice’s apologies with the other. Blood seeped through her fingers. “It’s all right.” Her voice sounded nasally. “I’m okay.”
She hurried into the bathroom and Beatrice overheard water running in the sink and the search for a washcloth.
I almost knocked out my midwife.
Not exactly the way she’d planned things.
Gritting her teeth and rocking on the edge of the bed, she controlled her breathing like Maria had taught her and waited for the contraction to pass.Five…four…three…two…one. Time seemed to fold in on itself and Beatrice’s brain fought to make her body do what it wanted.
Losing battle there.
But the counting helped. Her overactive brain had something to focus on during each contraction while her body had a mind of its own.
Maria was saying something but her voice sounded distant and fuzzy, a radio on the wrong frequency. The ball of fire in Beatrice’s lower abdomen and back eased a bit and her spine unlocked slowly, one vertebra at a time. Sweat trickled down her neck and she hastily brushed it away, her skin hypersensitive.
Where is my husband?
She and Cal had been through everything together since they were kids. Although they’d struggled as married adults for a few years, mostly due to jobs that required they spend too many nights away from each other hiding darks secrets, now they were as close as ever.
That they both worked for SFI helped. Even though there were still plenty of nights spent apart, they no longer kept secrets from each other. The friendship that had begun in elementary school and bloomed into a romance in their teens was alive and hotter than ever as they waited for the arrival of the child Beatrice thought they’d never have.
Three miscarriages had once ruined her dreams of being a mother. They’d been the final straw in her and Cal’s marriage before she’d become a target of the US government.
Thank God Cal hadn’t signed the divorce papers.
While on the run from the assassin, they’d rekindled their love and she’d ended up pregnant once again. This child was a fighter, just like her. Just like Cal.
Trace was always telling her that miracles did happen. She didn’t much believe in miracles, but occasionally, evolutionary biology had a way of overcoming obstacles in the most beautiful way imaginable.
Pushing herself off the bed, Beatrice shuffled slowly toward the closed bedroom door. She didn’t want any damn chamomile tea. Mint—that’s what she wanted. Or that new organic honey ginger tea that Savanna had sent her.
“Where are you going?” Maria said from the bathroom door. She held a wet washcloth, spotted with blood, to her nose.
Damn. She’d almost made it out of the bedroom. “To find Cal and my tea.”
She wanted her husband to be with her while she labored. It might be a long, ugly process—and it wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate everything Maria was there to do—but she needed Cal’s reassurance. His simple presence. His love for her worked better than any foot massage or tub of water could to calm her nerves and give her confidence.
Her cognition and logic could out-think just about anyone or situation, giving her plenty of mettle. The only time she’d ever found herself unable to handle a situation had been when the CIA assassin had come after her. She’d needed Cal then and she needed him now.
