Page 40 of Sleeping with Her Enemy (49th Floor 2)

Amy grabbed the phone from Dax. “Hi. I’m in charge here. The mother says she needs to push. What do I do?” He watched her nod and murmur a few “uh-huhs.” Then she handed the phone back.

“Okay,” Amy said again, laying a hand on Kat’s forehead, which was covered with sweat. “Next time you feel the urge, you’re going to take a deep breath and bear down like…um, like you’re going to the bathroom.”

“I’m scared,” Kat said quietly, grabbing Amy’s other hand.

“Nah,” Amy said. “People do this all the time. You’ve got billions of years of evolution on your side here.”

Kat took a shaky breath. “Okay then, let’s do this.”

Amy moved down to the foot of the bed. “You let me know when you feel like you need to push, okay?”

Kat nodded even as tears began to slip out of the corner of her eyes.

He wanted to ask if he should so something. Boil water? That’s what they did on TV, right? Tear sheets into bandages? But the two women were in a world of their own. Some kind of metaphysical thing had passed between them, and he had a feeling anything he would say right now would just tip them out of the zone.

Kat had been wearing a maternity sundress. He would have called it a muumuu, but she would have slapped him. Amy lifted the dress up even as she made eye contact with him. Apparently he wasn’t forgotten after all. “Your sister is about to have a baby. It’s probably better for everyone if you go stand up by her head and try to make yourself useful. Keep the dispatcher informed.”

He jumped as if she’d lit a fire under his ass and moved to the top of the bed, taking Kat’s proffered hand just as another contraction hit.

“I have to push!”

“Okay, go!” Amy yelled.

His sister she squeezed his hand so hard he thought she would break it as she yelled, “Motherfucker!”

“I can see the head—it’s not through yet, but your baby has black hair!” Amy said, grinning. “You’re doing great!”

Kat just panted and heaved a great breath in. The wail became a war cry as she bore down. Holy crap, he’d had no idea. TV didn’t do justice to any of this. This was both terrifying and amazing at the same time.

“Good! Good!” Amy was sweating, too, staring intently at his sister’s…nether regions. He watched her eyes widen. “Here it comes!”

His sister gave one more enormous push, and then, for a second, everything was silent.

Amy looked up, and her voice broke as she said, “Your baby is here.”

Another wail then, and not Kat’s. Amy’s eyes filled as she looked at him—his did, too. “I think you should get a blanket? They said we should keep the baby warm.” She was whispering now, all the fight seeming to leave her.

He bolted to the linen closet in the hallway and came back with a stack of towels, sheets, and blankets. Both women were doing a mixture of crying and laughing. Amy covered the baby, whom she’d placed on Kat’s chest, with a beach towel.

“Now we wait for the professionals,” Amy said, still sniffling a little. “But she looks great!”

“She?” Kat asked, clutching at Dax’s hand again.

Amy nodded. “Yes! Didn’t you know?”

Kat shook her head, grinning through tears. “No. But I had a hunch.”

“Dax!” came a voice from the living room. “They’re here.”

“Yes!” He ran out to meet Gary and the paramedics. The bedroom was too small for the assembled crowd, so after asking Amy a few questions, the paramedics asked everyone to wait outside.

“Is there supposed to be so much blood?” Amy asked, grabbing his arm as she followed him out. “There was a lot of blood.” General Amy, the magnificent creature who’d gotten them through this, was gone, having been replaced by a wide-eyed, frantic woman on the verge of panic.

All he could do was shake his head. It seemed impossible that anything bad could happen now that the baby was out. But women died of postpartum hemorrhage sometimes, didn’t they? Just as he was about to join Amy in a group panic attack, one of the paramedics came out.

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