Page 17 of Baby, Be Mine

She laughed maniacally. “You just don’t want me to fall so I don’t sue you.”

The laugh surprised me. How the hell could either of us laugh at this point? Another few alarmingly large tears squeezed from her eyes and my chest tightened. Tears always gutted me. “Nope. No suing me. I just bought this boat, and I can’t have you christening it like this.”

“Christening includes sex, pal.”

“See?” I laughed and met her gaze. “Definitely don’t want to do it up with a baby first.”

The tears returned with a vengeance as her face went red and her talons sunk into my skin.

“Breathe.”

“Don’t tell me to breathe! How would you know what I need to do?!”

“I didn’t say breathe like whatever a birthing coach would say. I mean just get some oxygen. You’re bright red.”

“You try having a contraction!” she growled in a voice that would probably follow me into nightmares tonight.

I slid my hand around the back of her neck, also drenched in sweat. “Okay, just look at me and take a deep breath.” Her whole body was shaking, and I could feel her tensing again.

The rage boiled in her eyes and just as suddenly flowed out as she relaxed and her breath whooshed out. She sagged against me, and her forehead dropped to my chest. “I can’t do this here. No way. Not here. I had a plan.”

“When are you due?”

“Obviously, right now, even if it should be a few more weeks at least.” Her hand slid down to my side and dug in as another round of contractions hit. “Fuck.”

I held onto her as I looked around and tried not to panic. I was pretty sure her purse was downstairs near the door. Right now, that seemed very far away.

My brain whirled as I remembered my phone was in the restaurant on my desk plugged into the charger. Helpful. I didn’t even know where my iPad was. Did I leave it in my office? Hell.

It was dead, just like my phone. Both on my charging dock. Just perfect.

I gathered her closer as she sagged against me. “These are coming really fast.”

“I think I’ve been in labor for a while.” She buried her face in my neck. “I just thought they were Braxton Hicks. I’ve already gone into the birthing center twice and they kept telling me I wasn’t ready.”

She was shuddering against me, and I’d never felt more helpless in my whole damn life.

“It’s okay. We’re going to figure this out.”

She peered up at me. “What? You going to birth this baby for me, Ace?”

I laughed. “Definitely not. But I’m not going anywhere. But while we’re between contractions, how about we try to get back down the stairs?”

She squeezed her eyes shut as she shook her head. “Nope. No way.” She curled her arms under mine and held on like a damn monkey. “Nope. I can’t get down all those steps. I’m already dizzy.”

“I’ll help. I can…carry you.”

Emma leaned back and gave me a deadpan face. “Yeah. Okay. Do you see all of this? No. And there’s no way you’re tossing me over your shoulder.”

“Right.” I looked around and hoped to see someone come out of the restaurant. Maybe I could flag someone down.

But it was ninety-freaking-five degrees and I’d told everyone to keep people off the patios today. And everyone was way too busy in there to pay attention to how long we’d been gone.

“Okay.” I blew out a breath. “What about going up then? We only have a few stairs.”

She turned and saw that we only had five stairs to go. She nodded slowly. “Okay. I can try.”

“That’s my girl.” When she frowned at me, I cleared my throat. “Then I can go down and get your phone out of your purse.”

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