Emergency Delivery (Love Emergency) (3 page)

“Beautiful name. It suits her. Have a happy New Year, Madison. You’ve earned it. I—” He broke off when his partner caught his eye from the hallway. “I’ve got to go now. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ve got my word.”

Then he was gone.

Chapter Three

Hunter Knox, you are one fucked-up motherfucker, spending your first New Year’s Day off in God knows how long at a hospital.

No point talking back to the voice in his head. Arguing would only make him look even more fucked-up, in a clinical way—something best avoided in a place with a psych unit—even if coming to the hospital today probably qualified as crazy. Doubly so, considering he’d taken the same detour last night.

He continued along the corridor toward the maternity wing. Checking on the status of the Foley girls was becoming a habit. One he needed to break, dammit, because his role in their lives had ended yesterday afternoon. Paramedics didn’t provide follow-up care. They waded into a crisis, stabilized the patient, transported if necessary, and then they walked away. On the best days, walking away felt more like sailing off into the sunset on waves of gratitude. On the worst days, it felt more like limping out of a foxhole. And yet, here he was, back at the hospital, on his own time and of his own volition, just to…whatever the fuck he was doing…make sure everything turned out okay?

He grumbled to himself. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t help but picture her lying in the ER bed, looking small and overwhelmed. Stupid, because she was going to be fine, and so was the baby. This nagging worry had no basis. He’d told her they were going to be fine, and goddammit, they were. Even if he’d harbored doubts yesterday afternoon—which he hadn’t—his visit last night should have resolved them. Madison had been transferred to a room in the hospital’s maternity ward. He hadn’t gotten to talk to her because she’d been asleep when he’d peeked in. Joy had been in the nursery, getting changed and spending some quality time with the radiant heater while her mama rested.

He’d justified last night’s visit as a quick check-in on his way to a coworker’s party, to clear his conscience and kick off his New Year’s Eve in the right frame of mind. And his conscience was clear, dammit. So clear he’d enjoyed a few drinks, danced with a few girls, and shared a kiss at midnight with a sexy ginger studying law at Emory. Why he’d bowed out when she’d suggested they could also share breakfast at her place, he couldn’t fully explain. Much like he couldn’t fully explain why he’d come back to the hospital this afternoon, but after prowling around his house like a restless wolf most of the day, trying to talk sense into his thick skull, he’d finally grabbed his keys and headed over.

A middle-aged brunette in pink scrubs manned the desk to the maternity ward. He recognized her from around the hospital—Sherry? Sandy? One of those. She caught his approach and winked at him. “Hey, baby. You run all the way up here to wish us a Happy New Year?”

“You know it, sugar.”

Brown eyes gave him the once-over, taking in his long-sleeved T-shirt. “Is it casual day?”

“I’m off. I’m actually here as a visitor, to see a couple of your newest guests. Madison Foley and Joy.”

She blinked at him like he’d just spoken a foreign language. “Beau and I brought them in yesterday afternoon, and I thought I’d…”
Go on, player, explain what the hell you’re thinking
. “…swing by and see how they’re doing?”

“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart? I hate to say you made a trip for nothing, but we discharged them about an hour ago.”

A brick of disappointment landed in his gut. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “Look at it this way. You did a good job. Neither mommy nor baby suffered any complications from the nontraditional delivery location, so…welcome to modern healthcare.”

“Who came to pick them up?”

This time she shook her head. “Nobody. I was on break, so I didn’t handle the discharge, but she left on her own, as far as I know.”

The brick of disappointment turned into something else—something sharper, heavier, and infinitely more frustrating. His chance to check up on her slipped through his fingers. “Y’all let a girl walk out of here on her own with a newborn, only twenty-four hours after giving birth?”

“Hunter, she’s not a girl, and the need to keep her here ended once the attending signed off. You know how it works.”

Yeah, he did. Didn’t mean he had to like it, but giving the desk nurse abuse wouldn’t change things. “Sorry. I know you don’t make the policies.”

“Amen to that, baby, but I’m sorry you missed her.”

“Yeah.” He tapped the desk with his knuckles as a lackluster ‘thank you’ and backed away. “Me, too.”

On his way to the car, he decided to round out his shitty day by tackling something he’d been putting off. Twenty minutes later he strode through the hallway of the other place he shouldn’t be anywhere near on his day off—work—and knocked on the frame of his shift supervisor’s open door. “Hey, Ash, got a minute?”

He deliberately cornered Ashley Granger in the tiny office, because he knew she’d try to slip past him if he gave her any room to maneuver. She looked up from her computer and transferred her scowl from the screen to him. The furrow between her big wide-set eyes and stern press of her pouty lips did nothing to dim her resemblance to Lana Del Rey.

“Yes, unless you want to change your shift. Then no. I’ve just finalized the schedule. I don’t want to hear about how you’ve got a hot getaway planned with your flavor of the minute and need such-and-such days off.”

Unfair assumption. He never pulled that crap. Yes he dated—clearly more than Ashley approved of, as if it was any of her business. And yes, completing his entire undergrad degree around his work schedule had given rise to a
few
requests to change his schedule. Nobody else had seemed to care one way or the other, but Ashley always found reason to give him grief. She was maybe a year or two older than him and had only a couple years more experience under her tiny belt, but she treated him like a rookie. A slacker rookie, at that.

He refused to let her know it got to him. Instead, he offered her a grin. “I wouldn’t dare mess with your precious schedule.” Holding his smile in place, he stepped into the office and used his heel to push the door shut behind him. “But I’d like to figure out why you’re messing with mine.”

Her frown deepened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I asked you for a med school recommendation letter before Thanksgiving. The admissions office sent me a notice telling me they still haven’t received one. It’s January, Ash. What gives?”

Her frown tightened to a wince, and he knew the letter hadn’t slipped through the cracks somewhere on the school’s end. She hadn’t sent one.

“Your delay is hanging up my application, and if they don’t have the letter by the deadline, I’m out of the running. So”—he sat in the hard molded plastic chair across from her desk and leaned forward—“what do I need to do to coax the rec letter out of you?”

She picked up a pencil and drummed the eraser end on her desk for several long moments. Finally, she heaved in a breath. “I’m going to be brutally honest with you. I’ve started the letter I don’t know how many times, and the first part goes fine. I can state without reservation you possess good instincts, you’re calm under pressure, you diagnose and treat with confidence, and your bedside manner wins over the most difficult patients.”

Sounded decent to him. “Done deal. Slap a signature on the damn thing and send it off.”

“But then I come to the part where I’m supposed to say you’ll make a good doctor, and…” The pencil drumming picked up speed. “I find myself struggling to put that in writing.”

The sensation of being sucker-punched made it hard to speak. “Jesus, Ashley, what the fuck?”

She tossed the pencil down and slapped a palm on her desk. “I’m not happy I feel this way, okay? But the God’s honest truth is…I don’t know if you
should
be a doctor.”

The pencil rolled across the desk toward him. He rescued it before it reached the edge and fought a strong urge to break it in half. Maybe put his fist through the wall while he was at it. “What do you have against me?”

“As a paramedic? Absolutely nothing. You’re aces at swooping in, stabilizing the situation, and passing the patient off cleanly and efficiently. You can handle anything. You’re a real hero.”

He cringed at the little jab. “I have a desire to help people. That’s kind of a must-have in this field of work.”

She pointed at him. “Yeah, but you don’t know where to draw the line. You want to control every outcome, and worse, deep down, you think you
can
. You overpromise, and you don’t even know you’re doing it.”

His jaw felt tight enough to crack. He took a slow, deliberate breath before countering. “I project confidence. That’s part of the job. I have never overpromised.”

Ashley’s dark eyebrows rose. “
You’re not going to die.
I won’t let that happen
. Sound familiar?”

His restless fingers spun the pencil, and then he used it to tap out his own fast rhythm on his leg. “Vaguely.” He and Ashley had worked a shift together recently, when Beau had needed a desk day due to a concussion. They’d caught a call involving a panicked sixty-two-year-old man with severe chest pain who thought—correctly, as it turned out—he was having a heart attack. “Good patient care involves reassuring—”

“Statements like
I won’t let that happen
go beyond reassurance. Your ego’s making guarantees you don’t have the power to honor.”

An itch started way down in his arches and slowly worked its way up his spine. It took every bit of control he possessed to remain seated. “The guy was scared, so yeah, I told him he wasn’t going to die, and guess what, Ash, he didn’t die. I didn’t let it happen.”

She jabbed a finger at him. “You were out of line to make that kind of promise. Someday fate’s going to turn you into a liar and you won’t know how to cope.”

This conversation was going nowhere. He stabbed the pencil into the holder at the edge of her blotter, stood, and braced his palms on her desk. “Let’s cut the bullshit. What do you want from me?”

“I want to see the same emotional maturity in you that I’d expect from any other person here who asked me for a recommendation. Compassion? Yes. A commitment to giving every patient the best care possible? Absolutely. But take your ego out of it, and accept there are limits to your power. Until I see that, I can’t, in good conscience, finish your recommendation letter.”

Was
this
a test of his emotional fucking maturity? He straightened so he wasn’t looming over her. “You’re telling me no.”

“I’m telling you to convince me I’m wrong.” She shifted her attention to her computer screen. “Good luck.”

…

Oh, please God, could I get a little luck?

Madison needed to get out of this overly warm drugstore. Buy the diapers and wipes, and escape to the cool air outside, but the checkout line stalled while a small, ancient woman in front of her dug a checkbook out of her cavernous purse to pay for Palmolive and trash bags.

So much for the express lane.

The lady found the checkbook, adjusted her glasses, and then her gaze snagged on Madison. Two magnified brown eyes blinked at her. “Oh, my. What a precious baby. How old is your little one?”

“One month and two days.” Her head ached, and her voice sounded far away to her own ears. She tightened Joy’s swaddle and then switched her to the other shoulder. Using her free hand, she swiped her damp forehead.

“Fresh hatched.” A puff of steel-wool hair bobbed as the woman nodded. “Adorable. ’Course, they run you ragged at that age. I oughta know. I had three. I remember being so sleep deprived I couldn’t even tie my shoes.”

Madison wiggled her toes in the cushion-soled black slip-ons that had become her go-to shoes for the last few months. Since about the time reaching past her belly and tying laces had become an exercise in futility.

“Are you breastfeeding? I’m guessing yes, because look at you—just a month out and you’re already skinny as a rail.”

Skinny? Not hardly. Maternity clothes hid the fact that four weeks after giving birth her belly still hadn’t flattened, but she’d been raised to politely acknowledge compliments. “Thank you.”

“Losing the baby weight is the upside. The downside comes later, when your titties look like empty pillowcases”—she pointed in the vicinity of Madison’s chest—“and they hang down to your belly button.”

Dear lord, was everyone within earshot contemplating her tits now? Her already hot face burned like a furnace. She hugged Joy closer and risked a glance around. The forty-something cashier, bearing a better than passing resemblance to Queen Latifah, offered Madison a long-suffering smile, but it quickly morphed into a concerned double-take—one that suggested she looked as terrible as she felt. Her heart raced, she suddenly realized, which made no sense because she was standing still. Her head pounded. Sweat sheened her face, yet her scalp felt frozen. All worrisome, but the ringing in her ears and semi-detached sensation of everything from her neck down worried her most.

From a long distance away she heard the clerk ask, “You okay?”

With all the care she could muster, she laid Joy in the child seat part of her shopping cart. The ringing in her ears turned to a high-pitched buzz. Her mouth might as well have been a desert. “W-water?”

“One sec, hon…”

She didn’t have a second. The world started spinning too fast, and suddenly she was falling into a dark tunnel.

Chapter Four

“Remember our New Year’s Eve call?”

Hunter simply nodded and finished clocking out. His partner knew damn well he remembered. In a moment of weakness, he’d admitted to Beau he’d gone back to the hospital New Year’s Day to check on them, only to discover they’d already been discharged. That had been frustrating, but even more frustrating? They’d been on his mind ever since. Madison’s big gray-blue eyes haunted him, along with the panicked voice begging him not to leave.

“Those girls are back at Mercy General. Richter and Dent took the call yesterday.”

Useless adrenaline shot through him. He throttled it back and faced Beau. “What happened?”

“Mama passed out at a drugstore. Richter attributes the episode to a combination of exhaustion, dehydration, and possibly anemia. The hospital planned to do blood work—hey, where are you going?”

He looked down at his partner’s restraining hand. An urge to shake it off and sprint to the parking lot gripped him. “I’m going over. I knew. When I walked out of the ER a month ago, I fucking knew they weren’t all right. She asked me to stay, and I walked anyway.”

“Hunt, they were both doing well. Our job was done. It was time for you to walk away. You couldn’t have seen this coming.”

“I
did
see this coming. Okay, not this, specifically,” he added when Beau would have interrupted, “but something. My instincts told me to go back to the hospital and check on her, but I ignored them until I was too late to help. Those same instincts tell me to get my sorry ass over there, and I’m not ignoring them this time.”

Beau didn’t let go. “Them landing back in the hospital is not the result we hoped for. I get it. But be sure of your motives, all right?”

“Motives like concern?” The question came out defensive, but he knew where Beau was headed with his motive-check. “Ashley’s full of shit, you know.”

“Look, I’m not saying she’s right about what kind of doctor you’ll make, because I know you’ll make a great one, but she’s not completely off the mark when she notes you sometimes take the assurances too far. You promised Madison they were going to be fine, and it turns out you were wrong. That doesn’t sit well with your conscience or your ego. Even so, she’s not your problem to solve.”

Guilt left a bitter taste in his mouth. He swallowed it down. “All I want to do is make sure they’re okay. Don’t you?”

Beau dropped his hand. “And then what?”

“Nothing. Or…I don’t know. My main priority is making sure they’re fine. I’ll take things from there.”

“Careful,” Beau cautioned. “You’ve got some major goals lined up, and they deserve your full focus. Don’t pile on complications.”

He stepped away and headed to the exit. “I’m not looking to complicate my life, and I’m not planning to do anything that endangers my goals.” His partner was preaching to the choir. Nobody knew better than Hunter what personal distractions could do to a med school career. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. He just…needed to make sure she was okay. That’s all.

Someday fate’s going to turn you into a liar, and you won’t know how to cope.

“Fine,” Beau called after him, “but I’ll point out, ‘Take things from there,’ has no exit strategy.”

Maybe not, but the knowledge didn’t stop him from calling the hospital on his way over to wrangle a status. The operator confirmed they were still there and provided the room number.

Parking at the hospital proved time consuming—he momentarily wished for the ambulance—but finding the room posed no problem. As he approached he saw a familiar, ample figure wearing dark blue scrubs and a headful of long braids. Alyssa Washington, one of Mercy General’s most experienced nurses, stood at the door. She stopped short when she saw him.

“Boy are you lost, sugar.”

“Who says? Maybe I’m here to see your pretty face?”

That earned him a laugh and a slap on the arm. “Oh, now I know you want somethin.’ What can I do for you, player?”

“I’m actually here to see these troublemakers.” He leaned in the door and aimed a reinforced smile at Madison. She lay propped up in the hospital bed, holding Joy in mid-cuddle and staring at him as if she didn’t trust her vision. To his relief, they both looked great. Alert, healthy…he took in Madison’s long dark hair and blushing pink cheeks…beautiful.

“They’re no trouble at all. You, on the other hand…don’t get me started. But in this case, you’re just in time, because I’m about to hand these lucky ladies their walking papers.”

“Early release for good behavior?” More relief. An isolated fainting spell in a low-risk individual rarely resulted in a long hospital stay. Discharging her after a single day meant they had ruled out serious causes, like heart problems or internal bleeding.

“They’re doing beautifully. Madison says she’s ready to go, and the doctor agrees, so we’re gonna get the process started.” She settled herself in the chair nearest the bed, crossed her legs, and placed the clipboard on her lap. Silence dominated the space while she filled in information on the top of her form.

Hunter looked around the room, finding the tidy surfaces oddly troublesome until the reason struck him. No notes. No flowers. None of the ‘get well’ tokens friends and family typically bestowed. He should have brought a card, or a bouquet. Something for the baby.

“There are just a few things I need to go over with you, if you’re ready?”

Hunter caught Madison’s eye. “You want me to come back in a few?”

“No, no. Please have a seat.” She gestured him to the other chair and glanced at the nurse. “This won’t take long, right?”

“Only a minute or two. Let’s start with the easy stuff. Is someone driving you home today, or are you driving yourself?”

“I’m driving myself…except”—newly worried eyes darted to the window—“I can’t. My car is still back at the drugstore.”

He held his tongue about the likelihood it had been towed by now, because someone who drove a circa 2005 Subaru Outback would probably land right back in the hospital if she knew she had a hefty tow and impound bill in her immediate future.

“That’s okay.” Alyssa patted her leg. “Maybe you can call a fam”—she glanced around the empty room and adjusted on the fly—“a friend to drive you home?” Her pointed gaze landed on him.

“I can drive you home,” he volunteered. Sort of.

Madison hugged Joy to her, as if this was a test, and if she failed, she’d lose her daughter. “You don’t have to. I can call…someone.” Her eyes wandered to the room phone sitting on the bedside table.

Right. She could call the tooth fairy, or Santa Claus, or worse, the loser who had planted a baby in her belly and then fucked up so badly she’d refrained from uttering his name even once while labor pains tore through her. That motherfucker wasn’t getting back in the picture on his watch. “I insist.”

“Wonderful.” Alyssa brought her hands together and beamed. “Now, you do have an infant car seat that meets federal and state safety standards in your vehicle, correct?”

Fuck. He looked at Madison.

“It’s in my car.”

“I can go get it.” He held out his hand for her keys. Might as well solve the car question sooner rather than later.

Madison retrieved her keys from the bedside table and then handed them over. He absently noted her nail beds showed good color, while listening as she rattled off the car’s location—a Dome Drugstore parking lot at the corner of… He held back a wince as she rattled off an intersection in a crappy area of town. What was she doing shopping
there
?

“Okay,” he said and got to his feet. “Y’all finish up on the paperwork and whatnot. I’ll be back in”—he mentally judged the distance to her car’s last known location and then tacked on some contingency time if he needed to stop somewhere and buy a car seat—“forty minutes.”

“Perfect.” Alyssa gave him a thumbs-up, and he hit the road. Surface streets took him to the janky Dome Drugstore, and a cruise through the small parking lot confirmed her car was gone. He pulled out his phone and keyed in the telephone number on the sign warning shoppers of the strictly enforced two-hour parking limit. Hopefully her car had been towed and not stolen, but she’d have to call the tow yard and sort it out, because he didn’t know her license plate number.

Siri got him to the nearest Target. He grabbed a red cart and headed to the baby section as fast as the wonky wheels would permit. Then he made a left turn into…holy shitsville. Two aisles of car seats confronted him. All he wanted to do was get the damn seat, put it in the cart, and get the hell out. But nooooo, it couldn’t be that easy. He had to narrow it down by size, weight, and whether it should be compatible with X type of carrier, or Y type of stroller, or a fuckton of other accessories. He turned to a woman standing nearby with one kid in the front of the cart, one strapped to her chest, and what appeared to be one on the way, but he knew better than to speculate on that out loud.

“One-month old. Which do I choose?”

“What’s the theme?”

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, we’ll take it down a level. Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“Aw. Congratulations. Well, you’ve come to the right person, because I have some experience”—she patted the kid in the cart, and then the one in the strap-on—“and this is the best, in my opinion.” She tapped an elaborately decorated fingernail to a box displaying a cushiony-looking car seat.

“Awesome. Thanks so…” He blinked, squeezed his eyes shut, and blinked again as the three hundred and forty-nine dollar price swam in front of his eyes. “…much.”

“It looks like a lot, but trust me, it’s going to save you chiropractic visits in the long run.”

He pulled one of the big boxes from the shelf, deposited it in his cart, and then rubbed a spot near his temple, where his own personal version of a labor pain started to throb. “Got it. I appreciate the help.”

“No worries.” She hefted her distended belly. “What else do you need?”

He started to say “nothing” but then thought about Madison with nothing to wear except yesterday’s clothes, which had spent time on a dirty drugstore floor.

“Uh, maybe something comfortable for a new mom to wear?”

“Follow me.”

What happened next would remain a blur in his mind if he stayed lucky. Clothes, and stuff, and then more
stuff
, went into his cart, from sections of Target he’d never dreamed of visiting. He handed over his credit card at checkout without so much as a wince.

He was numb, and he had to get back.

His Target tour guide supervised him while he installed the car seat, and then he raced back to the hospital.

…

Madison reclined on the bed and closed her eyes while Joy nursed. Anxious as she was to get out of the hospital, she’d been a mom long enough to value a moment of calm when one presented itself. Besides, another couple minutes and Hunter would officially be twenty minutes late, which most likely meant—

The door to her room burst open so suddenly she nearly bobbled the baby. Hunter stood framed in the opening.

“Holy crap. You came back.”

He grabbed onto the doorjamb and steadied himself. In his other hand he held a big Target bag. “You doubted me?”

She had. She’d seen the ambushed look on his face when Alyssa had suggested he drive her home. A part of her had expected a nurse to stride in with her keys and some excuse like,
Hunter’s sorry, but he had to bail
. “It crossed my mind you might have other things to do today.”

“Nope. I’m your taxi.” The door swung closed behind him as he advanced toward the bed, his eyes scanning her face. Then his gaze dropped, and he paused halfway across the room in what struck her as an uncharacteristic display of hesitancy.

Joy’s suckling noises interrupted the silence, and heat swept into her face as she realized she was sitting there with her dress unbuttoned, her nursing bra unclipped, and her breast hanging out. Not even her breast, no, because
her
breasts—perky curves she remembered from before she’d gone all pear-shaped—had grown into oversized globes with a job to do. She barely recognized them, and she sure as heck didn’t want him getting an eyeful. If he hadn’t been gay already, the sight of her boobs would definitely turn him.

Mortified, she scooped up the baby blanket slung over the bed rail and covered herself, before slumping back against the pillows and resettling the baby. “Sorry.”

“For what? Being a good mom? Want me to come back in ten minutes?”

She closed her eyes and willed herself to relax. “No. Please take a seat. She’s almost done.”

“Okay.” His voice came from the bedside now, and she heard him lower himself into a chair. She forced her eyes open and found him staring at her, so close she could see mesmerizing threads of gold around his pupils. Those dark centers expanded a little as she stared, and she saw something else in there. Something that made her wish they’d met under different circumstances. Like maybe he’d come into the coffee shop where she worked, flirted with her while he’d ordered, and instead of being upset when she’d told him they’d sold out of the coffee of the day, he’d told her she could make it up to him by joining him for dinner. Then she’d step out from around the register, her big nursing-mom boobs and post-birth belly preceding her, and…the fantasy dissolved. Now it was her turn to clear her throat. “You’re not gay, are you?”

The smile returned. She knew because the corners of his eyes crinkled.

“I never said I was gay. I asked if you’d feel better if I told you I was gay.”

“You introduced Beau as your
partner
.”

“He is my partner. We’ve worked together over five years.”

“Split the hair however you want, Hunter. We both know you lied.”

His gaze never wavered, but he had the good grace to twist his lying lips into an apologetic smile. “I wanted you to be comfortable. You had enough to worry about without adding self-consciousness to the mix.”

Okay, so maybe his motives had been noble, but still. The self-consciousness came back in full force now. Her cheeks flamed again, until a little gurgle erupted from under the blanket.