Evie's Bombshell - By Amy Andrews Page 0,49

meeting a warm, wet puddle. Had she wet herself?

Before she could apply any logical thought process, a spasm that caused her to cry out and clutch at her belly, pulsed through her deep and low.

Was she bleeding?

The pain eased and panic drove her into a sitting position as she kicked off the sheet and reached for the light, snapping it on. The bed was saturated, clear liquid soaking into the sheets and mattress, her wet pyjama pants clinging to her legs.

Her pulse hammered madly at her temples as she tried to think.

Clear. Not blood. And a lot of it.

Not urine. Too much. She hadn’t the bladder capacity for more than a thimbleful for what seemed for ever.

Another pain ripped through her and she gasped as it tore her breath away and she suddenly realised it was amniotic fluid in the bed.

Her membranes had ruptured.

And she was in labour.

The spasm held her in its grip for what seemed an age and Evie failed miserably at doing all the things she knew you were supposed to do during a contraction—stay calm, breathe deeply—by intermittently crying and then holding her breath to try and stop herself from crying.

She collapsed on her side, reaching for the phone on the bedside table as soon as she was able, quickly stabbing Finn’s number into the touchpad. It rang in her ear and she hoped like crazy that he had the same special powers that every other doctor who spent half of their lives on call possessed—the ability to wake to a ringing phone in a nanosecond.

He picked up on the third ring but she didn’t give him a chance to utter a greeting. ‘Finn!’ she sobbed. ‘It’s Evie. My membranes have ruptured. I’m contracting.’ As if to prove her point the next contraction came and she almost choked as she doubled up, trying to talk and gasp and groan all at the same time. ‘The baby … is coming … now!’

‘I’ll be there in one minute.’

But she didn’t hear him as the phone slipped from her fingers and she curled in a ball, rocking and crying as the uterine spasm grabbed hold and squeezed so tight Evie felt like she was going to split open.

It was too early. The baby would be too small. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t ready. The baby wasn’t ready.

She heard Finn belting on her door a minute later and she cried out to him but the contractions were coming one on top of the other, paralysing her. She just couldn’t get up and open it. She was conscious of a loud crash and Finn calling out her name, his voice getting closer and closer, and she cried out to him again and suddenly he was stalking into her bedroom.

Finn was shocked at the sight that confronted him. Evie—strong, competent, assured Evie—curled up in a ball on the bed, her pyjama pants soaking, her face and eyes red from crying, a look of sheer panic on her face.

He threw himself down beside her. ‘Evie!’

‘Finn,’ Evie sobbed clutching at his shirtsleeve, her hand shaking. ‘Help me,’ she begged. ‘It’s too early. Don’t let our baby die.’

The words chilled him, so similar to the words Isaac had used as he’d reached out a bloodied hand to Finn.

Finn! Finn! Help me. Don’t let me die.

Words that had haunted him for a decade. The promise that he’d given haunting him for just as long. One he hadn’t been able to keep in the middle of hell, injured as he’d been and with precious medical help too far away.

But he could make a promise right here and now that he could keep. Last time he’d been powerless to help.

But not this time.

‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘I won’t.’ He was damned if he was going to let down another person he cared about.

He stood and dragged the light summer blanket that had fallen off the end of Evie’s bed away from the mattress and wrapped it around her then scooped her up as she moaned in pain and sobbed her heart out.

There was no point in ringing an ambulance—he could be there in three minutes at this hour of night.

He strode out the door he’d damaged trying to get in and pulled it shut behind him—he’d get the lock fixed later. The lift arrived within seconds and a minute later she was ensconced in his car and he was driving out of the garage. He dialled the emergency department and got the triage nurse.

‘This is Finn Kennedy.