Floored - Karla Sorensen Page 0,103

sooner.

"Are they being obnoxious?" I asked, wincing when he measured me.

Claire sighed. "The last time I went out there, Paige was on her I cannot be called Grandma thing again. She's real worked up about it."

I laughed.

Jude's brow furrowed. "I thought they decided on Gigi and Papa."

Claire and I shared a look.

"What?" he asked.

Claire stood to refresh the washcloth. "This is what she does. When Paige is nervous or excited, she gets a little ... twitchy. She hates feeling helpless when one of us is hurting, so she fixates on something she can control."

Jude gave me a soft smile, his thumb tracing over my knuckles. "Now that I can understand."

My heart, already totally gushy from the general emotions of the day, swelled just a bit bigger. "Kiss, please."

He accommodated me happily and spoke against my lips after he pulled away. "I like it better when you're not threatening my death."

"Me too," I whispered.

The click of a photo being snapped had me blinking. Claire smiled at us, her phone aimed in our direction. "Sorry, guys. Couldn't resist."

"I hate to interrupt," the doctor said. "But unfortunately, we're too far for an epidural."

I blinked.

Jude leaned toward him. "What?"

The doctor threw away his gloves. "You've dilated very quickly since our last check. You're already at an eight, Lia."

Claire snapped her mouth shut and gave me a tremulous smile. "I'm sure it'll be fine. It'll go really fast, Lee."

I burst into tears just as the next contraction hit me.

Jude

Two hours later

If I could've given every penny I'd ever earned, traded every accolade, every award, every trophy in the entire world to trade places with Lia, I would've done it in a heartbeat.

My hands were all but crushed in her bruising grip as my other hand held the back of her thigh.

And my heart, it was a mangled, horrible useless heap behind my ribs from what I'd watched her go through the last handful of hours. How any woman ever did this more than once proved why they were the superior sex in every definable category.

Don't be a sissy, she'd made me promise. And so far, I hadn't broken that promise.

"Come on, Lia," the doctor said, face set in concentration. "Give me another push."

"I can't," she sobbed. Her hair was soaked, her face exhausted.

Claire made small soothing noises, moving another washcloth over her sister's sweaty forehead.

"Come on, love," I told her. "You're so close."

"I've heard that for the past two hours," she groaned.

"Here we go," the doctor said. The two nurses busied themselves with ... something, but as I'd promised not to look at anything that would make me faint, I couldn't tell what it was.

Lia gritted her teeth and emitted another soul-shriveling sound of pain and agony and exhaustion, and I shit you not, I could feel the bones in my hand as they were crushed into dust.

"One more, Lia, you're doing amazing," one of the nurses said, positioning herself just next to the doctor. "I can see a head of dark hair."

Lia sobbed. "He has hair?"

I pressed my forehead to hers. "One more, my love. One more."

And with an effort that had me holding my breath, and Claire emitting an audible gasp when she looked down, Lia gave one more glorious push, and the room filled with the most incredible sound I'd ever heard in my life.

A baby crying.

"You did it," I told her, eyes and heart and soul overflowing. Lia sobbed openly, and I kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth.

"It's a boy," the nurse said with a wide grin. "Congratulations, Mom and Dad."

In the next moment, we were all crying because they laid him on Lia's chest as she wept.

With shaking hands, the nurse told me how to cut the umbilical cord.

Everything around me felt like it was moving slower somehow, like my heart now existed in these three separate segments. One behind my ribs, one in Lia, and one in this marvelous, wriggling, wailing thing that was lying in Lia's embrace with a shock of dark hair and button nose.

Claire took pictures as I curled my arm around Lia and kissed the top of his head.

"He's perfect," she said, tears coursing down her face.

"He is." I kissed her cheek. "And you were so bloody incredible, Lia."

The nurse smiled at us. "If you want to help me clean him up and weigh him, Dad, they'll handle Momma."

Lia looked up at me, her chin wobbling. "Take care of him, okay?"

Her thumb was on my face then, wiping away another tear.

"Always," I promised.

Lia

Twenty minutes