to wait. So you could decide whether to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere, either!” Grant yelled at her. “But I swear to you I’m ready to pop the question. I have a box in my pocket with your Aunt Caroline’s engagement ring. Your uncle gave it to me.”
Christina stared. “What?”
“I said, your uncle …”
“I heard you. I mean, why?”
“’Cause he loves you, I guess. He gave me the ring and said I should ask you, because we belong together. We always have. He said that being apart for the last year was just us getting our heads out of our asses.”
“Wait, my uncle really said getting our heads out of our asses?”
“Not in so many words.” Grant’s mouth twitched, but his body was stiff with tension. “But I know what he meant. No matter how much we’re apart, we’re still together. Why not make it official?”
“Karen said the same thing.”
Grant barked a laugh. “Good old Karen. Mrs. Kaye did too.”
“Well, then—if everyone in town thinks we should get married, why don’t we?”
“All right then.” Grant got the truck around a bend in the road without sliding. “Yes, damn it, I’ll marry you!”
Christina clapped her arm over her abdomen as another cramp came, not as bad this time, but even so, scary as hell. “I love you, Grant,” she gasped.
“I love you too, baby. Hang on.”
The slackening hail became heavy rain as Grant swung into the parking lot of the clinic. He screeched to a halt at the emergency room doors and ran around to help her inside.
An orderly saw them stumble toward the door, came out with a wheelchair, a nurse with a clipboard following.
“We got her,” the nurse said. She knew Grant and his family by name. “You go park, Mr. Campbell. We’ll take care of her.”
Christina gave him a nod. Grant stood like a man pole-axed, his face gray, as he watched Christina be wheeled inside the clinic, and then out of sight.
Grant waited for news. He sat in the stiff chairs of the waiting room he’d reposed in so often over the years when his brothers were brought in for injuries, or else he paced in the open area before the elevator.
Time crawled. Whenever he looked at his watch, he found that only one or two minutes had gone by since the last time he’d checked. This was turning into one of the longest nights of his life.
Grant had called his mom and told her what happened. No, she shouldn’t come out there, he said, and neither should Bailey. The roads were way too dangerous. He’d keep them posted, and when the weather let up, they could drive over.
Outside the long windows, the sky lit top to bottom with streaks of lightning as the storm marched across the plains to the river. Rain filmed the windows, and the occasional handful of hail spattered out of the darkness into the glass.
Grant waited. The box with the ring was heavy in his jacket pocket, the jacket itself soaked with water. But the ring was safe. He’d made sure of that.
Two hours went by at a snail’s pace. The rain calmed, but wind bent the small trees in the parking lot and lightning flickered against blackness.
“Mr. Campbell,” a nurse said. “Come on back. She’s asking for you.”
Grant nearly ran for the corridor past the nurse’s station—the nurse had to hurry to get ahead of him.
“She all right?” Grant didn’t wait for an answer but charged into Christina’s room.
Christina lay back against the half-raised bed. Her face was bloodless, but her eyes didn’t show the haunted look he’d feared.
“You okay?” Grant asked, afraid of the answer.
Christina gave him a faint smile and slid her hand to her abdomen. “We’re both all right.”
“Thank God,” Grant said fervently. He’d never said a truer prayer in his life. He dropped to the chair next to her bed, his head going to his hands. “Thank God.”
“They checked me over really well,” Christina said. “Dr. Sue is here, so she did it herself. She said I was way stressed, and they need to watch me tonight, but the baby is okay. But with the ceiling falling on me, surviving a hair-raising ride through one of the worst storms in years … I need to take it easy. But I’m all right. I’m pretty tough.”
“I told you I’d get you here safe.” Grant let out his breath. “I was so damn scared, Christina.”
“Yeah?” Christina’s smile shook. “Well, I was flipping terrified.” She lifted her hand, palm out, to