Happily Ever All-Star: A Secret Baby Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,101

doctor on call. We rushed to the hospital’s trauma ward, but the doctor took one look at me and shook his head.

“No way. You’re in active labor. You have to go.”

“I can’t go.” A team of nurses and interns loaded Jude into a hospital bed. He’d lost consciousness somewhere on the ride in, and I couldn’t leave him. “I have his medical history. I have his…”

Another contraction.

Goddamn, these were inconvenient.

And agonizing.

I always was an overachiever, but this was not a good time to compete for a gold medal in the baby shotput.

I kicked an intern out of my way and claimed a chair in the corner. I sat. That was better, except I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and I had no idea if they stashed epidurals in the ER. The drugs were promised…but they were upstairs.

And Jude needed a CT scan.

“Patient has a history of post-concussion syndrome.” I couldn’t speak without panting. Sweat poured off of me. “There is a possibility…that he is in the beginning stages of chronic…traumatic encephalopathy. The hit rendered him unconscious…for a minute before…he regained awareness. Speech is mildly slurred, pupils dilated, coordination impaired. Get him a scan…but with his history…”

I couldn’t concentrate. I grasped for the first thing I could find.

It happened to be an unfortunate intern’s leg.

He wouldn’t need that anyway. All he had to do was observe…watch as I pinched off his blood flow above the knee and grunted orders at the stunned and terrified medical staff.

The ER doctor was done with me. A wheelchair appeared at my side. He pointed at it.

“Get in. Now. You can’t help him anymore. You need to take care of yourself and the baby.”

“But the scan…”

“If you’re in any condition to read a scan, I’ll have an intern bring the results.” He gestured to the unfortunate man I had maimed in my quest for pain-relief. “Go.”

“But…” I stared at the table. “But Jude’s gonna miss the birth.”

The doctor shook his head. “So are you if you don’t get your uterus to the maternity ward! Go!”

I reached for him, but I didn’t want to break his fingers with an untimely squeeze. Instead I called to him.

“Jude…I have to go now. I’m gonna have the baby.”

He woke up. His voice was pleasant and confused, but also enthusiastic. “Have fun.”

Oh, sure. This was tons of fun.

The contractions in the elevator were a barrel of laughs. Getting stranded in the hallway while the nursing staff celebrated the Rivets’ win was a blast.

And crashing into the hospital bed, strapping into the machinery, and getting poked and prodded as my dilation passed into the lucky sevens, was one hootenanny after another.

I grabbed for the phone, desperate to contact the doctor downstairs. But the nurses rolled me for the epidural, and I decided the pain-relief would only help when I inevitably held an intern hostage for updates.

Besides, I couldn’t reach anyone downstairs. The nurses buzzed in and out. The contractions started hitting every four minutes.

Without pain to distract me or a direct line to Jude’s current doctor, I had only the crippling panic to keep me company.

I was alone.

The nurses had paged Regan, but her department was in the middle of an emergency car crash that had injured two children. She couldn’t leave her patients’ sides.

She was determined. I respected that.

I’d have done the same, but the technicians didn’t like getting placenta on the CT scans. That was a good rule.

I texted Leah, but the celebration rocked within the locker room. I watched the TV as the team partied, praising Jude for the winning touchdown.

I hoped one day he’d remember it.

“Rory?”

I wasn’t decent. My hospital gown rode up my legs, I sweated like a pig, and I was certain every part of me was sticky and gross.

So it was a perfect time for my step-brother to walk in.

“Eric?” I groped for the blankets and hoped he hadn’t gotten a sneak preview of his intrepid niece. “What…what are you doing here?”

“I’m so sorry.”

Eric had the same timing as his mother—half-past completely inappropriate. He raced to the bed, sat down in the spare chair, and grabbed my hand.

Not the time.

“I was at the game,” he said. “I saw everything. When Mom texted and said you were having the baby, and all I could think of was Jude on that field…” He kissed my hand and stared at me with wild, wide eyes. “Rory, I am so sorry. I am such a horse’s ass.”

“Yeah, that’s okay,” I said. “I’m pretty much all vagina right now.”

“I should never