wasn't a damned doctor. He was a bartender, for chrissake. "Make this one a martini," he could handle, not "deliver red-haired baby."
He checked the notes he'd jotted, wondered how he would dial the phone without contaminating his gloves, and nearly threw up as Maya arched her back, screamed, and soaked the bed pad with a gush of blood and water.
"My God!" Dropping his notes, the quilt, and any semblance of calm, Axell gasped as the infant's head popped out and tiny shoulders slithered into view. This was happening too damned fast. He didn't have time to prepare...
He didn't need instructions to grab the tiny head and shoulders as they slid from Maya's body. Awed, hands shaking, every nerve on edge as Maya moaned and heaved and cursed again, Axell caught the slippery infant and eased him into the world.
Her. Eased her into the world.
"A girl, Maya," he whispered in amazement, not having any idea if she could hear him or not as the tiny creature fell into his hands. "Does she have a name?"
There were things he was supposed to do. Umbilical cord. Afterbirth. Cry. No, the baby was supposed to cry, not him. Hot tears burned his eyes and his hands trembled. Fighting emotions he didn't know he possessed, he cleared the infant's throat, patted her gently to start her breathing, and heard the first faint gasp of air, followed by a weak cry.
She lived. And breathed. Relief so overwhelmed him, Axell nearly collapsed on the bed beside Maya. He'd delivered a living baby. He'd arrived in time to save them. He hadn't lost them this time.
Not stopping to examine that thought, he rubbed his face with his shoulder to wipe away the moisture, and mechanically followed the instructions now clearly imprinted on his brain.
The moments after his son had been pronounced dead haunted the back of his mind: the doctor's expression as he'd told him, the wails from Angela's mother, the scream of an ambulance siren... He hadn't been in time, hadn't even been able to hold her hand...
Ambulance siren.
"Let me hold her," Maya whispered, jerking him back to the moment. "I want to hold her before they take her away from me."
Take her away? Over his dead body. The tiny wriggling human form in Axell's hands protested with weak cries and flailing fists as he cautiously wrapped her in a pillowcase. Maybe he should have used one of the Ace bandages. She was small, but her face screwed up pugnaciously as she readied herself for another holler, and her wet hair had a decidedly reddish cast. Axell smiled as he lowered her into Maya's arms.
"Definitely Aries," he said facetiously.
The smile she granted him in return was worth every minute of terror. The knot in his stomach slowly unraveled.
"God, I love you," she murmured, closing her eyes and holding the baby.
And she did. Love filled her heart and overflowed to encompass anyone and everyone: God, her daughter, Axell...
Axell. Holding her daughter tightly, Maya imprinted on her memory the image of his taut cheek streaked with tears. Those big, capable hands had delivered her daughter—her daughter—held her as if she were more precious than gold. The stony gray of his eyes had melted to molten silver for a moment, and she'd seen right through him. Her icy Nordic god had love frozen inside him somewhere. Someone just needed to reach in and lay warm hands on his frostbitten heart.
Constance could. Maybe any child could. She owed him one.
"Alexa," she murmured as the siren screamed louder.
"What?"
She felt Axell leaning over her, and she opened her eyes to smile at him. He really was the handsomest man she'd ever known, even though that square jaw of his scared her half to death. With his hair soaked and the linen shirt plastered to his chest, he looked more like a vengeful sea god than Thor. He definitely looked dangerous—and protective. She wanted to pat his cheek in reassurance, but she had her hands full of beautiful infant. "Alexa," she breathed. "Like Axell, I guess. Close, anyway."
No matter what the future might bring, she would always love this stern-faced man, and as far as she was concerned, this child was his. He'd saved their lives. She dropped into a doze of exhaustion.
Axell stared down at mother and child in confusion.
Alexa.
She was naming the baby Alexa. He heard the paramedics racing through the house with a stretcher, but Axell observed their arrival from a distant plateau. There for a moment, he'd been part of