Expecting it All (Punishment Pit #7) - Livia Grant Page 0,13

nurse tried to stop him from jumping the line.

He cut her off. "Rachel went to the ladies' room and she thinks her water broke. What do we do?"

The nurse smiled kindly, but he didn't miss the fact that she was humoring him as if he were a neophyte. "I'm sure Mrs. Parker just had a bit of an accident. That's quite common this late in a pregnancy. I know you're the couple closest to delivery, since you waited so long to come for your class…" She paused, as if silently reproving him for putting off something as important as childbirth class. "But you still have several—"

She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence. Rachel let out a long groan just as a rush of bloody water gushed to the carpeted floor between her feet. Every single one of the expecting parents froze, unsure whether they were really seeing what they were seeing. They had just learned about the remote possibility of a mother's water breaking in public, and how it was more often broken by the doctor at the hospital. More than one accusatory look was thrown at Ms. Johnson, as if she had been lying.

Thankfully, the nurse took charge. "It looks like you're closer to delivery than we thought. Mr. Parker, I need you to help your wife to a chair. Then you'll need to go out into the hall to the nearest nurse's station and tell them you want a wheelchair and some towels. We need to get you up to the OB wing." She smiled brightly, as if every word she had just said hadn't just scared the living shit out of him. "Congratulations, it looks like you're going to be parents very soon."

Derek felt faint. He was supposed to have two more weeks. They didn't have Rachel's bag packed for the hospital. He hadn't had time to read all the literature they had been given at today's class. He’d stupidly put off talking to his friend James, a doctor, about what to expect during delivery. He was supposed to do the show tonight at The Pit. This just wasn't acceptable. He wasn't ready.

"Oooo.... Owie." Rachel was getting paler by the minute. She was leaning on him heavily while he stood there in shock. Only when her hand squeezed his forearm to get his attention did Derek finally snap out of his daze.

"Owie? What do you mean 'owie'? Are you in pain?" He sounded like a pansy, his voice cracked with panic.

She flashed him a weak smile. "I wouldn't call it pain. I just feel kinda weird." It was his lovely sub—his little girl—who helped him calm down and pull it together. She reached up to brush his face gently, a smile on her face. "I'm fine, but I would like to sit down. I think you should do what the nurse said."

Of course he should. Another soon-to-be-father took pity on him and took off to get the wheelchair and towels, while Derek steered his wife to a nearby row of chairs. The nurse was calling for housekeeping to come clean up the mess on the floor. Several other mothers rallied around Rachel to ask whether they could do anything to help.

"If you could go grab my purse and our coats from over by where we were sitting, that would be great," Rachel said sweetly.

Derek wondered how she was holding it so together. Hell, she was even smiling.

He made a conscious decision to move into Dom mode. It was when he felt the most in control, and if ever there was a time in his life when he needed disciplined control, he suspected it was going to be during the next twenty-four hours.

They met an OB nurse on the way to the Labor & Delivery department. It was sheer luck they had found each other, considering they had to weave their way through the mammoth, confusing, suburban hospital.

"Mr. and Mrs. Parker?" the young nurse asked without hesitation. Derek guessed it was the terror on his soon-to-be-father face and Rachel's protruding baby-bump that were her first clues.

Rachel answered for them. "Yes."

"I'm Jessica. I'm one of the OB nurses who will be taking care of you today. The nurse’s station closest to where you were in class today called to let us know you were on your way, so I came to help you not get lost. Let's get you settled in your room, shall we, and then we can examine you to see how far along you