Finding Summer - Suzanne Halliday Page 0,151

triggered an angry spasm.

Her hand grabbed the edge of the counter. She grunted when the pain stole her breath.

“Shit.” Was that a contraction?

What should she do first? Where was her phone?

Her eyes darted everywhere. The suddenness of her water breaking and the shockingly unpleasant labor pain left her dazed.

Locating her phone, she initiated the memorized step-by-step plan.

First, she ordered an Uber. The closest available car was ten minutes out, which gave her enough time to call next door and alert Bud and Lynda.

Bud answered. She told him she was in labor. He handed the phone to Lynda, and thirty seconds later, he came bustling through her door.

“What can I do?” It was early evening but he was already in his pajamas with a robe flapping around him like a cape.

She pointed at her overnight bag and purse. “I can barely hold my phone. Do you mind carrying the bags out to the driveway? An Uber is on the way.”

“Did you alert the clinic?”

It took her a solid minute to respond because something was happening. Her belly felt like it was pushed into a vise and squeezed.

“Uh, no. I’ll call from the car,” she said with a sense of growing urgency.

Bud took control of her bags and offered her an arm as he guided her through the door and out to the drive. She leaned on him and moved on numb feet. Everything felt surreal.

There was still enough daylight for a hugely pregnant female leaning on someone at the end of a driveway to draw attention.

Roy from across the street saw them, dropped his flamingo watering can, screeched like a fan-boy and dashed toward them.

“Is it time?”

Bud chuckled. “Easy, Roy. Give Summer some room.”

“Time?” Roy waved his hand and dismissed Bud’s concern. “She’s had plenty of time.” He looked at her and grinned. “Le bébé?”

Summer remembered her dad piling rods and tackle gear into the back of his truck when the mailman walked by and asked if he was going fishing. She had to be all of twelve or thirteen when this happened.

The mailman’s question seemed stupid to her. Wasn’t asking the obvious a waste of time? Did you ask a woman in a wedding dress if she was getting married?

“No, Roy. I’m going to get a pedicure,” she snapped. “Of course it’s the baby. Sheesh.”

The Uber had no trouble locating her—not with the scene they were making. Bud put her bags on the seat and, with Roy’s enthused help, gently helped her into the back seat. In a fuzzy corner of her vision, she made out the new neighbors, on the sidewalk, the mom held her phone the way you did when taking pictures.

Bud leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Be brave,” he murmured. It seemed like good advice.

Roy waved and blathered something in a Bah-stan accent. She smiled but had no idea what he said.

Alerting the clinic by phone was easy. She was on the birth center schedule for the first half of October, so they were expecting her.

When she informed the nurse on call about her water breaking, she realized her maternity undies were soaked and added one more indignity to the list in her mind. Pregnancy stripped away modesty and made a joke of personal privacy. If she ever got the chance to unload, Arnie was in for a hell of a verbal tirade.

When she got in the car, her panic was at level one. Creeping along sent the reading to level two. At roughly half past six in the evening, the traffic was horrendous. LA congestion was always a joke, but it seemed slower and more frustrating than usual.

Holding her breath and tensing only made the pains worse, but what else was she supposed to do when a wave of cramps grabbed her? Riding the surge until it subsided, she gasped with relief.

The panic meter moved up a notch to level three.

Fearing she might give birth in the back of an Uber, Summer couldn’t tamp down her rising terror.

“Please hurry,” she whimpered to the driver.

By the time they made it to the clinic, she was crying and sure she couldn’t take any more.

Eight hours of labor later, she realized how wrong she was.

Drawn from bed a little after five, Arnie gave up trying to go back to sleep and headed into the kitchen.

What this situation called for was coffee. Black with an ass load of sugar.

After starting the coffee maker, he stuck his head into the closet holding a washer and dryer stack, fished a pair