“We’re going to push real hard through the next few contractions. No breaks. Push to ten. One big breath, and immediately go into the next one.”
“I can’t,” she wails. She’s dripping in sweat and the whites of her eyes are red from straining so hard.
“Can’t is just a state of mind, Momma,” Prissy argues. “Now, you just bear down and push my sister out!”
That little pep talk seems to light a fire in her ass. “Okay,” Whit sighs, drying her eyes and sucking air from the mask.
The next few pushes are so intense I’m tempted to borrow the oxygen for myself. This is some hard work, and I’m not even doing anything.
“Look at her hair!” Prissy screams. “My sister has hair.”
“Brother,” I grunt, while petting my wife’s damp hair off her face.
“The head is out,” Dr. Andrews exclaims. When I glance up to the mirror all I see is her shoving a snot bulb down the baby’s throat, suctioning fluid out. “Give me one more push. On three…”
Before she’s gotten to two, the baby slithers out right into the doctor’s waiting arms, and Prissy folds over, gagging.
“Really, Priss?” Whitney collapses into the bed, heaving for breath, while craning her neck to try to see the baby. “It’s just blood.”
“Nuh-uhn,” my daughter grumbles, still retching. “You—”
I clamp a hand over her mouth, giving her a very severe look that thankfully Whitney doesn’t notice, as she’s become too focused with what’s going on at the foot of the bed.
“Congratulations, you have a beautiful baby boy!”
“A boy.” I press a kiss to my wife’s forehead. “Whit, we have a son.” Tears fall unchecked between us while I kiss her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. “You were amazing,” I say, meaning it with every beat of my heart.
When we break apart, Prissy is just standing there, arms crossed, glaring at me. Lord, that girl hates to be wrong.
The very petty side of me wants to stick out my tongue and gloat. Of course, I don’t. I want her to love him, not see him as a bet she lost. “Look at him, Priss.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders, leading her to where to doctor is waiting for me to cut the cord. “You wanna do it?” I ask in a split-second decision, hoping it’ll help her bond to her new brother.
“Really?”
I nod. “Go for it…I’ll get the next one.”
I feel my wife’s glare before her words meet my ears. “Over my dead body.”
Curious about the fateful night on Bourbon Street that started it all? Click here to download a special bonus scene, THE DUMPSTER.
PREVIEW OF TAKE TWO
Nya
Déjà vu
A beam of light streams in through the window, stabbing me right in my barely opened eye. Jackhammers pound inside my head as I squint, peering around the room to take in my surroundings: a king-sized bed with plush white linens, gaudy chandelier, a wall of windows with thick, gold damask drapes pulled back on each end.
What the hell am I doing at a hotel?
A loud snore sounds, nearly scaring me right out of my tingling skin. To my left is a hard body, enveloped in billion-thread-count sheets, facing away from the offending window. That back—those sinewy shoulders and sculpted muscles—I’d recognize anywhere.
“Liam?” I whisper, forcing myself not to run a hand through his tapered hair, to touch my finger to the little mole right at the edge of his hairline. It was once my favorite spot to kiss.
What. The. Fuck? This can’t be happening. Not again.
Groggy and disoriented, I attempt to roll off the bed to relieve my screaming bladder and rid myself of the dragon breath that only comes after a night of hard partying. One I can’t seem to remember. But I can’t move. Reaching beneath the comforter to investigate what’s weighing me down, I come up with my hands filled with layer upon layer of satin and tulle. What the hell?
“A wedding dress?” I screech, panic welling in my throat as my heart damn near leaps from my chest. No way.
Suddenly the mound of man muscle shifts my direction. With a dreamy smile, his large hand creeps across the bed, reaching for mine. The smell of last night’s cologne wafts into the air, threatening to weaken my resolve. Holding my breath, refusing to be distracted, I scoot to the edge of the bed. Has he lost his damn mind? Has this idiot forgotten that we’ve been over since our now-preteen daughter was barely walking?
Well, mostly over. There was that one time…but