Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,118
twenty-four hours or more.
All hell broke loose about twenty minutes—at normal speed—from the hospital, Sarah’s contractions suddenly coming far too close together for his peace of mind.
“Another one?” he asked when she gasped, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
Sarah breathed in and out in short bursts. “Y-yes.”
“We’re almost there, sweetheart.”
Sarah kept breathing jaggedly.
“Hey, yell at me, swear.” Abe didn’t dare take his eyes off the road. “I’m the one who put you in this position, right?”
“I-I… help—” The rest of her words were a scream.
Oh, Christ. “Should I stop?”
“Hospital. Doctors.”
Right, of course she’d want the hospital and the doctors. Abe increased his speed… and yeah, there was a cop behind him right that instant. “Fuck.” Pulling over, he rolled down the window and waited until the older man swaggered to the window, ready to tell him this was a goddamn emergency.
“License and regis—”
“I’m having a fucking baby!” Sarah screamed before Abe could speak. “Unless you want to deliver it, get me to a hospital. Now!”
The cop’s mouth fell open before he jerked out of his shock. “Follow me,” he said to Abe, then ran back to his squad car and pulled out, full sirens and lights going.
Abe fell in behind the police vehicle, grinned. “Hey, the peanut’s going to have one hell of a birth story.”
Sarah laughed, sounded surprised into it. “Don’t tell our baby I swore,” she said, her breath a throaty gasp. “I was ladylike. Got it?”
“Got it.” He focused on staying on the cop’s tail, following his path exactly as the vehicle cut a swath through LA traffic.
Screaming into the emergency department of the nearest hospital, Abe jumped out and got to Sarah’s side as medical personnel poured out. Sarah swiveled in the seat, legs hanging out… then gripped his hand, sheer terror on her face. “Abe, my water just broke. I think the baby’s coming.”
Abe didn’t even think about it. He just scooped her up and ran into the hospital, the nurses following. No fucking way was he allowing the news choppers overhead to get images of his wife and child in such a vulnerable moment. It was to the medical personnel’s credit that they raced past him to show him into a room.
He laid Sarah down on the bed.
She wouldn’t release his hand, and the pain ripping through her made her incapable of speaking. Abe was the one who explained that the baby was early by about two weeks. He also quietly mentioned the stillbirth to a nurse, made it clear Sarah and their baby were not to be separated unless it was a medical necessity.
Time passed at the speed of light. Later, he’d find out it had been fast. Twenty-five minutes from the time he laid Sarah down on the bed. But in the moment, it just felt like controlled chaos to him—Sarah’s contractions coming closer and closer together, sweat dampening her hair, then the medical staff telling her to push, push!
And then, while his heart was pounding like that of a racehorse, his only focus Sarah’s exhausted face, a lusty cry broke the air.
“I want to see,” Sarah sobbed. “Please let me see.”
“Here you go.” The nurse to whom Abe had spoken placed their strong, healthy baby boy on Sarah’s chest. “We’ll have to take him for tests, see if he needs a little extra help, but his lungs definitely seem fine.”
Smiling, sobbing, Sarah kissed their baby’s head as Abe dared put a gentle hand on that tiny body. “He’s so small,” he whispered, shaken to the core.
She sniffled. “Only compared to you.” Light filled her eyes. “He’s all right, Abe. Our baby’s all right.”
THEODORE “THEO” GREGORY BELLAMY WAS very much all right. Healthy and strong and, right now, sleeping in his daddy’s arms.
“I have a kid,” Abe said, not for the first time.
David touched a finger to the tiny hand fisted against Abe’s T-shirt. “You have a kid. Shit.”
“Don’t swear.” Sarah scowled from the hospital bed where she sat dressed in the pj’s Lola had bought for her on the way to the hospital.
Abe’s mom was on her way from Chicago, so excited to meet her grandson that she was a bubble of pure joy.
“Right, sorry.” David held out his arms. “Can I hold the little guy?”
Abe put their son in David’s careful hands.
“Look at that face,” Fox murmured, peering over David’s shoulder. “You two made a mini Abra.”
Punching the lead singer lightly on the arm, Abe couldn’t stop smiling. “Did you see his hands? He’s going to play the keys,