Shocking Sapphires - Ann Omasta Page 0,3

my shoulders. “Ma’am, we need you to stay still.”

Ignoring him, my eyes frantically searched for the baby. His voice sounded much more understanding when he said, “They’ll take good care of your baby. You have my word on it.”

He sounded so sincere, I found myself looking into his eyes. They were warm and reassuring. At any other time, I might have noticed how handsome the steady, efficient man was, but right now I was too worried to focus on such frivolous notions.

The man continued speaking in a soothing voice as he eased me onto a backboard that was on the ground beside me. “We need to check you out to make sure you aren’t hurt, but we’ll reunite you with your son soon.”

Son. The word swirled around in my head. I’d never really thought about having children, since I didn’t have a steady man in my life. It seemed irresponsible and backwards to start having kids without a father for them. But now that the idea was planted in my head, it was all I could think about.

In the brief moments since I had met the abandoned baby, I’d already fallen head over heels for him. I would do anything in my power to protect him. If that wasn’t a mother’s love, I didn’t know what was.

While I was coming to terms with my new reality––where my heart was consumed by love for a child that I couldn’t protect in this moment, the emergency technicians deftly strapped me onto the gurney and began moving me toward one of the waiting ambulances.

My neck had been placed in a brace, making it impossible to turn my head, so my eyes rolled around in their sockets, searching for my baby.

“Try to stay still,” the handsome E.M.T. advised me.

Seeming to sense what had me so frantic, Dani ran to catch up with us and said, “The baby is safe. He’s riding in another ambulance.”

Grabbing my hand as she jogged beside us, she added, “I’ll go with him, if it will make you feel better.”

“Yes,” I answered, trying to infuse the single word with the overwhelming gratitude I felt for the woman that was no doubt destined to be my future sister-in-law.

She nodded and started to turn away. When she faltered, I tried to see what was wrong. She was staring at the crashed vehicle as the high-pitched screech of a saw pierced the air.

When the noise from the saw silenced, I heard Dani ask in a bewildered voice, “Is that Grant Chandler?”

Instantly, I wondered if I was in the midst of some strange, hair-raising dream. There was no way the biggest movie star in the entire world had just been racing down the main street of our little town before nearly mowing us over and crashing into the local chiropractic office.

Just as I was convincing myself that I must have misheard, I heard my brother’s deep voice rumble in answer to Dani’s question, “The one and only.”

3

Molly

My belly roiled as the ambulance raced to the hospital. So many thoughts churned in my jumbled mind… Was the baby hurt? Had Grant Chandler actually been the driver of that car? Was he injured? Were we currently driving too fast on the still-slick roads? Was the baby’s ambulance travelling this fast?

That last thought made my stomach lurch. The kind-eyed E.M.T. asked if I was going to vomit, but I stared at the ambulance’s ceiling and managed to swallow the bile back down. The last thing we needed was to crash on the way to the hospital. I could only hope that the driver of the baby’s ambulance was taking more care.

Somehow, we made it safely to the emergency room. As I was being lowered from the ambulance, my only concern was for the baby that had so quickly squirmed his way into my heart.

“The baby?” I asked frantically as I tried, but failed, to look around for him.

“He’s in good hands, ma’am,” my trusty E.M.T. assured me before he began efficiently relaying my status to the medical professionals in blue scrubs that surrounded my stretcher.

I felt like shouting at them that they didn’t need to worry about me, but that there was a baby who needed their attention. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut, silently praying that they knew what they were doing and had the situation under control.

Once I was rolled into a curtained bay area, the short doctor gave me a reassuring smile before saying, “Sounds like you’ve had a rough time, but don’t worry,