When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,106

I didn’t want to deliver it alone.

“Rose?” Dermot called out while the contraction was peaking. His voice sounded distant.

Now I had to be hallucinating. Sure, I’d been hearing Joe alongside me, but that had only been in my head. It sounded like Dermot’s voice was directly in front of us.

“Who’s that, Aunt Rose?” Ashley asked, her eyes wide with fear.

“You heard him too?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Dermot!” I shouted, starting to cry again, this time in relief. He wasn’t dead. How was he okay?

“Rose? Keep callin’ out to me!” He still sounded faint, but he was out there. We weren’t alone anymore.

“We’re on the path,” I said, taking in a deep, cleansing breath. “Restart the timer, Ashley.”

I grabbed a tree trunk and pulled myself to my feet, then picked up Mikey again. I had two minutes to get closer to the truck. And to Dermot.

We kept calling out to each other until the next contraction hit. Dermot found me on my hands and knees trying to breathe through the pain.

“Rose?” he asked as he approached. Then he realized what was happening and he blanched. “Jesus. You’re in labor.”

I didn’t answer because it seemed obvious enough, but the next thing I knew he was kneeling next to me, rubbing my lower back.

“You’re doin’ great,” he said in a soothing tone. “Slower breaths. How far are they apart?”

“Two and one and half,” Ashley said.

“What?” Dermot asked, rubbing slow circles.

“Two minutes apart,” I panted out, the pain increasing. “A minute and a half long.”

“When did your water break?” he asked, sounding perfectly calm. I wondered how he knew, then I realized my pants were still damp.

“I don’t know.” The pain was so intense, I could barely focus on his words. “Half an hour?”

“You’ve got this,” Dermot coaxed. “When this contraction’s over, I’ll check to see how dilated you are.”

That thought should have horrified me, and with most other people it would have, but I trusted Dermot. He was a nurse practitioner. He’d patched me up before, and I’d seen him help plenty of other people too. He’d help me get through this.

The contraction eased and I fell face down, my butt still up in the air.

“Is it done?” Dermot asked, his hand still on the small of my back.

“She tells me when it’s done,” Ashley said with plenty of attitude, channeling my sister again. “I’m supposed to time them.”

“Sorry,” Dermot said in a light tone beside me. “I’ll wait for you to tell me. You must be Ashley. And you must be Mikey. I’m Rose’s friend, Dermot.”

“Are you gonna help us?” Ashley asked.

“Sure am.”

“Why is there blood all over your shirt?”

Panic gripped me as I sat up to face him. Sure enough, his upper right chest was bloody. “You were shot.”

“I patched myself up. I’m fine. Let’s worry about you.” But I could see his face was still pale, he was slow to move, and his right arm was tucked in close to his side. “I’m gonna check you now, okay?”

I nodded and started to pull down my pants, but it struck me that my niece and nephew were both watching, probably horrified. “Ashley, you and Mikey go ahead, okay? We’ll catch up. We should be close to the water I was telling you about.”

“Okay, Aunt Rose,” she said, but she gave me a dubious look before they started down the path.

“That girl’s wicked smart,” Dermot said, already opening a small bag and placing a glove on his right hand. “She takes after you.” He pulled out a tube of lubricant.

“She gets that sass from her mother.”

“Then maybe it runs through the Gardner women.”

“Do you want me on my back?” I asked, terrified this would hurt. Terrified of what he’d find.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he said. “Seems like you’ve been laboring well on your hands and knees, so let’s try that.”

I tugged my pants down to my knees and faced forward, feeling a little embarrassed now.

“This is gonna be cold,” he said, and I braced myself for the invasion. He took longer than I expected, and about ten seconds later, he withdrew his hand and pulled off his glove. “We need to get goin’. Can you still walk?”

“How dilated am I, Dermot?” I asked, pulling my pants back up.

He called out, “Ashley, do you have any service on that phone?”

“I’m supposed to tell Aunt Rose when it has bars.”

“Which means there’s still no service,” I said, getting to my feet. “How far am I, Dermot?”

“I haven’t had an L&D rotation in years, Rose, but