Her eyes get huge, and she gasps.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, my heart rate immediately increasing.
“No,” she says. “Buck, give me your hand.” She grabs it, pressing it to Rosie’s opening. The sheet falls back, and her legs are open, but there is nothing sexual about this scene.
It is just fucking beautiful. Because my hand is on a head. The head of my child.
There is no stopping this labor, Rosie is having our babies. Now.
“Rosie,” I say, knowing she needs to calm down and focus, crying is going to add stress to an already precarious situation. “Listen, darlin’, I’m here, right with you. You are doing amazing.”
“Buck,” she manages, breathing through her nose as the pain passes, as if knowing a new contraction is going to be arriving any moment. “I am so glad you are with me.”
“Me too, Rosie. Me too.” I nod, our eyes locked, and I feel more connected than ever to her. Harper is coaching us, telling Rosie to push the next time a contraction comes on, and Rosie nods. Jaxon runs a cool washcloth over her head, and has towels beside us. He hands Harper a bottle of olive oil, which she pours on my hand.
“I need to push,” Rosie groans, grabbing Harper’s hand and squeezing. “Now.”
“Good, girl,” Harper says. “You got this. Jaxon, baby, can you hold her thighs?”
I look at Harper, ready for my job. She just smiles through the shock of it all and says, “Buck, you’re going to deliver your babies.”
And I do, with laser focus. My hands, slick with oil, ease the baby’s head through Rosie’s expanding cervix. She pushes with all her might and miraculously, a head of bright red hair emerges, after three pushes. The cries fill the cabin, and Rosie is tear-streaked, and so am I.
The baby’s shoulder pushes through, and then, it is out. A screaming, perfect, little girl.
My daughter.
I can’t swallow the tears. There are too many. The joy. Complete and absolute adoration.
My daughter.
“Rosie, you did it.”
I hand her the baby, still tethered to her womb, and Jaxon has carried cushions from the chairs for her back to rest against. She kisses the baby’s head, cradling her in her still shaking arms, as Harper uses towels to soak up the blood between Rosie’s legs.
But then Rosie starts contracting again. Jaxon takes our baby girl, and Harper grips Rosie’s hands. The second baby is on its way. Fast.#p#分页标题#e#
Rosie. One moment she is screaming bloody murder, her belly hard, sweat rolling down her face – she looks like a painting, so many emotions all at once, more than a photograph could ever capture. Desperation and pain and longing and fulfillment.
The baby comes, furiously, hair light also, just like mine, her tiny body covered in her mama, they scream the most delightful sound in the world.
Another daughter.
Two baby girls, healthy. Kicking and screaming.
And ours.
Ours.
Rosie takes the baby, at some point her sweater came off, but so much of this last half hour was a blur. The babies are in her arms, cradled and naked and against her chest. Harper and Jaxon are helping massage her belly, she still needs to deliver the placenta, but my focus, right now, is on my woman.
I cup Rosie’s face with my hands, amazed at her bravery, and her strength. At her beauty.
“Oh, Rosie,” I say. “You are a mother.”
Her face crumples, but not in sorrow, in pure, unabashed joy. “And you Buck, are a father.”
I kiss her softly, then the heads of my daughters.
And for one magical moment everything in the world feels like it’s okay. Like everything is going to be alright.
We hear cars pulling up at the house. Doors slamming. I think, thank God, the ambulance is here.
But Jaxon runs to the door, to let them inside.
And it isn’t the ambulance.
It’s the Russian mob.
16
One moment I think my life is finally my own.
And then in a flash, everything changes. Buck and Jaxon open the gun safe in the closet, and Buck hands his friend a gun, holsters one himself. I frantically try to make him stop.
“Buck stop,” I cry out. And thank God he turns around. He wants to make these men leave, but I know it isn’t as simple as that. “They are going to kill you, Buck. And I can’t lose you. Your daughters can’t.”
“What would you have me do, Rosie?” His eyes are filled with an intensity I don’t quite know what to do with. He is so willing to lay down his life for me, that amount of passion is overwhelming. He must see me shaking, and he nods, promising me everything with his eyes. “I can’t leave Jaxon to fight them off alone, you understand?”