Mission Delivery(11)

    “One, two, three, four …”

    Belle bore down with everything she had, her face straining with the push. Her groan became another scream, this time sending her head back with the intensity of her yell.

    “Five, six, seven, eight …”

    Cutting off her wail, she looked at me, and in a low, scary voice, she said, “I’m going to shove a turkey up your ass and make you shit it out so you can understand how bad this hurts.”

    “Here we go, Mom. Last push,” the doctor instructed.

    Belle gave one last, loud grunt and then toppled back onto the bed as I heard a weird whooshing sound. My eyes were glued to the end of that bed, and for a few seconds, all I could see was the doctor’s body jerking this way and that as he did whatever it was he needed to do, and then it happened.

    I fell in love for the third time in my life. With my daughter.

    It was just as powerful and soul shaking as when I had fallen in love at first sight with both Belle and our son Seth.

    While he doctor held up this little, wrinkly, pink body covered in all kinds of stuff, tears flooded my eyes and my breath whooshed out of me in a great big exhale.

    “Come cut the umbilical cord, Daddy.” The nurse held medical scissors out to me.

    I took them with a shaky hand then cut through the cord that was a visible lifeline from my daughter to the woman I loved. Now, instead of only depending on Belle for her life, she would be depending on me, too. I was ready for that, ready to give my little girl everything she would ever need.

    The nurse took our baby from the doctor and laid her on Belle’s chest while the doctor finished up down below.

    “What’s her name?” the nurse asked.

    “Willow,” Belle murmured happily, beyond exhausted, though obviously thrilled.

    We both stared at the tiny bundle on her chest. I didn’t know how Belle felt, but I felt like I was floating in a hallucination. I was praying with everything I had that no one was going to pinch me and tell me it was all a dream.

    I found out quickly a pinch was not needed.

    Belle turned her head and looked at me with a huge smile. “I love you more than you’ll ever know, Bobby … but you’re never coming near me again.”

    I probably should not have laughed at the threat, but I was so fucking happy I couldn’t care less that Belle had threatened my manhood seven ways from Sunday. After she recovered, I knew I would be able to convince her differently.

    Until then, I was more than happy to count all the blessings I had. All three of them.





Chapter

    5

    The hospital door to our room silently slid open, and then a thin form hidden under a ball cap and baggy clothes slipped silently into the room. It was obvious the person was not a nurse or doctor, and I worried that whoever it was had walked into the wrong room. Belle was sleeping, and little Willow was resting in my arms. I didn’t want anyone to disturb my girls from their much needed rest.

    I started to open my mouth to ask the person if they were lost when a dainty, pale hand reached up and whipped off the hat to reveal red hair that tumbled down past her shoulders, mischievous blue eyes twinkling from a smiling face.

    Teagan Willow Roberts. The woman my daughter was named after and a complete pain in my ass. She was loyal to my woman, though, and loved my son unconditionally. Maybe one day I would get the prickly Marine over whatever problems she had with me.

    I shook my head in surprise as one side of my lips kicked up in a small smile. “Last I heard, you were deployed. Want to tell me how you managed to get here from half a world away?”

    This was not the first time Teagan had popped up when she was supposed to be somewhere else. Because of that, I was beginning to get suspicious of what she actually did in the military. No simple MP got to move around the way she did. I had worked in Special Forces long enough to know the military would not let her come and go in such a manner if she was a regular Marine like the rest of them.

    If I didn’t know any better, I would say Teagan was a spy or some sort of military Special Forces. Last time I checked, however, women were still not allowed in any Special Forces regiment. That didn’t mean the US Military hadn’t branched out to start including females in a top clearance capacity. Maybe it was time to put some feelers out to see if that consensus had changed behind the scenes while the general public didn’t know yet.