Chapter 30
Devon
“H ow much longer is this going to take?” I said grumpily as we sat in a waiting room of a Billings hospital exactly one week later. “Do you think something is wrong?”
“No,” Reese said in a calm voice. “I told you that it was probably going to take a while for Hannah to deliver. It’s her first baby. Be patient. I don’t think it will be much longer.”
Hannah had gone into labor at four am this morning.
It was now after nine pm.
In my mind, that was way too long for any woman to suffer through labor.
We’d left a note for Reese’s parents, grabbed a coffee, and headed to the hospital early this morning.
We’d already ordered takeout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still no baby.
I looked around the waiting room, grateful that there didn’t appear to be any other women in active labor because we were taking up most of the small waiting room.
Lauren was sitting with my mother and Hannah’s mother, Joy, across from us.
Kaleb was sitting next to me with Anna on his other side.
The Remington clan was all here and ready for this baby to be born.
Tanner had been out to the waiting room a few times in Hannah’s earlier stages of labor, and my brother looked like he’d aged ten years in a matter of hours.
He was frazzled, and I could tell that this entire childbirth thing was killing him.
“Tanner looks like hell,” I said to Reese in a low voice.
She squeezed my hand. “No, he doesn’t. He looks like any other expectant father waiting for his child to be born. Some guys manage it better than others, but it’s not unusual for any of them to be a little anxious. This is a new experience for Tanner.”
Anxious?
Tanner looked like he’d been dragged through hell and back.
“Hannah is extremely calm,” Reese added. “She just wants this pregnancy to be over and to hold her little girl.”
The women had been with Hannah for a while before she’d entered her final stages of labor.
Reese had been serene about this process all day and evening, so she obviously didn’t think anything was wrong.
“Hannah feels like she’s prepared,” Joy said. “You helped her a lot with that, Reese. She doesn’t seem anxious at all about the actual delivery. “
Reese smiled at the older woman. “You and Millie helped her more than I did. You’ve been through it. I’ve just helped deliver babies in the delivery room.”
“I can’t wait to see my first grandchild,” Millie said excitedly. “My boys have made me wait forever for this day.”
“Me, too,” Joy said with a sigh. “How are the wedding preparations going, Reese?”
Okay, that topic distracted me a little.
We’d set the date for the first Saturday in October.
It wasn’t that far away, but it still seemed too long to me.
“Good,” Reese answered in an upbeat tone. “I thought it was going to be difficult, but Devon sent me so many specialists that I don’t really have to do much but make the final decisions.
“I’m so excited that I’m going to be a bridesmaid,” Lauren said enthusiastically.
“Me, too,” Anna seconded. “The dresses we’re looking at are pretty stunning.”
Reese had asked Hannah to be her maid of honor.
I’d hired a dress designer for all the women’s dresses so they could get whatever they wanted.
Before Cole had left to return to Austin yesterday, I’d asked him to stand up for me to make the numbers even.
Surprisingly, he’d agreed without much hesitation.
I had to wonder if my mother had softened him up on the idea of family. She’d been at his place most of the time that he’d been recovering, and she’d fed him so well that he’d complained about gaining some weight.
Reese had checked on Cole every single day, and she’d just ignored his complaints about her worrying too much about a minor injury.
She was slowly getting used to living her old life again. A life that was free of fear and hiding.
Most of the people in town knew about what had happened to her now and her real identity. The people who knew her and cared about her had been incredibly supportive and had offered to help her with the wedding.
Honestly, Reese hadn’t needed my help all that much to get things started for the wedding. She had so many family members and friends to help her that it was probably overwhelming.
She asked my opinion on most things, but I agreed with whatever she seemed to want the most.
I didn’t care how we ended up married, I just wanted it to happen.
I was glad now that I hadn’t hauled her off to Vegas like I’d been tempted to do before I decided that she deserved better.
It would have been faster, but she would have missed all the normal bridal stuff and traditions that seemed important to her now that she was wedding planning.
When she was huddled with Hannah, Lauren, and Anna chattering about the wedding plans and the dresses, she just looked excited and…happy.
Just watching her during those moments made it worth the wait.
I glanced down at the ring I’d just put on her finger the night before.
I hadn’t screwed around when it came to her ring. I’d wished that I’d had that ring to put on her finger the moment I asked her to marry me. I’d had a jeweler at the house on Monday, and I’d gotten the custom ring back yesterday afternoon.
I would have preferred something a little flashier, but Reese loved her engagement ring, so I’d learn to live with a smaller carat value than I would have liked.
“I haven’t decided on a dress design yet,” Reese told the women. “There’s just so many options, and they’re all beautiful.”
“You’ll know when you see that right design,” Anna told her. “It will just feel like…you.”
“I hope so,” Reese answered. “It has to be made in a pretty short period of time.”
My mother looked at me as she said, “When my sons find the right woman, they’re impatient for that wedding. I never thought I’d see Devon this eager to get married. He could have given you a little more time.”
Reese shook her head. “I’m good with it. I really don’t want to get married in the middle of a Montana winter. We’re already going to need outdoor heaters for every area we’re using.”
“It’s going to be a lovely wedding,” Mom said enthusiastically. “Although that will mean I won’t have any more kids to nag about getting married.”
“Thank God,” Kaleb said in a relieved voice. “But I doubt that will stop you from nagging us about producing more grandchildren.”
My mother smiled at him sweetly. “Not a chance. I’ll be content for a little while with my new granddaughter, but I’m going to keep hoping for more. Especially from my oldest son. You’re not getting any younger Kaleb, and neither am I.”
Anna snickered from her place beside Kaleb, and her husband shot my mother an exasperated look.
“Anna and I haven’t been married that long,” Kaleb grumbled.
“You were married before Tanner,” she reminded her eldest son.
Kaleb folded his arms across his chest and stubbornly stayed silent.
He already knew better than to try to argue with our mother.
I already knew his situation because we’d talked about it more than once lately.
I knew that Kaleb wanted to have a child and so did Anna, but he wasn’t going to crush under our mother’s pressure to make it happen any faster.
Anna still traveled a lot because she was an international pop star, and they were waiting until Anna could scale the travel and appearances back a little at a time.
They’d decide when it was the right time, and it wasn’t going to happen any sooner because my mother thought it should.
The room got eerily quiet for an instant as everyone spotted Tanner coming toward the waiting room.
I grinned when I noticed that he was carrying his child in his arms.
It was over.
“She’s here,” Joy and my mother squealed simultaneously.
Everyone was on their feet by the time Tanner carried his daughter into the waiting room.
“Hannah’s fine,” he announced. “Everyone, meet Winter Elizabeth Remington, my new daughter.”
The extra ten years I’d seen on Tanner’s face earlier had entirely vanished.
Now, he was grinning like a man who had never gone through an exhausting twenty-hour delivery.
It wasn’t difficult to see that he was already completely in love with his new daughter.
Tanner was looking at Winter with complete and utter adoration.
I stood back a little and let my mother and Joy get their first glimpse of their new grandchild.
“She’s beautiful,” Reese said as she held my hand tightly.
I took a closer look. “She’s wrinkled and red,” I observed.
“Perfectly normal and healthy,” Reese informed me. “I’m sure Hannah is elated.”
Elated? Hell, I was certain she was exhausted and glad all the pain was over, too.
Honestly, Tanner looked ecstatic himself and so incredibly proud of the little girl he and Hannah had created.
As I looked at the joy on my brother’s face, it suddenly hit me that I really did want this for myself someday.
I just didn’t want the whole delivery part of the occasion.
That had looked brutal.
Kaleb and I both got our chance to slap Tanner on the back and congratulate him on his firstborn child.
My mother and Joy got a very brief opportunity to hold Winter.
“I have to get her back to Hannah,” Tanner said as he lovingly took his daughter back from his mother.
We all hugged each other before we started to exit the hospital.
“Relieved?” Reese asked as we wandered toward my truck in the parking lot.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I was afraid Tanner was going to have a heart attack before all of this was over.”
Reese chuckled. “They usually forget all about the anxiety once the baby is born. Tanner will be fine. He has Winter and Hannah to fuss over now that the delivery is over.”
“Do you really want to go through all that?” I asked her seriously.
She leaned against the truck for a moment as she said, “I thought you wanted to have a child.”
“I did,” I blurted out. “I do. I just hate the thought of you going through all that pain and misery.”
She laughed. “It’s really not that bad, Devon. There are pain relief options, and most women feel fine during their pregnancy if there are no complications.”
“Morning sickness?”
She wrapped her arms around my neck. “There are vitamins and medications for that if it’s severe. I’m starting to think me being pregnant would be harder for you than it is for me. I know that Tanner was a lot more worried about this delivery than Hannah.”
I put a hand on her flat abdomen. “I really want that for us someday, but it looks scary as fuck. You’re my whole damn life now, Reese.”
She reached out a hand and ran it lovingly over my jaw. “Nothing bad is going to happen to me if we have a child, Devon. All the pregnancy stuff we’ll get through together. We’re partners now, right? And by that time, I’ll be your wife. You’re just a little wary because you just watched your brother go through the whole experience. We aren’t looking at a baby right away. Relax.”
I calmed down a little.
She was right.
If we wanted a child someday, I was going to have to be there for her and not get caught up with every bad thing that could happen.
“I’m always going to worry about you,” I warned her. “And I’ll be a majorly possessive, obsessive pain in your ass as a husband.”
She smiled. “Expected. You’re already that way as a fiancé. I know who you are, Devon, and I’m still madly in love with you. Feeling better?”
I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist. “Yeah. I guess this entire day has been a little unnerving.”
“But it had a very happy ending,” she said with a sigh. “You have a beautiful new niece.”
“She’s your niece, too,” I reminded her.
Maybe she wasn’t officially an aunt, but she would be soon.
Her smile was suddenly radiant. “I know. I can’t wait to hold her. We better get home so I can finish Winter’s baby blanket that I’m crocheting tonight. I want to bring it in the morning so Hannah can use it to take her home.”
“Hey,” I said gruffly as she started to remove her arms from around my neck. “Aren’t you forgetting something? Kiss me first.”
Christ! I adored this woman and her desire to do things for other people, but there were going to be times when I had to remind her to be selfish occasionally.
“I wasn’t sure that you’d want me to do that in the middle of this parking lot,” she said remorsefully.
Yeah, there were a few people coming and going, but I didn’t give a shit.
“I do,” I confirmed. “Right here. Right now. I’m always going to want you to kiss me, Reese, no matter who’s watching.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she pulled my head down until our lips met and laid a loving, passionate kiss on me that almost blew my mind.
“You’re going to be in trouble for that when we get home,” I growled after we’d surfaced for air.
“Counting on it,” she said as she winked at me and removed herself from my tight grip on her waist.
As I opened the passenger door for Reese, I knew my life was never going to be boring with her as my wife.
She was always going to challenge me and drive me crazy.
I was grinning as I jogged to the driver’s side of my truck, deciding that harmony and peace were highly overrated.