Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
JD
“I’m sorry.”
I feel helpless when I glance over and see the tears running down her face.
“No reason to apologize.”
She doesn’t have a reason, but that doesn’t mean I’m not quietly cursing circumstances that left me the only available person to race Sloane to the hospital.
Dan took their daughter, Aspen, to visit his father in Kalispell this morning, Sully and Pippa took Carmi camping at Glacier National Park this week, and the team—along with Jillian—is out on a search for yet another missing hiker. According to Thomas—the only other person left at the ranch—my mother is in town getting her hair done and we weren’t able to get hold of her. So, it was down to me.
“I didn’t think it was going to move this fast,” she laments, before groaning deeply as another contraction takes control of her body. “I think I have to push,” she manages.
“Don’t do that. Breathe. Five more minutes to the hospital,” I remind her.
It’s probably closer to ten, even at the breakneck speed I’m driving, but I don’t want to discourage her.
I’ve been at plenty of births, but those were of the animal variety. I’m in foreign territory here, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be a good idea to have this baby in the passenger seat of my grandfather’s pickup. I’m starting to rethink my decision to drive her to the hospital myself, but I figured it would be faster than waiting around for an ambulance.
She has her eyes closed, lost to the turmoil in her body, when the cell phone she’s clasping in her hand starts ringing. She barely even reacts, so I fish it from her fingers and answer.
“It’s me,” I let Dan know. His name showed up on the screen. “She’s having a contraction.”
He’s the one who called the ranch twenty minutes ago to get someone to check on Sloane after he’d spoken with her.
“Fuck. I’ll be at least another forty minutes.”
“Head straight for the hospital,” I suggest. “Things are moving.”
“Fuck!”
In the background I hear Aspen starting to cry.
“Shit, I’m sorry, baby. It’s okay. Daddy’s not mad,” I hear him mutter at her.
“Focus on getting yourself and Aspen here in one piece. I’ll handle things on this end until you get here,” I assure him with more confidence than I feel.
“Promise. No matter what happens, don’t leave her alone,” he pleads.
“She won’t be. I’ll keep trying Ma as well.”
“I shouldn’t have left her alone so close to her due date,” he chastises himself. “But my sister flew in with her kids to visit Dad, and Sloane urged me to go. She told me Aspen was almost two weeks late. We were only going to be gone a couple of hours.”
“Is that Dan?”
I glance over at Sloane, who has her eyes open and looks alert and determined. She holds out her hand and I give her the phone.
“Listen to me,” she tells him sternly. “This is on me, but I’ll be fine. This baby’s gonna have to wait until its Daddy gets here, if it means I have to strap my legs together. You keep your damn eyes on the road and stay safe.” Then her voice softens. “I love you too. Tell Aspen I’ll see her soon.”
No sooner has she ended the call, when her face scrunches up as another contraction starts. Her phone slips from her hand and hits the floor at her feet.
I grab my own phone from the console and hit Janey’s number. She answers on the second ring.
“Miss me already?”
I can hear the smile in her voice. She does that a lot, and I find I do more than my share of smiling these days as well. She has that effect on me.
“I’m on my way to the hospital with Sloane. She’s in labor, and Dan’s on his way back from Kalispell.”
“Oh shit. How close are her contractions?”
“Close. Where are you?”
“At the feed store picking up a few things. Do you need me?”
“Yes,” I admit, feeling instant relief.
“I’ll be at the hospital in five.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’d be honored to step up for my friend and brother at the birth of his child, and I love Sloane like a sister, but I’m pretty sure they’d both be more comfortable if Janey held her hand in the delivery room instead of me.
She makes it in less, because she’s already waiting at the emergency entrance with a wheelchair when I pull up in front.
“I guess that little one is in a hurry,” she tells Sloane when she opens the passenger door. “Why don’t we get you inside and see what’s going on.”
Her calm presence instantly changes the dynamic for me. I may appear laid-back or even stoic, but that doesn’t always mean I feel that way, and I’m thankful when Janey takes over with confidence.
Growing up with a force of nature like my mother, I don’t think I could ever underestimate a woman’s strength and resilience, but watching Janey wheel Sloane into the ER is a good reminder why, in many ways, women are definitely the stronger sex.
I’m in the waiting room when Dan comes running in twenty-something minutes later with Aspen on his arm.
“What the hell? You—” he starts when he spots me.
“Janey’s in with her,” I quickly explain, cutting him off. “Room fourteen. I’ll take Aspen.”
The little girl isn’t too pleased being handed off so abruptly, as her father darts down the hallway, and starts crying.
“Don’t cry, little one. Wanna go for a walk?”
I bounce her in the crook of my arm and pace up and down the hallway outside the waiting room. It doesn’t take her long to settle down with her thumb in her mouth and her head resting against my shoulder.
I like the weight of her in my arms, and wonder how it would feel to carry a child of my own like this, when I see Janey come through a pair of doors at the end of the hall. She’s wearing a bright grin on her face.
“He made it in the nick of time,” she whispers when she sees Aspen nodding off in my arms. “The head was already crowning.”
I get a flash of a visual I quickly shake off.
“Good. Thank you for dropping everything.”
“No need to thank me,” she shares. “It was a privilege.”
I hook her behind her neck with my free hand, and with a sleeping Aspen between us, drop a kiss on her smiling lips. Then I lead her into the waiting room and pull her down to sit beside me. With my arm around Janey and the baby asleep on my chest, I lean my head back against the wall, close my eyes, and wait for news.
Ma shows up shortly after, asking a ton of specific questions, most of which Janey answers since she’d been in the room with Sloane. She also tried to pluck Aspen from my hold, but the little girl grumbled a protest in her sleep and grabbed on to my shirt with her little fist, so we left her where she was.
Half an hour later Dan walks in, proud as punch with tear tracks on his face, holding the tiniest little bundled-up baby boy in his arms.
Janey
“Hey, Mom.”
I hear the sharp inhale on the other end of the line, followed by some muffled rustling.
That would be the sound of my mother pressing the phone against her ample chest. She does that so whoever is on the other line doesn’t hear her hollering for my father. It doesn’t work, but I’m not about to tell her.
“Father! It’s our Janey on the phone!”
I swallow a chuckle. I swear, it’s the same every time I call.
My parents aren’t even that old, only in their sixties, but you’d swear they were remnants of the fifties by the way they call each other Mother and Father . I think it may have started as a joke—mimicking my grandparents, who did the same thing—but it stuck somewhere along the line.
The yelling is fairly new though, it started after my dad had his stroke. Not that anything happened to his hearing, as far as I know it’s as sharp as it always was, but Mom seems to think since he now struggles with his speech, he must be hard of hearing too.
I can almost see my father rolling his eyes at my mother’s foghorn voice. That voice used to come in handy calling Dad in for dinner when he was out on the farm, but it’s wasted in the tiny bungalow they call home now.
“I’m putting you on speaker,” she informs me next.
“Hey, Dad,” I greet my father.
“S-squirt,” he mumbles with his unwilling mouth.
Hardly a squirt anymore, but it still makes me feel like a little girl.
It also makes me feel guilty, because I can’t really remember the last time I called my parents. Life has been busy, and these past few weeks chaotic, to say the least. I’m not even sure what motivated me to call now, although it may have something to do with the large group of people I just left behind at the hospital.
Family by blood but also by choice, all gathering to greet the newest addition to the High Mountain Trackers clan, little Samuel David Sullivan Blakely. A name way too big for the six pound seven ounce baby who is already loved more than he knows.
Growing up as an only child, we didn’t have a big family. Just Mom and Dad, and my father’s parents. I never really knew my grandparents on my mother’s side, and I know I have a couple of cousins on that side of the family still living in Ireland, but I’ve never met them.
I’m all my parents have, and I really should include them in my life more.
Which is why I called them as soon as I got in my truck.
“How is everyone doing?”
“Fine,” Mom gives her standard chipper response. I don’t think she’d tell me if she were on fire. “Your father has joined a card club.”
“P-poker,” he corrects her.
“ They play for bottle caps ,” Mom whispers, as if Dad can’t hear her sitting right there.
I hear him make a snorting sound in the background.
“What about you, Mom? Anything new going on with you?”
“Not really. But tell us about you, how are things going at the clinic? Still busy?”
“Yes, I’m actually looking for extra help.”
“Didn’t you say you had an intern this summer?”
I forgot I’d mentioned Logan, but I’m not about to tell them what happened over the phone, I’d rather fill them in in person.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. But I have some other news…”
“What is it?”
“I’m seeing someone.”
“Ohh. Did you hear that, Father? Our Janey met a man.”
Mom sounds positively gleeful. I know there’s nothing she’d love more than to see me happy. I haven’t really had any serious relationships worth mentioning, but things with JD feel different. For one, I love him, which is something I want to share with my parents.
Mom asks his name and how we met. Predictably, Dad asks what he does for a living. I field their questions as best I can, and promise to bring him up for a visit soon, making a mental note to check with JD when in the next week or two would work for him.
We say our goodbyes as I pull up to the clinic.
“And?” Frankie asks when I walk in.
“Healthy baby boy. Samuel David Sullivan Blakely.”
“What’s with all the names?”
“I think they picked Samuel, but David is Dan’s father’s name, and Sullivan is for Sloane’s uncle Sully.”
I bend down to scratch Ginger’s head and glance at the stack of pink messages on the corner of Frankie’s desk.
“Anything urgent?”
“Not really. I told John Findley you’d be by to do the vaccinations tomorrow morning instead. He was fine with that. The messages can wait for morning as well.”
“Good. I’ll be in the barn unloading the truck for the next ten minutes, and then I’m heading home. Oh, did we get any nibbles on the ad?”
“We got a number. I’ll print out the résumés and leave them on your desk.”
“Why don’t you go over them?” I ask her. “Call the ones you like for a short telephone interview, select your top choices, and schedule them for an interview with me.”
If I’m going to have any chance on a life outside of work, I’m going to have to delegate some of the duties.
JD’s truck is already parked in front of my house by the time I get there.
I’m not surprised. Except when work calls either one of us away, there hasn’t been a night we’ve spent apart this past month. Most of those nights were spent here, and some of JD’s clothes and things have slowly made their way into my closet and bathroom.
It’s been a natural progression, nothing forced, nobody asked or announced, we’ve just let things happen organically. It feels right.
Of course, most evenings we end up doing at least some work on the house. Mostly together, but we’ve had Jackson here a few times, lending a hand. JD has shown me how to tile, and I’ve been working on the bathroom floor for days. It’s slow progress, but I’m being very careful, I don’t want to mess it up. It’s not like we’re in a hurry.
When I walk in, Ginger beelines it to the kitchen, where JD looks to be busy doing something.
“What are you doing?” I ask, after pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Making us a picnic. It’s a beautiful day and it’ll be a nice sunset. I thought we’d grab a couple of beers, sit by the creek behind my trailer.”
“I’d like that.”
Half an hour later, we’re sitting in folding chairs at the edge of the creek. I have a cold beer in hand and am watching the little red-and-white ball on JD’s fishing line bob on the water. The sun is already sliding behind the mountains, leaving a warm, golden glow over everything it touches.
“I talked to my parents.”
JD turns his head. “Yeah?”
“I told them about you.”
He covers my hand on the armrest with his own, slipping his fingers between mine.
“I may have told them I want them to meet you.”
“Yeah?” he says again.
I suddenly feel a bit awkward and start backpedaling. “I mean, you don’t have to. I?—”
“Would love to meet them. Let me know when you wanna drive up.”
I lean my head back. “Okay.”
It’s that easy.
“Exciting day,” he states a few moments later.
“It sure was. That little guy was welcomed with such love, so much joy,” I observe.
“Hmm. Dan’s a lucky bastard.”
I glance over at him. “They sure have a beautiful family.”
His eyes meet mine.
“Do you ever think about it? Making a family? Having kids?”
“I used to,” I share openly. “For the longest time it was something I reserved for later. But life got busy, and to be honest, I never really met anyone I could envision having a family with. I’d almost gotten resigned to the fact a family was probably not in the cards for me. Realizing the window to have children was closing for me was painful, so I tried not to think about it that much anymore. At least I didn’t until…”
“Until recently,” he finishes for me, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I’m not that different. I think I always wanted a family, but it was more a wish for the future.”
“Right,” I agree.
He picks up my hand and kisses my knuckles, whispering with his lips against my skin.
“I think my future caught up with me.”