Chapter Eighteen - 2
It took the guys about twenty minutes to get Lucy checked out. Thank god she didn’t have hypothermia, but she’d been heading that way. When she was finally able to tell them exactly what happened, Theo thought he was going to lose his mind.
“Why didn’t you stay in the car? We would’ve found you,”
he said as he sat next to Lucy at the kitchen table.
“I don’t know.”
Harrison shook his head. “That road is tricky. It might’ve been the right choice. We’ll see tomorrow when we find the car.”
“I feel like I’ve lost ten years of my life in the last hour.”
“Here.”
Sasha passed Theo a shot of bourbon. “You need a drink. I’ve already had two.”
She’d gotten there about five minutes after Harrison and the other two firefighters. Gia had called her to let her know that Lucy was at the house, so she’d headed there immediately.
“Can I have one of those?”
Lucy asked, looking to Harrison. “I need something to calm my nerves.”
“Give it an hour.”
He shook his head. “Just drink the tea Chloe made you for now. And something warm and hearty for dinner.”
“My parents are bringing Irish stew from Quigley’s. They’re on their way now,”
Theo said before he downed his own shot. He was pretty sure nothing was going to really help him at the moment.
“That should do it. I’d just watch out for pain if you did indeed get whiplash. It’s a miracle you didn’t hit your head and the airbag didn’t go off.”
“Well, I was only going about twenty miles per hour when the deer hit me, so I was able to slow the car before it ran into the bench.”
“I still can’t believe you got hit by a deer.”
Sasha shook her head.
“Hey, guys.”
Chloe popped her head into the kitchen. “Bear’s having another puppy. Can we get some help?”
“What are we at now?”
Sasha asked as she headed into the living room.
“Six,”
Chloe’s voice floated through.
“Do you mind if she stays here tonight?”
Harrison asked. “I don’t think she wants to miss anything.”
“She can stay.”
Lucy nodded. “We clearly need the help.”
“No kidding,”
Theo agreed.
The guys all grabbed their bags, heading for the front door, but Harrison lingered for a second. “I was actually wondering if you’d allow us to adopt one of the puppies. Chloe hasn’t asked—she doesn’t ask for a lot these days—but I know she wants one and I think it would be good for the girls.”
“Absolutely.”
Lucy grinned. “Do you want to tell her? Or do you want us to?”
“I’ll tell her tomorrow after the puppies are born. That way she can subconsciously pick her favorite without all of the added pressure.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Theo stood up and shook Harrison’s hand. “Thanks again for coming. I can’t thank you enough.”
“It was no problem. You probably could’ve handled it on your own, based on what you did before we got here, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Lucy, I’d say you need to get some rest, but I doubt that’s going to happen.”
Harrison pointed toward the living room.
“Yeah, not anytime soon.”
“Keep me posted on the puppies, and everything else. I’ll be back in the morning.”
He nodded before he turned around and headed for the living room. Theo could hear a muffled exchange between him and his daughter before the front door opened and closed again.
It was the first time they’d been alone since he’d found her, and Theo reached over, grabbing Lucy’s hand. He looked at her, that lingering terror still in his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Tonight turned a bit chaotic.”
“A bit?”
Theo frowned at her. “I’m surprised I haven’t had a heart attack yet. You aren’t allowed to leave me anymore. If you’re doing this music thing, I’m going with you.”
Lucy stood up, moving over to his chair before she sat down in his lap. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck. “I’m not going anywhere, Theo. I’m staying right here with you.”
“The meeting didn’t go well?”
Lucy sat up so she could look into his eyes. “Well, at first it did. He said he liked my sound and thought that I was talented. Then he said that I had a pretty face but that I’d probably need to lose about thirty pounds, start getting a tan, and dye my hair blond.”
“Excuse me? Anyone touches your hair and I’ll hurt them myself.”
Theo reached up, twirling a still-damp strand around his finger. “If anyone touches you period, I’ll hurt them myself.”
“No one is touching me except for you.”
She cupped his jaw, rasping her thumb across his beard. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind about us, about this. I want to be here with you. Theo, I’ve finally found my place. It wasn’t so much that a piece of me was missing, but that I’m the puzzle piece, and I fit here. I fit with you. This is all that I want. You, me, Estee, Bear, and whatever adventures await us.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Lucy leaned in, pressing a kiss to his mouth. Theo’s arms tightened around her, holding her close. But their little moment in the kitchen didn’t last long as a cry of alarm echoed through the air.
“Theo! Lucy! Something is wrong.”
Lucy jumped up, grabbing Theo’s hand as she pulled him into the living room. Gia was at Bear’s head, talking to her while she strained.
“The puppy is breach,”
Sasha said. “I’m calling Oscar, to make sure we do everything right.”
“I’m looking for that suction thingy!”
Chloe said as she hopped up and down from foot to foot, looking through the box that Oscar had left them. “Found it!”
She held the little blue object in the air.
“Oscar,”
Sasha said with relief into the phone. Theo couldn’t focus on what she was saying as he and Lucy knelt next to Bear. The puppies were all continuing to nurse, not bothered by the fresh wave of chaos.
Bear looked up at Theo and Lucy, pain in her soft brown eyes. It was as if she knew something was wrong, and with just that look, he knew she was asking for help.
“It’s okay, Mama Bear,”
Theo said. “We’re going to make sure your baby is okay.”
It was another couple of seconds before the puppy was born, and it was very clear that something was wrong.
With all of the other puppies, they’d immediately started crying after birth, wiggling around as Bear cleaned them.
This one wasn’t moving at all.
“Get me a towel.”
Theo held out his hands, and Lucy handed him one from the stack. He scooped up the puppy, turning to Sasha. “What do I do?”
“You’re on speaker,”
she told Oscar.
“Okay, Theo.”
Oscar’s voice filled the room. “You need to suction its mouth first, and then its nose. Make sure there is no air in the bulb, and push the tip into its mouth. You want to get it as close to the throat as you can, but be gentle.”
Theo did as he was instructed, focusing on the tiny creature. It was small enough for him to hold in one hand.
“Now release the bulb gradually, letting it suck out what’s in its lungs.”
Oscar paused for a second before continuing. “You’re going to want to squeeze anything out of the syringe before doing it again. I want you to do it two more times, and then do its nose.”
This time when Theo did it, the puppy started to wiggle a little in his hand, but it still wasn’t breathing correctly.
“It’s struggling, Oscar,”
Lucy said, surprisingly calm. Her hand was on Theo’s back and just her touch made him feel calmer too.
“Okay, rub it with a towel. Not too hard, but enough to aggravate it. You want to get it moving. Try to get it to make noise. Rub its chest and keep its head pointed toward the floor so that the fluid drains forward.”
It was when Theo did this that the puppy finally started to make noise, a loud squeak filling the room. The little guy started to wiggle in Theo’s hands a lot harder, very clearly upset with the situation.
Join the club, man.
Oscar let out a long sigh of relief over the phone. “Okay, that’s a good sound. Do the syringe a couple more times to make sure you get out any air bubbles, and I’m going to be there in about thirty minutes. I’m loading up my truck now.”
Theo sat back, his butt hitting the floor as he leaned against the sofa.
It took a few more minutes for him to get the puppy cleaned up and dry. He also had a chance to take a closer look, seeing that it was indeed a little guy. He was all white, except for a brown spot on his butt.
“Let me get a picture.”
Gia grabbed her phone, holding it in the air. “I’m keeping them in order, so we know who is who.”
When Theo put the puppy in the box, Bear immediately started licking him, nudging him closer to her until he found one of her nipples.
“If that could be the last traumatic thing we deal with tonight, that would be great.”
Lucy patted his shoulder. “Here’s hoping.”
And as it turned out, Theo got his wish. Puppy number six was the only hiccup of the evening. Oscar got there just before puppy seven joined the mix, checking on the one who’d been breach before focusing on Bear.
“She’s doing really well,”
he told all of them as Juliet handed him a bowl of stew.
“You better eat up. It’s going to be a long night.”
Theo’s parents had gotten there a little after Oscar, making sure everyone got dinner while Juliet fussed over Lucy for a good twenty minutes.
There was nothing more in the world that Theo wanted to do than to pull her aside and finish their conversation. So much had been left unsaid, unresolved. Or maybe that was just the lingering fear of thinking he’d lost her. He couldn’t get over the feeling that he’d been a breath away from everything he wanted being ripped from him.
The accident felt big to him, bigger than what it probably felt to anyone else. Maybe it was because he loved Lucy more than anything in the world.
The puppies kept coming at about one-hour intervals, the twelfth arriving just before midnight. Everyone was still there, Lucy and Theo sitting on the floor next to the whelping box. He’d thrown a blanket over them and she was leaning against his side as they looked at the puppies.
Oscar was sitting in one of the overstuffed armchairs, looking as exhausted as Theo felt. Juliet and Isaac were on the sofa snuggling with Estee. Sasha was sitting in the other armchair with Chloe, both of them looking at the birthing list of the puppies that Chloe had kept up with all night. None of the puppies were identical, all of them ranging in variations of white, buff, and dark brown, just like their mama.
Gia was filming, something she’d been doing for most of the evening. “I’m glad they all have the same birthday,”
she said as she leaned forward, getting a closer shot of the eight puppies that were nursing. Bear didn’t have enough nipples for all of them, so they were going to have to rotate them out.
“I’ll get you some stuff to bottle-feed,”
Oscar said. “Mama Bear might need help. Twelve is a lot.”
“No kidding,”
Lucy said as she gently petted Bear’s head. The dog looked exhausted but pleased with herself. “You’re a good Mama Bear, aren’t you?”
It had been Theo who’d started calling her that over the last couple of weeks, but it had caught on with everyone else.
“So, are we going to name them, or what?”
Sasha asked.
“We probably should.”
Theo nodded. “Have any ideas?”
He looked to Gia and Chloe.
“Well, I had an idea,”
Chloe said. “There are twelve of them, and it’s Christmas . . . so what if we name them after the twelve days of Christmas?”
“I like that.”
Lucy grinned. “So, on the first day it’s a partridge in a pear tree.”
“Actually,”
Gia started as she looked at her parents. “I was hoping we could keep the first puppy, since Chloe and I kind of delivered her on our own.”
“That’s fine. Did you have any ideas?”
Isaac yawned.
“Well, I’d already looked up names that mean one, since she was the first, and I was thinking Primrose.”
“Primrose it is.”
Theo grinned at his sister. “So, on the second day it’s two turtledoves. Is puppy two a girl or a boy?”
“A girl.”
Gia looked at her piece of paper where she’d been making notes. “She’s that one that’s mostly buff-colored.”
“All right, so that’s Dove,”
Oscar said from his spot on the sofa. “Day three is three French hens. Is puppy three a boy or a girl?”
“Boy,”
Sasha answered, looking at Chloe’s list with her. “French hens are chickens. You could name him Rooster.”
They continued on with the game, naming Birdie, Goldie, and finally getting to Goose—the one they’d almost lost. Theo looked into the whelping box, seeing that the little guy was currently curled up against Bear’s neck, sleeping as close to her as possible.
Theo wondered if he wasn’t the only one who was a little bit more attached to him than the other puppies.
“Okay, so day seven is swans . . . what do we name her?”
Lucy asked.
“What about Odette?”
Juliet suggested. “She’s queen of the swans in Swan Lake.”
“Ohhh, I like that.”
Chloe nodded as she wrote the name down. “I love Swan Lake.”
In that moment, Theo knew that was the puppy Chloe was going to pick when her dad told her she was going to get to keep one.
They went with Elsie for the maids a-milking, the famous cow being a better fit than anything else, especially as the dog’s dark brown spots looked like a cow’s. Lady was easily the ladies dancing, Byron the lords a-leaping—Lucy suggesting the puppy be named after Lord Byron—Piper for the pipers piping, and Ringo for the drummers drumming.
“He’s arguably one of the most famous drummers ever,”
Isaac said.
Lucy sagged against Theo from where they sat on the floor. “You okay?”
he asked as he kissed the top of her head.
“Yeah.”
She sighed. “It’s just that there’s been so much anticipation getting to this part, and while the uncertainty is over, the hard part has just begun.”
“Nah.”
Theo shook his head. “We’re past the uncertainty, I’ll give you that. But I think the adventure has just begun.”
Lucy looked up at him. “Are we still talking about the puppies?”
“I’m talking about all of it,”
Theo said as he leaned down, pressing a kiss to her lips.