Chapter 10
“So wait,” Mac said to Maddie, who’d called him at work and asked him to come home for lunch because she had big news that couldn’t wait for dinner. “Janey had the baby on the ferry?”
Smiling broadly, Maddie nodded. “That’s right. Your mom tried to call you, and when she couldn’t reach you, she called me. We have a new niece! Isn’t it so exciting? I can’t wait to meet her or to hear her name, which they haven’t yet decided on.”
As he listened to her, Mac tried to summon the expected enthusiasm for the arrival of a new family member, but he couldn’t get past the fact that Janey had given birth—a high-risk birth, no less—on the fucking ferry of all places.
His knees went weak under him, and he grasped the counter for support at the thought of something like that happening to Maddie, who was due soon with their fourth child.
Their daughter, Hailey, had been born at home in the midst of a tropical storm of the same name.
Their third child, Connor, had died in utero, something they were still recovering from more than a year later.
Janey had nearly died having P.J. And now this…
Was it any wonder that Mac wanted to put a moratorium on babies among their family and friends?
“Mac?” Maddie watched him with concern furrowing her brow. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be thrilled to hear that Janey had the baby and there were no complications.”
He stared at her, agog. “No complications? She had a baby on the ferry after nearly dying the first time around. Everything about that is complicated!”
Wearing a small smile on her gorgeous face, the one that appeared whenever she was about to pacify or indulge him, Maddie closed the small distance between them and placed her hands on his chest.
He wondered if she could feel his heart galloping.
“You need to calm down.”
Apparently, she could feel his heart going crazy. He glanced down at her hugely pregnant belly and rested his hands on their baby. “I want to go to Providence today. Right now.”
“Mac—”
“I’m three thousand percent serious, Maddie. This baby is going to be born in a goddamned hospital. Not at home during a tropical storm, not in a poorly equipped clinic, not on the fucking ferry, but in a goddamned hospital!”
She continued to smile as she looked up at him. “You really need to calm down. It won’t help me or the baby if you stroke out on me.”
“If you want me to calm down, I want to hear you say we’re going to pack our bags and go to the mainland today. We’ll stay at Frank’s.” Mac pulled his cell from his pocket. “I’ll call him now, but he won’t care, especially if Joe and Janey don’t need to stay there now.”
Maddie took the phone from him. “Mac…”
“What?”
“We can’t leave today.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because Thomas starts kindergarten next week, and we need to be here for that.”
All the air left his body in one long exhale, because damn it, she was right. They couldn’t miss the first day of kindergarten. “A few more days, and then we are leaving, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Mac, I think people on the mainland can hear you.”
“I don’t care if people on the mainland can hear me. As long as you can hear me, that’s all that matters. And quit smiling at me. This isn’t funny!”
“It is kind of funny when you lose your shit.”
“I’m not losing my shit. I’m dead serious about getting you off this godforsaken island long before you have this baby.”
“This godforsaken island is our home, and I don’t like when you refer to it that way.”
“You know what I mean. We should be raising our kids in a place with hospitals.”
“Other than when babies are involved, when have we needed a hospital?”
“Just because we haven’t needed one doesn’t mean we won’t. And look what happened when my dad fell off the dock.” He shuddered with revulsion as he remembered the horror of that day.
“And he was totally fine thanks to you.” She took his hands and gave a gentle tug. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Just come with me.” She towed him behind her as she headed for the stairs.
“I have to go back to work.”
“You’re on your lunch break, and you own the company.”
Since he couldn’t argue with either of those things and he was enjoying the view of her ass as she went up the stairs, he didn’t protest.
“Where are my children?”
“Out to lunch with my mom and Ned.”
Though still wound up and determined to get her to the mainland as soon as possible, he followed her docilely into their room, where she dropped his hands and turned to him.
“Take off your shirt.”
“Why? I’ve got to go. We’ve got a big issue at the Hopper place, and Riley…”
She slipped her hands under his shirt and raised it, her palms flat against his stomach and chest. “Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”
He reached behind him and pulled it over his head, tossing it aside. “It’s off.”
“Lie down on the bed, facedown.”
“Maddie…”
She gave him a surprisingly forceful push that had him tumbling onto the bed, facedown the way she wanted him, causing her to burst out in a fit of giggles.
“I don’t know what you think is so funny…” The words died on his lips when she straddled his back and began to massage his shoulders. Her touch, as always, was an instant turn-on. “Babe, that feels so good, but I don’t have time—” He jolted when she pinched his ass—hard.
“Shut up and relax. Right now.”
Something warm and slick slid over his skin, making him moan from the sensation of her hands on him. “What’re you doing to me? I’m supposed to be working.”
“I’m helping you relax so you don’t have a heart attack or an embolism or some other sort of ism when your head explodes from stress. I am fine, the baby is fine, Janey is fine, our new baby niece is fine, Hailey and Thomas are fine, everyone you love is fine. You have to relax, Mac.”
She was starting to turn him into a noodle with the gentle glide of her hands over his back. Then she added a light kneading of his muscles, and he might’ve started to drool. A little. “Won’t relax until that baby is here and you’re fine and the baby is fine.”
“If we leave on the afternoon of the first day of school, will you be okay with that?”
“What about Thomas and school?”
“He can stay with Tiffany, and Hailey can stay with your parents or mine.”
“What if it takes two weeks for the baby to come?”
“Then we spend two weeks away from our kids.”
“That’s a lot to ask of Tiff and Blaine when they have a new baby and Ashleigh, too.”
“They won’t mind. Thomas keeps Ashleigh entertained.”
“I’ll miss them if we’re gone that long.”
“We could ask Mom and Ned to bring them to see us on the weekends.”
“True.”
“Not to mention your business, which is busier than ever, what with the marina about to shut down for the season and the construction business booming, especially if your dad decides to go forward with the purchase of the Wayfarer. You’ll be too busy to breathe.”
He groaned at the thought of that massive project on top of everything else he had going on.
No question he’d need to hire more guys if the purchase of the Wayfarer went through, and it was looking like it would.
The thought of recruiting, hiring new employees and helping them find housing on the island made Mac tired just thinking about it.
A couple of weeks off-island would put him deeply in the weeds, even with Shane keeping things moving while he was gone.
“Or,” she said, her hips moving in a suggestive rhythm, “we can stay here with our kids where we belong and have our baby at the clinic where the midwife I know and trust works and where the doctor who saved our daughter’s life works.”
“Are you manipulating me? Is that what this massage is about?”
“Absolutely not. I’m merely pointing out to you that taking off and going to the mainland to wait for a baby that might not arrive for weeks yet isn’t as simple as you and me getting on a boat and leaving town.”
He mumbled in reply.
“What’s that you said?”
“I know.” The scented oil she was using must’ve had some sort of magic relaxing powers, because he suddenly felt like he could sleep for a year, except for the hard column of flesh beneath him that would keep him very much awake and far from relaxed until it was dealt with.
“Are you relaxing yet?” she asked.
“Most of me is. One part is still extremely agitated, and that’s all your fault.”
“All I did was rub your back.”
“Right,” he said on a low rumble of laughter. “That’s all you did.”
“I don’t want to leave my kids for weeks, Mac.”
“I don’t want that, either.”
“Then we agree we’re going to stay here and have the baby at the clinic with the medical team that has monitored me throughout my pregnancy?”
He moaned, because that wasn’t what he wanted, not at all. “The clinic is not a hospital.”
“No, but after what happened with Janey, they’re fully equipped for a C-section if it comes to that. I trust David and Vic with my life and the baby’s life.”
After several years of marriage, Mac was wise enough now to know when he’d been cornered and fully manipulated by the love of his life. “Fine,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Fine. Have it your way. But if anything happens to you, I will spank your ass until it’s cherry red, Madeline.”
“Oh yes, please. When can we do that?”
“Maddie! I’m serious.”
“So am I. Nothing is going to happen, and I love when you ‘punish’ me for being an awful manipulative wife who knows just how to get what she wants from her adoring husband.”
He grunted out a laugh. “You really are a shameless manipulator, Madeline McCarthy.”
She kissed the back of his shoulder. “Stay there for a minute.”
After the massage she’d given him, he couldn’t have moved if the house had been on fire.
A towel appeared on the bed next to him. “Turn over and stay on the towel so the oil doesn’t ruin my quilt.”