Chapter 5
Chapter Five
I woke up, somewhat, to bright lights and the sound of men’s voices. I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack truck.
I jerked upright.
Fuck, that killed.
“Adam! Where’s Olivia?”
Adam looked over the driver’s seat at me. It was then I noticed that the driver’s window was down partway, and a police officer was there.
“It’s okay, she’s right here in my arms. I have her wrapped up in my parka. She’s as snug as a bug in a rug. I promise.”
The police officer laughed.
“We’ve called for an ambulance, ma’am. They’re on their way. Their ETA is ten minutes. We’ll get you and your daughter to the hospital in Knoxville real quick.”
“Do you know who’s in the ambulance?” I asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The EMTs. Do you know who the EMTs are?”
“No ma’am.”
“Can you find out? If one of them is Zarek Post, you might want to give him a heads-up that I’m the patient.” I frowned. “Never mind. If he knows ahead of time, he’ll wreck the truck getting here.”
“I don’t understand.” The police officer looked all kinds of confused.
“I thought Zarek was a firefighter,” Adam said.
“He is, but he’s also a trained EMT, and sometimes he’ll pitch in when shit hits the fan, like this blizzard.”
“Zarek Post?” The officer asked.
“Yes. He’s the baby’s father,” Zoe explained.
“Well, isn’t that something.”
“I think it’s best to tell him when I’m safely at the hospital in Knoxville.”
“I don’t know about that, Zoe,” Adam said. “It’s morning now. I think your whole family is probably worried sick about you. If Officer Peasley can radio out a message that you’re all right, don’t you think that would be good?”
“You’re right.” I looked at Peasley. “But don’t tell them about me having the baby, okay? Just tell them I’m all right and I’m being taken to the hospital in Knoxville to get checked out, okay?”
He nodded. “I’ll radio Sheriff Nash Rivers in Jasper Creek. He can get word to your family. Will that work?”
“Yes.” I yawned. That was all I was good for. “Adam, can you hand Olivia back to me?”
He looked over at me. “Zoe, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think you’re about to fall asleep again.”
I yawned again, then glared at him. “I can stay awake until the ambulance shows up. Now give me my daugh—” I stopped. “Now give me Olivia.”
I felt Olivia's warm weight settle into my arms, and just like that, every ache in my body receded to background noise. She was still making that small, indignant sound she'd been making since the first moment I’d held her. It was as if she was still pissed that she’d had to leave the warm cocoon of my body.
I tucked her closer and pressed my lips to the top of her head.
"It’s good out here," I murmured. "I've got you. Your timing is terrible, but I've got you."
Adam was watching me from the front seat with an expression I didn't have the energy to analyze. Outside, Officer Peasley's radio crackled and he stepped away from the truck window to answer it.
I knew the ambulance was coming. It was a crapshoot as to whether Zarek would be in it. I couldn’t decide if it would be a good thing or a bad thing. Ultimately, I thought bad. His attention would be too split, no matter how much of a professional he was.
Damn, I was tired.
Not the normal kind of tired. Not the kind that a good night's sleep would fix.
It was the kind that would last for days.
It must feel like when Drake had gone through BUD/S only worse.
I was going to sleep for approximately four hundred years when this was over, and I was going to do it in a real bed, and nobody was going to interrupt me by asking about belly buttons.
"Dad?"
I giggled. Of course he was talking. I think about James, and he starts talking.
James's voice came from the front seat, thick with sleep, confused. I heard the rustle of him shifting, the small sounds of a child waking up from a sound sleep. He sounded like my nephew Lawson.
"Hey, Buddy." Adam's voice dropped into that particular register he saved for his son. Steady and soft at once. "It's okay. Lie back down."
"Is something happening?" A pause. Then, "Is that the baby?"
"That's the baby," I said. Olivia was whimpering, getting ready to all-out cry. She wanted food.
His head appeared over the back of the seat.
His hair was pushed entirely sideways. He had a crease on his cheek from the carseat, and his blue eyes—those unmistakable Beckett blue eyes—were blinking against the glow of the police cruiser's lights outside.
His mouth dropped open and his eyes got even wider as he looked at Olivia.
He stared for a long moment. Long enough that I started to wonder what was happening behind those eyes.
Then he looked at me.
"Miss Zoe," he said. He sounded really serious, and I braced.
"Yeah, Buddy?"
"I was really scared for you. I could tell you were really hurting."
Damn!
“I’m so sorry I scared you, Sweetheart.”
“I was happy Dad was with you, but…”
“But what?” I could feel Adam looking at us, but my eyes never left James.
“You were brave and strong. You took care of Olivia. You made her all right.”
“You and your dad helped me.”
“I helped?”
“You sang to me.” Olivia’s whimpers turned into cries.
He gave me a bright smile. “Would it help if I sang to Olivia right now?”
“She’s hungry.”
“I have apple slices.”
I choked back a laugh and looked at Adam for help.
“Zoe is going to feed her. I need you to sit back down and we’ll talk to the police officer when he comes back, okay?”
James gave me one last intense look before turning to his father. “Okey-doke.”
I mouthed the words thank you to Adam, and moved my clothes aside so I could start nursing Olivia. Once she latched onto my nipple, which kind of hurt, she got the most contented look on her face that I could have ever imagined.
Olivia was just finishing up when I heard the ambulance pulling up.
Doors opened, I heard another man’s voice and a woman’s voice.
The woman came to Adam’s window. Her expression looked serious.
“Can you open the back window so I can talk to the patient? I don’t want to open the door if she’s leaning on it, I want to ask her a couple of questions first.”
Adam nodded as the window rolled down. I took a deep breath of the fresh air. It was sharp and heavenly. I had to twist my neck a little to see the woman, since I had been lying against the door. I looked into concerned gray eyes.
“Zoe Avery?” The woman had a calm, no-nonsense expression, like someone who had already been awake for a long time and had made her peace with it. “My name is Karen.”
"Hi, Karen. Just so you know, I’m doing pretty good. I can walk to the ambulance."
"Ma'am, you delivered a baby three and a half hours ago in the back of a pickup truck." She said it pleasantly, the way you'd state a simple fact. "You're not walking."
"I walked to get into this truck."
"And we're very impressed. Stretcher,” she called over her shoulder.
I looked at Adam. He had the expression of a man who was doing everything he could to not laugh.
"Don't," I said.
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face said something."
He started laughing. "You've met your match," he said, nodding toward the EMT.
“Zoe, how secure do you feel holding your baby as we move you onto the stretcher?”
I thought about it. “Hand her to Adam.” I didn’t want to do one damn thing that could put Olivia in jeopardy. She carefully opened the door as I sat up. Then she handed Olivia over the seat.
A guy in his forties came to the door. He and Karen positioned me onto a stretcher.
I sank down onto it gratefully. But I was never going to admit it.
When they transferred me to the ambulance, Adam was there, and he handed me Olivia.
He did it with the same careful, certain hands that had caught her when she came into the world, like he already knew exactly how much she weighed and how to hold her.
I tucked her against my chest and she made her small, indignant sound, and I told her I knew, I knew, we were almost done with the hard part.
Adam started to back out of the ambulance.
“Wait!” I hollered.
“Yeah?”
“You can’t just leave.” Shit, I sounded pathetic.
“I’m not just leaving, Zoe. I intend to visit you in the hospital tomorrow.”
The wave of relief that washed over me was intense.
“Okay,” I breathed out the word. “Olivia would like that.”
“I know. James would kill me if we didn’t visit.”
We were both bad liars.
I must have slept, because the next thing I knew the ambulance had stopped and people were moving with purpose around me and the fluorescent lights of a hospital bay were burning white above my head.
I blinked. Olivia was still on my chest, and someone had secured us both for transport in a way I didn't entirely remember.
Somehow, despite everything, she was asleep, her mouth making small, satisfied movements, deeply unconcerned with the world.
"We've got you," the no-nonsense EMT said, appearing in my line of sight. "Knoxville. You're here."
Wheels on a smooth floor. Voices overlapping, the EMTs briefing someone, a nurse asking about the birth time, someone else saying something about the NICU just in case, just as a precaution.
"She's fine," I said loudly. "She's healthy. She's perfect."
“She does look good,” another woman said. Must be a nurse. “Let’s get Dr. Patel in here fast so she can evaluate the baby.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. For some reason, I was ready to sleep again.
“Honey, we’re going to take your daughter for a little while. We need to check you out. Okay?”
No, that wasn’t okay. That wasn’t okay even a tiny little bit. They wheeled me to an ER bay, and after what seemed like hours but what was probably fifteen minutes, a woman with a pretty gray bob and gray eyes came into the room and pulled the curtain closed.
“I hear you had a bit of an adventure last night.”
“You could say that.” I yawned. The name on her badge said Dr. Cynthia Keller, Obstetrics.
“I’d like to examine you, is that okay?”
“Sure. After having an absolute stranger who was an architect up close and personal for hours, being examined by an actual doctor is a breeze.”
The doctor chuckled. “So that’s what happened?”
“Mother Nature thought it would be good to send a blizzard, then my Jeep decided to swerve into a ditch, then Olivia decided it would be a fabulous time to make an appearance. It was an absolute miracle that Adam showed up.”
The doctor had me in the ever wonderful stirrups in no time. “Can you scootch down so that your bottom is resting almost on the edge?” she asked.
I scootched and winced.
“I know it’s uncomfortable. I’ll make this as quick as possible, I promise.”
And she did. Her examination was better than my normal OB/GYN. Hell, if I were to ever get knocked up again, I was hiring her.
Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.
“There’s no tearing. That’s good. The birth canal looks excellent, all things considered. I’d say this was textbook.”
She helped me push back and get my feet back in a normal position so I could lie down.
A knock came at the door. The doctor looked at me and I nodded.
A nurse came in holding Olivia.
"Seven pounds, two ounces," the nurse reported, with what sounded like genuine respect. "For four weeks early, that's excellent."
"She's an overachiever," I said. "She gets it from her mother."
I reached out my hands and made grabby fingers. She handed over Olivia who was now wrapped in a little blanket with the cutest little pink cap.
“Hey, Darling, did you hear, that? You’re excellent.”
The nurse and the doctor talked, but I tuned them out.
I just stared at Olivia and let the last hours wash over me.
The snowstorm. The deer. The ditch. The long, impossible dark of the cab, Adam’s calm and soothing presence, James's voice piping over the headrest, Olivia's furious arrival into the cold night air.
Adam's hands, steady and certain. The road flares.
The apple juice I never drank. A forehead kiss in the gray of a February morning.
You were brave and strong, a four-year-old had told me, with absolute conviction.
I was going to hold onto that for a while.
I looked down at Olivia again. She looked perfect in my arms. Like she’d been doing it her whole life, which, technically, she had. I looked at her face, Chloe's face. Especially the nose. Well, my face, since Chloe and I were identical twins.
I let myself feel the bittersweet weight of what was coming next. The handoff that had always been the plan. The thing I'd said yes to with my whole heart and would say yes to again without hesitation.
Chloe was going to lose her mind.
I was already composing the version of last night I could tell without breaking her. Hey, so, funny story—
My phone was still broken. I know that Nash had gotten ahold of everybody by now. He was a good sheriff that way. The Avery Avalanche was probably ten minutes away. Only the fact that roads were slick with ice was keeping them from being here already.
Then I heard them.
So many voices, but I could tell Chloe’s, because she was a part of me. I heard running.
“Hey,” somebody yelled. “You can’t be back here.”
Dr. Keller whipped around toward the door. As soon as it flung open, she blocked it.
“Where’s my daughter? Where’s my sister?” Chloe demanded to know.
Dr. Keller looked confused. But God bless her, I could see understanding slowly dawn on her face. She turned back to me. “You’re twins?”
“Yep.”
“Surrogate?”
“Yep.”
She stepped aside, and Chloe rushed to my bedside. “I’ve been worried sick.” Then she started to cry.
She reached out tentatively to touch Olivia’s cheek, and a huge smile crossed her face, as tears started to fall.
Chloe looked terrible, but I would bet anything she couldn’t hold a candle to me.
“Oh God.”
I looked up and saw Zarek filling the doorway. He was still in his fire department sweatshirt, jaw set, one hand braced on the doorframe, eyes already finding Olivia before they found me.
He walked forward and put his arm around Chloe, then looked down at his daughter. They were both awestruck. Chloe had stopped touching her, almost as if she were afraid she would disappear.
I held up my daughter… their daughter… and said the only thing that needed saying.
"Look who decided to show up early."
With that, Olivia woke up, her little fists pumping the air.
“I think she wants to be picked up by her mommy,” I whispered.
Chloe’s smile was radiant as she carefully lifted Olivia out of my arms, and held her like she was the most precious thing on Earth.
Because she was.