Chapter 22 Kick
KICK
“Rascon?”
I blinked in the darkness, disoriented, reaching for her before I was fully awake.
Her hand found my arm, fingers pressing hard. “It’s time.”
The statement hit me like ice water. I sat up, heart hammering, every thought scattering in different directions at once.
“Now? Are you sure? How far apart are the—”
“I’m sure.” Her voice was strained but steady. “My water broke. We need to go.”
I threw off the covers and promptly tripped over my own shoes, cursed, and found the light switch. Isabel was already sitting up, one hand pressed to her belly, her face tight with concentration.
“Okay.” I took a breath, then another, forcing myself to think. “Okay. Hospital bag is by the door. Car keys are on the hook. I’ll bring the car around.”
“Rascon.”
I stopped halfway to the closet.
“Pants,” she said. “You might want pants.”
I looked down at my boxers. Right. Pants.
Three minutes later, we were in the car.
It’s time. Heading to hospital now, I texted Snapper, who, along with most of the rest of my family, had been staying in one of several guest houses on Press’ estate. They’d arrived two days ago after Ma insisted the baby would come before the end of the week.
His response came before we hit the main road. On our way. Don’t let her have that baby without us.
“Right,” I muttered. Somehow, I doubted it was up to Isabel or me. Our daughter, our precious Ana?s, would come into this world in her own time. She’d learned well from her mother.
The drive to the hospital was a blur of dark roads and Isabel’s controlled breathing. I held her hand at every red light, watching her face in the glow of the dashboard, counting the seconds between contractions.
“You’re doing great,” I told her.
“You’re speeding.”
“Only a little.”
By the time we reached the hospital and got Isabel settled into a room, the first wave of reinforcements had arrived. My mother burst through the waiting room doors less than an hour after my text, still in her travel clothes, her eyes wild with excitement.
“How far along? Where’s the doctor? Get the doctor. She needs to be here. Now.”
“Jeez, Ma, Isabel is in labor. You’ve done it enough times to know they’re monitoring her, but it’s going to be a while.”
“A while.” She grabbed my face in both hands and kissed my forehead. “My baby is having a baby. I can’t believe it.”
Alex and Maddox arrived next, then Snapper and Saffron, followed by Bit and Eberly, then Cru and Daphne, then Brix and Addison. The waiting room filled with Avilas, whose presence turned the sterile space into something that felt almost like home.
“Who’s watching the kids?” I asked when I realized none had come along.
“Baron,” quipped Alex.
“No!”
She laughed. “Hell, no. Laird and Sorcha have been camped out on Ma’s doorstep since Isabel’s due date came and went.”
Maddox’s mother and father were probably the only people on earth our mother would trust with her “g-babies,” as she called them.
I returned to Isabel’s room, holding her hand through contractions that came harder and faster as the hours passed.
Every few minutes, a different woman would come to check on her progress.
Finally, Isabel asked Alex if she’d get to Lucia and if they would both mind staying.
While most women probably would’ve touched their heart, moved by the request, my sister whooped her way back to the waiting room.
“Your family is insane,” Isabel whispered after she left. The lull was brief, and within seconds, her grip on my fingers was strong enough to leave bruises.
“Our family,” I corrected, stroking her damp hair and feeding her a spoonful of ice chips.
She laughed, then winced as another contraction started to build. “Our family. God help us.”
Alex returned, dragging our mother behind her. And miraculously, their presence seemed to calm Isabel.
The labor stretched through the night and into the morning.
I lost track of time, lost track of everything except her and the monitors and the nurses who came and went with calm efficiency.
She was exhausted. I was terrified. But every time I looked at her face, I saw the same determination that had carried her through everything else.
And then, finally, the doctor said the words I’d been waiting for.
“One more push.”
Isabel bore down, her hand crushing mine, a sound tearing from her throat that was half scream and half triumph. And then—a cry. Thin and furious and absolutely perfect.
“Welcome, baby girl,” the doctor said, placing her on Isabel’s chest after cutting the umbilical cord. She’d asked me if I wanted to, then reneged when I felt the room start to spin.
The tiny, squalling, red-faced creature who had turned our lives upside down before she’d even taken her first breath rested on her mother’s chest, staring up at her as if to say hello. Isabel’s arms came up to cradle her, instinctive and sure, and her face crumpled.
“She’s perfect,” she whispered. “Rascon, look at her. She’s perfect.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up, my vision blurred with tears I didn’t bother to hide. I leaned down and pressed my forehead to Isabel’s, one hand cupping the back of our daughter’s impossibly small head.
“Welcome to the world, Ana?s,” I managed.
Isabel nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Ana?s.”
Alex and Ma crowded on Isabel’s other side, gazing down at the newest member of our family. Tears streaked down both their cheeks, which only made mine fall harder.
The nurse took our baby girl briefly to clean her up, check her vitals, and wrap her in a soft pink blanket. When they returned, they placed her in my arms.
I looked down at my daughter’s face. Her eyes were closed, her tiny fists curled against her cheeks. She had a dusting of dark hair and a rosebud mouth that pursed and relaxed as she slept.
“Hey, baby girl.” I said, choking back tears. “I’m your papa. I’ve been talking to you for months. Nice to finally meet you.”
She yawned. The smallest, most devastating yawn I’d ever seen.
I was gone. Completely, utterly gone.
Alex left the room, asking who else she could send in. Isabel answered “everyone” before I could say they could all wait. Ma, though, wouldn’t leave. She took Ana?s from my arms with the practiced ease of a woman who had raised seven children, and held her close.
“She looks like you, Rascon.” A tear ran down her cheek. “When you were born. The same face. Alfonso would have—” She couldn’t finish. Just shook her head and held our daughter like the precious thing she was.
Snapper came next, with Saffron, then brothers and sisters-in-law in a parade of happy tears and whispered congratulations. Ana?s was examined and adored and declared the most beautiful baby any of them had ever seen—other than their own.
I watched Isabel through all of it. Watched her accept the embraces, the kisses, the overwhelming flood of love from people who hadn’t truly known her less than a year ago. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t retreat behind the walls she’d spent so long building.
She let them love her.
When the room finally emptied and the door clicked shut behind my mother, who Alex finally convinced to give us time on our own, the silence felt like a gift. Isabel lay propped against the pillows, with Ana?s asleep in her arms. I sank into the chair by the bed and reached for her hand.
“You did it,” I said.
“We did it.” She turned her head to look at our daughter, and her smile was tired but radiant. “She’s beautiful.”
“And perfect.”
When she handed her to me, I settled into the chair with her cradled against my chest. Her tiny body felt so warm and solid in my arms. She stirred but didn’t wake.
“She looks nothing like me,” I said, studying her face. “She looks just like you.”
Isabel laughed softly. “Give her time. She might grow into your nose.”
“God, I hope not.”
We sat in comfortable silence, the three of us, while the hospital hummed quietly around us. I thought about everything that had led to this moment. The months of uncertainty and fear and slowly building trust.
“We made her,” I said, still not quite believing it. “You and me.”
“We did.” Isabel’s eyes met mine across the dim room. “Thank you for not giving up on me,” she added quietly.
I kissed her forehead, then her lips, soft and slow.
“Never.”