The Bravo Bachelor

Behind him, Mary moaned in agony. And Gabe stopped thinking about how much he enjoyed being single and concentrated on getting to the hospital fast.

The ride seemed interminable, but it really wasn’t that long. Nine minutes after leaving Mary’s place behind, he was pulling into the turnaround in front of Wulf City Memorial, under a wide porte cochere. They had a wheelchair waiting in the vestibule behind the first set of glass doors. An orderly wheeled it out, another orderly at his side.

Gabe helped Mary out of the car and the orderlies settled her into the chair.

“Thank you,” she told him, hooking her purse over her shoulder. “Thank you so much…” And one of the orderlies turned the chair around and wheeled her through the doors. The other followed, with the suitcase and the red diaper bag.

Gabe knew it was time to leave her. He’d done what he could for her. No one was going to fault him if he got back behind the wheel and got the hell out of there.

He could stop by her house in a couple of days. Mentally, he catalogued the contents of the briefcase he’d left under her table: nothing in there he couldn’t do without for forty-eight hours. Everything on the laptop was on his computer at the office and most of it was on his Black-Berry, too. It would be perfect. He could visit after she got home from the hospital, see how she was doing, give her the towels that were still in the backseat, pick up the briefcase, admire her new baby. And continue with his campaign to get her to sell the Lazy H.

His BlackBerry vibrated again. He got it out and checked to see who it was: Carly Madison, his date of last Saturday night. They’d attended a dinner, a high-profile event to raise money for cancer research. Black tie. And then they’d gone to his place for a private party of their own…

And he couldn’t stop worrying about Mary.

He glanced up at the doors they’d wheeled her through. Somehow, it just didn’t seem right to him, to leave her alone in the hospital, without a friend or a relative to look after her.

He put the BlackBerry away unanswered and went to park his car. Five minutes later, he was pushing his way through the two sets of glass doors.

Chapter Four

Mary was still in reception, still sitting in that wheelchair. They’d wheeled her into the waiting area and left her there, her suitcase and diaper bag at her feet. Someone had given her a clipboard and a pen and she was trying to fill out a damn form, of all things.

He went to her. “What is going on?”

She let out a cry of surprise and almost dropped the clipboard. “Gabe. Wh.. .what are you doing here?”

“I decided it was a bad idea to drive off and leave you alone.”

“But I’m not alone.” She gestured with the pen, indicating the others in the reception area with her, and the counter with the clerks behind it. “There’s a whole hospital full of people here to take care of me and you don’t need to—”

“What is this?” He took the clipboard from her and riffled the forms clipped to it. “There must be ten pages of crap here.”

“Give that back.” She grabbed for it.

He held it out of her reach. “It’s no time to be filling out forms. You need to be in a hospital bed. You’re having a baby. Don’t any of these people realize that?” He started for the front desk.

She called him back. “Gabe.”

He hesitated, and made a low, disapproving sound to let her know he was listening.

“It’s just procedure. Since this is happening earlier than planned, I’m not pre-admitted. So I have to fill out the forms. Then they admit me. And the longer you kick up dust about it, the longer until I get the paperwork out of the way and they take me to an examining room.”

He dropped into the chair next to her. “This isn’t right.”

“Gabe.” She glared at him. “Give me the…” The sentence became a groan as another contraction struck.

“Damn it, Mary.” He offered his hand. She took it and set about grinding the bones.

When that one passed off, she whispered between clenched teeth, “Give me the clipboard. Now.”

He saw that a compromise was in order. “How about this? I’ll read you the questions and write them down for you…”

She made a growling sound. But she did give in. “Fine. Whatever. Do it.”

“All right.” He read down the page to where she’d stopped and then asked the next question. “Ever smoke cigarettes?”

“No.”

“Drink alcohol?”

“Not in the past eight months.”

“We’ll call that a no…”

They were finished in about three minutes. He wheeled Mary up to the desk and the clerk took the clipboard.

The woman thumbed through the forms, nodded, and sent them a disinterested glance. “Have a seat. We’ll call you in a few minutes.”

Gabe opened his mouth to tell the clerk that “a few minutes” was completely unacceptable. He wanted Mary in the business end of that hospital and he wanted her there now.

But Mary tugged on his hand. “Gabe. No.” He glanced down into her upturned face. The look in her eyes made it more than clear that he was not allowed to ream the clerk a new one. “I’m fine,” she said firmly. “Okay? Fine.”

So he wheeled her back to the waiting area, figuring if they didn’t come get her good and soon, he’d be kicking some ass and taking some serious names—whether Mary wanted him to or not.

They did come a few minutes later, just as the clerk had promised, two women in scrubs. “Mrs. Hofstetter?” At Mary’s nod, the shorter of the two women took charge of the chair. “Let’s go, then.”

They wheeled her through the double steel doors and he went with them, carrying her suitcase, her purse and the diaper bag. No one seemed to question his right to be with her.

The taller of the two women took his arm as the other wheeled Mary on down the corridor. “Mr. Hofstetter?”

Since explaining the situation might get him kicked out, he simply answered, “Yeah?”

“We’ll take a brief history of your wife’s labor so far and Dr. Breitmann will examine her. After that, if he determines she is having the baby today, she’ll be moved to a labor room and you can stay with her there.”

He didn’t get the “if” part. It seemed pretty obvious to him that today was the day. But he didn’t ask questions. His job had been to get them to take care of her. Now that was accomplished, he was going with the theory that they knew what they were doing.

The nurse said, “Hold on to her things for now, why don’t you?” She indicated a row of chairs against the hallway wall to their left. “You can make yourself comfortable there until we come for you.”

“Uh. Right. Good enough…”

“Now’s the time to make a few calls if you need to. Let the family know what’s going on.”

For a moment, he flashed on his father’s face. Davis Bravo would be pretty damn surprised to know what was going on.

But of course, she didn’t mean his family. She meant Mary’s—about which he knew virtually nothing.

He faked it. “Good idea. I’ll make a few calls.”

So he sat in one of the chairs, with Mary’s stuff around him, and got out his BlackBerry, for lack of anything better to do. He checked messages. There were several, including one from his Dad and one from Carly.

He listened to the first one, left by his father.

“Gabe. I’m getting impatient here. Call me when you get this. I want details on how it went. I want you to tell me the widow has sold us that ranch. There’ll be no opportunity at lunch to—”

He clicked out of voice mail. He just didn’t want to hear it. And calling his dad back was out of the question. Davis would start right in with his twenty questions routine: How did it go? Is she on? Why not? Where are you now? You’re what?

Uh-uh. No, thanks. Not now. His father could wait. And he’d get back to Carly later, too. And the others. Right now, it all had to be about Mary, who was probably having a baby today, with no one from her family to be with her.

Ida, he thought. That was the mother-in-law’s name. Maybe he should try and get in touch with Ida Hofstetter and tell her what was going on.

If he only had a clue what Ida’s sister’s name was, he could call St. Louis information…

He opened Mary’s purse and felt around in there, feeling pretty creeped out about going through her personal stuff. But he did find a flip cell phone.

He checked her contacts. She had three numbers for her mother-in-law: Home, Store, Cell. He tried the cell and got sent to voice mail and left a message, giving his name and saying he’d driven Mary to the hospital, that Mary was fine, but that her mother-in-law should call Mary’s cell or his cell or the hospital as soon as possible. He rattled off his cell number then hung up.

Then he tried Ida Hofstetter’s home number, where he left a similar message. After that, he went ahead and tried the number called “Store.”

A woman answered. “Hofstetter’s Hardware. Donna Lynn speakin’.”

From Donna Lynn, who it turned out was a clerk at Ida’s store right there in Wulf Creek, he got Ida’s sister’s number in St. Louis and Donna Lynn’s promise that she would have Ida call the hospital if she heard from her.

“You give Mary a big congratulations from me, you hear?”

“Well, she hasn’t had the baby yet…”

“But when she does.”

“I will, Donna Lynn. I promise.”

“And I’ll come by, tomorrow—I mean, if the hospital says the baby’s arrived.”

“Great.”

“Uh. Who are you, now?”

A nurse was coming toward him. “Long story. Thanks, Donna Lynn.” He disconnected the call with a sigh of relief.

The nurse led him to a room with a hospital bed and a couple of easy chairs. There was a door to a bathroom and curtains on the windows. Mary lay in the bed, wearing a flower-print hospital gown.

She looked happy to see him. “Gabe.”

“How you doing?”

She blew out a slow breath. “Well, it’s official. Dr. Breitmann says today’s the day.”

He set her things on the floor by the door and went to her. “Everything’s okay, then?”

She nodded. “He says I’m in labor and everything is going well.”

“But you told me it was too early…”

“It’s okay. It’s earlier than expected, but Dr. Breitmann says it’s going to be all right, that the baby is capable of survival outside the womb.”

“Good.”

She waited until the nurse left to whisper, “They think you’re my husband. They seem to have no clue that I’m on my own.”

“Why would they? I didn’t see a space for ‘widow’ in all those reams of paperwork.” He took her hand and twined their fingers together. It seemed a totally appropriate thing to do at that moment. “And besides, you’re not on your own. I’m here. It’s not ideal, I know. But it’s better than nothing.”

“Gabe.” She tried to look stern. “Seriously. There is no reason that you have to—”

“Yeah, there is. You need a friend right now.”

A low laugh escaped her. “We’re not friends.”

“Sure we are.”

She squeezed his hand. “You’re really impressing me, you know that?”

“I do what I have to do.”

“You’re being amazing. But I have to say this right up front. No matter how wonderful you are today, you’ll never get me to sell my ranch.”

“Tell you what.” He still had her cell, so he opened her fingers and wrapped them around it.

She frowned down at it. “What?”

“Let’s forget about Bravo River. At least until your baby’s born.”

A shy smile curved her lips. “Deal—and what were you doing with my phone?”

“Stealing the numbers out of it. I called your mother-in-law at home and on her cell. Left messages. I also called her store, where the clerk answered. Donna Lynn wishes you well. She gave me Ida’s sister’s number. I saved it into your phone. So you can try to reach your mother-in-law there.”

“I will.. .in a minute. Take this.” She shoved the phone at him, threw back the sheet and swung her bare legs over the edge of the bed.

“Mary. What the…?”

But then she groaned and curved over her belly. And he understood. It was another contraction.

He gave her his hand again to hold onto, and she got through it as she had the ones before, supporting her big stomach with the hand that wasn’t clutching his, groaning as if she was about to push that baby out right then and there.

When she could talk again, she swung her feet back on the bed, covered up and took the cell back. She dialed and shook her head at him as the phone on the other end rang and rang. In the end, she left a message and flipped the phone shut. “Well. One way or another, Ida’s bound to get the message that her grandchild is on the way.” She set the phone on the stand by the bed.

In his pocket, his BlackBerry started vibrating.

She could hear the buzzing sound it made and slanted him a sideways look. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

About then, he realized it just might be Mary’s mother-in-law. But when he got it out and checked the display, he saw it was only his father. Again. “It’s nothing that can’t wait.” He put the phone away and pulled one of the easy chairs close. “What happens next?”

She reached for his hand. “More of the same. Hours of it.”

He sat in the chair. “Having a baby is pretty damn monotonous.”

She grinned at him, still holding tight to him, her fingers laced with his. “You’re right. Well, aside from the screaming and the blood and the pain.”

The hours went by. Nurses came and went. The doctor appeared twice, to ask Mary questions and examine her to see how her labor was progressing. Gabe wasn’t really up on things like dilation and effacement, but he gathered that it was all happening pretty much as expected.

It seemed completely natural to him, to be there, holding Mary’s hand, while Dr. Breitmann examined her. Natural, and important, too.

The whole process filled him with awe. And being awed wasn’t like him. Not like him in the least. He found himself thinking stuff he never really thought about.

How he’d always been the kind of guy who skimmed along the surface of life, keeping it cool, never getting too close. He was self-aware enough to know that some people called him shallow, and self-assured enough not to give a damn what anyone thought. He liked his life just the way it was and he had no intention of changing it.

But there in that labor room, with Mary…

He was involved. Really involved. And it was great. Because this mattered, a new life coming. He wanted to help. Any damn way he could.

When they finally decided it was time to wheel Mary down to the delivery room, a nurse told him he’d have to suit up before he could go.

No problem, he said. Whatever they needed him to do. First, though, they had him take Mary’s stuff into the room where she’d be staying after the birth. Once he did that, he put on the blue gown they gave him and the ridiculous hairnet, too, and he washed his hands with their special disinfecting soap.

And then they let him in to be with her. He got the top half of her, while the nurses and the doctor worked below. He held her hand when she needed it and wiped her sweaty face with a cool, wet cloth and said soothing things. He took his cue from the doctor and encouraged her when it was time to push.

And then, finally, after hours and hours of waiting, of Mary working like a trouper to make it happen, she pushed for all she was worth and Dr. Breitmann said, “This is it, I see the head…”

And Mary was panting and pushing and crying and Gabe heard himself say, “You’re doing it, Mary. Come on. It’s really happening…”

And she let out a low, agonized scream. Tears were running down her red, sweat-shiny, scrunched-up face as she pushed. And she let out a laugh, right then, at the same time as she was bawling her eyes out. “Lord. Gabe. I can’t…”

“You can,” he told her. “You are. You’re doing great…”

She cried and laughed and pushed even harder and the nurse said the head was out. Mary pushed some more.

And then the doctor announced, “We’ve got the shoulders clear. The rest should be quick.”

And it was. The baby slid out in a rush after that.

Gabe heard a raspy intake of breath and the baby’s first cry, a loud, very cranky sound.

Mary said, “The baby? My baby…”

“You have a beautiful baby girl,” said the doctor.

Mary cried, “Oh! Oh, thank you. Thank you…” as if Dr. Breitmann had done all that pushing and panting. She held out her arms.

The doctor passed her the baby. Mary cradled the tiny, squalling, blood-streaked, naked child close, not even caring that the cord was still attached.

She looked up at Gabe over the baby’s head, through exhausted eyes that still managed to shine with pure happiness. “I can’t believe it. I did it. Oh, Gabe. Look what I did…”

“You did good,” he answered gruffly, around the sudden tightness in his throat. “Real good.”

She stroked the baby’s slimy, bloody head. “Virginia Mae,” she whispered, and glanced at him again. “My mom was Virginia. And Ida’s middle name is Mae.”

“I like it,” Gabe told her. “It’s a fine name.”

A few minutes later, the nurses clamped the cord and took the baby to examine her and clean her up a little. Once they had her wrapped in a blanket, Gabe was allowed to hold her, just for a minute.

She was so light in his arms, and warm. He looked down into her squinty blue eyes and something.. .happened inside him, something momentous and scary, a feeling he didn’t understand.

But so what? Why wouldn’t he be gone on that baby? He’d just seen her being born. Even helped, as much as he could.

“Little Ginny,” he whispered to her, and she made a happy cooing sound, as if she thought his nickname for her was just fine. He watched, fascinated, as she tried to get her fist into her little pink mouth.

By then, they were ready to take Mary and the baby to their room. They put Mary on a gurney and wheeled her down there while one of the nurses pushed the baby in a plastic hospital bassinet. Gabe trailed along behind, thinking vaguely that he probably should be getting going—but somehow, still not ready to leave Mary and the baby on their own.

Her room had two beds, but the other bed was empty, the privacy curtain pulled back. Once they had her settled, they raised the head of Mary’s bed and she nursed Ginny for the first time, easing aside her hospital gown and putting the tiny red baby to her full white breast. The baby rooted around, making funny squeaky sounds. And then Mary guided the nearly-bald head into position, lifting her breast and offering the nipple at the same time. Ginny latched on and Mary said, “Ouch! That hurts…” And then she laughed softly to herself. “Well, I think you’re catching on, aren’t you?” She stroked Ginny’s wispy hair.

Should Gabe have looked away while she fed her baby for the first time?

Yeah. Probably.

But he didn’t. By then, he’d seen most of what there was to see of Mary Hofstetter. And it just wasn’t…like that, with Mary. She was so natural about everything, so matter-of-fact. She had no false modesty.

She looked up from the baby at her breast and saw him watching her. And she smiled.

He smiled back and then her attention was all for Ginny again. Gabe watched that. The miracle of that. Mary and her baby, together.

Somewhere, a cell started ringing.

Mary looked up. “That’s mine.”

He got her purse out of the locker across the room and found the phone, which by then had gone silent.

“I’ll bet it was Ida,” Mary said.

He checked the display. “Sure enough.”

“Hand it here. I’ll call her back.”

He gave her the phone. “I’ll just get some coffee…”

She nodded, pressing the key to return the call, putting the phone to her ear with one hand, holding Ginny with the other, looking tired but happy as he slipped out.

He was just out the door when a ward clerk approached with a tray of food. “Is she awake?” the woman asked.

Gabe nodded and held the door for her.

Giving Mary a little time to talk to her baby’s grandma in private, Gabe got coffee and a sandwich in the cafeteria. He wolfed down the food, suddenly realizing that he was starving. His BlackBerry buzzed while he was sitting there. He ignored it, though the soft sound seemed to nag at him. It reminded him that he was getting a little bit overboard about this, that it was way past time he told Mary he was leaving and got back to his own damn life.

He glanced at his Rolex. Seven-fifteen. He rubbed his grainy eyes and wondered at how the day had raced by with him hardly aware it was passing. He’d missed a couple of meetings in the afternoon.

Plus, there had been a lunch he was supposed to go to, hadn’t there? With his dad, his brothers Ash and Matt and a couple of BravoCorp’s biggest investors. He knew he shouldn’t have blown that off. His assistant, Georgia, had probably spent the day going nuts, calling him over and over, wondering where the hell he’d gotten off to. He should have called her when he decided to take Mary to the hospital.

And he needed to stop putting off calling his dad. Davis was probably past being annoyed with him and starting to get worried. He didn’t want that.

But then he thought about Mary. And Ginny.

And somehow all that crap that added up to his real life…? So what about that?

Later. For all of it.

He was still hungry, so he got another sandwich, more coffee and a piece of chocolate cake. That time he ate slowly, letting Mary have all the time she needed, to talk to Ida, to eat her own dinner.

Almost an hour had gone by when he poked his head back in the door of her room. She’d switched off the lamp by the bed. Only the dim recessed light in the ceiling, turned down low, bathed the room in a dim glow. The remains of her meal waited on the swinging bed tray, which she’d pushed to the side. She seemed to be sleeping, her head turned to the far wall. He couldn’t see the baby, but figured she must be in the bassinet on the other side of the bed.

He started to duck back out again, thinking how it was time, after all, for him to go. He could slip away without disturbing either of them, and get in touch in the morning, to make sure she was doing okay.

But Mary turned her head with a sigh and saw him, her eyes half-open, a slow smile curving her soft mouth. She whispered his name. “Gabe…” And she held out the hand without the IV hooked into the back of it.

His heart strangely lighter, he slipped into the dim room and let the door shut silently behind him.

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