A Bachelor And A Baby

“What? What’s the matter?” On his knees beside her, concern pushed aside his anger.

Rick strained to hear the sound of sirens approaching, but there was nothing. Not only that, but there didn’t appear to be any activity, or even any lights being turned on from the three other houses on the immediate block.

Where the hell was everyone? Had he and Joanna just slipped into some private twilight zone of their own?

Joanna clutched his arm, her nails digging into his flesh, her face drained of all color. She wasn’t answering his question.

This couldn’t be happening, she thought, frantically Not now. She wasn’t due for another two weeks. The doctor had promised her.

Promises were meant to be broken.

The promise between her and Rick had been.

“The baby,” she gasped, pushing the words out as best she could. “I think the baby’s coming.”

Two

Dumbfounded, Rick could only stare at her. “You mean later.”

She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying. Rick looked from her face to her abdomen and then back at her face again. That had to be the panic talking, he decided.

Joanna could almost feel her knuckles breaking out through her skin as she clenched his wrist.

“I mean now.” The word rode out on a torrent of pain.

Crouching beside her, Rick carefully peeled her fingers from his wrist. She’d almost cut off his circulation. “Hang on, the paramedics have got to be getting here soon.”

Instinctively she knew that they’d never make it in time.

Joanna shook her head violently from side to side, the pain all but cracking her in half. “Unless they’re invisible and already here…they’re going to be too late.” She looked up at him. God, but life was strange, bringing them together like this, now of all times. “You’re going to have to help me.”

There were a great many things he’d learned how to do, felt comfortable in undertaking. Delivering a baby was not one of them. “Me?”

Even with the throbbing sound echoing in her head, Joanna could hear the wariness in Rick’s voice. She couldn’t very well blame him. This wasn’t exactly her idea of ideal circumstances, either.

“I don’t…like this any better…than…you do, but this baby…is coming…and I need…someone…on the other end.” It was getting more and more difficult for her to talk, to frame complete thoughts. The pain kept snatching away her breath, railroading her mind. Panic was attempting to push its way into her consciousness.

Desperate, Rick looked over his shoulder at the other three houses on the block. They were all dark. Why hadn’t any lights gone on? Why wasn’t anyone home?

Where the hell was everyone?

Where they were didn’t matter. What did matter was that he was here and so was she. And she needed him.

It occurred to him that for the second time in his life, he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. And both times had involved Joanna.

Someone had to be home on the next block. “Hold on,” he told her, beginning to rise to his feet. “I’ll go get help.”

The death grip tightened on his wrist, yanking him back down to her with a strength he didn’t think she was capable of.

“You are help…” She raised her eyes to his. “Please.”

Damn it, she still knew just how to rip into his heart. Even after all this time. Rick knew he had no choice.

“Okay. I—” He saw her jerk and stiffen, her eyes opening so wide, they looked as if they could fall out at any moment.

Joanna bit down on her lip so hard, she thought she tasted blood. A scream welled up in her throat, its magnitude nearly matching the agony assaulting her. It felt as if she were a holiday turkey and someone had taken a buzz saw to her body.

“I have to push…I have to push…I have to push.” The words came out in a frantic rush.

He knew next to nothing about what was involved in delivering a baby, but it had to take longer than this. She had to be wrong. “Are you sure?”

Clutching his hand as if it were her very lifeline, Joanna managed to pull herself up into a semi-sitting position. “I’m sure…oh God…I’m sure.” How did someone feel like this and still live?

Fear gnawed at her. Belatedly, recalling something Lori had said to the Lamaze class about not being able to pant and push at the same time, Joanna began panting hard. Praying that the action would at least temporarily divert this overwhelming urge she had to push the baby out.

Nothing she’d read or heard had prepared her for the reality of this. Before she’d ever walked into the sperm bank, she had read about every possible scenario that could happen at this juncture.

Every bad one now flashed before her, stealing away her courage.

She’d been so sure about this. So sure. She hadn’t even regretted her decision when the local school board had tactfully “suggested” that she take an unpaid leave of absence until after her baby was born. Since she was a high-school English teacher, her condition in the somewhat conservative town was a source of discomfort and embarrassment to a number of the parents. But even then, she’d been sure about her choice to go this route alone.

Now she wasn’t sure about being alone or even the route itself. Now there was only a sense of panic tearing into her with steel claws.

Here she was, her house in flames, her life in shambles, giving birth to a fatherless baby on the front lawn with the only man she’d ever loved inexplicably standing over her.

She felt as if she’d lost her grasp on reality.

“Ricky…I’m…scared.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he admitted.

His words echoed back to him. Joanna had been the only one he’d ever let his guard down with, the only one he’d ever allowed to witness his more human, vulnerable side. To the rest of the world, even from a very young age, he’d always presented a strong, unflappable front. It was expected of him. He was a Masters. Only Joanna had seen him as Ricky, as the boy he’d been and the man he was struggling to be.

But all that was behind him. Years behind him.

Rick squared his shoulders. He had to set the tone. What was there to be afraid of, anyway? Taking her hand, he looked down at Joanna. “Babies get born every day, right?”

Yes, but this one was different. This one was coming out of her. Shredding everything in its path. “Not this one.”

He needed a blanket, a sheet, something. Feeling helpless, Rick looked around. There was nothing available except for the tablecloth he’d used to shield Joanna’s face. Taking it, he tucked the material under her as best he could.

“Not exactly sterile, but better than the grass,” he explained when she looked at him with huge, questioning eyes.

Oh lord, here came another one. Joanna wrapped her fingers around the long blades of grass, ripping more than a few out of the ground as she arched her back, vainly trying to scramble to a place where the pain couldn’t find her.

But there was nowhere to go. The pain found her no matter how she twisted and turned, found her and constructed a wall all around her, imprisoning her.

There was no escape.

Panting again, Joanna tried to recall what she’d learned in her Lamaze classes. Nothing came to her. All she could remember was that the four of them, she, Chris Jones, Sherry Campbell and the instructor, Lori O’Neill, referred to themselves as the Mom Squad, four single women who’d bonded because they were facing life’s most precious miracle alone.

None of that helped now.

She froze, hardly hearing what Rick was saying to her, her body enveloped in one huge contraction.

What was it that Lori’d told the class the last session? Relax, that was it. Relax.

Right, easy for Lori to say. Of the four of them, she was the one who had the longest to go. Lori didn’t know what it felt like to be a can of tuna with a jagged can opener circling her perimeter.

But she did.

Joanna let loose with a blood-curling scream as another contraction, the hardest one yet, ripped into her on the tail of the last one. There was no end in sight. She was going to keep on having these contractions until she died.

Rick jerked back, covering his ear. She had risen up and screamed right against it. He could still feel the sound reverberating in his head.

“Good thing I’ve got two ears. I’m not going to be using my left one for a while.”

He shouldn’t be the one here, helping her give birth to another man’s baby, he thought. This should have been their child fighting its way into the world.

A sadness gripped his heart. He looked at her. “This is all wrong.”

With what little strength she had, Joanna dragged her elbows into her sides and struggled to raise herself up again.

“What…? What’s…wrong? Something wrong…with…my baby?”

“No, no,” he assured her, pushing her gently back down. “Just that your husband should be here, not me.” Or at least the paramedics, he added silently.

“Don’t…have…one,” she gasped. She felt lightheaded and fought to keep focused and conscious. Here came another! “Now, Rick, now!”

Rick saw her face turn three shades redder as she screwed her eyes shut.

This was all happening too fast.

He didn’t have to tell her to push. He didn’t have to tell her anything at all. Suddenly, whether he was ready or not, it was happening. The baby was coming.

Rick barely had enough time to slip his hands into position. The baby’s head was emerging. He could feel the blood, feel the slide of flesh against flesh.

Wasn’t giving birth supposed to take longer than the amount of time it took to peel a banana skin back?

And why hadn’t the fire trucks arrived yet? Were they the last two people on the earth?

It felt that way. The very last two people on earth. Engaged in a life-affirming struggle.

“Pull…it…out!” Joanna screamed. The baby was one-third out, two-thirds in. Why had everything stopped?

She fell back, exhausted, unable to drag in enough air to sustain herself. Beams of light began dancing through her head, motioning her toward them.

Toward oblivion.

In mounting panic, Rick realized that she was going to pass out on him. One hand supporting the baby’s head, he leaned over and shook Joanna’s shoulder, trying to get her to focus.

“I can’t pull it out,” he shouted at her. “You can’t play tug of war with a head, Joanna. You have to push the baby out the rest of the way.”

“You…push it out…the…rest of…the way. It’s…your…turn.”

And then she felt it again. That horrible pain that she couldn’t escape. It bore down on her, tying her up in a knot even as it threatened to crack her apart. It didn’t matter that she had no strength, that she couldn’t draw a half-decent breath into her lungs. Her body had taken over where her mind had failed.

“Oh…God…it’s not…over.” How was she going to do this with no strength left? How was it possible?

Panting, gasping for air, she looked at Rick. He was right. This was wrong, all wrong. She should never have decided to have this baby, never agreed to leave Rick without explaining why.

Too late now for regrets.

The refrain echoed in her brain over and over again as heat surrounded her, searing a path clear for more pain.

The tablecloth below her was soaked with blood. “Push,” Rick ordered gruffly, hiding the mounting fear taking hold of him. What if something went wrong? Should there be this much blood? She couldn’t die on him, she couldn’t. “C’mon, Joanna, you can do this!”

No, she thought, she couldn’t.

But she had to try. She couldn’t just die like this. Her baby needed her.

From somewhere, a last ounce of strength materialized. She bore down as hard as she could, knowing that this was the last effort she was capable of making. If the baby wasn’t going to emerge now, they were just going to bury her this way.

Fragments of absurd thoughts kept dancing in and out of her head.

She thought she heard sirens, or screams, in the background. Maybe it was the fire gaining on them. She didn’t know, didn’t care, she just wanted this all to be over with—one way or another.

She felt as if she was being turned inside out and still she pushed, pushed until her chest felt as if it was caving in, as if her very body was disintegrating from the effort.

And then she heard a tiny cry, softer than all the other noise. Sweeter.

Her head spinning from lack of oxygen, Joanna fell back against the tablecloth, the grass brushing against her soaked neck. She was too exhausted even to breathe.

Rick stared at the miracle in his hands. The miracle was staring back, eyes as wide and huge as her mother’s. He felt something twist within him. He was too numb to identify the sensation.

“You’ve got a girl,” he whispered to Joanna, awe stealing his voice away.

He dripped with perspiration, but he knew it was chilly. There was nothing to wrap the baby in. He stripped off his shirt and tucked it around the tiny soul. The infant still watched him with the largest eyes he’d ever seen.

Several feet away from him, a fire truck came to a screeching halt. He hardly acknowledged its arrival. All he could do was look at the baby he’d helped to bring into the world.

Joanna’s baby.

The scene around them was almost surreal. People were shouting, firefighters were scrambling down from the truck, running toward them. Running toward the fire.

In the midst of chaos, an older firefighter hurried toward them, his trained eyes assessing the situation quickly. Squatting, he placed a gloved hand on the woman on the ground as well as one on the man holding the newborn. “You two all right?”

“Three,” Rick corrected, looking down at the new life tucked against his chest. “And we’re doing fine.” The smile faded as he looked at Joanna. “I mean—” She’d gone through hell in the last few minutes. He might be fine, but she undoubtedly wasn’t. “She needs to get to a hospital.”

Rising to his feet, the firefighter nodded. “I can see that.” Turning, he signaled to the paramedics, who were just getting out of the ambulance. The firefighter waved them over, then glanced back at Rick as the two hurried over with a gurney. He nodded toward the burning buildings. “Anyone else in there?”

“I don’t know.” Rick looked to Joanna for confirmation. She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I just got here myself,” he explained.

“Not just,” the firefighter corrected, looking at the baby in Rick’s arms.

Rick had no time to make any further comment. A paramedic took the baby from him. He felt a strange loss of warmth as the child left his arms.

“We’ll take it from here,” the paramedic told him kindly. “Thanks.”

The firefighter and a paramedic had already lifted Joanna onto the gurney. Strapping her in, they raised the gurney and snapped its legs into place.

“You the father?” the first paramedic asked.

Rick was already stepping back. He shook his head in response. “Just a Good Samaritan, in the right place at the right time.”

He avoided looking at Joanna when he said it.

She and the baby were already being taken toward the ambulance. The rear doors flew open. Rick remained where he was, watching them being placed inside. For one moment, he had the urge to rush inside, to ride to the hospital with her.

He squelched it.

He was in the way, he thought, stepping back farther as hoses were snaked out and firefighters risked their lives to keep the fire from spreading.

“Lucky for the little lady you were in the neighborhood,” the older firefighter commented, raising his voice to be heard above the noise.

The rear lights of the ambulance became brighter as the ignition was engaged. And then it was pulling away from the scene of the fire.

Away from him.

“Yeah, lucky.”

Rick turned and walked toward his car. Behind him, the firefighters hurried about the business of trying to stave off the fire before it ate its way down the block and up the hillside.

There was no doubt about it, Rick decided. He should have his head examined.

After he’d gone out to look over the proposed site for the construction of the new corporate home office, instead of returning to the regional office he was temporarily working out of, he’d taken a detour. Actually, it had been two detours.

He’d gone to see just how much damage there’d actually been to Joanna’s house. He was hoping, for her sake, that it wasn’t as bad as it had looked last night.

In the light of day, the charred remains of the last house on the block—a call to the fire station had informed him that the fire had started there with a faulty electrical timer—looked like a disfigured burned shell. But the firefighters had arrived in time to save at least part of Joanna’s house. Only the rear portion was gutted. The front of the house had miraculously sustained a minimum of damage.

Still, he thought, walking around the perimeter, it was going to be a while before the house was livable again.

With a shrug, Rick walked back to his car and got in. Not his problem. That problem belonged to her and her significant other, or whatever she chose to call the man who had fathered her baby.

As far as he was concerned, he’d done as much as he intended to do.

For some reason, after Rick had gone to what was left of Joanna’s house, he’d found himself driving toward Blair Memorial Hospital, where the paramedics had taken her last night.

Joanna didn’t look surprised to see him walk into her room.

The conversation was awkward, guarded, yet he couldn’t get himself to leave.

He had to know.

“You said last night that you weren’t married.”

He’d promised himself that if he did go to see her, he wasn’t going to say anything about her current state. The promise evaporated the moment he saw her.

“I wasn’t. I mean, I’m not.”

“Divorced?” he guessed.

“No.”

“Widowed?”

She sighed, picking at her blanket. Had he turned up in her life just to play Colombo? “No, and I’m not betrothed, either.”

She was playing games with him. It shouldn’t have bothered him after all this time, but it did. A great deal.

“So, what, this was an immaculate conception?” Sarcasm dripped from his voice. “What’s the baby’s father’s name, Joanna?”

She took a deep breath. “11375.”

He stood at the foot of her bed, confusion echoing through his brain. “What?”

“Number 11375.” She’d chosen her baby’s father from a catalogue offered by the sperm bank. In it were a host of candidates, their identities all carefully concealed. They were known only by their attributes and traits. And a number. “That’s all I know him by.”

Trying to be discreet, Joanna shifted in her bed. She was still miserably uncomfortable. No one had talked about how sore you felt the day after you gave birth, she thought. Something else she hadn’t come across in her prenatal readings.

She raised her eyes to Rick’s. His visit had caught her off-guard, but not nearly as much as his appearance in her bedroom last night had. All things considered, it was almost like something out of a movie. A long-ago lover suddenly rushing into her burning bedroom to rescue her. After that, she doubted very much if anything would ever surprise her again.

What kind of double talk was this? “I don’t understand. Is he some kind of a spy?”

“No, some kind of a test tube.” She saw his brows draw together in a deep scowl. He probably thought she was toying with him. This wasn’t exactly something she felt comfortable talking about, but he’d saved her life last night. He deserved to have his question answered. “I went to a sperm bank, Rick.”

If ever there was a time for him to be knocked over by a feather, Rick thought, now was it. Maybe he’d just heard her wrong. “Why?”

“Because that’s where they keep sperm.”

This was an insane conversation. What are you doing here, Rick? Why are you eight years too late?

She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “I wanted a baby.”

For a second, he couldn’t think. Dragging a chair over to her bed, he sank down. “There are other ways to get a baby, Joanna.”

Suddenly, she wanted him to go away. This was too painful to discuss. “They all involve getting close to a person.”

Memories from the past teased his brain. Memories of moonlit nights, soft, sultry breezes and a woman in his arms he’d vowed to always love. Who’d vowed to always love him.

Always had a short life expectancy.

“They tell me that’s the best part,” he said quietly.

She looked away. “Been there, done that.”

Her flippant tone irritated him. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if there’d been money involved in this transaction, as well. But the question was too cruel, even if she deserved it. He let it go.

Rick rose, shoving his hand into his pockets as he looked out the window that faced the harbor. “So there’s no one else in your life?”

“My baby.” Her baby would make her complete, she thought. She didn’t need anyone else.

Rick looked at her over his shoulder. “Someone taller.”

She knew she should be fabricating lovers, to show him that she could go on with her life, that it hadn’t just ended the day they parted, but she was suddenly too tired to make the effort.

“Not in the way you mean, no.”

Funny, whenever he’d thought of her in the last eight years, he’d pictured her on someone’s arm, laughing the way he loved to see and hear her laugh. It had driven him almost insane with jealousy, but he’d eventually learned how to cope.

Or thought he had until he’d seen her last night, her body filled out with the signs of another man’s claim on her.

He turned and looked out on the harbor again. The sky was darkening, even though it was only two in the afternoon. There was a storm coming. Unusual for April. Boats were beginning to leave. “I went by your house this morning.”

Her house. Her poor house. Joanna held her breath. “And?”

There was no way to sugarcoat this, but he did his best. “It was only half destroyed by the fire.” Rick turned to look at her. “But it’s not habitable.” He saw the hopeful light go out of her eyes.

“Damn, now what am I going to do?”

He approached the matter practically. “Well, it’s not a total loss. It might take some time to rebuild—you do have coverage, right?”

Yes, she had coverage, but that wasn’t why she was upset. Fighting back tears, she sighed. “That’s not the point. I was going to take out a home loan on it.” The appointment had been postponed from last week. She fervently wished she’d been able to keep it. Now it was too late. “Nobody gives you a loan on the remains of a bonfire.” Joanna struggled against the feeling that life had just run her over with a Mack truck. She’d been counting on the money to see her and the baby through the next few months until she could go back to work and start building their future. “Now I don’t have the loan or a place to live.”

Rick studied her face for a long moment. And then he said the last thing that she expected him to say. The last thing he must have expected himself to say.

“You can come and stay with me.”

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