A Very Special Delivery

“Ma’am?” he said again.

“I’m okay. I’m just waiting for a tow truck.”

He frowned. “I’m not sure how long you’ll have to wait. I managed to squeeze through just as the police were putting up barriers to restrict access to Main Street.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the primary road through town is shut down.”

She sighed. “Any chance you have tow cables in your truck?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

She gasped as another stab of pain slashed through her.

“You are hurt,” he decided. “Let me call an ambulance.”

She shook her head. “I’m not hurt. I think...I’m in labor.”

Chapter Two

“Labor? As in having a baby?” Luke couldn’t quite get his head around what she was saying. Not until he noticed that her hand was splayed on her belly.

Her very round belly.

How had he not noticed that she was pregnant?

Probably because his most immediate concern, when he’d spotted the vehicle in the ditch, was that the driver might be injured, maybe even unconscious. He hadn’t given a passing thought to the driver’s gender. And then, when she’d rolled down the window, he’d been absolutely spellbound by her wide and wary blue-gray eyes.

But now, with his attention focused on the bump beneath her shirt, the words that had seemed undecipherable suddenly made sense. “You’re pregnant.”

Her brows lifted in response to his not-so-astute observation. “Yes, I’m pregnant,” she confirmed.

She was also a pretty young thing—emphasis on the young. Early twenties, he guessed, with clear, flawless skin, high cheekbones, a patrician nose and lips that were surprisingly full and temptingly shaped.

He felt the subtle buzz through his veins, acknowledged it. He’d experienced the stir of attraction often enough in the past to recognize it for what it was—and to know that, under the circumstances, it was completely inappropriate.

Young, beautiful and pregnant, he reminded himself.

“Actually, I don’t think it is labor,” she said now. “I’m probably just overreacting to the situation.”

But he wasn’t quite ready to disregard the possibility. “When are you due?”

“November fifteenth.”

Only two weeks ahead of schedule. He remembered his sister-in-law, Georgia, telling him that she’d been two weeks early with Pippa, so the timing didn’t seem to be any real cause for concern. Of course, Georgia had also been in the hospital. The fact that this woman was stuck in a ditch and nowhere near a medical facility might be a bit of an issue.

He took a moment to clear his head and organize his thoughts, and saw her wince again.

“Are you having contractions?”

“No,” she said quickly, and just a little desperately. “Just...twinges.”

Apparently she didn’t want to be in labor any more than he wanted her to be in labor, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t.

“I think I should call 911 to try to get an ambulance out here and get you to the hospital.”

“It’s probably just false labor.”

“Have you been through this before?”

“No,” she admitted. “This is my first. But I’ve read a ton of books on pregnancy and childbirth, and I’m pretty sure what I’m experiencing are just Braxton Hicks contractions.”

He wasn’t convinced, but he also wasn’t going to waste any more time arguing with her. Not with the snow blowing around the way it was and the condition of the roads rapidly getting worse. He pulled out his phone and dialed.

“911. Please state the nature of your emergency.”

He recognized the dispatcher’s voice immediately, and his lips instinctively curved as he recalled a long-ago summer when he and the emergency operator had been, at least for a little while, more than friends. “Hey, Yolanda, it’s Luke Garrett. I was wondering if you could send an ambulance out to my place.”

“What happened?” The clinical detachment in her tone gave way to concern. “Are you hurt?”

“No, it’s not me. I’m with a young woman—”

He glanced at her, his brows raised in silent question.

“Julie Marlowe,” she told him.

“—whose car went into the ditch beside my house.”

“Is she injured?”

“She says no, but she’s pregnant, two weeks from her due date and experiencing what might be contractions.”

“Twinges,” the expectant mother reminded him through the window.

“She insists that they’re twinges,” Luke said, if only to reassure her that he was listening. “But they’re sharp enough that she gasps for breath when they come.”

“Can I talk to her?”

He tapped on the window, and Julie lowered the glass a few more inches to take the device from him. Because she was inside the car with the window still mostly closed, he could only decipher snippets of their conversation, but he got the impression that Yolanda was asking more detailed questions about the progress of her pregnancy, possible complications and if there were any other indications of labor.

A few minutes later, Julie passed the phone back to him.

“If I thought I could get an ambulance through to you, I’d be sending one,” Yolanda told Luke. “But the police have completely shut down Main Street in both directions.”

“But emergency vehicles should be able to get through.”

“If they weren’t all out on other calls,” she agreed. “And the reality is that an expectant mother with no injuries in the early stages of labor, as Julie seems to think she might be, is not an emergency.”

“What if the situation changes?”

“If the situation changes, call me back. Maybe by then the roads will be plowed and reopened and we can get her to the hospital.”

“You don’t sound too optimistic,” he noted.

“The storm dumped a lot of snow fast and there’s no sign that it’s going to stop any time soon. The roads are a mess and emergency crews are tapped.”

He bit back a sigh of frustration. “What if the baby doesn’t want to wait that long?”

“Then you’ll handle it,” she said, and quickly gave him some basic instructions. “And don’t worry—I reassured the expectant mom that Doctor Garrett has done this countless times before.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not.” There was no hint of apology in her tone. “The woman needed reassurance, and I gave it to her.”

And although her statement was technically true, she’d neglected to mention that the majority of the births he’d been involved with had been canine or feline in nature. He had absolutely no experience bringing human babies into the world.

Luke stared at Julie, who gasped as another contraction hit her. “You better get an ambulance here as soon as possible.”

* * *

Julie was still mulling over the information the dispatcher had given her when she saw her Good Samaritan—who was apparently also a doctor—tuck his phone back into the pocket of his jacket.

“Let’s get you up to the house where it’s warm and dry.”

She wished that staying in the car was a viable option. She was more than a little uneasy about going into a stranger’s home, but her feet and her hands were already numb and she had to clench her teeth together to keep them from chattering. She took some comfort from the fact that the emergency operator knew her name and location.

She rolled up the window—no point in letting the inside of the car fill up with snow—and unlocked the door.

As soon as she did, he opened it for her, then offered his other hand to help her out. He must have noticed the iciness of her fingers even through his gloves, because before she’d stepped onto the ground, he’d taken them off his hands and put them on hers. They were toasty warm inside, and she nearly whimpered with gratitude.

He walked sideways up the side of the ditch, holding on to both of her hands to help her do the same. Unfortunately the boots that she’d so happily put on her feet when she set out that morning had smooth leather soles, not exactly conducive to gaining traction on a snowy incline. She slipped a few times and no doubt would have fallen if not for his support. When she finally made it to level ground, he picked her up—scooping her off her feet as if she weighed nothing—and carried her to the passenger side of his truck. She was too startled to protest, and all too conscious of the extra twenty-nine pounds that she was carrying—and now he was carrying. But when he settled her gently on the seat, he didn’t even seem winded.

He drove up the laneway, parked beside the house. When he inserted his key into the lock, she heard a cacophony of excited barking from the other side of the door.

“You have dogs?”

“Just one.” Her rescuer shook his head as the frantic yips continued. “We just got home. I let him out of the truck at the end of the driveway when I saw your vehicle, and he raced ahead to the house to come in through the doggy door, as he always does. And every day when I put my key in the lock, he acts as if it’s been days rather than minutes since he last saw me.”

“They don’t have much of a concept of time, do they?”

“Except for dinnertime,” he noted dryly. “He never forgets that one.”

He opened the door and gestured for her to enter. But before Julie could take a step forward, there was a tri-colored whirlwind of fur and energy weaving between her feet.

“Einstein, sit.”

The dog immediately plopped his butt on the snow-covered porch right beside her boots and looked up with shiny, dark eyes, and his master scooped him up to give her a clear path through the door.

“Oh, he’s just a little guy. And absolutely the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s cute,” the doctor agreed. “And he hasn’t met anyone he doesn’t immediately love, but sometimes he’s too stubborn for his own good.”

She slipped her boots off inside the door, and when he put the puppy down again, it immediately attacked her toes with an enthusiastic tongue and gentle nips of his little teeth.

“Einstein, no!”

The pup dropped his head and looked up, his eyes filled with so much hurt and remorse, Julie couldn’t help but laugh.

The doctor looked at her with a slightly embarrassed shrug. “He’s got some kind of foot fetish. I’m not having a lot of luck in trying to curb it.”

“No worries, my feet are too numb to feel much, anyway.”

“Come on.” He took her arm and guided her down the hall and into what she guessed was a family room. The floor was a dark glossy hardwood and the walls were painted a rich hunter-green, set off by the wide white trim and cove moldings. There was a chocolate leather sectional and a matching armchair facing a gorgeous stone fireplace flanked by tall, narrow windows. The lamps on the mission-style side tables were already illuminated, but as he stepped through the wide, arched doorway, he hit another switch on the wall and flames came to life in the firebox.

“You should warm up quickly in here,” he told her. “I converted to gas a few years ago. As much as I love the smell of a real wood fire, I prefer the convenience of having heat and flame at the flick of a switch.”

“You have a beautiful home,” Julie told him. And, it seemed to her, a big home, making her wonder if he had a wife and kids to help fill it. She hadn’t seen a ring on his finger, but she knew that didn’t prove anything.

“I like it,” he said easily.

She moved closer to the fireplace, drawn by the flickering flames and the tempting warmth. “Do you live here alone?”

“Me and Daphne and Einstein,” he clarified.

She was reassured by this revelation that she wouldn’t actually be alone with a stranger. “Daphne’s your...wife?”

“No.”

He responded quickly—so quickly she couldn’t help but smile. The immediate and predictable denial was that of a perennial bachelor with absolutely no desire to change his status.

“Daphne’s a three-year-old blue Burmese, and not very sociable. Unlike Einstein, you’ll only see her if she decides you’re worthy of her presence.”

Which meant that they were alone—except for a cat and a dog. But he was a doctor, and the emergency operator had vouched for him, and she had to stop being wary of everyone just because her experience with Elliott had caused her to doubt her own judgment. “It’s a big house for one man and two pets,” she noted.

“Believe me, it felt a lot smaller when I had to share it with two brothers.”

“You grew up here?”

He nodded. “Born and raised and lived my whole life in Pinehurst, in this house. Well, I wasn’t actually born in this house—my mother wanted to do things more traditionally and give birth in the hospital.”

“That was my plan, too,” she admitted.

“Sliding into a ditch and going into labor during an unexpected snowstorm was a spur-of-the-moment decision?” he teased.

“I’m not in labor,” she said again. “My baby isn’t due for another two weeks and first babies are almost never early.”

“Almost isn’t the same as never,” he told her, and pushed the oversize leather chair closer to the fire so that she could sit down.

When she lowered herself into the seat, he sat cross-legged on the floor facing her and lifted her feet into his lap. “Your feet are like ice,” he noted.

She was startled by the boldness of the move and felt as if she should protest—but only until he started to rub her toes between his hands, then she closed her eyes and nearly moaned with pleasure.

In fact, she probably did make some kind of noise, because Einstein bounded over, eager to play with her feet, too. But one sharp look from his master had him curling up on the rug in front of the fire.

“Don’t you own winter boots or a proper coat?” the doctor asked her.

“Of course I do, but it wasn’t snowing when I started out this morning.”

“Started out from where?”

“Cleveland,” she admitted.

“Then you obviously did a lot of driving today.”

“About seven hours.”

“Heading back to Boston?”

She eyed him warily. “What makes you think I’m going to Boston?”

“I saw the Massachusetts plates on your car, and there’s just a hint of a Boston accent in your voice.”

“I wasn’t planning on going any further than Pinehurst today,” she said, deliberately not confirming nor denying his assumption. Then, because she’d rather be asking questions than answering them, she said, “Is Luke short for Lukas?”

“It is.” He set down the first foot and picked up the second one.

“I’ve been researching baby names,” Julie told him. “Lukas means bringer of light.”

And she thought the name suited him, not just because he’d rescued her—bringing her hope if not necessarily light—but because it was strong and masculine.

“Have you narrowed down your choices?”

She nodded.

“Any hints?”

She shook her head, then gasped when the pain ripped through her again.

Luke released her foot and laid his hands on the curve of her belly. She tried to remember everything she’d read about Braxton Hicks and how to distinguish those false contractions from real labor, but in the moment, she was lucky she remembered to breathe through the pain.

After what seemed like forever, the tightness across her belly finally eased.

“Twinge?” Though his tone was deliberately light, she saw the concern in his eyes.

“Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath, released it slowly.

“I’m going to put the puppy in the laundry room, just so that he’s out of the way in case things start to happen.” Then he took the dog away, returning a few minutes later with an armful of blankets and towels and a plastic bin filled with medical supplies. He covered the leather chaise with a thick flannel sheet, then folded a blanket over the foot of it.

“Is there anyone you should call?” the doctor asked. “Anyone who’s going to worry about where you are?”

She shook her head. Her parents wouldn’t know that she’d been caught in this storm because they hadn’t known about her intention to detour through the Snowbelt on her way home.

“Husband? Boyfriend?” he prompted.

“No.” She could see the direction he was going with his questions, and she was almost grateful when her body spasmed with pain again. It was easier to focus on the contraction—whether false or real—than on the reasons why her relationship with her baby’s father had fallen apart.

She was gripping the armrests of the chair, but noticed that he was looking at his watch, counting the seconds. She panted softly and tried to think of something—anything—but the pain that ripped through her. The books she’d read talked about focal points, how to use a picture or some other item to evoke pleasant memories and a feeling of peace. Right now, all she had was Luke Garrett, but his warm gaze and steady tone—proof of his presence and reassurance that she wasn’t entirely alone—somehow made the pain bearable.

“Ninety seconds,” he said. “And I’d guess less than five minutes since the last one.”

“It doesn’t look like my baby’s going to wait for a hospital, does it?”

“I’d say not,” he agreed. “Did you take prenatal classes?”

“No.”

“Your doctor didn’t recommend it?”

“I’ve been traveling a lot over the past few months, so I didn’t have a chance.”

“Traveling where?”

“Pretty much everywhere.”

“Work or pleasure?”

“Both.”

She knew it sounded as if she was being evasive, and maybe she was, but it wasn’t in her nature to share personal information with someone she didn’t know and whom she probably wouldn’t ever see again when the roads were finally cleared and her car was pulled out of the ditch.

“I’m just making conversation,” he told her. “I thought it might take your mind off of the contractions.”

“I was counting on an epidural to do that,” she admitted.

His lips curved. “Well, it’s good that you have a sense of humor, because an epidural isn’t really an option right now.”

She liked his smile. It was warm and genuine, and it made her think that everything was going to be okay. “I knew it was too much to hope that you rented a spare bedroom to a local anesthesiologist.”

He took her hand, linked their fingers together and gave hers a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

“You’re doing great.”

“I don’t just mean about giving birth,” she told him. “I mean about being a parent.”

“Let’s concentrate on the giving birth part for now,” he suggested.

She sucked in another breath and gritted her teeth so that she didn’t embarrass herself by whimpering. Or screaming. The pain was unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and she knew it would continue to worsen before it got better.

“Breathe,” Luke said, and she realized that she wasn’t doing so. She released the air she was holding in her lungs in short, shallow pants. “That’s it.”

“Okay,” she said when the contraction had finally eased.

“Two minutes,” he announced, not very happily.

She could understand his concern. Her contractions—and she knew now that they were definitely contractions—were coming harder and faster. The idea of giving birth outside of a hospital was absolutely terrifying, but somehow, with Luke beside her, she felt confident that she would get through it. More importantly, she felt that her baby would get through it.

“Should I get undressed now?”

* * *

It wasn’t the first time he’d had a woman say those words to him, but it was the first time they’d come at Luke completely out of the blue.

And apparently Julie realized that her casual statement might be misinterpreted, because her cheeks flooded with color. “So that you can examine me,” she clarified.

Examine her. Right. She was an expectant mother and he was the doctor who was helping to deliver her baby. Of course she would expect him to examine her.

He mentally recalled the brief instructions he’d been given by the 911 operator. Thankfully the human birthing process wasn’t very different from that of other mammals, but Luke felt more than a little guilty that Julie was offering to strip down for him because she thought he was an MD.

It should have been simple enough to think like a doctor. But he couldn’t forget the quick punch of desire he’d felt when his eyes had first locked with hers. Before he’d realized that she was eight and a half months pregnant. Still, the fact that she was about to give birth didn’t make her any less attractive, although he would have hoped that this tangible evidence of her involvement with another man should have cooled his ardor.

But the combination of her beauty and spirit appealed to something in him. She’d found herself in a tough situation, but she was dealing with it. Sure, she was scared. Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? But she’d demonstrated a willingness to face that fear head-on, and he had to respect that courage and determination. And when he looked into those blue-gray eyes, he wanted to take up his sword to fight all of her battles for her. Not that she would appreciate his efforts—most women preferred to fight their own battles nowadays, but the desire to honor and protect was deeply ingrained in his DNA.

He wasn’t interested in anything beyond that, though. Sure, he liked women and enjoyed their company, but he wasn’t looking to tie himself to any one woman for the long term. His brothers had both lucked out and found partners with whom they wanted to share the rest of their lives, and he was happy for them, but he didn’t see himself as the marrying kind. Certainly he’d never met a woman who made him think in terms of forever.

Which was just one more reason that he had no business thinking about Julie Marlowe at all. She might be beautiful and sexy but she was also on the verge of becoming a mother—no way would she be interested in a fling, and no way was he interested in anything else.

So he gave her privacy to strip down—and his plush robe to wrap around herself. He was trying to think about this situation as a doctor would—clinically and impartially. But how was he supposed to be impartial when she had those beautiful winter-sky eyes and those sweetly curved lips, sexy shoulders and sexy feet? And despite the baby bump, she had some very appealing curves, too.

When he returned to the family room, he was relieved to see that she was wearing the robe he’d left for her so she wasn’t entirely naked beneath the thin sheet she’d pulled up over herself. But she still looked vulnerable and scared, and every last shred of objectivity flew out the window.

She was panting—blowing out short puffs of air that warned him he’d missed another contraction. “I thought I had a pretty good threshold for pain,” she told him. “I was wrong.”

He knelt at the end of the chaise, and felt perspiration beginning to bead on his brow. She was the one trying to push a baby out of her body, and he was sweating at the thought of watching her do it. But when he folded back the sheet and saw the top of the baby’s head, everything else was forgotten.

“The baby’s already crowning,” he told her.

“Does that mean I can start to push?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

He talked her through the contractions, telling her when to push and when to pant, trying to ensure that her body was able to adjust to each stage and rest when possible.

Of course, it was called labor for a reason, and although it was progressing quickly, he knew it wasn’t painless. Her hands were fisted in the sheet, and he covered one with his own, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It won’t be too much longer now.”

“Promise?”

He looked up and saw that her stormy eyes were filled with tears and worry. “I promise.”

As she pushed through the next contraction, the head slowly emerged. The soft, indignant cry that accompanied the baby’s emergence from the birth canal confirmed that its lungs were working just fine.

“You’re doing great,” he told Julie. “Just—”

He didn’t even have a chance to finish his sentence before the baby slid completely out and into his hands.

Chapter Three