By Hook or By Crook (34 page)

“Stop bouncing so much,” Ivy pleaded. “You’re hurting her.”

“I can’t help it!” Anthony bellowed, and she instantly regretted having scolded him.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said, talking to herself as much as to him.

At last they reached the main paved road and the ride smoothed out. Anthony no doubt drove as fast as the weather allowed, but Ivy silently wished he’d go faster.

Erin’s agony continued unabated. “Oh, Lord,” she cried.

Moments later, Ivy felt a warm gush of fluid from Erin’s body. Fearing the worst, she undressed Erin from the waist down as gently as she could, meeting Erin’s worried frown with a reassuring smile that she didn’t feel.

“Anthony, turn the light on,” she said, fearing what she would find.

Her worst fears were confirmed in the harsh glow of the cabin light. Her water had broken. Between Erin’s parted legs, Ivy could clearly see the crown of the baby’s head. The sight galvanized her.

“Pull over,” she shouted, “and call an ambulance! This baby’s coming right now!”

“What?” Anthony’s voice cracked mid-syllable, but he complied, pulling into the parking lot of an abandoned roadside diner.

Joe and Anthony ran to the back of the crossover and popped the trunk. Joe fumbled with the rear seat for a few moments and folded it down, creating a platform to give Erin a little more room. Cold air flooded the vehicle. She hoped the hot air from the vehicle’s heater would keep Erin’s sweat-soaked body warm enough to ward off a chill. As Anthony hovered at his wife’s shoulders, Joe pulled out his cell phone.

Erin’s abdomen heaved with contractions, but the baby’s head didn’t move.

Was that normal? Would it hurt the baby?

“The ambulance will be here in about fifteen minutes,” Joe reported a few moments later. That sounded like an eternity to Ivy, but she only nodded, squeezing Erin’s hand and trying to send her a message of reassurance.

“What should we do now?” Anthony asked, worry etched on his brow. “In movies, they always want to boil water. What is that for?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not exactly possible right now anyway, so don’t worry about it,” Ivy returned.

Suddenly Erin’s belly heaved harder than ever and her face turned a brilliant red. Below, Ivy saw a bit more of the baby’s head emerge, only to retreat when the contraction ended. A moment later, it emerged again.

“Push!” Ivy shouted.

She prayed she was doing the right thing, going on nothing but instinct. Whether she was right or wrong, Erin responded, pushing and straining with all her might. The baby’s head emerged another inch, this time, not slipping back. She glanced up at Erin’s face, expecting to see an expression of agony, or extreme exertion. Instead, she looked almost peaceful, deep within herself, calmly huffing and puffing in a settled rhythm.

The moment filled Ivy with happiness and pride that this remarkable woman would soon be her sister. And maybe, just maybe, this would be her in a few years, laboring to bring Joe’s baby into the world. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be by the side of the road when it happened.

She had no time to think when Erin’s belly contracted again. “Push!” she yelled, and Erin complied.

They went on like that for many minutes. Sometimes the baby’s head came out a little farther; other times, it slipped back like a wave after it had broken on the sand. Slowly, the baby’s head emerged.

“It has a lot of dark hair!” Ivy marveled, and a smile broke out on Erin’s face. Beside her, Anthony looked grim.

Ivy shot a look at Joe, who didn’t look much better, but who took her meaning. He clapped Anthony on the back. “It’s okay, buddy. Your wife is a champ. She’s doing fine.”

The words of reassurance seemed to penetrate Anthony’s fog. He nodded and stroked his wife’s forehead, smoothing back her sweat-soaked hair. If she noticed his gesture, Erin didn’t show it. Deep within herself now, she dealt with the pain in the best way she could, Ivy surmised. When the next contraction came, she gave another gargantuan push, and the baby’s head broke free entirely of her body.

“You’re almost there!” Ivy said, exhilaration making it hard for her to breathe.

She pulled off her jacket and positioned it below Erin’s pelvis, in time to catch the baby as it emerged in a rush of fluid. She quickly bundled it tightly against the cold, smiling at the baby’s lusty cry. Poor thing. The cold air and bright light must be a nasty shock after the dark warmth of his mother’s womb. Tiny, wrinkled, and red, he looked beautiful to Ivy. She could only imagine how perfect he would seem to his parents.

“It’s a boy,” she whispered as she handed the tiny bundle to his mother.

They’d chosen not to know the gender of the baby beforehand, and the look on Anthony’s face as he met his son for the first time was indescribable. She and Joe quickly backed out of the vehicle, closing the trunk to allow the vehicle to warm and, more importantly, let the enraptured new parents have some time alone with their baby.

Joe drew Ivy to him in an embrace. “You were amazing,” he whispered, his lips brushing against the top of her head.

In the abandoned parking lot, as the snow fell around them, Ivy grew dizzy with relief when they spotted the blue lights of an approaching ambulance in the distance.

“I can’t believe the way you helped her,” Joe said. “With no training? That was incredible.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t do much of anything,” she said.

“No.” The terse word caught her off guard. He gripped her by the shoulders and held her at an arm’s distance, making sure she caught his intent gaze. “Don’t do that to yourself. You were amazing. You took charge of a tough situation. You didn’t rely on your father, or me, or anyone else. And don’t put yourself down or deny the credit. It was
you
.”

Maybe he was right. It felt good for once to know she had undoubtedly done something important, something that really helped somebody. She smiled.

“If you want to keep saying really nice things about me, I won’t argue. Still, your sister did the work.” She burrowed into his embrace to ward off the chill of the mountain air biting through her without her jacket.

“She’s pretty great, isn’t she?”

A ruminative note in his voice got Ivy’s attention, and she craned her neck to look at him.

“What do you think about—” He broke off, looking uncertain, but she was pretty sure she knew what he wanted to say.

“Moving out here to be closer to her?” she filled in for him.

“How did you know?” he said, his eyes moving over her face.

“Because I’ve been thinking about that myself. I think it would be wonderful. They’re good people. Besides, I think some distance from my father would do me a lot of good.”

The admission cost her a lot, but Joe didn’t say, “I told you so.” She loved him for that. Instead, he tightened his embrace and took her lips in a kiss full of love and promise for their shared future.

****

In a small hotel in Tahoe, Joe jiggled the change in his pants pocket and then checked his watch again. How long had Ivy been in the bathroom? Forever, it seemed. He checked the prosecco chilling in the ice bucket for the third time in as many minutes. It was still cold.

Annoyed with himself, he forced himself to walk to the window to take in the same view he’d seen a dozen times already—a path led to a gazebo in a garden, barren this time of year. Their small hotel didn’t compare to the extravagance of the Bellisimo, or the magnificent chalet her father had paid for, but it had an advantage over those other places. They could afford it themselves. Most importantly, it had a small wedding chapel located off the bar.

Pock and Daisy had both been there, and Erin and Anthony. Even the new baby had been able to come, released from the hospital last week after a few days in the NICU.

Anthony, his best man, had told him some interesting news as the two of them shared a celebratory whiskey with Pock in the bar before the ceremony. Cantor and two of his men had been arrested in southern Arizona last week, about to cross the border into Mexico. Only Ramirez had escaped.

“How did they catch them so fast?” Pock wondered.

“Money,” Anthony said bluntly. “Richard Smithson put up a $100,000 reward. The tip call came in from Mexico. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of Ramirez’s relatives. That’s big money in Mexico.”

“I also wouldn’t be surprised if Ramirez put them up to calling in the tip,” Joe said, tossing a peanut into his open mouth, and Anthony nodded.

“Cantor didn’t have the money on him,” Anthony added. “Even the account Smithson had wired the ransom to had been emptied and closed. I’m surprised Smithson bothered to put up a reward, but I guess he hates to lose, from what Ivy says. He doesn’t sound like a guy who is easy to cross. The woman you’re marrying has got some guts.”

“Hell, yeah, she does,” Joe said, not bothering to conceal his pride.

Richard Smithson’s rage at being thwarted by his daughter had been great, topped only by his even greater fury at their kidnappers. Now the old bastard was about to get a second son-in-law he didn’t approve of, a development that filled Joe with satisfaction. Ivy didn’t do anything by half-measures. Now that she finally realized she needed to stand completely on her own two feet, she was doing it all the way.

Their lives had been a whirlwind these last weeks as they relocated to California. For Ivy, the transition to independence wouldn’t be easy, but she would handle it with grace. She astonished him sometimes.

After the ceremony, a short, simple one that Joe would never forget, Ivy had disappeared into the bathroom of their hotel suite with a mysterious smile and a large bag. Now he’d been pacing nervously for minutes, feeling ridiculous, but unable to help himself. He’d been with a lot of women. He’d been with Ivy plenty of times. He’d never been with his wife, though. He didn’t know why, but that made it different.

A noise behind him had him turning. Ivy stepped out, in an ethereal white camisole and panties, topped with a translucent blue robe. She had left her fair hair piled atop her head as it had been during the ceremony, but a few wisps had started to escape, fluttering around the side of her face. He stepped to her and brushed one of the wisps back, stroking the softness of her cheek as he did so.

“Beautiful,” he breathed.

“Do you like it? I wasn’t sure about the color…” She smoothed the robe across her hip in a nervous gesture.

“I was talking about you,” he said.

She smiled, the gesture lighting her face.

What a luxury to wake up next to her for the rest of his life. He could scarcely believe his good luck. He lowered her to the bed, never taking his mouth away from hers, kissing her with a physicality that bordered on ruthless.

His suit imprisoned him. Desperate to bare his skin against hers, he pulled back, shucking his shirt and tie and kicking off his shoes. He slipped her robe from her shoulders and lifted her camisole to take one nipple into his mouth. Her soft sigh was its own reward. He ran his hand down the curves of her hip and thigh, exploring the tender skin behind her knee. The spot seemed ticklish, and she writhed at the twin caresses at her knee and breast.

Eager to ratchet up the pleasurable torment, he slid one hand inside her thong to explore the wetness there.

“Stop.”

Her abrupt command had him lifting his head. She reached to unbutton his pants with an eagerness that made him smile. She’d been shy in bed at first, but she’d been coming out of her shell recently, asking for what she wanted and pleasing him in return. His pants gaped open, and he nearly gasped at the sudden release of the constriction on his erection.

But a minute later he suffered a new kind of passionate pain when her small fingers reached in to grip him and handle him with the assertive yet gentle touch she knew he loved.

“God,” he groaned, his head tipping back as he edged away to give her all the room she needed to drive him mad.

She took full advantage, lowering her head and taking him into her mouth with zeal. He clenched the bed sheets, determined to withstand the ecstasy for as long as she wanted to give it, but after a few minutes the abyss loomed. He pulled her away. He tried to roll her over, but she wouldn’t allow it.

“Feel like taking charge?” he asked.

She nodded, a mysterious smile playing on her lips as she rose to straddle him. “Do you mind?”

“Hell, no. Whatever makes you happy.”

He had always thought that if, in the
very
unlikely event he did end up married, monogamy would be an enormous sacrifice he’d be forced to make. Instead, trading anonymous hookups for a lifetime of making love to Ivy seemed like the sweetest deal he could imagine.

Her eyes drifted shut as he filled her. He watched the muscles working in her throat, the look of transcendent bliss on her face, and knew that this affected her every bit as much as it did him.

“I love you,” he said.

The words were inadequate for these emotions filling him—reverence, contentment, pride, and disbelief at his own good fortune, plus a hundred other feelings he had no words for.

Her eyes fluttered open. She seemed to understand what he was feeling. “I love you, too.”

He knew that her simple words conveyed more emotion than she could ever articulate, because he felt the same way, too.