Forever Rockers (27 page)

Dashing away the stupid tears that had spilled free, I nodded. “I will—promise.”

Once he was gone I finished getting ready and then carefully made my way downstairs to find Harris. It was hard to see where you were going when you couldn’t see your feet. Since I couldn’t get behind the steering wheel, let alone drive with my headaches, Harris was taking a day out of his fall break to drive me to my appointment. Since Linc was still staying with Harper and Shane, I’d asked him to go with us.

I might have also wanted to distract my best friend. While I’d been so busy helping Emmie with the shit storm that had followed Gabriella Moreitti’s shooting—and then slipping away for a few days to get married—Linc had been going through his own mini-drama episodes. He’d broken up with Rhett, and the poor rocker had finally given up on Linc. I couldn’t really blame Rhett. Linc had treated him like shit in their on-again, off-again romance. Rhett had gone home and Linc had returned to New York for a few weeks. He probably still would have been there if Harper’s father hadn’t died and Shane had convinced him to stick around.

I found my stepson in the kitchen, already dressed and ready to go as he finished rinsing off his breakfast dishes. “Someone’s happy to be out of bed, I see.” He grinned as he skimmed those aquamarine eyes over my face and then down to my feet as if checking to make sure I had on the right shoes. With a nod of approval he opened the door that led out to the garage for me. “Dad must have kissed you before he left. Your lipstick is smeared.”

Laughing, I climbed into the passenger seat and checked to make sure my lipstick wasn’t all over my face, before fastening my seatbelt.

Nearly an hour later we stepped into my obstetrician’s office. Thankfully the place was empty except for a few other patients who were heavily pregnant, but none of them seemed to have company for their visit. That kind of made me sad. There I was with two of my favorite guys and those chicks didn’t have anyone—that I could see—with them. Silently cursing my hormones that made me feel weepy, I signed in and started to sit down, but the receptionist was quick to tell me to go on back.

Harris lifted his brows at the quick service and, grabbing my things, followed me back as a nurse appeared at the door and led us down the hall to one of the exam rooms. Linc stuck with us, and stayed with Harris while I went into the bathroom down the hall for the usual pee-in-a-cup test that was expected with every damn visit.

By the time I returned to the exam room, I was out of breath and knew my face was red because it felt hot. No sooner had I taken my place on the table, with Linc holding my hand to steady me, did the nurse return to take my temperature and blood pressure.

“Ouch. Your feet must be killing you, Mrs. Cutter,” the nurse murmured as she looked down at my feet while taking my pulse. I stuck my feet out so I could see them and saw that my feet were stretching the material of my ballet flats. Well,
they
wouldn’t be usable after I had the baby.

“They do,” I assured her. I wasn’t as happy to be out of bed as I’d been when I’d woken up that morning. My feet hurt like a bitch and my head was killing me.

“I’ll let the doctor know.” She finished taking my vitals, shook her head at the number that popped up on the screen of the portable blood pressure machine, and then told us the doctor would be right with us.

“They’re working quick today,” Harris commented as he pulled his phone out to play with. “They never take you back like that.”

“I know,” I muttered. That they had, worried me, but it wasn’t the only thing on my mind. I had a bad feeling about the visit.

“You’re sweating, Nat. Want me to get you some water?” Linc offered.

“Yeah, thanks. That would be nice.” He stood to go get it, but the door opened and in walked Dr. Chesterfield.

The man had been Emmie’s doctor when she’d been pregnant with both Mia and Jagger, and he had taken great care of me during the last few months of my pregnancy. The usual smile he had ready for me each visit, however, was absent when he entered the room. “Natalie, how are you feeling?” He took in my red face, sweating brow, swollen feet and hands, and grimaced. “Forget I asked that.” He dropped down on his chair and shook his head at me.

“Well, how do you feel about having a baby today?”

Linc, who’d been about to retake his seat, nearly stumbled. “What?” His voice came out half strangled, his face now pasty white.

I was sure my face was no longer red. I’d felt the blood drain from it at the doctor’s question. “Today? But…I still have three weeks until my due date. I…” I swallowed hard. “Dev’s not even here.”

“Your blood pressure is off the scale, you have protein in your urine, and I’m sure if I listened to the baby right now it wouldn’t be happy. I’m not even going to check to see if you’re dilated, because it wouldn’t matter. We need to induce you today.” He pulled out a paper from the folder I’d just noticed he’d had with his usual iPad. “I think it will be safer for both you and the baby if you delivered sooner rather than later, Natalie. Take this over to the Women’s Center. They’ll get you all taken care of and I’ll be over in a few hours to check on you and we can bring baby Cutter into the world in a few hours.”

Tears flooded my eyes. “What if something’s wrong with her? She still needs time to cook. I’m not ready for this.”

The doctor patted my hand. “Yes, you are, dear. Trust me. You’ll be glad to have that little girl in your arms later. Right now, with the way things are looking, she will be a lot safer out here than in there.”

I clutched the paper he’d just given me. “Harris, call your dad.” I needed Devlin to know. I needed… Fuck, I just needed him to be here to hold me. Why had I told him to go to work? Why hadn’t I been like other wives and thrown a fit for him to attend the appointment today? Now he was at least forty minutes away and I was having to face… Hell, I didn’t know what I was going to have to face.

He already had the phone pressed to his ear. “Gotta cut the session short today, Dad. Go home and grab Nat’s bags and meet us at the hospital.”

“What?” I heard my husband explode even from across the room.

Harris pulled the phone away from his ear, grimacing in pain. “She’s being induced,” he explained. “We’ll see you there. Okay?”

I held out my hand, needing to talk to him. Needing to hear his voice. Harris sighed and handed his phone over. “Dev?”

“Nat?” His voice sounded choked up and I had to bite my lip to keep from sobbing. That was fear I heard in his voice and it only escalated my own. “Are you okay?”

“The doctor thinks it will be safer for the baby if we have her today,” I tried to explain. I glanced at the doctor and he nodded his head, offering a grim little smile. “Can you get Ax to drive you to the Women’s Center? I don’t want you to drive.”

I heard him suck in a harsh breath. “Okay. I’ll be there soon, baby. Now give me back to the boy… I love you.”

I clenched my eyes shut to keep even more tears from falling. “I love you, too.”

Harris took the phone back but I didn’t look at him as he spoke to his father again. “I will, Dad. I promise. Be safe.”

The doctor stood and offered his hand to help me down from the exam table. “These things happen every day, Natalie. You’re going to be just fine.”

I wanted to believe him, but in that moment I was terrified. Three weeks early wasn’t that bad, right? Luca and Lyric had come a lot sooner than that and those two were perfect. Trinity would be okay. She would be healthy. That was all I cared about. If something was wrong with her because my damn body couldn’t take being pregnant for as long as she needed, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.

“I’ll see you soon. My staff over at the Women’s Center will be expecting you.”

I nodded and followed him out of the room, Harris and Linc right behind me. Thankfully the Women’s Center was just a few blocks from the doctor’s office, but I was in no condition to walk it. Harris got behind the wheel of my SUV and drove the short distance to the facility.

If I’d had a clearer head, I would have already been calling a hundred different people. Emmie, my brothers. Jenna and my father. They would both want to know when I had Trinity, but I doubted very much if my mother did. I hadn’t talked to her at all since I’d told her I was going to marry Devlin. Jenna and my dad had still kept in daily contact, though, and I wished with all my heart that Jenna had been with me right then.

“She’s upset, but otherwise she seems fine.” I turned my head to find Linc sitting in the back seat with his phone to his ear. “Yeah, the first flight out will be a good idea. She loves you too. Bye, Jenna.”

I could have kissed my best friend right then. “Th-thank you,” I whispered.

He gave me a wink and put his phone to his ear again after punching in someone else’s name. “Yo, Shane. You’re about to become an uncle. Round up the rest of the family and meet us at the hospital.”

The staff over at the Women’s Center didn’t waste time when I arrived. Like Dr. Chesterfield had said, his staff were expecting me. Two nurses had quickly appeared as soon as I’d given my name at the reception desk on the first floor. They’d given Linc and Harris odd looks but hadn’t protested when they had followed us onto the elevator.

Up on the labor and delivery floor, I was taken to a private room where a bed was already made up. On the other side of the room the things that would be needed to treat the baby once it was born were ready to go. The older of the two nurses had told me that I would deliver in this room—unless something happened that required a C-section—and afterward I’d stay in the same room. Keeping the mothers in the same room made the transition a little more emotionally bearable, the younger of the two had told me with a kind smile.

Linc and Harris stayed in the room while the two nurses took me into the bathroom, helped me shower and then dressed me in a hospital gown that was surprisingly soft. Back in the room, they made me get in bed and then waited until I was comfortable before attaching all the machines to me. One to monitor the baby’s heart, one that the older nurse explained would measure my contractions when that joy started, and then a heart monitor for me as well as the blood pressure cuff that would check my pressure every fifteen minutes.

The younger nurse started prepping my arm for an IV and I blindly reached out, needing someone to hold my hand. I wasn’t a fan of needles. A sweaty hand clasped mine and I didn’t have to lift my eyes to know that it was Harris. His hands were just like his father’s, just like the rest of him. He was practically Devlin’s clone. “It’s okay, Nat. You’re okay. Dad will be here soon.”

The needle pierced the back of my hand and I blinked back tears. “I hope so.”

“Okay, we’re going to get one bag of fluid into you and then start the Pitocin. That’s when you need to let us know if you want an epidural or not, Mrs. Cutter.” The older nurse lifted her brows at me. “We have the anesthesiologist on standby for you, so just give the word and it’s yours. But I have to tell you that Dr. Chesterfield has recommended it adamantly. The pain will only raise your blood pressure and put you and the baby at more risk.”

“Of course I want the fucking epidural,” I snapped at the woman. When she just continued to smile at me, I felt bad about my tone and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I just wish my husband were here.”

Her brows lifted. “Neither of these two guys are your husband?”

“Harris is my stepson,”—I glanced up at him and then over at Linc—“and Linc is my best friend.” Her mouth gaped open for a second and I stiffened. “If you even dare try to get rid of either one of them, I will throw you out the fucking window.”

The younger of the two nurses laughed softly. “Is she usually like this?” she asked Linc.

“Only when she gets surprised with things she can’t control,” Linc told her honestly, ignoring the doe-eyes the nurse was batting at him right then.

I wanted to laugh at the sight of the nurse trying to flirt with him. At first sight, no one could tell Linc was gay. Not even at second or third sight. He was one of the manliest men I’d ever met and I loved him unconditionally.

“Do you really want your…stepson in here when you deliver?” the older nurse asked, sounding almost judgmental now.

“Of course I want him in here,” I cried. “He’s going to be her godfather.”

“I am?” Harris asked, sounding so shocked that I lifted my eyes to look at him. 

“Damn it,” I muttered. “It was going to be a surprise.” Frustrated tears burned my eyes and I couldn’t blink them back fast enough as they spilled down my face. “Your dad and I wanted to ask you after your sister was born.”

“Ah, Nat.” Harris bent and wrapped his arms carefully around my neck. “Of course I want to be her godfather. It means a lot that you would want me to.”

“Ladies, if you’re finished with Mrs. Cutter for the moment, perhaps you could give us some alone-time?” Linc stepped forward and practically herded the two nurses toward the door. “We will call for you if you’re needed.”

The door had barely closed behind the two women when it slammed open, nearly hitting Linc in the face. Devlin rushed into the room, his face nearly as red as I was sure mine had been at the doctor’s office an hour before. Wild aquamarine eyes roamed over the room until they landed on me lying there in that small hospital bed.