To the Max (42 page)

Dee Dee stood there frowning, as if trying to decide whether what she was seeing was reality or a hallucination. She must have gone for the latter, for she shrugged and left.

“Dee Dee!” she cried out through the cloth, tears of fear and frustration running down her cheeks. Her pleas didn’t help. Dee Dee didn’t come back. She’d concluded the woman tied in the bedroom was a figment of her imagination and had gone back to her bottle and the blasting TV.

Annie struggled to tamp down her rapidly escalating panic and remember what Larry and the other preppers in Redwaters had told her about escaping from sticky situations. They’d rehearsed a thousand different drills. The thing was, in none of them did she have a baby pushing out of her uterus.

The contractions were growing in intensity, and she was sweating. God, she needed to stand up, walk the pain off. But there was no chance of that, so she did her damnedest to recall all that she’d read about natural methods to alleviate labor. Again, none of them anticipated the mother being tied up in a chair and gagged. She was so screwed.

Far too soon, Barbara came back. She said something to Dee Dee, but Annie didn’t know what, because at the same time a big contraction hit her.

She tried to breathe through her mouth, but she couldn’t get enough air. She closed her fists, her nails searing her palms, until the contraction passed. Barbara couldn’t find out she was in labor. If she did, she would shoot Annie on the spot, and that would be it for the baby too. Her only hope was to hold out until Max came for her. But could her baby wait?

Barbara marched in, frowning at the open door, but soon her attention was elsewhere.

“You okay?” she asked, pulling down Annie’s gag. “You’re sweating profusely. You don’t look so good.”

Annie let out a dry laugh. “You’re getting ready to kill me, and you worry about my sweat glands? Or that I don’t look so good?”

She pursed her mouth. “No need to look scruffy, dear, not even while dead.”

God, this woman was totally crazy. “Did you establish your alibi?” The longer Annie could keep her talking, the longer she and the baby had.

Barbara nodded. “I crept back into the house. Everyone has the day off except for Marjorie. I told her I was expecting you and that I would be resting in my room. I waited for her to bring my green tea, as per usual, and asked not to be disturbed until you came. Then I sneaked out,” she said proudly.

All her muscles tensed as she felt another contraction mounting. They were getting stronger. And coming faster. Her lower back was killing her. As the pain hit her, every cell in her body wanted her to scream, but she bit her lip and kept quiet, barely a whimper escaping her mouth.

Barbara hadn’t noticed anything and was still talking. “Marjorie didn’t see me leaving. No one saw.”

She scrambled her brain to find something else to talk about. “Dee Dee?”

“Oh, Dee Dee is finally out.”

Damn, that was it for conversation.

Barbara pointed the gun at her, and in desperation Annie signaled with her head to the en suite. “Do you think I could pee before you go ahead and kill me?” Barbara looked skeptically at her, so she tried to appeal to the woman’s feminine ego. “I really don’t want to die with a full bladder. You’re right: no need to look scruffy. I’d rather not to be found in a pool of my own pee.”

Crazy as it sounded, that made sense in Barbara Vaughan’s world, and she assented. “Don’t try anything funny. I’ll kill you.”

Like it would make a difference in the grand scheme of things whether Barbara shot Annie before she peed or after. Nevertheless, Annie was not going to go down without a fight. She’d run out of time, but she owed it to herself and her baby to give it her all.

As Barbara was about to cut the zip tie from her left hand, Annie got another contraction. She couldn’t fist her hand without her stepmother noticing, so she dug the nails of her right into the armrest, closed her eyes, and stopped breathing. This was her last chance. Barbara couldn’t suspect she was in labor, or that was it.

While the contraction started easing up, Barbara moved to Annie’s right hand. Annie jumped up, grabbed the chair, and flung it at Barbara, knocking her on the floor. She broke into a run, dragging the chair with one hand, when a burning pain gripped her and doubled her. No, no, no. Not now. She was totally paralyzed, holding her stomach, fighting not to black out.

“You bitch,” Barbara said, scrambling to her feet.

She wanted to run, but she couldn’t move, her body locked in a contraction.

Suddenly there was a sound of broken glass. Out of nowhere, Max appeared, barreling toward them. Barbara turned the gun at him and shot.

“Nooo!” Annie screamed, watching him go down. He’d come for her. He’d found her.

“Where did he come from?” Barbara asked, her hand a bit shaky, her eyes shiny with exhilaration. “He found you sooner than I thought. Clearly didn’t believe your text about having fun and returning later. Too controlling. You should thank me. I’ve saved you from a very bad relationship.”

Annie couldn’t tear her gaze from Max, whose shirt was turning red on his side.

The mad woman pulled at her jacket, straightening it, and tidied her hair. “Well, it looks like Mr. Bowen tried to save you and Dee Dee killed him.”

Barbara’s words computed in Annie’s head, and at that moment, Annie found something stronger than physical pain: rage. She straightened and threw herself at Barbara.

Before Annie could get to her, Max lunged for Barbara’s feet and knocked her down, the gun flying to the floor.

Alive. He was alive. Annie reached for the weapon. The sound of the gunshot rang in her ears for a while after Barbara stopped moving.

“Annie, my love, you okay?” Max asked, dragging himself up, pressing on his side.

She shook her head as he released her trapped hand.

Her breath was choppy. “The…baby…is…coming.”

She didn’t have a watch, but the contractions were so close to one another and so freaking long and intense, they were almost overlapping. Her skirt was wet, and there was blood dripping down her thighs.

For God knew how many hours, she’d been quiet and discreetly gritting her teeth with every contraction. Now she didn’t have to. As she felt her belly clutching, she gripped Max’s hand and let out a roar.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“She’s early,” Annie gasped when the contraction released its grip on her. “Too early.”

Max lifted her in his arms and put her on the sofa, hiding a grimace as the pain intensified in his side. “The ambulance will be here in no time. Everything is going to be fine.” He’d called 911 the second he’d arrived and seen Annie’s car parked. They had to be on their way.

Another ripping roar broke the silence. When the contraction passed, Annie whispered, “Out of time… Pity we never made it…to the Lamaze classes.”

She smiled at him, but it was a weak, not very reassuring smile. A scared one. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking so freaking badly. Stained from his blood too. He stilled them and, lifting his gaze to hers, smiled back at her. “Okay, let’s do this.”

They’d read enough books. And women had been doing this for millennia. He could face the steepest, most dangerous ski slopes in the world, right? Although the truth of the matter was, he’d never been more terrified in his entire life than now. There was so much at stake.

But Annie needed him, his strength, so he knelt between her legs, lifted her skirt, and ripped her panties. The baby was crowning. She was right; they were out of time. “Ace, we’re going to push with the contractions. At the end of them. As we read in the books, remember?”

Her gaze drifted to his side. “Max, you’re hurt.”

He didn’t have to look to know blood was seeping from the wound. “It’s nothing, Ace. Just a scratch. I’ve had much worse.”

She was going to say something, but then she gripped him. “Oh God, here comes a big one.” She breathed in choppy, broken gasps, squeezing his hands so hard he lost the feeling in them.

It took a couple of those for the baby’s head to pop out. By then Annie was exhausted, and Max was wobbly from blood loss and fighting not to black out. He held the tiny, dark-haired head, his shaking hands wet with blood and membrane. “Come on, Ace. One more.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can, love. We can do this together.”

Annie shook her head, tears slipping down her face.

“Ace, look at me. Eyes on me,” he repeated, raising his voice to catch her attention. “We can do this. Together. You believe me, right?”

She nodded, her lower lip trembling. She propped herself on her elbows and readied herself. Good, he had her on board again. For a second there, he’d feared she was going to quit on him. She was in so much pain and had been for so long, she had no strength left. But he knew her. She was a goddess. She could do anything.

Max saw her stomach contracting with the next wave. “Now. After this one starts easing up.”

Soaking with sweat and her face contorted from the effort, Annie threw her head back and pushed, her scream soul-wrenching. A shoulder cleared, and the small body slid into his hands. It couldn’t have weighed more than six pounds, but it knocked him on his ass.

“Is she okay?”

She was bloody, slippery, crinkled, and the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen.

Before he could find his own voice, the baby girl found hers and started crying. He placed her on Annie’s chest and covered them with a quilt, the sound of the approaching siren ringing in his ears.

By the time the paramedics reached them, Annie and Max were both crying and laughing.

* * * *

Max was sitting in the corridor when Cole and his dad came. His hands and clothes still had dried blood on them, but he was too worn out to even care. He tried to stand, but his legs weren’t obeying. He’d faked it for as long as Annie had been awake, but the instant she was sedated, he’d all but crumpled to the floor.

His dad got to him first. Hugged him. “You’re okay, Son?”

Max nodded. He’d been patched up. Clean wound—the bullet had gone in and out. No major organs in the way. The motherfucker had bled and hurt like hell, though. They’d put him on an IV drip and given him antibiotics and painkillers that had him seeing blurry, but he’d refused to stay in bed.

“Annie and the baby?”

“They’re fine. Annie was given a sedative and is sleeping now. They took the baby for observation. Body temperature was a bit too low and they have her in the incubator. It’s standard procedure for preterm babies. They say she’s fine.”

To Max she’d seemed small and fragile, but the doctors had said she wasn’t going to be needing any special medical care.

There were still a couple of policemen near them. The officers had needed a statement, so after being patched and while Annie was resting, he’d gone into the hallway to talk to them. It was clearly a case of self-defense, but there’d be red tape, and he’d rather go through it than Annie.

“That must have been scary,” Cole said.

Scary? Try out-of-your-wits, hair-rising, piss-in-your-pants totally terrifying. Not so much the getting shot at as the assisting with bringing Annie’s baby into this world.

Max had faced enraged bulls and enemy fire in foreign lands. He’d dived headfirst from mountain cliffs. Jumped from buildings on fire. Swum with sharks. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had been scarier than helping deliver Annie’s baby. So many things could have gone wrong. There were so many scenarios in which he wouldn’t have known what to do, the mere thought of them made his head spin and his heart lodge on his throat.

He’d made it to the estate, scared out of his fucking mind. He’d gotten a message from Annie, telling him she was going to take longer, which didn’t make much sense, especially as she was so looking forward to the birthing classes. Then Jack had called and he’d lost it.

Annie’s car had been in the guesthouse’s driveway. The hair at his nape standing, he’d decided not to ring the bell but to sneak a peek through the windows. When he’d seen Barbara pointing a gun at Annie and Annie ramming her with the chair, his body had taken over. There’d been no waiting for reinforcements.

“I was so close to losing everything,” Max said. “So damn close.”

“You did well, Son,” his dad told him. “Both are safe.”

Soon, the hallway was full of people. His dad had been with Cole when Max had called, so they were the first to arrive. On their heels came James, Tate, Christy, and Aunt Maggie. Then Holly and Sophie. Then Annie’s dad.

Max tensed. The old man looked…defeated. Lost.

“The police contacted me. Is Annie okay?”

“She’s resting at the moment.”

“I would like to talk to her.”

Max tamped his anger. He knew deep down this wasn’t the man’s fault. “I’ll tell her when she wakes up. If she wants to see you, I’ll let you know right away.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course.”

Max watched him walk away, a sense of sorrow in his stride, and pity overwhelmed him. But it wasn’t Max’s call. If Annie wanted to talk with him, he’d make sure she did, but he wasn’t going to expose her to him without her consent. Especially after what she’d been through.

“Max, why don’t you go to your own room, rest a bit?” James asked tentatively. “We’ll hold down the fort here.”

He shook his head. “I want to be here when she wakes up.”

“We had a feeling you’d say that.” Tate handed him a duffel bag. “James got you a change of clothes. Go to the bathroom and freshen up. You look like a semi ran you over.”

That was a good idea. He didn’t want Annie waking up and seeing him all covered in blood.

* * * *

Annie floated back to earth slowly. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Max holding the baby. He was sitting on a chair by her bed and was talking to her daughter. He was murmuring, so she couldn’t understand, but the baby seemed to like it, for she was holding his finger for dear life.

“Yo, Ex-Boob Enhancer,” she whispered.

He turned to her, a big smile on his face. “Yo, Ex-Pregnant Lady.” A pause. Then, “Doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?”