Page 73 of His Captor

It was long after dark, but the entire area, including the beach, was lit up with lights from the hotel, floodlights, and theheadlights of several police cars. There were so many police cars that I almost forgot the gripping pain that had me half losing my mind.

Mace seemed to hesitate as he saw the scene as well. Something had definitely happened. And I understood what he meant by an ambulance possibly already being on the scene when I spotted a body covered in a white sheet farther down the beach.

“What?”

That was all I could manage before my labor pain got the better of me.

“Hold on, baby,” Mace said. I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or Junior. “Det. Shirley,” he called out a moment later.

“Mr. Canton,” Det. Shirley answered, walking closer to us from a bit of the parking lot that provided access to the beach. “You found him.”

“I found him, and he’s in labor,” Mace said.

Det. Shirley stared at me in alarm. “How long has he?—”

The almighty roar of pain I let out must have answered her question.

“Get him inside,” Det. Shirley said. “He seems close.”

“I am,” I whined, panting with short, sharp breaths.

Mace turned and hurried for the hotel. The only door that led into the hotel from the parking lot was thronged with hotel staff, peering out to see what was going on. I really didn’t want to be a spectacle, so I hid my face against Mace’s neck, growling and groaning and making sounds that probably would make the people Mace pushed past as he rushed me into the hotel think I was dying.

I kind of felt like I was dying.

“Why is this so hard?” I wept, gripping my stomach.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Mace said, striding down the hall. “I’ll make it up to you.”

I wanted to come up with a witty reply, but things shifted within me, and I had a definite sense that it was happening now.

“He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming,” I panted as Mace hurried forward.

He burst out of the small corridor we’d been in straight into the lobby. The very full, very excited lobby.

“Hayden!” Simon’s voice cut over the murmuring din and gasps of surprise that met us in the lobby.

“Simon!” I managed to groan. I had never been happier to see my brother in my life. “The baby’s coming. He’s coming right now.”

“Everybody stand back,” another voice said.

A second later, as the crowd in the lobby, all dressed in formal attire and glittering jewelry, stepped back as the man said, I realized it was Mr. Harvey. Old, rich Mr. Harvey was managing crowd control for the birth of my and Mace’s baby.

I laughed out loud, but that only made everything slip inside me.

“Oh, God! Let me down, Mace. Let me down now! He’s comingnow!” I shouted.

“Get some pillows!” Mr. Harvey took charge once again. “Bring a first aid kit, clean water. Everybody stand back.

Mace not only let me down, he lowered to the floor with me, still cradling me somehow, even as he shifted me back to my knees with my arms draped, shaking, over his shoulders.

“Remove his trousers,” Mr. Harvey continued to order. Give me that towel.”

I was barely aware of what was happening, but someone pulled my trousers straight off my legs, and Simon shoved what looked like an entire pile of towels under me.

“I don’t want to do this,” I wailed.

“There, there,” Mr. Harvey said, now crouched behind Mace’s back, which meant he was facing me. “My wife deliveredfive babies, all of them at home. I’ve done this before, and I know how it goes.”

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