Page 2 of Saving You

“I can’t…I—uh,uhhhhhhh. I can’t help it,” she gasped.

“I know. Just do your best.” He ran to her bathroom and snagged the first couple of towels he could find hanging on a rack. Tossing them onto the coffee table, he bolted for his truck. He had a supply pack with enough in there to safely deliver the baby if it happened before the EMTs arrived.

“ETA?” he demanded as he ran. “Eighteen-to-twenty-year-old female in active labor. Contractions are about thirty seconds apart, baby’s head is crowning.”

“Eight-one-eight-six en route, four minutes.”

Four minutes was an eternity for something like this. He heard her scream right as he hurtled past the threshold. Ashlynn was sitting up halfway, and the baby’s head was out completely. Ridge threw the bag on the table and grabbed a towel. There was no stopping it now. He needed to get the baby out and make sure she wasn’t going to bleed out on him.

The next three minutes were pure chaos. Screaming, viscera, blood, panic. She hit him in the face twice, but he stayed between her legs, and with some careful guidance and two pink towels with Hello Kitty on them, he delivered a very small but breathing baby girl.

Ashlynn collapsed onto the cushions as the EMTs came through the door, and the next thing Ridge knew, he was cradling a freshly born, crying infant wrapped in their own sterile towels while they gave oxygen to Ashlynn and delivered the afterbirth.

He walked toward the window as the baby began to calm. Her eyes were very, very dark and terrifyingly aware. She had a red stain on her cheek that stretched to her ear. He’d attempted to wipe it off before realizing it was a birthmark.

“Hi,” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay. Your momma is going to live.”

The baby blinked at him, slow and sleepy.

He rocked her back and forth, the world around him going quiet. It hit him in the gut that he was lonely. He had a boyfriend, but that relationship was about to end. He’d gotten the death of romance text already, “We need to talk.” He was hours away from being single.

The baby’s weight in his arms was heavy but strangely comforting. God, he wanted this. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t a kid kind of guy. He’d never pictured himself with a family, but something was cracking deep inside his chest.

“We can take her. Thank you for all your help.”

The moment was almost violently shattered as the baby was pulled from his arms, but he let her go. Ashlynn was on a stretcher, and the EMT placed the baby in her arms. Ashlynn met his gaze, and he walked over to her, gripping her wrist lightly.

“Ridge,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I was going to tell you that your name makes you sound like a lumberjack.”

He laughed. “Believe it or not, I get that quite a lot.”

Ashlynn looked down at the baby. “How am I supposed to do this? I can’t be a mom. What do I even do with her?”

“You’ll figure it out. I promise,” he said, squeezing her wrist again. “What are you going to name her?”

“Oh. Um.” She blinked up at him. “What would you name her?”

He pulled back, startled. “I don’t know. I never really thought about that. Uh…I’d probably name my kid after my favorite grandma. Ina.”

“That’s pretty,” she said. “Old though.”

He laughed. “Sure is. But hey, it’s a classic. You take care, okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll figure it out, right?” she echoed back at him as he stepped away and the EMTs began to wheel her out. He followed after a beat, and they shut the door behind him.

The moment was over. It was all over. He had blood and baby goo all over him. He needed a shower to decontaminate and send someone else on a second Tim Horton’s run because he doubted a microwave could save their coffees now, but he couldn’t go back like this.

He stood by the SUV and watched the ambulance leave. It was the strangest part of the job, being so heavily involved in something so intimate—so powerful—and then knowing he was likely never going to see her or the baby again.

He felt profoundly changed and yet exactly the same. It was unsettling. But it was part of the life he’d chosen, and there was no going back now. After all, it didn’t really mean anything in the end. His life would carry on exactly the way it was.

So why, as he got behind the wheel and started down the street, did this time feel entirely and completely different?

Ridge got his answer three weeks later. It was two o’clock in the morning. Two of the guys were playing Xbox on headsets, two were sleeping. He’d been out, but something woke him, and now he was wandering the station, trying to figure out what had him on edge.

He was halfway to the fridge to grab a smoothie when his dispatch alert went off. Something told him this was big. This was important.

“SafeHaven drop-off at oh-eight-six.”

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