Page 71 of Wilder Heart

“So are the boys!” Mary-Beth replied with a hysterical laugh. “Annalise, climb up in the back, sweetie.”

Wilder jogged over and took the bag from her. “Get in and sit down, Mar, I’ll handle Annalise and the bag.”

“Oh, thank you, Wilder.”

Adrenaline prickled through his body as he tossed the bag in beside Annalise and buckled her into her booster seat.

“Do you need anything before we go?” he asked Annalise. Mary-Beth seemed to have things prepared, if the bag was any indication.

“I packed her some things in the bag,” Mary-Beth said, breathing deep and steady. “We’ve had that bag ready for a month now, just in case.”

Wilder swung into the driver’s seat of the SUV and started the engine, his heart hammering. “Rose County Hospital?”

“That’s the one,” she said, her eyes closed.

He eyed the towel between her legs as he navigated down the long driveway. “Did, uh—did your water break?”

“What gave it away?” She shot him a weary smile, then winced. “Here comes another one.”

He wordlessly offered his hand, and she took it as she writhed, squeezing so hard he felt his bones grind together.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted as she groaned through it.

“Bad words,” Annalise said.

“I know, I know.”

Mary-Beth laughed, and her grip eased. “Okay, it’s passing. Whew, they’re getting stronger. We weren’t supposed to do this for another six weeks. Actually, we weren’t supposed to do this at all. They scheduled a C-section for me, for a week before my due date. They warned us the babies could come early, but this is earlier than we’d hoped.”

“Is that bad?” he asked, glancing between her and the road. He didn’t know jack shit about pregnancy or childbirth. He was gay, for God’s sake,anda felon. The last thing he ever expected was to be driving a pregnant lady to the hospital five months after he got out of prison.

“Well,” she hedged. “It’s not terrible. I’d hoped we could make it to the C-section, though. The longer the babies cook, the better.”

“Fuck.”

Annalise helpfully said, “Bad?—“

“I know, I know!”

Mary-Beth laughed again, a weary but sweet sound. She was in good spirits. That had to be good.

“Thanks for doing this, Wilder. It’s the worst timing in the world. Lain was supposed to be here.”

“Yeah, of course. Do you have your phone? You should probably call and let him know what’s going on.”

“Oh, yeah, I—” She patted the pockets of her dress, her eyes widening. “Oh no. Maybe I put it in the bag?” She started to twist, but Wilder stopped her.

“Whoa, whoa, don’t upset the babies. Just wait a few minutes until we get to the hospital. As soon as they get you settled in a room, we can turn the bag inside out looking. And if it’s not there, I can—” He stopped, looking down at his pajama-clad legs. There were no pockets. “I don’t have my phone either.” Or his driver’s license, for that matter. He’d at least gotten it renewed a few months ago, but it was sitting in his wallet on his bedside table—right beside his phone, if he remembered right.

Mary-Beth huffed, edging on hysterical. “Great.”

“You know what? It’s fine. The hospital will have phones.” Worst case scenario, he could drive back to the ranch and get both of their cell phones, although he didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone.

“Right, you’re right.” She took another deep breath. “I’m trying to stay calm.”

“I’m glad one of us is,” he quipped, and she laughed again.

If there was one thing he never would’ve expected about childbirth, it was how much waiting around there actually was. When they made it through the initial rush into the hospital and into a birthing room, Mary-Beth was hooked up to monitors and settled into a bed, and there, they waited. They had a little TV in the corner, and Mary-Beth absently clicked from channel tochannel to distract herself from the intermittent contractions. Wilder kept shooing Annalise out of the room with him every time the doctors needed to perform their checks, but Mary-Beth asked that he stay in the room and keep her company in between their invasive visits. He did indeed turn the bag inside out looking for a phone and found none, and then he reluctantly asked Mary-Beth to write Lain’s number down so he could use the phone at the nurses’ station. The snow was coming down hard now, and getting from the hospital to the ranch and back with their phones would take longer than he’d like.

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