Page 244 of Wild Then Wed
Then—
She lets out the tiniest cough. A sputter.
And then the sound tears out of her—sharp and sudden, like it was caught behind a wall and finally broke free.
A cry.
Strong. Loud.Alive.
And it is the most glorious sound I’ve ever heard.
Sawyer exhales, slow and deep, like he’d been holding his breath through all of it, too. He gently wraps the baby in a towel from the stack and brings her to Anna, laying her tiny body on her mother’s chest. “She’s okay. She’s just fine.”
And then Anna’s sobbing, full-body sobs that shake her shoulders as she cradles her daughter, whisperinghiandoh my Godandyou’re hereover and over.
I press a hand to my chest, trying to get my heart to slow down.
She’s here.
And she’s okay.
The barn doors creak open again, and I look up just in time to see Crew jog in, out of breath but grinning like someone who brought the fire extinguisher after the fire’s already out.
“Ambulance is here,” he says, holding his hands up like a ta-da. “Figured we were gonna need it at some point.”
Behind him, two paramedics step into the barn, their boots crunching on the hay-dusted concrete. One is older, with salt-and-pepper hair. The other’s younger, barely older than me, wearing blue gloves and scanning the scene with wide, focused eyes.
Crew gestures behind him. “Are they good to come in?”
Sawyer nods, still crouched near Anna but shifting back slightly to give them room. Then he glances over at me andreaches out, finding my hand. His fingers thread through mine and squeeze, firm and warm and grounding.
I squeeze back, barely able to believe it’s over.
Anna’s still cradling the baby to her chest, Estelle cooing softly beside her, one hand resting gently on Anna’s shoulder. They’re both crying now, but smiling too, a tangled mess of relief and awe.
“She did amazing,” Estelle says quietly, her eyes flicking between Anna and the baby.
The older paramedic crouches beside Sawyer, opening his kit. “You the one who delivered?”
Sawyer nods once.
The guy offers a faint smile. “You did a damn good job.”
Sawyer gives a short, modest shrug. “I’ve delivered a lot of calves. This was…a little different.”
“Still,” the paramedic says, “No respiratory distress, good skin tone—whatever you did, it worked.”
He turns his attention to Anna, and suddenly the barn is moving again, everyone back in motion.
The younger paramedic starts checking vitals, slipping a blood pressure cuff around Anna’s arm and monitoring her heart rate. The older one assesses the baby—listens to her breathing with a stethoscope, checks her reflexes, shines a small light into her eyes, all with careful, practiced movements.
They ask Anna a handful of questions: how far along she was, how long she’d been contracting, if she’d had any complications during pregnancy. Sawyer answers some of them when Anna can’t, listing everything he saw: the estimated time of crowning, the nuchal cord, when he clamped and cut it, the APGAR signs at birth.
The baby lets out a few more cries, her voice thin and raspy but strong enough to make everyone collectively relax a little more.
They start prepping Anna for transport, carefully moving her onto a stretcher with warm blankets and towels tucked around her and the baby still lying against her chest.
I step back, my hand still in Sawyer’s, as everything swirls around us again—boots moving, gear clattering, someone radioing the hospital, Estelle giving instructions on what to grab from the house.
