Later, as they cuddled in bed together, Lexi realized that in less than two weeks, Quentin had brought more joy and laughter into her house than she’d experienced in the two years she’d lived there with her ex-husband.
Near the end of the month, Michael invited Lexi to join him and Reese onHowlin’ Goodto promote her cookbook. Halfway through the taping, she was explaining how to prepare one of the featured recipes when Reese abruptly rose from the chair she’d been sitting on.
Michael and Lexi stared at her. “Are you okay?” they asked in unison.
“I’m fine.” Reese wore an oddly serene smile. “My water just broke.”
“What!” Michael exclaimed, rushing to her side as a wave of excited murmurs swept across the studio audience. “We have to get you to the hospital!”
“I know.” Reese’s calm smile never wavered as he began ushering her from the set. “But isn’t there something you should do first?”
Michael eyed her frantically.
Reese sighed, then grinned into the camera and blithely announced, “In light of the fact that I’m going into labor…that’s a wrap, folks!”
Several hours later, Lexi and Quentin entered the quiet hospital room where Reese reclined in the bed, a tiny bundle cradled lovingly in her arms. Michael sat close beside her, as close as he could get without being in the bed with her. Both were beaming with joyous wonder as they gazed upon their newborn daughter’s sleeping face, so enthralled that they didn’t notice their friends’ arrival until Lexi and Quentin had nearly reached the bed.
“Congratulations,” they chorused softly, so as to not wake the baby.
The proud parents glanced up at them, both wearing identical rapturous grins. “Hey, you two.”
“Hey, yourselves.” Lexi and Quentin huddled around the bed to get their first look at the sleeping infant in Reese’s arms. Savannah Wolf had inherited her parents’ exquisite mahogany complexion and had a head full of curly black hair.
“Oh, my God,” Lexi breathed. “She’s beautiful.”
Quentin grinned. “She definitely takes after her mother.”
Michael chuckled. “Nice try, wise guy. But I happen to agree with you.”
Laughing, Quentin clapped his friend warmly on the back and handed him a Cuban cigar. “You done good, Daddy.”
“Daddy.” Michael looked dazed. “Wow. I can’t believe I’m a daddy.”
Reese gave him a teasing smile. “You’ll believe it when you’re getting up for two a.m. feedings and diaper changes.”
Everyone laughed.
Lexi added a floral arrangement to an already teeming assortment of bouquets, balloons, teddy bears, chocolates and other gifts that had been brought to the new parents. Then, perching on the edge of the bed, she smiled gently at Reese. “Hey, Mommy. And how’reyoufeeling after eight hours of labor?”
“Wonderful.” Reese sighed, gazing down at her daughter. “Seven pounds, twelve ounces wonderful.”
Michael tenderly stroked his wife’s cheek. “You were amazing, sweetheart. And I can’t believe how composed you were when your water broke.Youhad to calm me and Lexi down.”
“I know.” Lexi laughed, remembering the mad scramble to get Reese to Emory University Hospital, where she also worked. Her colleagues were going to spoil her rotten during her stay.
She grinned at Michael and Lexi. “Haven’t I been telling you guys for months that I know what I’m doing?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they humbly conceded, and Reese and Quentin chuckled.
Lexi grinned wryly at Michael. “Your producer must be on cloud nine. I remember how ecstatic he was when you proposed to Reese on the show last year. Hestillhasn’t stopped gushing about how your ratings skyrocketed after that episode aired. Just imagine how viewers will respond to Reese going into labor on the show. I smell another Emmy,” she added in a singsong voice.
Reese and Michael traded smiles. “In that case,” she said, “we’ll have to keep coming up with milestones to celebrate on the air.”
Quentin grinned. “Savannah’s first step, Savannah’s first tooth…”
Everyone laughed.
“Where’s the family?” Lexi asked curiously. “Quentin and I thought we’d have to fight our way into the room when we got here.”
