He scooped her into his arms and started down the steps.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m gonna take you to the doctor.”
“What if there’s not time? I don’t want to be out on the prairie—”
“You’re right. You’re right. We’ll just—” He turned and headed into the house. “We’ll just put you back into bed …” Gingerly he laid her on the mattress. He wrapped his hand around hers and pressed his forehead against her temple. “Sugar, I don’t know what to do.”
“Go get Amelia and send Houston for the doctor.”
Relief coursed through him, and he wondered where the hell his common sense had gone. He lifted his head and brushed the hair from her brow. “I can do that.”
Her hand tightened around his, and she began to breathe harshly again, her face a grimace of pain. What in the hell had possessed Houston to put his wife through this five times? Austin planned to practice abstinence for the remainder of his life.
Her hold on him loosened, and the fear reflected in her eyes was deeper than before. “I don’t think the pains are supposed to come this fast, this soon.”
“Sure they are,” he lied. “I remember when Amelia had Maggie, it all happened so fast that we barely had time to catch our breaths.”
“I want a girl,” she said breathlessly.
“Then that’s what we’ll have.”
“Or a boy.”
He chuckled low. “It’ll be one of the two, Sugar. That I can promise you.”
“I don’t understand why we have to be out here while she’s in there,” Austin said as he wore down the weeds in front of his porch with his constant pacing. Two-bits shadowed his every step as though he, too, realized there was cause for concern. Twilight was settling in. What was taking so damn long?
“That’s just the way it’s done,” Houston said.
“I think it’s a dumb way to do it,” Austin said.
“I agree,” Dallas said. “I think if you want to be in there watching her suffer, you ought to be in there.”
Austin staggered to a stop. “How much do you think she’s suffering?”
Dallas shrugged. “Well, she’s not screaming …”
“That don’t mean anything. Amelia never screams and she suffers plenty,” Houston said.
“Then why do we do this to them?” Austin asked.
His brothers stared at him as though he’d just eaten loco weed.
“Why does it take so long?” he asked.
“That’s just the way it is,” Houston said.
He glared at his brother. “Think you could come up with some better answers?”
“Nope. I ask these same questions every time.”
“I’m never touching her again,” Austin swore.
“You’ll touch her,” his brothers said in unison.
And damn it, he knew he would, first chance he got. He leapt onto the porch, stormed into the house, and threw open the door to his bedroom—and wished to God he hadn’t.
