Page 84 of Cowboy

What? No. We need to be here alone.

“Bull, I have to ask you something,” I strain through the pain.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” Bull says, searching around our feet as his brother approaches. “This snow is really piling up, though.”

“What’s going on?” Blade asks.

“We need an ambulance,” Bull states, but I’m shaking my head. I need to get this out. I need to say what I have to say before the baby gets here. “There’s no phone service. Radio the house.”

Blade races back to Bull’s truck. Bull told me they started using two-way radios for occasions just like this when conditions interrupted phone service. Bull picks me up, and I hiss as he carries me to the cab of Blade’s truck. Setting me back on my feet, he opens the driver’s side door and demands I get in.

Blade returns with the radio, and we hear Canyon snap through the device. “Having a blizzard here.”

“Scarlett’s having a baby,” Bull barks over his shoulder.

“Frick,” I groan, clutching at my waist.

“Fuck,” Bull adds stronger. “We need to get her out of here.”

“No,” I yell through the pain. “I need to—”

“It can wait,” Bull demands, his voice harsher than it’s ever been toward me.

“Lay down in the back,” he commands as he shifts me so he can tug the front seat forward, and I scramble to the back. Groaning once more, I begin to shake uncontrollably.

“What the fuck?” Blade mutters just outside the door as I lower for the seat.

“I think she’s gonna have the baby right here,” Bull says over his shoulder, climbing in after me.

“I am not having this baby in the back seat of a truck.”

“It’d be appropriate if that’s where it was conceived,” Blade states, and Bull and I both yell for the youngest Eaton to shut up.

“Scarlett, I don’t think we have a choice. An ambulance is on the way, but it could take half an hour or more. If you need to push, you’ve got to tell me.”

“Why?” I moan.

“Because I’ll have to deliver the baby. I’ve delivered hundreds of calves. I can do this.” I’m not certain if Bull’s trying to talk himself into it or convince me, but the idea of him delivering our child in the back seat does not sit well with me.

“Are you comparing me to a cow?”

“Dammit, woman. You aren’t a cow. You’re the woman I love, and we need to do this.” The words hang in the air as Bull’s eyes leap up for mine, and he freezes, hovering over me.

“You love me?”

His eyes close, and a painful expression crosses his face. “I didn’t mean for that to come out like that.” His voice softens.

“So you don’t love me?” I whine as another contraction claws at my belly. I twist under pressure, and Bull stays quiet as I ride out the clenching.

“It’s not that I don’t love you—”

“You don’t have to make it sound like you’re doing me a favor. I get it. I asked you to be here at five, and you didn’t show.”

“I hadn’t seen your text until I got back from the tractor supply store, and don’t turn this around on me. What the hell were you doing up here?” he snaps again.

“I wanted to tell you I loved you,” I bark through another wave of pain. My head tips up as I yell at him, but it falls back as the wave crests, and I clutch at my belly. Tears rush from my eyes. A gush of warmth flows between my legs. I curse my weakened bladder. “Frick. I just wet myself.”

“Ah, Scarlett, sweetheart, your water broke.”