Page 87
With Daniel it was the opposite. I was so dead set on being certain I couldn’t be impressed with him, that it was almost startling to discover that I was.
His phone rang in his pocket, and he set his knife down to answer it.
“Seriously?” I gave him an arched eyebrow. “Your ringer is on? You call people and your ringer is up?” I teased.
He laughed. “How else will I know if someone’s calling me? Isn’t that what a ringer’s for?”
He pulled his phone out. “It’s Liz.” He answered. “Hey, what’s—” He stood there listening. His brows drew down. “She’s here. Okay. Okay, hold on.” He put the call on speaker.
“Alexis?” Liz said.
I looked at Daniel, confused. “Hi, Liz—”
“Okay, so Hannah’s having her baby and they wanted to take her to the Mayo Clinic, but it started to go really fast and they couldn’t get her in the car and—”
Screaming and then shattering glass.
“Can you guys come?” she asked, sounding panicked.
I nodded at Daniel, and we started running for the door.
Liz was panting. “We’re on a video call with a labor nurse from the hospital. Doug’s here trying to help, but Hannah won’t let him touch her and the ambulance won’t be here for forty more minutes and I don’t think she’s got forty minutes.”
“Is she crowning?” I asked. “Can you see the head?” We were already jumping into Daniel’s truck.
“I…I don’t know. There’s a lot of fluid. Blood and stuff. I think her water broke.”
“Okay, we’re on our way. Listen, I need you to boil some water and get me all the clean towels you can find. I need disposable gloves, scissors, and snack bag clamps. The ones that close your chip bag? Get a cup and fill it with rubbing alcohol and drop the clamps in there and have it waiting for me.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah.”
“I’m going to stay on the phone with you until we get there,” I said calmly. “Don’t panic.”
Daniel was already on the street headed north. “Three minutes,” he said.
When we pulled up in front of the house, it looked like half the town was there on the lawn. I could hear screaming and shouting from inside.
We ran through the living room and into the bedroom to chaos.
There were half a dozen people in the room. Liz was standing by the nightstand holding a phone to her ear and another one on video call. Doug was by the door, and a very pregnant Hannah was sitting up in the bed, sweaty and flushed.
Doug looked exasperated. “Hannah, just let me look!”
She shot him a glare. “Doug, I will hold this baby in until literally anyone who is not you shows up to deliver it. You are not seeing my vagina today. That is not how this ends!”
“I’m a medic, Hannah!”
“You don’t deliver babies in the army!”
“I’ve delivered goats!”
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” She grabbed an alarm clock and hurled it across the room. Doug pivoted just in time, and it hit the wall next to him with a crash, raining shrapnel into an already mounting pile of broken objects.
Hannah clutched the blankets and screamed in pain.
Liz saw me. “The doctor’s here!”
Doug looked over at me, relieved. “Thank fucking God.” He smacked a box of disposable gloves into my hands. He glanced back to the patient. “Seeing your hoo-ha is not my idea of a good time either, Hannah!” He turned back to me. “I’m outta here. Call me if you need help,” he mumbled, edging past me.
