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He drove with extreme caution, however. Steady and slow. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
My God, he thought. My God . . . my God.
Kristina crossed his thoughts, as she had off and on all night. The baby was her son, too.
The baby . . .
His last conversation with Kristina over the baby’s name hadn’t gone well. “What do you think about Declan?” Hale had suggested, half in jest, half seriously. He wasn’t really sure what Kristina’s feelings were about his grandfather and thought she might object.
Her reply had offered more questions than answers. “Names are just a way to hide your real identity, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he’d demanded, but she’d simply shrugged and said, “Declan it is.”
They’d never had another conversation on the subject.
“Declan it is,” he said aloud now, his attention zeroed in on the road ahead of him.
The snowplow came chugging uphill, shooting snow in either direction from its front blade. An ambulance was caught behind it, its lights flashing. Hale tried to flag it down, but the ambulance driver rolled down his window and yelled at him, “Accident just over the summit. Several cars. Trying to get there. There’s a pregnant woman on the—”
“She’s with me. I’m the one who called.”
He stopped himself and asked, “She okay?”
“Yes. I’m taking her to the hospital,” Hale yelled back.
The man lifted a hand as they drove past them. Too many other emergencies still out there to help those who could help themselves. Hale eased onto the packed snow the plow had left in its wake, even though now he was essentially driving on the wrong side of the road. But his window was cracked, and he could hear if there was an approaching engine. If he needed to shift over to the deep snow of the westbound lane, so be it. He would have time.
Listening carefully, all he heard were the sounds of his own vehicle and the rapid beating of his heart inside his ears. He stayed close to the centerline, which was buried beneath the snowpack, ready to drive into the deeper snow at the sound of an approaching engine.
“How’re we doing?” Savannah asked.
“I’m taking you and Declan straight to the hospital.”
“Declan?”
“
Yeah.”
“Kristina’s hospital?” She said it quietly, but he knew it was a request.
Ocean Park might be a little farther than Seaside Hospital from where they were, but not by much. “Yeah,” he agreed, and they drove in silence for several more miles. His thoughts random, he said into the quiet, “We need a car seat.”
She made a hiccuping sound that could have been a laugh. “We need a lot of things.”
“You okay?” he asked, suddenly worried she meant something specific.
“I’m fine.” A pause. “We’re both okay.”
Their eyes met briefly in the rearview mirror. “You warm enough?” he asked.
“More than enough.”
“It won’t be long.”
Savvy nodded and closed her eyes again. Hale returned his concentration solely to the road ahead, pushing aside all the clamoring thoughts of his son’s birth, his critically injured wife, and the fact that he was a new father driving along a road made helllishly treacherous by snow and ice.
As soon as she entered Ocean Park Hospital, Ravinia wrinkled her nose at the smell of some tangy disinfectant with a sweeter scent beneath it that she couldn’t quite identify but thought could be something gross. She’d never been inside a hospital before, and she didn’t like it much. And tonight it was full of people who’d been cold and stranded and injured. The staff seemed a bit overwhelmed. The emergency room was filled not only with people waiting to be attended to, but also with others, like herself, who were just waiting. A wet puddle of melting snow near the doors grew larger every time someone tromped in from outside.
