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Fresh tears flooded her eyes, but she blinked rapidly and not a single drop fell. “I don’t know where it is.”
“Then you’re in luck.” Admiring her spunk, he bent lower and reached across her to unbuckle her seat belt. “Because I know exactly where it is. I work at the hospital and I could find it in my sleep. You’ll be well cared for.”
“You’re a doctor?”
He saw hope flare in her eyes and hated to disappoint her. “No, but—” A firm littlewhackhit his arm where his coat had pulled back from his wrist. He glanced down in surprise. “Whoa.”
Darcy snorted. “Kicks like a soccer player,” she informed him, her expression sad and proud at the same time. “But it’s too soon. I can’t have the baby now because it’stoo soon.”
He stomped down his own fears of what the next hour or so might bring and tried to adopt a reassuring expression. “Hey, stress is only going to make things worse, right? So you can’t stress,” he ordered gently. “Try to relax and let me get you to the hospital. Concentrate on staying calm.”
She sniffled but nodded, then took a deep, shuddering breath. “Hear that, Cameron? We need to destress. Garret is going to take us to the hospital, and you’re going to stay put—that’s an order.”
He noted the way her stroking hands had slowed their frantic pace. “Good job.” Once more he leaned over her, pressed the release on the seat belt and then pulled it loose. “Grab your purse and I’ll help you. Be careful of the ice.”
Darcy gripped his arm and held, her face a scant inch away from his. “My suitcase. Will you get it? I want my things, the baby’s things. Just in case. It’s in the trunk. Please?”
Garret bit back his impatience, but if he’d learned nothing else in his years working at the hospital, it was to not mess with hormonal, expectant mothers. “I’ll take care of it. But let’s get you settled first and strapped in, okay?” He braced himself while she shifted to get out. “Careful. That’s it, I’ve got you.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and held on while she walked the few steps it took to get her to the Escalade. Her foot slipped on the running board getting in.
Time slowed in that split second. Her foot slipped, Darcy gasped, and he wrapped his arms around her so that her weight fell against him, praying she’d land on him and not the ice. Somehow he managed to keep them both on their feet, his nose landing in her hair from where it spilled beneath a knit cap. Heart thumping wildly, they stood frozen for several long seconds. Finally Garret squeezed her gently to let her know she was safe, and urged her inside.
Grabbing the seat belt, he pulled it out for her to take and got another whiff of evergreen. He’d thought it was an air freshener inside her car, but the smell was too strong. Her perfume? Whatever it was, the scent was natural and earthy and completely unlike the heavy, designer fragrances Jocelyn favored.
The multiple lights over her head and from the dash were brighter than the single one in her small car, giving Garret his first good look at her.
A riot of soft blond curls tangled around Darcy’s tear-streaked face. She had a small, straight nose—albeit red and runny—and what looked to be chocolate-brown eyes. But it was her full, wide mouth that held his attention. While she fumbled to latch the seat belt, she sank her teeth into the soft pink flesh of her trembling lower lip. He stared, transfixed until a blast of wind nearly knocked him off his feet, reminding him that now was not the time to be standing around.
Garret shook his head at himself and went for her suitcase, stowed it in the backseat of the SUV before climbing in beside her just in time to see Darcy’s face tighten with the onset of another contraction.
“Garret?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Um…I think we’d better hurry.”
DARCY HATED putting more pressure on her rescuer, but she was scared out of her mind. And with every contraction her fears quadrupled. She still had six weeks to go, so now was too early for this baby to arrive.
The vehicle slipped and slid, and maneuvering the ice-coated road required Garret’s undivided attention. A good thing, considering how self-conscious she felt about having groaning, hug-the-belly pains in front of a gorgeous stranger. What if he had to deliver her baby?
Times like these called for her to be pragmatic but she hadn’t shaved her legs and had worn her most comfortable panties. She didn’t want her handsome driver to remember her due to the holes in her underwear. Wouldn’t that be a story for his grandkids?
“How far is it?” she asked when the contraction was over and the silence in the vehicle became too much. “Are we close?”
“Very. Just relax.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Garret smiled, his teeth looking impossibly white. Why couldn’t she have been rescued by a sweet little old midwife?
“Because you’re too perceptive for your own good? The hospital isn’t far, less than ten or fifteen minutes on a good day.”
But what about a really bad one? “If the baby comes—”
“It won’t.”
“But if itdoesand you have to deliver it,” she continued determinedly, her face growing hot. “I just want to apologize in advance.”For the underwear, the porcupine legs and the mess and trauma birth would cause the immaculate vehicle and you,she added silently.
She shouldn’t have waited so late in her pregnancy to move. She should have known Stephen would never come around and man up to being a dad. She should have moved months ago. In fall, not winter!
