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Her smile was wavering, but heartfelt, he thought. Then she frowned. “W-what are you waiting for? You should be upstairs,” she told him.
Caleb frowned. “Upstairs?” Then he glanced at the other two.
But before either of them could speak, a heart-ripping shriek tore through the house and right into his soul. He thought it might have cracked a few windows. A rush of dizziness hit him so fast, he almost fell down. “Maya?” he asked stupidly.
“You better get up there, Caleb,” Selene said. “We’ll take care of Mel.”
Caleb didn’t want to think what he was thinking, but he didn’t take time to verify it. Instead he lunged to the stairs, and his half-functioning, damp sock-clad feet stumbled and slammed into steps on the way up. They would hurt like hell later, when the feeling came back.
“God, Mamma, why does it have to hurt so much!” Maya cried brokenly.
He lurched down the hall, burst into her bedroom and stared in shock at the scene being played out in front of him.
Maya lay propped up on pillows. Her knees were bent and pointed at the ceiling, and her bare feet pressed down into the mattress. Her mother, looking about as terrified as Caleb felt, was at the foot of the bed. Then, looking up at her daughter, pasting a calm and confident smile in place, Vidalia Brand said, “All right now, honey, it’s time. When the next contraction comes, I want you to push.”
For one brief instant he thought he might pass out cold. He shook that away and thought he might throw up instead, from sheer terror. But he shook that off, too. The look of unmitigated fear on Maya’s pale face was all it took to snap him out of it. It was fairly easy to size up the situation. The babies were coming, and they were coming now. There was no choice about it. His own fears didn’t matter. Hers did. His job here was to get her through this. Not add his own worries to hers.
“Now, Maya Brand,” he said, “I thought I told you I wanted to be in the delivery room. What are you thinking, trying to start without me?”
Maya’s head turned fast, and her eyes met his. And he saw something that almost floored him all over again. The look in her eyes when she saw him standing there…he’d never seen anything like that before. He’d never felt so wanted, or so needed. Or so loved.
He felt himself grow an inch or two taller.
“Caleb,” she whispered, sounding exhausted already. “My God, you’re here. You’re really here.”
“I’m here.” He moved closer, trusting his legs not to buckle.
Maya’s eyes widened. “Caleb, my sister…Mel…she’s—”
“Safe and sound on the sofa downstairs. Kara and Selene have everything in hand down there. And a friend of mine ought to have that generator running in a few minutes or so. I want you to stop worrying about all that. You’ve got plenty to do right up here.”
* * *
She heard his voice and thought it was her mind, weaving more fantasies. She’d been lying in the bed, in pain, terrified for her babies, for her sisters, for herself, wishing with everything in her that Caleb would walk through her door and somehow make her believe everything was going to be okay. So powerful was the image in her mind that when she turned her head and saw him there, she almost didn’t believe he was real. And then she did, and everything she’d been feeling for him seemed to spill from her pores and beam from her eyes.
His face changed—something moved over his features. But she couldn’t tell what. Then he was moving closer, and she noticed his odd gait—he was limping.
“Caleb, what’s wrong?”
He shook his head, pausing to warm his hands over the small portable heater. “Nothing a little warming up won’t fix,” he told her.
Vidalia frowned at him. “How in the world did you manage to get out here, Caleb Montgomery?”
He winked. “Would you believe I hitched a ride on a sleigh with a guy in red and eight tiny reindeer?”
“It’s a day early for that,” Vidalia said. Then Maya saw her mother look down at Caleb’s feet, saw her brows draw together in concern. She started to twist around to have a look for herself, but another contraction hit.
Caleb came to the bedside, and the second his hand was within reach, she clutched it in hers. Cold. His hand was still so cold.
“Time to push, honey,” her mother told her. “You remember the drill.”
“Come on,” Caleb said, sliding an arm around her shoulders to brace her up. His face was close to hers. “Push now. That’s it, one, two, three, four…”
When Caleb reached ten, she stopped pushing. Rested. He let her lie back and stroked her hair away from her face. Vidalia ran to the bedroom door and shouted down the stairs. “We need a bowl of ice chips up here,” she called.
By the time she was back in position again, another pain had Maya in its grip, and she pushed again while Caleb held her and counted.
Selene arrived with the requested bowl of ice chips and set them on the bedside stand. In her other hand she held a pair of wool socks. “Put these on, Caleb,” she said, handing them to him. “We warmed them by the fire for you. Your feet look about frozen.”
