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“Fools,” he muttered. “The pair of you.”
Molly didn’t argue. Personally she agreed with him.
* * *
It had started out as a perfectly normal January day. Jordan was on the job site talking over a supply problem with Paul Phelps when his pager went off. Absently he reached for it, removing it from his belt, and glanced at the phone number on the miniature screen. His heart froze solid when he recognized the caller’s number.
“Jordan.” Paul’s voice broke into his confusion. “What is it?”
“That’s Ian. There’s only one reason he’d contact me this time of day.”
“Molly’s having the baby?”
“That would be my guess.” Jordan took off for the construction trailer at a dead run. A hundred times, possibly a thousand, he’d warned his crews to put safety first. At the moment, Jordan didn’t care what he tripped over as long as he found out what he needed to know.
He punched in Ian’s home number—then he waited. The phone rang five times before his father-in-law deigned to answer.
“Jordan, my boy,” he said jovially, “it didn’t take you long to get back to me.”
“Where’s Molly?” he demanded breathlessly.
“Molly? What makes you think this has anything to do with my daughter?” He gave a rather forced laugh.
“Ian, if this is some sort of prank, I don’t find it the least bit funny.”
Ian’s laughter died. “As it happens, you’re right. Molly’s on her way to the hospital as we speak. She was adamant that you not know, but I decided otherwise. The problem with my daughter is that I’ve spoiled her. She seems to think I should do everything she asks.”
“Ian, is she okay?”
“I assume so. She sounded fine when she called me. A little excited. A little afraid. I’m leaving now, and I’ve even got cigars to celebrate. You are coming, aren’t you?”
Now it was Jordan’s turn to laugh. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Everything seemed to move in slow motion once Molly arrived at the hospital. The labor room nurse, Barbara, middle-aged and motherly, was gentle and encouraging as she prepared Molly for the baby’s birth.
By the time Molly was situated in bed, connected to the fetal heart monitor, she heard some type of commotion at the nurses’ station. Her father was there and wanted to see her.
“That’s quite the father you have,” Barbara reported when she came to check on Molly. “He’s demanding to know what’s taking so long. He expected his grandchild to be here by now. He’s convinced something’s gone wrong.”
Ian had been away on a business trip when Jeffrey was born and seemed to forget that these things took their own time.
“You’d better talk to him,” the nurse suggested.
“By all means,” she said, “send him in before he makes arealpest of himself.” Molly couldn’t help smiling. She was sure the last time her father had been anywhereclose to a maternity floor was when she herself was born.
At the approach of a contraction, Molly laid her head against the pillow and breathed in deeply. The labor pains were gaining in intensity now, coming every three or four minutes.
Her concentration must have been even more focused on the contraction than she’d realized, because when she opened her eyes she found Jordan standing at her bedside, his face pale with concern.
Molly stared speechlessly up at him. It’d been nearly three months since she’d seen him, and she needed a moment to recover. “How—how’d you get here?”
“I drove,” he answered with a smile. “How are you?”
“I’m having a baby.”
“So I see.”
