The Next Little Thing (Jackson Falls #4) (2 page)

"I hope you're not pushing yourself. This is a lot of change
coming all at once, at a time when you shouldn't have to deal with extra
stress. How are you feeling? How's your blood pressure?"

"Stop worrying. My blood pressure is golden. How's
yours?"

"I have to admit, I'm a little stressed. New house, new
business venture, new baby. It's a lot to juggle."

"Hey," she said softly, holding out a hand. He glanced
at her from the corner of his eye, took her outstretched hand in his own, and
they threaded fingers. Still looking at him, she leaned her head back against
the seat. After a moment of silent contemplation, she said, "Would you
have ever thought, when I was eighteen and you were twenty, that we'd wind up
here?"

"Honestly? Not in a million years."

"Me either."

"Any regrets?"

"Are you kidding, MacKenzie? This is where we're supposed to
be at this point in our lives. I can’t—and I won’t—regret any of the past,
because it brought us here, to this present. You and me and Junior."

He just smiled and focused on his driving.

Doucette was waiting for them at the house. Rob wheeled the
Explorer into the freshly-paved driveway and pulled to a stop behind the
contractor's Dodge Ram pickup. He turned off the ignition, and they sat looking
at the house. They'd been fortunate to find an architect who could work with
them on short notice. They'd sat down with Phineas Welch and told him exactly
what they wanted, and through some magic neither of them understood, he'd
created it for them. Once the plans were approved, Doucette had taken over,
using his own brand of magic to turn Welch's blueprints into the exquisite home
that sat in front of them. Queen Anne Victorian in style, the house sported
cheerful yellow paint trimmed with plum and sage green. The end result was a
modern-day painted lady, complete with a wraparound porch, a variety of roof
lines, just enough stained glass to add warmth, and a fanciful turret.

A house like this could have turned out pretentious. Instead, like
the couple who'd planned it, their new home was warm and welcoming.

As they walked together up the flagstone walkway, she said,
"I talked to the landscaper yesterday. He should have it all finished
within a week."

"Let's hope so. Right now, it looks pretty rough."

"You just have to use your imagination and picture it with
green grass and blooming flowers."

She'd wanted to bring her beloved rosebushes over from the other
house, but the landscaper had convinced her that since money wasn't a
consideration, she might as well start fresh. So she'd left them there for the
kids. Her oldest nephew, Billy, and his wife, Alison, were buying the house she
and Danny had owned. They needed the space for their growing brood, and it felt
right, keeping the house in the family. She'd loved that house, had loved every
minute she and her first husband had spent renovating it, but it was time to
move on. The house was filled with memories. It was time to put that life behind
her and move fearlessly into the future.

Hand in hand, they stepped up onto the porch, crossed to the front
door, and entered the house. Thom Doucette stood in the living room, holding a
clipboard and a set of house keys, fiddling with the thermostat on the wall. He
straightened, apparently satisfied with the results of his fiddling.
"Guys," he said. "Big day today. I bet you thought it would
never get here."

"That," Rob said darkly, "is an
understatement."

"I promised you the house would be ready before the baby
came." Swinging the clipboard loosely by his hip, Doucette nodded in
Casey's direction. "And here we are."

While the two men stood discussing guy stuff—plumbing, insulation,
heating—Casey walked the perimeters of the living room, admiring the gleaming
hardwood floors, the fieldstone fireplace with its oak mantel, the delicious
bay windows with their spectacular view of fields and ponds and mountains.
Being the mildly OCD person that she was, and realizing that time would be
short before the arrival of the new baby, she'd left nothing to chance. She'd
measured walls and furniture and had actually drawn up a diagram of each room
in the house, with each piece of furniture in its proper place and carefully
labeled. Just in case.

Returning, she passed her husband and lightly touched his arm. He
glanced up and smiled at her with his eyes. Leaving the men to their
conversation, she moved on to the kitchen, her favorite room in the house. It
was a bright, sunny space, with French doors that led to a rear deck, acres of
polished granite countertop, a six-burner gas range, oversized dishwasher, and
a massive side-by-side fridge. The backsplash was fashioned of colorful
handmade Italian tiles that had cost a fortune. The flooring consisted of
simple ceramic tiles in a warm shade of terra cotta. At the center of the room
sat a broad work island that would be the ideal place for breakfast on busy
mornings. Later on down the road, it would be a cozy spot for their kids to do
homework while she cooked.

But her favorite feature, by far, was the old-fashioned pantry,
like the one in Grandma Bradley's house when Casey was a little girl. She'd
insisted on it, and Rob had indulged her because he loved her, and because he'd
built this house for her, as a symbol of that love. He would have given her the
moon if she'd asked for it, so a pantry wasn't exactly a deal-breaker.

Casey opened the pantry door. Jeweled sunlight spilled onto the
floor from the oval stained-glass window on the end wall as she stood admiring
all those freshly-varnished empty shelves that she would fill with dry goods
and canned food and her mother's best china.

She was turning back to the kitchen, intending to close the door
behind her, when she felt an odd little twinge, deep in her pelvis. Then warm
liquid began to trickle from between her legs. For a single, crazy instant, she
thought she'd lost control of her bladder. Until the trickle became a stream,
saturating her jeans and puddling on the brand-new floor tiles beneath her
feet.

"Rob," she said.

In the living room, the two men continued their conversation.
"
Rob!
" she said, more loudly, the word bouncing off the
kitchen's hard surfaces.

He must have heard something in her voice, because suddenly he was
standing beside her, his face taut with concern. "Babe?" he said.

She looked at him, looked down at the floor, then back at him. And
said, "My water just broke."

* * *

Her feet were freezing.

Even through the thick wool socks she'd packed in her labor kit
and left in the car two weeks ago, her feet felt like matching blocks of ice.
The birthing room was downright frigid, presumably for the comfort of the
laboring mother-to-be. Comfort was a vague and loosely defined word, and her
body had betrayed her. From the pelvis up, she was sweaty and sticky, her hair
a wild tangle, her mouth parched and dry. South of the birthing zone, her legs
and feet were weak and shaky and cold.

As soon as her water broke, labor had commenced with all the grace
and subtlety of a wild stallion racing madly toward a burning barn. She hadn't
remembered it like this. With her first baby, she'd had more than enough time
to drive herself to the hospital, where she'd then spent a long twelve hours
dilating and effacing. Maybe her memory was shaky. After all, it had been
eleven years since the last time she gave birth. Maybe her sisters-in-law, Trish
and Rose, were right when they said that no two birthing experiences were the
same. Or maybe, just maybe, at thirty-six, she was getting a little long in the
tooth for this kind of activity. Whatever the reason, none of this felt
familiar. Not the sweating or the freezing; not the white-hot pain that sliced
through her midsection like the dull blade of a knife; not the sheer brutality
of childbirth.

She supposed her memory block was universal:  Women forgot the
pain the instant that squalling, squirming, red-faced lump of humanity was
placed in their arms. A woman's instantaneous and all-encompassing motherlove
was nature's amnesia, designed to ensure the continuation of the species. If
women remembered the pain, they would never open their legs to another man, and
the human race would face certain extinction.

But she was being reminded now, in vivid, breathing Technicolor,
unsoothed by the mauve walls of the birthing room, the dim lighting, or the
soft cooing of Smokey Robinson in the background. "This is all your
fault!" she snapped. "You did this to me!"

At her side, Rob dipped a facecloth into the bowl of water on the
bed stand, wrung it out, and applied its cool comfort to her flushed face.
Dabbing gently, he said, "I know, babe. It's all my fault. I take full
responsibility."

"You men have to get your damn jollies, and we women end up
paying the price!"

He drew the cool cloth along her forehead. It felt wonderful.
"Poor baby," he murmured. "I'm a barbarian, and you clearly
never enjoyed a minute of it."

"Oh, shut up."

"More ice?"

"Yes. Please." She could feel another contraction coming
on.
Oh, God.
She couldn't take much more of this. If the pain didn't
stop soon, she would leave the bed, find a scalpel somewhere, and cut this baby
out of her. What had she been thinking, having a baby at thirty-six? She'd
surely lost her mind.

Attuned to her as always, Rob recognized the building contraction.
Setting down the spoonful of ice, he took her hands in his. She squeezed them
so hard his fingers, normally a nice, healthy shade of pink, went bone-white.
"I can't do this," she said. "I'm too tired. I can't do this any
more."

 "Look at me, babe. Focus on me. Breathe."

"I can't!"

"Yes, you can. I've seen you survive things that would've
killed most people. You're the strongest person I know. You can do this."

She concentrated on his face, on the warmth in those green eyes,
the strength of his hands in hers. He was her rock, her true north, the love of
her life. She'd loved him since she was eighteen years old, and he'd always
kept her upright and breathing during her moments of triumph, of pain, of
despair. Rob MacKenzie was the one solid thing in her entire adult life, the
other half of her, and she loved him with a depth and a passion she'd never
felt for another human being.

"I hate you," she said. "I hate you with every
chromosome in my body."

A lesser man might have been shredded by her words, but he knew
her too well to feel threatened. Besides, he'd gone through the same birthing
classes she had. He knew about transition. "I know you do," he said.
"Breathe anyway."

She'd tried to warn him, weeks ago. She might have forgotten the
pain of childbirth, but she hadn't forgotten her Jekyll and Hyde
transformation, hadn't forgotten that when she'd given birth the first time,
she'd turned into a raging monster, viciously cussing out half the hospital
staff before Katie finally made her appearance. When she'd warned him that this
could happen again, and that he, by virtue of being the one who'd impregnated
her, would probably be the target, he'd laughed at her. "I think I can
handle it," he'd said. "Besides, you're not flying solo this time
around. I'll be right there by your side through it all. It won't be so hard on
you with me there."

Men were so gullible. They actually believed the baloney they were
spoon fed in childbirth classes.

The contraction eased, followed almost immediately by another. She
gasped. Through tears, she said, "Goddamn it all to hell!" And
crushed his fingers again.

Hunching closer, he gently brushed the damp hair back from her
forehead and said, "You need to relax. Just like they taught us in Lamaze
class. Just breathe and relax. It'll make this all a lot easier."

 "You can stuff your relax right up your—oh, my God, Flash, I
don't think I can take this pain any longer!"

 "Isn't there anything you can give her?" Rob asked the
nurse. "The pains are almost on top of each other."

"Too late now," the nurse said cheerfully. "Things
are moving right along. It's a hard labor, but it'll be a short one."

"Wow, Florence Nightingale, that's a genuine comfort."

"It is what it is. Your wife will be fine. Women go through
this every day."

"Not my woman!"

Casey squeezed his hands and huffed, "I take back…what I
said…about you. I don't hate you…after all."

He pried a hand free, wet the washcloth, and applied its cool
comfort to her face. "Did you hear what Nurse Ratched said, babe? It's
almost over. We're almost there."

"Maybe you should just leave," she said. "After
this little episode…there'll be no mystery left…in our relationship. You'll
never think of me…the same way."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I've loved you for two decades,
Fiore. Do you really think a few body fluids will scare me off?"

His words brought tears to her eyes, touched her so deeply, so
sweetly, that it took her by surprise, the sudden, overwhelming urge to push.
She crunched the slender bones of his hand again. "Rob?" she said.
"The baby's coming. It's time to push."