The Once and Future Father

He raised his eyes to hers and the short, abrupt order on his lips softened in the face of the pain he saw. Damn, but she could still get to him like nothing and no one else ever had.

“Yes,” he told her softly, “you are. Okay now, one, two, three. Push!” He felt every fiber of his own body tightening in concentration as he gave her the order.

Lucy pushed. Pushed so hard she felt as if she had ejected every fiber of her body, turning it completely inside out. Pushed so hard she thought she was going to faint again as a border of blackness began leeching into the feverish red haze that was engulfing her.

The final push came with a whining scream.

Falling back, she barely had enough strength left to gulp in air. Lucy heard a small, piercing cry. Was that coming from her? Or somewhere else?

But her own lips were closed now and the tiny, reedy wail persisted. Her lashes felt damp as she forced her eyes open. She could barely focus on Dylan. He was holding something in his arms.

Her baby.

She tried to wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, barely able to move it. “Is he…is he…all right?”

When Dylan didn’t answer, a sliver of panic wedged itself in her breast, going straight for her heart like a sharp dagger. With her last ounce of strength, she raised herself up on her elbows.

“Dylan?”

He couldn’t ever remember feeling like this before. Awed, overwhelmed with something very odd squeezing at his heart. And all because of the tiny life he held in his hands.

As if it had been stored on a delayed relay system, Lucy’s tone played itself back to him. He raised his eyes to hers. A hint of a smile tugged on his lips, as if afraid to intrude on a moment this sacred.

“He’s a she.” His mouth curved a little more. “Your son is a daughter—and she’s more than all right. She’s beautiful.”

Deprived of the warm shelter that had been hers only moments earlier, the infant began to squirm and cry. The thick thatch of black hair on her head was matted and plastered to her, and when she opened her eyes, they were the most incredible shade of blue Dylan had ever seen. He raised his eyes to look at Lucy.

“Are you able to hold her?”

“Try and stop me,” Lucy said. Her heart was still racing, fueled by what she’d just been through and the exhilaration she felt now, seeing her daughter in Dylan’s arms. Weak, she still managed to hold out her own arms to him.

Very gently, Dylan placed the tiny being against Lucy’s breast. The same bittersweet feeling flittered over him. He didn’t know what to make of it, what to call it, or how to store it. So he did the only thing he could, he locked it away in its entirety.

“She’s messy,” he murmured.

Exhausted as she was, Lucy could feel her heart constricting. She’d never known she could feel this much love at one time.

“She’ll clean up,” Lucy whispered. In awe of the tiny being she held, Lucy lightly passed her hand over the dark little head.

Watching, Dylan roused himself. It wasn’t over yet. He still needed to cut the umbilical cord. He hurried to the kitchen for a knife and was halfway back before he stopped. The knife needed to be sterilized.

But when he turned toward the stove, intending to hold the blade over one of the burner flames, he saw only electrical coils. There were no gas jets.

Damn. His hands bloodied, Dylan automatically felt in his pants pocket before he remembered. He didn’t smoke anymore. He no longer had a reason to carry matches.

Frustrated, he looked around the kitchen. He didn’t have time to go rifling through drawers and cabinets. “You have any matches?” he shouted.

“No, why?”

“Because I need to—”

Walking back into the living room, he stopped short when he saw a whiskey decanter on the small wet bar. He recognized it. He’d given Ritchie the decanter just before he’d left for good. It’d been to celebrate something, but he no longer remembered the occasion. The decanter was still half-full. Dylan snatched it up.

“Never mind, this’ll do.” He removed the top and poured some of the contents of the decanter over the blade, covering it liberally. Except for the baby breathing, there was no other sound in the room. He could feel Lucy’s eyes on him, watching. “I have to cut the cord.”

“I know.” She pressed the baby closer to her, though she knew it wouldn’t hurt the infant.

He looked so removed, so dispassionate as he severed the cord that connected her so literally to her baby. Had he felt the same way when he cut the cord that had existed between them? Had it taken just one swift motion and it was done?

Once she would have believed she’d meant more to him than that. Now she knew better.

“There.” The cord cut, Dylan sat back on his heels and looked at them.

The baby, still bloody, was nestled against Lucy. She had ceased crying and was dozing against her mother. It took everything he had not to touch the infant again, not to run the tip of his finger along the dewy skin.

The moment, soft and tender, hung between them. Echoes of the past threatened to overtake him. Rising to his feet, Dylan backed away.

He nodded toward where he remembered the linen closet was. “I should get something to wrap her up in.” He needed distance between them. Distance between the thoughts he was having.

The sound of someone knocking on the door penetrated. “I’ll get that.”

“Since you’re up,” she murmured weakly.

“Yeah.” He turned on his heel, hurrying to the front door. Dylan felt ashamed for feeling relieved at the reprieve. But there was far too much going on inside of him to deal with right now.

He made it to the door in less than five strides and pulled it open. The ambulance attendants had arrived. “Took you long enough.”

The two paramedics, both in their early twenties, exchanged glances. The blonder of the two pushed the gurney into the house. “Hey, we went through every red light from the station house to here.”

The other paramedic looked Dylan over. There was blood on his shirt and on one of his pants pockets. “What the hell happened to you, McMorrow?”

His adrenaline beginning to settle, he realized that he hadn’t given any details when he’d called for the ambulance, only saying he needed one. The attendants hadn’t known if they were coming to the site of a homicide or a heart attack.

He glanced down at his shirt. “I got this playing midwife. The lady couldn’t wait for you two to get here.”

Only a short distance away, Lucy heard him and something inside of her cringed. The lady. As if they didn’t know each other. As if they hadn’t held each other in their arms and made love until both of them could have sworn that the morning would come to find not a breath of life left between them.

Tears stung her eyes. She pressed her lips together, telling herself she was over him. What they had was in the past, long gone and buried. There was someone else who needed her now.

The younger of the two paramedics looked at Lucy as he lined up the cot beside the sofa. He gave her a warm smile.

“Looks like you did half our job for us, Detective.” The paramedic glanced at Dylan. “Nice work.”

Dylan made no comment, standing off to the side as the two paramedics quickly took vital signs from mother and daughter. It was only when Lucy’s eyes sought him out that he moved from the sidelines. He’d had every intention of leaving, but there was something in her eyes that had him changing his mind.

“I’ll follow you in the car.”

The paramedic closest to Dylan spared him a glance once they had secured mother and child on the gurney. “You might want to change that shirt first. Unless you want everyone to think you were in an accident.”