Their Baby Girl...?: The Baby Mission / Her Baby Secret

He took it one step at a time. And lied. “One more time.”

But she knew better. He could fool everyone else, but not her.

“You’re…lying.” Tears and sweat were mingling in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks, pooling beneath her back. “I…can’t do…this…Warrick. I’m…not…cut out…for…this…kind of thing.” trying to push up a hill.

There was no giving up now. He couldn’t let her. “Yes, you are.” His voice was fierce. “You’re the toughest woman I know. Now c’mon, one more time.” Abandoning his post at her nether end, he brought his face up close to hers and implored, “C.J., one more time. Just one more time.”

Damn it, why didn’t he just let her die? “I…hate…to see you…beg.” With superhuman strength, she drew her elbows in to her sides and pushed herself up again. Her head was spinning worse than a top that was out of control. “Okay…let’s get…this watermelon…out…of me!”

Warrick strengthened his resolve. “Let’s get serious now. Ready, C.J.?”

She wasn’t ready, would probably never be ready again. Probably would never be able to breathe right again, either. But there was no postponing this and coming back tomorrow, refreshed and braced. She was in all the way.

It was now or never.

Sucking in one more breath to fortify her, she nodded at Warrick. C.J. screwed her eyes shut and bore down with every last fiber in her body. It felt like forever. She could swear she felt her blood boiling in her veins.

An eternity later C.J. fell back against the floor, hardly aware of what she was doing. Only aware that there was some kind of noise buzzing in her head. No, outside her head. A wailing sound that could have been coming from somewhere else. Or maybe even from her. She wasn’t sure.

Wonder was filtering through him. He was supporting an infant’s head in the palm of his hand. The emotion was almost indescribable. Warrick looked up at C.J. For a second it looked as if she wasn’t moving. “C.J., don’t pass out on me now, you’re almost finished.”

A lot he knew. She had no idea where the strength came from to form the words. “I…am…finished.”

“No, a little more,” he coaxed, infinitely grateful that God hadn’t made him a woman. There was no way he could have gone through this, he thought. “You have to push out the baby’s shoulders.”

There was no energy left to breathe, much less to push. “Can’t…you…just…pull?”

“C.J., push,” he ordered.

Swirling through her head was the vague thought that she was going to hold Sherry and Joanna accountable for not telling her that giving birth was like trying to expel a giant bowling ball through her nose and that everything inside her body felt as if it was being ripped apart by a pair of giant hands.

“C.J., you have to push!”

She had to die was what she had to do, C.J. thought in despair. No, a faraway voice echoed in her head, the baby, the baby needs you. Your baby. You can’t quit now.

“Now!”

Hating Warrick, C.J. propped herself up one last time. She knew in her heart that if the baby didn’t completely come out with this effort, she was going to die this way, midpush.

She glared at Warrick. “Count,” she gasped angrily.

If looks could kill, he’d be dead right now, Warrick thought. “One—two—three. Push!”

Glancing at her face just before he gave the command, Warrick saw the sweat pouring down into her eyes, saw the look of complete exhaustion on her face. If he could have, he would have changed places with her.

Just like he would have been willing to take a bullet for her any day of the week. She was his partner, his friend, and the person who knew him better than anyone, warts and all. He cared about her more than he cared about anyone else in the world.

The next moment, he was holding her daughter in his hands.

The wailing increased. Was something wrong? Was there something wrong with her baby? Oh, please let the baby be all right. C.J. was lying in a heap on the floor. There wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t ache and wasn’t all but smothered in utter exhaustion. It took all she had to raise her head.

“What—”

He grinned, making sure the baby’s passageways were all clear. That much he remembered from his training. She was breathing. The life he held against his chest was breathing. He couldn’t describe the feeling going on in his chest. “A girl.”

A girl. She had a daughter. She felt like crying. “What…what does she…look like?”

“A guppy in Jell-O. A beautiful guppy,” he qualified, looking up at C.J.

Something very strange was going on inside of him. There was relief because it was over and because C.J. was still alive. He could afford to admit to himself now that he had been laboring under the very real fear that something could have gone wrong during the childbirth. Something could always go wrong.

But there was also something else, another feeling that he couldn’t readily identify. Something he was unfamiliar with.

It felt as if there were suddenly a rainbow inside of him. A rainbow that seemed to be also raining sunshine.

Quickly he did a tally of the baby’s fingers and toes. All were accounted for. He looked up at C.J. “Want to see her?”

She barely had enough strength to form the word. “Please.”

Holding the moments-old infant against him, Warrick moved on his knees until he was level with C.J.’s face. But as he began to transfer the baby into her arms, he looked down at the small face. The infant had ceased crying and was simply looking up at him, her eyes as wide as spring flowers sunning themselves.

He felt as if she was looking right into him, right into his heart. Which only seemed fair since it was already hers.

“This is your mother,” he whispered to the infant. “Be kind, honey, she’s still a work in progress.”

He was surprised the words came out at all. It felt as if his throat was constricting. For all the different experiences he had gone through in his life, he had never had a moment quite like this before and he wasn’t altogether sure what to make of it.

Amid the waves of exhaustion washing over C.J. was a sense of elation. It spread out, covering her completely as Warrick tucked the baby into her arms.

She was here, C.J. thought, her baby was finally here. Her impatience, her fears, everything she’d lived with all these months were fading into the mists as if they hadn’t really existed.

Without a hand to wipe them away, C.J. blinked back her tears.

Her baby was finally here.

“Hi, baby,” she said softly to the infant warming her breast. “That was just Warrick. Don’t let him scare you.” And then she raised her eyes to her partner’s face. There really were no words that seemed adequate enough. “Thank you.”

He grinned, rocking back on his heels. “It’s not as if the two of you left me much choice.”

The two of them. It had a nice ring to it, C.J. thought.

Her heart swelling, she tightened her arms around the baby.

Chapter 4

The paramedics arrived ten minutes after he called them.

It occurred to Warrick, as he rode down in the elevator with C.J., the baby and the attendants, that had he gotten on the phone and dialed 911 to begin with, he would have been spared all the trauma he’d just gone through.