Prince Baby

“Sir, an ambulance is on its way. Stay on the line and I’ll guide you through…”

Lucy cried out in pain. Seth squeezed her hand. “Hold on, Lucy. An ambulance is on the way.”

“I can’t hold on.” She moaned in agony. “Oh, God!”

Seth fell to his knees beside the sofa. “Operator, things are not going well here.”

“Relax, sir, and tell me what’s happening.”

Before Seth could answer, Lucy said, “I’m going to have this baby right now!” She slid down on his sofa, with her feet flat on the cushion and her knees raised. Every inch of her shook, as if she’d been standing in the cold for hours. Her raincoat crackled and crunched from the nearly violent movement.

Seth said, “Operator, she just said she’s going to have this baby right now, and I believe her. I have two neighbors who are volunteer firemen.” He knew the volunteer firemen had paramedic training because he had considered joining the department himself. “So I think I’m going to hang up and see if I can get one of them to come over.”

He disconnected the call, and, phone in hand, ran to his office to get the number of the two brothers who lived down the street. Once he found it, he dialed quickly, then began running to the living room again.

“Mark,” he said when the older of the two brothers answered on the third ring. “This is Seth Bryant. I don’t have time to explain, but my ex-wife is having a baby in my living room. I need you right now! And I do mean right now!”

Without giving Mark a chance to answer, Seth clicked off the call and raced to the sofa again. Lucy lay groaning and Seth dropped the phone and started undoing the closures of her coat. “Let’s get this off.”

She nodded and he nimbly pushed the raincoat from her shoulders. When he began to ease it from beneath her, she caught his hand. “Don’t! Leave it for damage control.”

Seth laughed, but the laughter was more from nerves than humor. “Okay. Good thought.”

Lucy groaned again, digging her fingers into the edge of the sofa.

“Hang in there,” he said, straightening her coat beneath her. “Everything’s going to be okay. I called my neighbors who are paramedics.”

Lucy said, “Okay,” then panted a few breaths. Seth noticed that she hadn’t stopped squeezing the cushion and knew that what she had said was true. There was no time between the contractions.

“Mark and his brother live three houses down,” he said soothingly. “Nine chances out of ten they only have to jump into their shoes before they can jog up here. Any second now my doorbell will ring…”

She groaned again. Her knuckles whitened as she squeezed the sofa cushion more tightly. “Seth, I can feel the baby coming out.”

Not giving himself time to think, Seth reached under her skirt to remove her underpants. He heard the doorbell and prayed it was Mark. “In here,” he called, knowing he couldn’t leave Lucy to answer the door. But the wind howled, drowning out his voice.

He positioned himself between Lucy’s knees. “In here!” he yelled. “Come in!”

When he didn’t hear the sound of his front door opening he shouted, “In here!” as the child pushed free. Quickly, easily, the baby slid from Lucy and landed in Seth’s hands.

He just barely caught it. “Oh, my God!”

Mark and Ray ran into the room. Ray laughed. “Looks like we’re here just in time.”

Seth glanced down at the baby. His baby. His son.

A prince.

“Oh, my God.”

Seth watched the paramedics roll Lucy and the baby out of his house, down the sidewalk and to the driveway where the ambulance awaited. As they guided the gurney into the brightly lit vehicle, Seth closed his front door and started walking upstairs to get a shirt and shoes so he could join them at the hospital, but he had a quick second thought.

When he entered his bedroom, he grabbed the cell phone he had left on the cherrywood dresser with his wallet and change and dialed the home number for his personal attorney. As Pete Hauser’s phone rang, Seth walked to the window and pulled back the sheer curtain and saw the ambulance speed away in the rainy night.

“Pete?” he said. “This is Seth Bryant.”

“Seth? What are you doing calling at—” he paused and Seth assumed he’d glanced at a clock “—eleven-o’clock on a Friday night!”

Seth winced. “You were already in bed, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was! Tomorrow might be Saturday, but I still have clients.”

Seth winced again. “Sorry, but I have a big problem.”

“What’s up?” Pete asked, instantly alert at the mention of trouble.

“I have a son.”

“What?”

Seth took a quick breath. “Let me start at the beginning. Remember that I told you I had been married, but you didn’t need to worry because the marriage had been annulled and neither one of us wanted alimony or a settlement?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I was wrong when I said we didn’t need to worry. My ex-wife’s dad is a king…”

“Seth, is this one of your jokes?”

“No joke. The bottom line is that our marriage was annulled because Lucy was promised to someone else in a trade agreement…”

“Seth!”

“I’m serious, Pete. Hear me out. She was betrothed to someone when she was a child, and that’s a commitment as binding as a marriage in her country. So when her father found out about our marriage he told her our marriage wasn’t valid. She went to Xavier Island to straighten things out, but she never came back. Her father’s representative came to my door one day with the annulment papers I told you about that essentially said the marriage never happened. But tonight she showed up at my door and she was in labor. She actually had the baby on my sofa. But that’s not the point. The point is she’s an honest-to-God princess. Ty and I might have a bit of cash, but I’m guessing we can’t compete with these people.”

“You’re afraid she’s going to take the baby and you’ll never see him again?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, here’s what you do. Whatever it takes, you get her to stay in this country while I research the law and locate your best grounds for custody.”

“While you’re researching, Pete, keep in mind that my son is the first grandchild of the only child of a king.”

Seth’s lawyer gasped. “He’s an heir to a throne?”

“I’m guessing. I don’t know much about royalty and monarchies. I couldn’t tell you who gets to rule and who just waves from the carriage in parades. But I do know that Lucy is an only child, and I suspect that a baby’s being firstborn—to an only child—means something.”

“Okay. I’ll hit the books. You keep your princess here. In Arkansas, if possible.”

“It’s called a spontaneous delivery,” the emergency room doctor said, slapping Seth on the back. “Next baby, you’ll be ready.”