Page 89 of Expecting an Argument
“I got her!” Ashley called from the living room. “She’s in your purse!”
Tyson gently guided me off the porch and to the driveway while I counted the seconds between breaths so I wouldn’t fixate on how much pain I was in. The wheels of my suitcase thumped on the porch steps before Ashley threw it into her SUV.
“Hospital bag is loaded,” Ashley said, her keys jingling from her hand as she jogged to the driver’s side of the car. “And Mama Brady is coming in.”
Ashley gently set my purse on the floorboard at the passenger’s side of the SUV. Shakily, I lifted myself into the passenger seat and sat on a folded towel. Tyson buckled me in as Ashley started the engine.
“Be careful,” Tyson warned. “It’s dark and those country roads are dangerous.”
“Please,” Ashley said with a smile, “I used to top out at 100 miles per hour well after midnight when I would race the Murphy boys. I never wrecked once.”
Tyson’s eyes went wide and he gripped the handle of the passenger door. “Youwhat?”
She hummed. “Forgot you didn’t race with me back in high school. That’s what you get for having parents who cared.”
Reluctantly, Tyson closed the passenger door and took a step back.
“For Olivia’s sake,” he said, his voice muffled through the glass window, “don’t make it a bumpy ride!”
“Kay.” Ashley blew her husband a kiss. “Love you, babe!”
I gripped my belly with a wince as Ashley peeled out of her driveway and sped down the street. Even though I kept my eyesclosed, focusing on my babies’ every movement, I was pretty sure Ashley was running a few red lights and blowing through stop signs.
The ride smoothed as Ashley turned onto the familiar country road. She mumbled to herself about Beau asking her to drive out to the back pasture instead of the house and wondering if he had lost his mind.
My arms tightened around my bump when the pavement turned into grass and dirt.
“He can’t be serious,” Ashley said as the car slowed to a stop. “He’s high, or crazy, or both.”
I didn’t bother to open my eyes to see what she meant, nor did I even take a breath to ask. When the passenger door opened and two strong arms wrapped around me, I simply leaned toward the warm body that lifted me out of the car. I buried my face into his neck, breathing in the scent of his evergreen soap that made him smell like Christmas, and felt his heartbeat against the side of my ribs.
For one quiet moment, everything was all right.
Beau carried me a few steps before I heard Ashley’s car door slam.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ashley called as she stomped through the grass after us.
Beau’s voice reverberated in his chest. “I’m taking her to the hospital in the city—Dr. Ornelas was on call this weekend and she’s going to be waiting for us.”
“Inthat?”Ashley shouted.
I lifted my face off Beau’s shoulder and opened my eyes. Blinking red and white lights instantly flooded my vision, but I was able to make out the dark outline of a helicopter in the pasture.
I tensed and gripped his shoulders. “Beau! Are you crazy?”
“This is the fastest andsafestway we can get there,” Beausaid calmly as he approached the helicopter’s open door. “I promise, it won’t feel any different than the truck once we’re in the air.”
Ashley huffed out a breath as she struggled to keep up with Beau. “OK, asshole, enough with the fucking theatrics. Turn your ass around and put my best friend back in my car so I can take her to Parkland—”
A contraction ripped through me and I screamed. The growing pain clawed my cry back into my throat as I lost all air.
“Get me to the city,” I gasped once the pain relented. “I don’t care if you have to strap me to a rocket, just get me to Dr. Ornelas!”
Beau quickly ascended the step into the helicopter and took me through the open door. A second pair of hands reached out and took mine, guiding me to lie on the leather bench seat inside.
I blinked in the bright light from the helicopter’s interior and an eerily familiar face came into focus. Though he had red hair and blue eyes, and it would have been impossible because he would have been too young, the man who secured me to the seat and propped a small pillow under my head looked exactly like…
“Dad?” I asked wearily.
