Page 151 of Wilde Flame

Caden frowned. “I better put some towels in my seat!”

We were soon in the truck and on our way to Granby, where the hospital was located.

“Did you call Gatlin?” I knew he was second on the list after the doctor.

“Fuck.”

Reaching for his phone, I looked for Gatlin’s name and stopped. “Ooh! Another contraction.”

“Mark the time you started in the notebook!” Caden said. He reached for the stopwatch and started it. “Almost thirty minutes apart. We’re good.”

“You may be good, but it’s starting to get uncomfortable.”

By the time we arrived in Granby, Caden’s entire family had been called, as well as my parents. My mother had texted me to ask whether they should come. We did a group text and told our families not to come just to sit in the hospital. Caden would call everyone once the baby was born.

“You doing okay?” I asked Caden, as he pulled up to the hospital.

He looked at me and smiled. “Yep! Let me go get someone to help us.”

Less than a minute later, a nurse rolled a wheelchair out. Caden opened the door and went to lift me out, when I laughed.

“Caden, I can get out of the truck.”

“Hang onto her, though,” the nurse said. “We don’t want her to slip and fall.”

I sat down in the chair and smiled up at Caden. “I’m okay, you can go park the truck.”

Looking uncertain, Caden asked, “Are you sure?”

“She’ll be fine while you park the truck. Labor and delivery is on the sixth floor, as I’m sure you know.”

Caden sprinted back to the truck and peeled out.

“I’m so sorry about that.”

The nurse laughed. “He’s actually pretty calm. Some of these dads come and they’re absolutely freaked out.”

I drew in a deep breath. “Oh boy, here comes another one.”

“Time apart?”

Looking at my phone, I swallowed hard. “Ten minutes now.”

“Okay, we’re going to get you straight into a room. Is this your first?”

I nodded. “It is. I thought labor was slow with your first.”

“It usually is, but you could stay at ten minutes for a good bit. Let’s get you upstairs and comfortable.”

I wasn’t sure how Caden did it, but he was up on the sixth floor in time for them to bring me into the room. The nurses got me changed and in bed with all the monitors hooked up.

“Here comes another one,” I said, as I started my breathing.

“How long has it been?” Caden asked, opening the notebook.

“I had a contraction when you were parking the truck.”

Caden’s face went white.