‘‘Hang in there, sweetheart,’’ he told her, giving her forehead a kiss as he handed her back to her husband. He slammed the door shut and backed away as Annabelle took the bird up.
The noise of the rotors prevented him from hearing the engine of a car, so he was caught unaware when Luke and Maddie’s SUV roared out of the garage, then stopped in front of the house. Maddie came down the front porch steps, a daughter in each arm.
He ran for the car, reaching for his cell phone. He dialed the Brazos Bend hospital from memory. When the operator answered, he said, ‘‘The Callahans are en route by helicopter with a hemorrhaging woman, nine months pregnant. ETA approximately five minutes. Her doctor is—’’ He glanced at Maddie, who looked up from buckling one of the twins into the car seat.
‘‘Dr. Jarrell.’’
Mark repeated the name, then added, ‘‘Have a stretcher ready to meet them at touchdown and have the ER ready for her.’’
As Mark spoke into the phone, he heard Luke conversing with security guards on the radio. Two minutes after the helicopter took off and with Luke behind the wheel, Mark, Maddie, and the twins were on the road headed for town. The security firm’s SUV fell in behind them.
At that point, Mark asked, ‘‘What the hell happened?’’
Sitting in the backseat between her two fussing children, Maddie replied, ‘‘We were in the kitchen talking. Torie, Annabelle, and me. She was in labor, but wanted to wait a bit to say anything. She reached into the freezer for a bag of ice chips she had ready, and as she lifted the carton of Blue Bell, she gasped and bent over double and then the bleeding started. I was ready to run for the car, but Annabelle said, ‘No, we’ll take the helicopter.’ I was a basket case, but she stayed calm and controlled. Smart. I’m so glad she was there!’’
After a moment of quiet, Luke asked, ‘‘Torie hurt herself lifting a carton of ice cream?’’
Maddie said, ‘‘No. I imagine it’s a problem with the placenta.’’
Mark glanced back over his shoulder. He didn’t want to ask the question, but he and Luke needed to know what they could expect. ‘‘That’s what keeps the baby alive, isn’t it?’’
Maddie’s teeth tugged worriedly at her lower lip as she nodded.
Mark closed his eyes and prayed.
Once in a Philippine jungle, Annabelle hid beneath a pile of brush within spitting distance of the gun-toting terrorists searching for her with the intention to kill. Another time she’d faced three armed drug runners with rape on their brains, with only her wits as a weapon. She’d even climbed up onstage and sung in public at a USO show in Germany.
But never in her life had she been as afraid as she was at this very moment.
She couldn’t hear what Torie Callahan murmured over and over, but she could read the woman’s pale lips. ‘‘The baby. They have to save the baby.’’
Matt looked as if he’d been carved from stone.
‘‘That’s downtown?’’ Annabelle asked, spying a collection of buildings ahead.
‘‘Yeah.’’ Matt’s voice sounded gravelly and tight. ‘‘The hospital is that three-story building at two o’clock.’’
‘‘Got it.’’
‘‘There’s no helipad, but you can use the park area to the north of it for an LZ.’’
‘‘I’m all over it.’’ Seconds later, she was.
Annabelle spied the stretcher and people in hospital greens waiting as she brought the bird down gently. She glanced at her former brother-in-law, and his emotionless expression reminded her so much of Mark on the battlefield as he’d gathered himself seconds before entering a firefight. Her heart went out to him and his wife. ‘‘God be with you, Matthew,’’ she murmured as the stretcher arrived and a flurry of activity erupted.
Alone, she blew out a heavy breath, then methodically shut down the helicopter, flipping switches and turning dials with hands that betrayed a slight tremble. The coppery scent of blood tainted the air and suddenly, nausea rolled in her stomach and threatened to erupt. She threw open the door and stepped out into the fresh, just-cut-grass-scented air. She took three deep breaths and her stomach finally settled.
‘‘Wow,’’ she murmured. That was unusual. She’d wallowed in blood and gore more times than she could count, and she’d always had an iron stomach. But something made today’s event different from anything she’d ever experienced before.
That something, she thought, was love. Love had lived and breathed and swirled in the air of the cockpit during that short trip. Love—Matt’s for his wife and child, Torie’s for her husband and child—created a tangible force more powerful than any she’d witnessed on the battlefield.
A truth hung just beyond her reach. Something about Mark and the child he’d lost . . . about her and Mark and the child the two of them never created. Commitment. Love.
Fear of commitment.
Had she been just as guilty as Mark in that respect?
The sound of cars careening into the hospital parking lot jerked her back to the moment. As they approached the Emergency entrance, she jogged to meet them. The lead car screeched to a stop and doors flew open. Luke and Mark emerged from the SUV and shot her identical panicked hopeful looks. ‘‘So far, so good,’’ she reassured them.
As the bodyguards exited their vehicle, they looked to the Callahan brothers for orders. Seeing a way she could help, Annabelle took control. ‘‘Mark, you and Luke go on inside while I park the car. Maddie, stay with me and I’ll help you with the girls.’’ She gestured toward the bodyguards and said, ‘‘You guys are with us.’’
The Callahan brothers nodded and headed for the door. They spoke simultaneously when they said, ‘‘Hurry.’’
‘‘We will,’’ Maddie assured them as Annabelle climbed into the driver’s seat. Once the doors were closed and Annabelle put the SUV into gear, she asked, ‘‘Was that the truth? She made it there alive?’’
‘‘Yes. Torie was holding on.’’ Annabelle licked her lips and added, ‘‘I don’t know about the baby, though.’’
‘‘Oh, God.’’
‘‘That’s nothing necessarily bad,’’ Annabelle hastened to say as she pulled the vehicle into a parking spot. ‘‘I truly know nothing. You have more experience with this sort of thing than I.’’
Maddie shrugged as she released her own seat belt, then attended to one of the twins. ‘‘My experience says this is a bad thing. We should know by the time we get inside. Let’s hope our guys greet us at the door with news of a healthy C-section birth. If not—dear God—I don’t think any of us will be able to bear it.’’
She passed Samantha to Annabelle, then pinned her with a warning gaze and said, ‘‘And, Annabelle? If the worst happens? I don’t care what problems you and Mark have had in the past—you’ll need to be there for him. Mark would take the loss of another Callahan baby extra hard.’’
Annabelle momentarily bristled at the implied criticism, then shrugged it off. If she were in Maddie’s shoes, she’d probably say the same thing. ‘‘He may not be my husband anymore, but Mark is still my teammate. I won’t abandon him on the battlefield or in a hospital waiting room.’’
Maddie gave a brief smile. ‘‘I like you, Annabelle. I truly do. Now, let’s nut up and go see what sort of trouble we’re facing.’’
‘‘Nut up?’’ Annabelle repeated.
Again, a quick smile. ‘‘A girl’s gotta grow a pair if she’s gonna hang with the Callahan boys.’’ Then Maddie glanced toward the security guys who’d pulled up next to them. ‘‘Are we good to go?’’
‘‘Yes, ma’am,’’ the guard wearing a cowboy hat and aviator sunglasses replied. ‘‘My partner here will lead the way.’’
Annabelle’s pulse pounded as they approached the hospital and she experienced a moment of déjà vu. This time it wasn’t her family waiting within the hospital walls, but Mark’s. It didn’t make it much easier, she decided.
‘‘I’m getting tired of hospitals,’’ she said to the little girl currently batting at Annabelle’s hoop earring. ‘‘Let’s just hope this visit turns out as good as the last one, though, and I’ll be happy.’’
The automatic doors whooshed open. Annabelle let Maddie lead the way. She took a corridor to the left that led them to a nurses’ station. ‘‘Torie Callahan?’’
A nurse looked up from a chart. ‘‘They took her straight into delivery.’’
‘‘Thanks.’’ Maddie jerked her head to the right. ‘‘This way.’’
She led them through a maze of corridors to an area whose sign read BRAZOS BEND WOMEN’S CENTER. ‘‘The labor and delivery waiting room is at the end of this hall,’’ Maddie informed them. As they approached the doorway she’d indicated, Maddie reached out and gripped Annabelle’s free hand.
Mark and Luke paced an otherwise empty waiting room. At the women’s entry, they looked up. Identical faces wore identical expressions of abject worry. Annabelle’s stomach sank and Maddie squeezed her hand even tighter, then asked, ‘‘Any news?’’
Mark and Luke shared a look. Then Mark cleared his throat and replied, ‘‘They were going to deliver the baby right away. It should be over with by now. The fact that we haven’t heard . . . that Matt hasn’t let us know . . .’’
‘‘Oh, dear Jesus,’’ Maddie said. She went to her husband and gave him a one-armed hug. When that wasn’t enough for either of them, she set her toddler on the floor and embraced him fully.
Upon seeing her sister free to roam, the girl in Annabelle’s arms started squirming. She set her down beside her sister, then crossed the room to Mark. ‘‘Can you use a hug, too?’’
He opened his arms. ‘‘C’mere.’’
The minutes dragged by like hours until a woman appeared in the doorway. Her expression serious, her tone guarded, she asked, ‘‘Callahan family?’’
‘‘Shit,’’ Mark muttered.
‘‘Fuck,’’ Luke said.
Maddie sank into a chair.
Annabelle stepped forward. ‘‘Yes? That’s us.’’
‘‘My name is Linda. Your brother has asked you to join him. If you’ll come with me?’’
Mark’s voice emerged in a croak. ‘‘Torie? How’s Torie?’’
‘‘And the baby?’’ Luke added.
Linda said, ‘‘Mrs. Callahan is still in surgery. We need to go this way.’’
Mark shot Annabelle a look filled with fear. None of them had overlooked the fact that the nurse had avoided the question about the baby.
‘‘Let’s get this over with,’’ Luke said grimly, clasping his wife’s hand and all but dragging her toward the door.
‘‘The girls . . . ,’’ Maddie protested.
Annabelle was torn. She hated to leave Mark—that tick in his jaw told her he needed her—but . . . ‘‘I’ll stay and watch them.’’
‘‘We can handle the little-bits,’’ one of the bodyguards, picking up on the problem, said. ‘‘I have three of my own. You go on. We’ll be fine.’’
Maddie nodded, and the four of them followed Nurse Linda through a pair of swinging metal doors and down a hallway. She stopped in front of a door and gestured them inside.
Luke and Maddie entered first. Annabelle heard Maddie gasp. Mark all but crushed her fingers with his hand as they stepped into the room.
Matt Callahan stood framed by a window, sunlight haloed around him, a single tear rolling down his face. He held a child cradled in his arms.
The newborn wore a little blue cap and he sucked the middle two fingers of his right hand. Matt cleared his throat and said, ‘‘He’s healthy. He’s perfect. We’re naming him John.’’
Mark wondered if his heart might just pound right out of his chest. He cleared his throat. ‘‘Torie?’’
‘‘They made me leave. I don’t know what’s going on. The only reason they let me see the baby being born is that everything happened so damned fast they didn’t kick me out in time.’’ He closed his eyes and added, ‘‘This is America. She can’t die having a baby in America.’’
‘‘She’s not going to die,’’ Maddie declared fiercely. ‘‘Not because this is America, but because she is Torie. Think about it, Matt. Your wife is stubborn, she’s a fighter, and she has wanted to be a mother for so long. Add all that to the fact that she’s head over heels in love with you—she won’t let this beat her. I know it in my soul.
‘‘Now. Let me see my nephew.’’ She stepped forward next to Matt and smiled down at the baby. ‘‘Ah, he’s beautiful, Matt. Look at that little bow-shaped mouth! Hello, Johnny. I’m your auntie Maddie.’’
Then she looked up at her husband and said, ‘‘We need to call Branch.’’
‘‘Shit.’’ Luke’s troubled gaze locked in on Mark. ‘‘I know we don’t talk about him to you, but he’s made a real turnaround since our girls were born.’’
‘‘He’s old, Mark,’’ Maddie added. ‘‘Old and sad and filled with regrets he’s trying to fix before he dies.’’
Mark felt Annabelle’s hand slip into his in a silent show of support. He knew they wouldn’t call him if he said no. They hadn’t called on the way to the hospital, partly because of the rush, true, but Mark knew it was partly because of him, too. They put his feelings first.
When Matt glanced up from his baby’s face, his expression bearing the sign of one burden too many, Mark knew the time had come to return the favor. For Matt. For Torie. For Luke and Maddie.
Well, crap. Here he was smack-dab in the middle of Brazos Effing Bend, Texas, the one place in the world he’d sworn never to visit again. What was one more broken vow?
‘‘I’ll call him.’’
Under other circumstances, the shock on his family members’ faces would have made him smile. Right now, though, he had to suck it up and swallow the poison on behalf of the people he loved.
And as Annabelle gave his hand a hard squeeze, he silently added,
Hell. And maybe, just maybe, for me, too.
He stepped out into the hallway to make the call, dialing the number from memory. Some things you never forgot.
It rang four times before the old fart said, ‘‘Hello?’’
Mark’s reaction was instant and visceral. For a moment, he couldn’t force the words past the knot of anger that lodged in his throat.
‘‘Who’s there?’’ Branch Callahan demanded.
Mark heaved out a sigh. ‘‘This is Mark. Torie had a problem and she’s in surgery. The doctor delivered her baby. He’s fine. We’re in the maternity waiting room. I’ll call the security company and have your driver bring you here. How soon can you be ready?’’