Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (6 page)

Emma began to laugh.

“Maybe a Snickers. Or wait! Some sesame sticks. Do we have any of those left? And do they really represent my full need for a snack?”

Reaching over the back of the seat, Emma slapped at the air in front of Sherilyn. “All right. I get it. I’ll make a decision soon. I promise.”

“Will you? Will you, really?” Sherilyn asked. “Because there’s no hurry or anything. I can always finish up these pesky wedding details from the delivery room.”

“The cake is my thing,” Emma reminded her. “You just worry about the rest of it.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll do that. It’s not like it matters if everything fits together with some cohesive—”

“Sheesh, Sher!” Emma cried. “Hormonal much?”

“Oooookay!” Fee exclaimed. “That’s enough of that, or I’ll leave you two by the side of the road to duke it out.”

Sherilyn growled loudly, and Emma laughed at her, pushing off her sandals and propping her feet on the dashboard as she closed her eyes.

“Ooh, you know what I have a taste for?” Sherilyn asked them, and Emma moaned. “Remember that fudge Pearl told us about?”

“Anton’s secret recipe?” Emma teased.

“Yes. It sounded like heaven, didn’t it?”

“Yes. But you heard Pearl. To get that recipe, you’ll have to,” Emma began, and Fee joined her as they completed it in stereo, “—pry it out of his cold, dead hands.”

They all laughed, and Sherilyn began to whine, “But it sounded amazing, didn’t it? Did she say it had marshmallows in it?”

“Marshmallow cream,” Fee corrected.

“Ohhh,” she whimpered. “I need chocolate. Do either of you have any chocolate?”

Emma shoved the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and tuned her friend out, deciding instead to simply trust Fee to steer them home.

Four hours and five bathroom stops later, Sherilyn groaned again, this time with a slight whistle to it, and she followed it up with quick, noisy puffs of frantic breathing.

“Need another backrub?” Emma asked without turning around.

Her indecipherable reply came through more puffs.

“Sher?”

When Emma twisted to peer into the back seat, Sherilyn’s wide turquoise eyes looked back at her from within a completely bunched-up face.

“Are you all right?”

Sherilyn shook her head with frenzied distress.

“No?”

She shook her head again, gripping her enormous belly with both hands.

“Oh, Sher. No.”

Sherilyn nodded with the same frenzy.

“It’s time? But there’s still three weeks!”

Sherilyn’s expression turned almost demonic, driving Emma’s immediate apology: “Okay, sorry. So we’re early.”

Emma and Fee looked at each other for a resolution that neither of them had.

“How far are we from home?” Fee asked.

Emma checked out the scenery flying past them. “About twenty minutes. Sher? Can you wait twenty minutes?”

Sherilyn replied with a defeated shrug, followed by the shake of her head. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Okay.” Emma struggled to control her own breathing before urging Sherilyn to do the same. “Take slow, easy breaths, all right? Slow and easy.” Turning to Fee, she whispered, “Step on it.”

The motor revved as Fee complied.

She fumbled with her purse and pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Andy. It’s Emma.”

“Hey, Emma,” he replied, clueless.

“We’re about twenty minutes from Roswell,” she told him, “and I think Sherilyn is in labor.”

After a brief silence, Sherilyn’s husband, clueless no more, raised the pitch of his voice several octaves as he shouted at her. “I’ll call the doctor. I’ll meet you at the hospital. Is she all right? Can I talk to her?”

Emma glanced back at Sherilyn and made an executive decision. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at the moment, Andy. We’ll see you at the emergency room as soon as we can. Call the doctor first. Remember that her bag is packed and tucked behind the driver’s seat of your car. It has her iPod in it, and she’ll need that. We programmed it with relaxation songs . . . and a little Seger. Meet us there, all right? Are you able to meet us there?”

“Okay. Okay. She’s not driving, is she?”

“Of course not. Fee’s behind the wheel.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“Fee?”

“Yes! Pass the phone to her, Emma.”

She did, and Fee answered tentatively. “Hello?” Emma heard the hum of Andy’s very loud voice from the other side
of the front seat. “Yes, okay,” Fee said after a moment. “Dude. Chill. I’ve got this.”

“Uh . . . Emma?”

Emma looked back at Sherilyn, whose eyes were wider than she’d ever seen them before. The look of sheer panic as she glanced down at her belly caused Emma to follow suit.

“Your water broke?”

Sherilyn nodded, and her eyes puddled with tears.

“Her water broke,” Emma told Fee as she flicked the buckle on her seat belt and tossed it aside. Heaving her entire body up and over the armrest, she awkwardly crawled through the small opening between the seats.

“What are you—
youch!!
—What’re you doing? I’m driving here!” Fee cried as Emma used Fee’s shoulder as a push-off point to catapult into the backseat beside Sherilyn.

“It’s going to be all right,” she promised, rubbing Sherilyn’s rigid hand where it lay clamped to her belly. “Just relax. You’re doing fine, and we’ll be there very soon. Does it hurt?”

“Only at the beginning of the pains. I just thought I’d eaten too much bologna at breakfast.”

“You had bologna for breakfast?”

“I had a taste for it.”

“Where did you get bologna?”

Sherilyn’s wide eyes flashed suddenly, and she began pushing out short puffs of air through clenched teeth.

“Contraction?” Emma asked.

Sherilyn nodded again and, before she knew it, Emma had joined her in the strange rhythmic ritual.

“Chhoo-chhoo-chhoo-chhoo.”

She checked the clock on the dashboard as Sherilyn muttered Emma’s name and squeezed her hand so tightly that Emma’s entire body coiled into it. She pressed both feet against the back of Fee’s seat.

“Hey!” Fee exclaimed.

“Sorry.”

Tendrils of moist red hair framed Sherilyn’s pale white face, and Emma smoothed them back with her free hand as she whispered words of comfort to her friend.

“It’s all right, Sher . . . We’re almost there . . . You’re doing great.”

Once the contraction appeared to pass, Emma scanned the surroundings beyond the car window. “We’re just a few minutes out,” she told Sherilyn softly. “Just hang in there, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed. “Is Andy meeting us there?”

“He shouldn’t be too long after us.”

“Oh, good. I’ll bet he’s . . .” Sherilyn gasped. “
Fraaaaan-tic
.”

“Another one?” Emma asked, and she checked the clock again.

“Emmm-mma,” Sherilyn squealed.

“I know. I know. Just hang on, sweetie. Hang on.”

Emma perked up when she saw the square sign with a large
H
in the middle. At last, North Fulton Hospital, right around the corner.

“When Fee stops out front, you stay right here, okay?” she instructed Sherilyn. “I’ll get a wheelchair and push it right up to the car door. You just keep on breathing, okay?”

Sherilyn shot her a frenzied nod. “Chhoo-chhoo-chhoo-chhoo.”

“Good girl.”

The tires squealed as they flew past the blue-and-white entrance sign toward the emergency room. The Explorer hadn’t come to a full stop when Emma threw open the door and jumped from the backseat into a full run.

“Wheelchair,” she shouted at the woman behind the desk. “Pregnant woman in labor. I need a wheelchair!”

Before the nurse had a chance to reply, Emma spotted an empty wheelchair parked near the entrance. She jogged toward it, flicked off the brakes and pulled it behind her as she ran out the door.

“Here,” she said, breathless. “Can you get out?”

Sherilyn nodded, and she flung her legs out of the back seat. But instead of rushing into the chair, she stopped and stared at it.

“What are you waiting for?” Emma asked her. “Let’s go.”

“Emma, what kind of wheelchair is that? I think that’s made for a child.”

“So? What’s the difference?”

“That tiny seat,” Sherilyn declared, wielding a pointed finger at the chair. Turning her hand, she added, “And this enormous butt. Never the twain shall meet!”

Emma’s blood pressure shot up, and her ears began to ring. “Put that massive butt into this chair right now, Sherilyn Drummond, or I will fling you over my shoulder and
carry you
inside. Is that the way you want to do it? Because I will!”

“Fine.”

Sherilyn pouted at her as she stepped out of the car and wedged into the wheelchair. Emma groaned as she pushed the chair through the arch and into the hospital.

“Her water broke a while ago, and her contractions are about four minutes apart,” Emma instructed as a male nurse moved into position behind the wheelchair. “Her husband has paged Dr. Caldwell, and they both should be here very soon.”

Emma snagged Sherilyn’s purse from her arms. “I’m going to give them your insurance information while they get you settled. Is there anything you need?”

Sherilyn nodded.

“Okay.” Emma squeezed the nurse’s arm, and the wheelchair came to a stop. “What is it?”

“If I can’t get my hands on some of that fudge Pearl was telling us about—”

“And you can’t.”

“Right. But remember that girl from Rhode Island? She got married in the courtyard, and her husband works at the zoo?”

Emma’s eyes narrowed. Curious, she cocked her head slightly. “Loretta?”

“Right! Loretta.”

“You . . . want me to . . . call Loretta? Why?”

“Oh, no. But remember that wedding cake you made for them? It was cheesecake, but it was all chocolate?”

“Y-yeah. What about it?”

“I need some of that.”

Emma groaned. “Go ahead,” she told the male nurse, and she tapped his arm a couple of times.

“Something chocolate, then,” Sherilyn called over her shoulder. “I don’t care what. But I really want something—”

The doors closed behind them, muffling the rest of Sherilyn’s plea.

“—
chocolate!!
”

Emma’s
Oh-You-Better-LOVE-Chocolate
Cheesecake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
.

9-ounce package of chocolate wafers
1 tablespoon sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter

Grease a 9-inch springform pan.
Blend the chocolate wafers until they are finely ground.
Mix wafer crumbs with sugar and add the melted butter.
Press the crumbs onto the bottom of the pan.
Bake for about 5 minutes until the crumbs are set,
and put aside to cool.

10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, broken into pieces
4 8-ounce packages cream cheese at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 eggs

Melt the chocolate until smooth, and cool slightly.
Blend cream cheese, sugar, and cocoa powder with mixer.
Add eggs and continue to mix.
Mix in the warm chocolate.
Pour filling over the crumb crust and smooth the top.
Bake for approximately 1 hour, until the center appears set.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for about
10 minutes.

Run a cool knife around the sides, cover,
and refrigerate overnight.

¾ cup whipping cream
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, broken into pieces
1 tablespoon sugar

Stir ingredients over low heat until smooth, and cool slightly.
Pour over the center of the cheesecake, out to about ½ inch
from edges.
Chill for 2 hours, then let stand at room temperature for
1 hour before serving.

It’s a girl.”

“That’s great,” Jackson muttered into the phone. “Really, that’s great. What time is it?”

“I don’t even know,” Emma told him. “It looks like the sun is yet to come up though.”

Jackson squinted at the alarm clock on the cherry nightstand. “Almost four thirty,” he told her. “Will you go home and get some sleep?”

“Can’t,” she said. “Although I’d love nothing more than a couple of aspirin and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, I promised Sherilyn I’d stay a while. And I’ve got some interns coming in at nine to help us finish up the cookie favors for the Bristol bridal shower.”