Her Wedding Dress novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Four Pounds

Autumn's POV

"One more," said the doctor at the foot of the bed. "Autumn, one more and she's out."

"You said that three pushes ago."

"I'm a liar," the doctor said cheerfully. "Push."

Rhett was at my shoulder.

His cheekbone had gone purple from Clifton's fist, and he had not taken his hand out of mine since the car.

He had not told me anything would be fine.

I had noticed that, somewhere around the second hour.

Every other man in my life would have said it.

"You're doing it," he said instead. "I can see her head. Autumn, she has hair."

"She has hair?"

"Dark. A lot of it."

I bore down and screamed, and my nails went into his palm.

Then something let go.

There was a sound I didn't recognize, thin and furious and wet.

"Girl," the doctor said. "Look at that. Four pounds, give or take, and angry."

They held her up for a moment, red and slick, with her fists in the air.

Then the nurses took her.

"Where are they going?" I tried to sit. "Rhett. Where is she going?"

"To the special nursery. It's what we expected. She needs to be warm and watched, because she's early."

"Is she breathing?"

"She's breathing on her own. She's crying. That's the best sound in the building."

I put my head back on the pillow.

I was shaking all over.

He bent and pressed his forehead to my hair, and neither of us said anything.

At six in the morning a nurse came in.

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