He Left Me in the Snow for Her Labor, So I Delivered It novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Board

At Lakeview, the only maternity unit open, Ines finds Sabine Rowe on the board with Bram listed as her partner, refuses to hand her off, and kisses Roderick in Stairwell B until her pager goes off.

The plow let us off at the ambulance bay at a quarter past ten.

The driver pulled the lever, and the door swung open on a wall of blowing snow and the red lights over the emergency entrance.

"Hey," she said to me as I climbed down. "Whatever he did, it wasn't a mile of that road's worth."

I hadn't told her anything.

"Thank you for stopping," I said.

"Get inside, Doctor. Get warm."

Roderick came down behind me and shut the plow door, and the big orange machine pulled away with my ring in its coin tray.

I didn't look back at it.

The fourth floor was quiet, because the weather had closed every other door.

Four nurses were working a unit built for twelve, and the board behind the desk was full of names in blue marker.

The charge nurse looked up, saw me, and put her hand flat on her chest.

"Oh, thank God. I told them you'd walk here if you had to."

"I nearly did," I said. "Who's in?"

"Six in labor, two on the antepartum side, and the resident is covering the whole floor alone." She slid the tablet across the desk. "You're the only attending in the building, Dr. Maldonado. The other OB broke her wrist on the ice at noon."

I read down the board, name by name.

Fourth from the top, in blue marker, it said: ROWE, S. 28. G1P0. 39w. 4 cm. Partner: B. Pollard.

I read it twice.

The charge nurse was watching my face, and I kept it still.

"Which room is Rowe?"

"Eleven. She came in at ten to ten with her partner. They drove in themselves. He's out in the family lounge now." She dropped her voice. "He's very loud."

"Is there anything about her I should know?"

"She's pleasant. She's scared. First baby." The charge nurse tilted her head. "Why?"

"I'm asking because I'm the only OB," I said. "I'll see her chart before I see anyone."

"Do you want to hand her to the senior? He's good."

I thought of the Subaru, a mile and a half back in the dark with its hazards ticking.

"No one else is coming," I said. "Not with the Thruway closed. I'm not leaving a woman in labor with a resident because of who she's sleeping with."

I had not meant to say that out loud.

The charge nurse's face changed, and she said nothing.

"Understood," she said, very gently.

I walked to the end of the hall to the family lounge, where the long glass wall looks out at the elevators.

Bram was on the sofa in his camel coat, his legs stretched out, his phone in his hand.

He was typing something and smiling a little at the screen.

He had left me on a road in a blizzard an hour and a half ago, and he was texting someone with a smile.

My phone buzzed in my pocket as soon as it found the hospital's signal.

It was him: Hey. You okay? Tow truck get there? Call me when you can.

I looked at the message, and I looked at him through the glass.

He didn't know I was twenty feet away.

He couldn't have imagined it.

I put the phone away without answering.

Someone put a hand on the small of my back.

It was a light touch, just three fingers, and I knew who it was without turning around.

"Not here," Roderick said quietly.

He walked past me and pushed open a heavy gray door beside the elevators, and held it for me.

Stairwell B.

I went through it, and the door closed on the hall behind us with a long sigh.

It was cold in the stairwell, and the concrete walls gave back every sound.

A bare bulb burned at the landing.

Roderick stood with his back to the door, his parka open, his hands hanging at his sides.

"You don't have to do anything about it tonight," he said. "You can sit in here. I'll stand outside."

"He's twenty feet away," I said. "He's smiling at his phone."

"I know. I saw."

"She's in room eleven. She's in labor with his child. And he told her I was nothing, or he told her nothing, or I don't know." I stopped.

"Ines."

It was the first time he had ever said my first name.

My hand went to his chest on its own, flat on the scrub top over his heart, where it had been in the plow.

It was still pounding.

"You're warm," I said, which was a stupid thing to say.

"Yes."

"I haven't been warm since the car."

He didn't move.

"I'm not going to touch you unless you say so," he said. "I'd like to. I want that said."

Something low in my belly clenched hard, and I stepped up against him and put my mouth on his.

He made a sound I hadn't heard a man make before, a rough breath dragged up from somewhere deep.

Then his hands were on my face, and his mouth opened mine.

He kissed me slow for about two seconds, and then he stopped being slow.

My back hit the concrete wall, and he pressed against me from chest to knee, and I felt him through two layers of cotton, hard against my hip.

I had not been wanted like that in years, and it went through me, hot and fast.

His hand slid under my scrub top and flattened on my bare waist.

It was hot, and rough from scrubbing, and it moved up my ribs until his thumb rested under my breast.

"Say it," I said against his mouth. "Say what you want."

"Everything," Roderick said. "I want everything, here, right now, and I know I can't."

I dragged his hand the rest of the way up.

His thumb found my nipple through my bra, and my head hit the wall.

"Dr. Maldonado, you're shaking," he murmured against my neck.

"It's cold."

"It isn't that cold."

I laughed, a wet furious laugh, and bit his jaw.

My pager went off on my hip.

We both froze with his hand on my breast and my leg hooked around his thigh.

I looked at the screen.

Rowe, room 11. 5 cm. Resident requesting attending to review the strip.

Roderick's chest rose and fell against mine.

"Hours," I said, shaking it off. "She'll be hours. First baby."

"Then you have hours," he said, and he pulled his hand out from under my shirt and tugged the fabric back down over my stomach.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend