Pregnant for His Lover's Cure, I Sent Him a Jar and Divorce Papers novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Four Minutes Apart

Declan held me up through the emergency doors of the hospital where he had trained, and a woman in navy scrubs met us halfway with a wheelchair.

"Four minutes?" she said.

"Closer," Declan said. "Thirty-three weeks, no rupture yet, first baby."

"Labor and delivery, now."

I rode the elevator with my eyes shut and my fingers locked in his shirt.

The room on the fourth floor was small and warm, with a window onto the parking structure and a clock on the wall.

They put a belt around my belly and a clip on my finger.

The obstetrician came in, a tall woman with grey in her braid, and shook Declan's hand warmly.

"Where's the neonatal team?" he said.

"Already on their way. Thirty-three weeks is not what we'd choose, but she'll be fine, Declan. They do wonders with thirty-three."

"She's not delivering tonight if I can stop it."

"I'm going to try to stop it," the obstetrician agreed. "Ms. Sutherland, I need you to breathe through the next one."

I breathed through it, and it went on and on.

The medicine went into my arm, and the room settled, and the belt traced a soft line of peaks that spread wider and wider apart.

At midnight the doctor said, "Good. She's resting. Sleep if you can."

I didn't sleep.

I lay with Declan's hand over mine on my belly and watched the clock.

At twenty past one, a nurse came into the room and shut the door behind her.

I knew her.

She had a lanyard on and no badge photo, and her voice was the one on my phone from the night in Ojai.

"I'm sorry to wake you," she said. "I'm the one who called you from the registry."

"You work here?" Declan said.

"I'm contracted. I rotate between the two." She was pale. "Mr. Ellery's assistant didn't cancel the kit. The thirty-fourth week order is still in the system, and it's pulled up because you were admitted here. They've sent a courier. He's in the lobby, with the cooler."

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