Closing Costs by Liz Crowe Read Free Book Online Page B

I am her father, former head of obstetrics at this hospital, and I want her upstairs in an operating room." Dr. Thornton blustered.
    Jack just looked at Sara, running a hand over her hair. She locked in on him. "Listen to me Sara." He kept his voice low, adopting a tone he knew she'd recognize. "You have to relax. Roll up on your side. These guys are trying to help you." She groaned and closed her eyes.
    "I can't. Make it stop Jack. Please…oh God…" her body tensed and she grabbed his arm.
    "Sara, I mean it. Open your eyes and look at me." She did, and the pain he saw in them made his teeth ache. "Take a breath, keep your eyes on mine, and roll towards me. I won't let go of you, I promise."
    As her father and the ER doctor argued about seizure meds and placentas, Jack forced himself to stay calm, keep his eyes still and fixed on hers. She winced, then rolled. He put a hand on her belly.
    "That's it baby. Relax. Let them do what they need to do," he frowned when she flinched and cried out but kept up his stream of soothing noises. Craig nodded at him, indicating whatever needed doing had been done. She stuck out a shaking hand, touched his face. He saw her fingers come away wet.
    "All right all you lot, out of here now. This is my patient, and there are too fucking many people in my way." Jack swallowed hard, kissed her dry lips and stood.
    "No." She whispered. "Stay. Please."
    "Sara," her father's voice broke the moment. "Lie back. Let them get your baby out. He's not doing well. Do you understand sweetheart? We have about five minutes to get him out or..."
    Jack turned to the tall, imposing man who, he knew, would just as soon stab Jack through the heart as acknowledge he might the father of his grandchild. "I'm staying." He surprised himself. He did not do blood, or even emergencies that required medical professionals, if he could avoid them. But he squared his shoulders and glared at Sara's father. Her loud groan made them both look down at her. Craig crouched down on her other side. She gripped his hand.
    "I'm…so tired." Her eyelids fluttered. "Can I sleep? Please?"
    The attending doc nodded to a nurse who pushed Craig aside. "No Sara. You have to stay awake." They draped her lower body with blue paper. Jack held one hand and Craig the other. Within what felt like seconds of them talking to her, keeping her conscious, there was as high, thin wail. Jack's scalp tingled as he looked up to see a slimy, pink body pulled from the tented area around her stomach. His heart clenched nearly making him forget his lifelong phobia about hospitals and all the mess they held.
    "Sara?" Craig's voice startled him. He looked down in time to see her eyes close just before the monitors in the room sent up a cacophony of noise. A team of scrub-suited people rushed in shoving all of them aside. Sara's father started to talk but Jack pulled him out the way. The three of them stood, silently watching the doctors revive her, the whole thing making him weak in the knees.
    He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor just as Sara's mom came rushing down the hall. Finally, the beeping leveled off and the team backed away. Her father rushed back in but Jack stayed frozen, his gaze fixed on Sara's face as her eyes flickered open.
    Thank God.
    Craig stood by the table where a nurse wiped off the small form. "May I?" he heard the man ask and watched as he lifted a tiny, blanket wrapped bundle into his arms.
    "It's a girl." Sara's mother knelt down and pressed her lips to Jack's cheek before he put his head on his hands and let tears slip down to the floor. "Both are fine, but Sara has to stay in the ICU a day or so. Go get some air." She pulled him up. Blake and Rob came rushing around the corner.
    He made a straight line to the bed, beating her brother by a couple of steps. Sara's eyes were barely focusing, but he touched her face and she looked at him. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "Such drama."
    "That's all you, Sara. Always gotta be the