Jill Shalvis - Instant Gratification

“Are you kidding?” She was going through her bag. “The people here look at me like I’m an alien. I was considering cutting off my own finger for something to treat.”

Ah, there it was. His opening, which he unabashedly took. “So you should be thanking me for bringing you something exciting.”

“A baby,” she murmured, definitely not thanking him. “On the trail. Good Lord.” She sighed. “Definitely not in New York anymore, Dorothy.”

He laughed, something he’d done far too little of lately-which meant Dr. Emma wasn’t just good for erotic dreams, but maybe…just maybe something more as well.

Stone drove with a controlled speed and intensity that rivaled any cabbie Emma had ever met. In the city, crazy driving had never bothered her for some reason, but here in the remote wild, wild west, with nothing but trees, trees and more trees surrounding them, it seemed more than a little terrifying.

Stone took a hard turn and she slid in her seat against the constraints of the seatbelt. Not her driver. Nope, Stone leaned with the car-though he did wince, probably his ribs-and continued driving without missing a beat.

She watched him. Actually, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him. His jeans were clearly beloved old friends, soft-looking and faded. There was a rip over one knee and the opposite thigh, which brought her attention to his long legs folded even in the large cab of his truck. His long-sleeved performance jersey was shoved up to his elbows and read Wilder Adventures over one hard pec. His arms, tanned and sinewy, flexing as he worked the wheel over the roads, still had medical wrap covering the worst of his cuts and scrapes.

Luckily the dirt roads, narrow and curvy as they were, were at least in fairly decent condition. They’d had a lot of precipitation lately. She’d caught the tail end of an unreal spring firsthand, which had caused all the thick, impenetrable growth on either side of the road.

A little too Twilight Zone for her taste, even in the middle of the day. The air smelled like fresh pine and dirt, and at this altitude, felt hotter than hell as it blew in the opened windows. Stone glanced at her and caught her looking at him.

“You’re tough to read,” he said.

“What are you trying to figure out?”

“The last time I saw you, you saw a whole hell of a lot of me.”

“True.”

“I was just thinking that you must have some reaction to seeing me naked before we’ve even shared a coffee…”

Yes. Yes, she’d had a reaction. A very private one. “That was my job.”

He nodded. “And sharing a coffee-”

“Would be a major mistake.”

“Why?”

Because I keep picturing you naked. “Because I don’t mix business and pleasure.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

He took a hard right and headed up a narrow fire road.

“Where are we going?”

“Up past the summit, which is where TJ took Neely and Lilah, our clients.”

As they climbed, and as the road narrowed even more, with the wild growth on either side closing in on them, Emma gripped the console as he sped them around a tight corner on the dirt road, nearly getting some air beneath the tires.

He shot her another glance, his eyes touching on her white-knuckled grip on the dash. “You okay?”

“I’ll let you know if you get me there alive.” She pried her gaze off the road and studied his face. He was totally at ease, his big, scraped-up hands on the wheel. The wound over his eye was covered with several large Band-Aids, his apparent fix-all for everything. The stitching didn’t appear inflamed or swollen but he had shadows under his eyes. “And you?” she asked. “How are you feeling?”

“Peachy.”

“Liar. You look like hell.”

“Aw, thanks.”

“Ibuprophen? Icing? Rest?”

Instead of answering, he pulled his vibrating cell phone from his pocket and pushed TALK.

TJ’s voice filled the cab. “Where the fuck are you, over?”

“On my way.” Stone glanced at Emma. “With the doc, over.” He sped up a little, wincing as they took a tight corner and he had to shift.

Yeah, definitely his ribs. “So?” she pressed. “Advil at least?”

“Yeah, I’ve taken plenty of good old Vitamin A, not that it’s helped. As for resting? Hasn’t happened.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t have the time, not with Cam in the Andes and TJ accepting every trip that comes our way.” He flashed a grim smile. “Being a mountain bum is hard work.”

“You need rest to heal, Stone”

“Yeah, I’ll get around to that.” He pulled the truck into the small clearing at the top of the hill next to a Jeep with the Wilder logo on the side. “But for now, let’s have a baby.”

As Stone and Emma got out of the truck, a woman screamed, and every single hair on Stone’s body stood straight up. “It’s killing her.”

Emma didn’t respond. Whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself as she moved quickly but calmly, her face cool and quiet.

Her game face.

Man, she’d gotten grace and poise in spades, he thought, following her to the front of the Jeep, where on the ground, on a large blanket overlooking the entire valley below, lay a woman writhing in pain, another woman kneeling at her side.

TJ was there too, but he came toward Stone, heading him off, looking pale and shaky.

“How the hell did you not know one of them was pregnant?” Stone asked him.

“She hid it under a big sweatshirt.” TJ shoved his fingers through his hair. “I had no clue. What about you? You’re the one who took their applications.”

“Sorry, but we don’t have the ‘are you pregnant’ question on the forms.”

“It doesn’t matter how it happened now.” TJ let down the tailgate of Stone’s truck and sat heavily. “It happened.”

From the ground, Lilah screamed again. Both brothers jumped.

“She planned this,” TJ whispered in horror. “She wanted this. They’re a couple, a lesbian couple, and hardcore hikers. They wanted their baby born on the trail. A natural birth, Lilah said. Before she started screaming.” TJ swiped a shaky hand over his face. “And then Neely panicked and said she thought something was wrong, and I-”

“Panicked too?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Guys.” This was from Emma. “Come here.”

TJ swiveled his head toward Stone in sharp panic. “She can’t make me.”

Emma pulled on a pair of medical gloves. “I’m going to need one of you to strap on your big boy pants and man up. I need another set of hands.”

One minute Stone was standing there thinking “fuck no”, and in the next, TJ ever so helpfully gave him a shove toward her.

Emma looked up and locked gazes with him, nodding her thanks.

Ah, hell. He wouldn’t have walked away from a stranger in need, and he wouldn’t walk away from this. Funny how he’d always thought he’d done it all in his thirty-two years, but as it turned out he hadn’t, and though he knew next to nothing about birthing a baby, he knew two things. One, it was going to be damned messy, and two, intimate.

Which meant he was about to get messy and intimate with a woman he didn’t know how he felt about.

Then Lilah’s next scream tore his soul, and incapable of just standing there, he moved closer.

“Support her from behind,” Emma demanded when he dropped to his knees beside her, trying desperately not to look. “Don’t let her lie flat. She needs to be propped up. Neely, help me get this Chux pad beneath her for a clean area.”

Oh, Jesus. He was going to have to look.

“There are no needles,” Emma told him. “I’m fresh out.”

He met her eyes, and there in those sharp baby blues, behind the fierce determination he was coming to think of as her game face, he caught a flash of amusement.

Then it was gone. “The baby’s head is crowning,” she said quietly. “We don’t have time to get her out of here. I need to know. Are you in this or not?”

Hell. If she could do this so calmly, he sure as hell could, too. “In.”

Lilah cried out and fisted a hand in Stone’s shirt, pulling hard against his hurting ribs. “I need to push!” she yelled, panting.

“Okay,” Emma soothed. “But let’s get you into a better position first.” She looked at Stone, and he nodded.

Smiling as reassuringly at Lilah as he could muster, he moved in behind her, taking her weight against him, which prompted a sigh from her. “Better?”

“Yes.” Cradled, her back to his front, she gripped both his arms and immediately started writhing. “Oh God, oh God, another one. Another contraction already!”

“It’s okay,” Neely told her, but her eyes were wild. “It’s all going to be okay. We planned this, we knew it was going to be rough.”

“Rough on who?” Lilah, lost in her pain, squeezed Stone’s arms like a vice. “Listen, I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Lilah.” Emma looked up from between Lilah’s propped knees. “I can see the head. I need you to push now.”

“This was a bad idea,” Lilah gasped. “I don’t want to push anymore.” She lifted her head up to Neely. “Let’s just go home, okay? You don’t mind, right? I’ll push tomorrow, I promise.”

“Oh, baby,” Neely whispered with tears in her eyes as she stroked Lilah’s hair. “You can do this. I know you can.”

“But I can’t.” Lilah started sobbing. “I just can’t. You do it for me, okay? Please, Neely? Please do it for me.”

She sounded so terrified that even Stone was wishing he could do it for her, but once again Emma took charge. “Lilah, this is all you. Just some pushing, and then you’re done. You can do this.”

“No, I can’t-ohmigod, another one!” She screamed, thrashing around in agony while Stone tried to keep her on the clean pad.

Neely whirled on Emma, tears streaming down her face as she grabbed Emma by the front of the shirt. “Goddammit, do something for her!”

“Whoa.” Stone leaned over Lilah, intending to pry Neely’s hands off of Emma. She was in this position because of him, which made him responsible for her, but he forgot one thing.

Emma could hold her own.

She simply shrugged off Neely and put her hands on the woman’s shoulders. “Get it together,” she told Neely quietly and firmly. “Lilah needs to see that you have it together.” Then without waiting for Neely to decide whether she could or couldn’t handle it, Emma came up on her knees and leaned into Lilah, getting right in her face, which by default was also right in Stone’s. “Lilah, listen to me. I need you to-”

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can, and you will. Push.”

When she spoke like that, with all that authority and certainness, even Stone wanted to push.

“I can’t”!” Lilah cried again.

If he’d been Emma, he might have been tempted to remind Lilah that she’d wanted this, that if she’d gotten herself to a hospital like common sense dictated, she might have been given pain medications, maybe an epidural, but she’d come here.

By her own choice.

“Look,” Emma said, in all her glorious New York tough-ass edginess. “Yes, this sucks golf balls, the pain is like being ripped in two. But the baby is here, Lilah. Right here. All you have to do is push and it’ll be over and you’ll be able to hold your baby.”

“My baby,” Lilah repeated weakly, sweat running down her temples.

“That’s right,” Emma said firmly, hair falling loose, her clothes smeared with blood and her own sweat, kneeling on the blanket out in the wilderness that Stone knew she wasn’t too fond of.

It was fascinating to him. She was fascinating to him, and elegant and sophisticated, and so not the priss he’d thought. Not anywhere close.

“Your baby,” Emma reminded Lilah. “There’s a big prize at the end of this hell, and it’s your beautiful baby. Now let’s do this.”

Stone watched amazed as Lilah let out a breath, stopped crying and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

It boggled Stone’s mind. Emma hadn’t coddled. It certainly wasn’t in her nature to be particularly sweet or gentle in her firm determination either, but she was undoubtedly extremely, undeniably, kind as she bulldogged through and got her way.

Right then and there, Stone felt a little catch in his gut. Not a crush, not exactly, but something that might be worse.

Far worse. Which was going to be damned inconvenient.

“A baby,” Lilah murmured roughly to Neely as they kissed. “I actually almost forgot.”

Neely laughed through her tears, and back on track now, swiped Lilah’s face, stroked her legs, doing the deep breathing with her.

“On the count of three,” Emma said, in charge of her world, and at the moment, also Stone’s. “One, two, three!”

Lilah pushed, and screamed, and pushed some more, and Stone thought she was going to break both his wrists, but then she sagged back against his very sore chest, panting for breath. Realizing his pain was nothing compared to hers, he didn’t mention it. “Doing great,” he said, hoping it was true, and also hoping he had some unbroken bones left when she was done.