It took five minutes I didn’t want to waste before he agreed to go to the birthing center. “The baby is counting on you, mate,” I urged. “And they want to be born safely more than having a dresser for their little T-shirts. So, I’m grabbing your bag from the front hallway and then coming back to take you out to the car.” I eased him down onto the hard-backed chair that was the only one where he found the least bit of comfort and patted his hand. “Understood?”
“I do.” He doubled over, panting. “But I don’t think there’s time for the…for the birthing center.”
“Omega, how long have you been having these pains?”
“I’m not sure. I thought they were gas until just now. But, oh my goddess.” He gasped as a puddle formed under him. “I don’t think they were gas.”
“Omega! You’ve put yourself in danger.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” His eyes filled with tears. “I never wanted that to happen. What if something goes wrong? What if I hurt the baby because I didn’t realize?”
Seeing his distress, I immediately felt like the worst alpha father ever. What had our healer said to us? To me? What was my primary duty when the birthing day came?
Keep my omega calm.
And what was I doing the second things heated up?
The exact opposite.
“Joshua, you didn’t do anything wrong. And the baby will be fine. Let me call the healer and see what he suggests.”
After a call with a lot of questions, the healer agreed that Joshua was not to travel. He might very well give birth right in the car if he did. Instead, I was to get him upstairs in bed and keep himcalmuntil the healer arrived.
“Okay, omega. Upstairs to bed. The healer will be coming to you instead of you going to him.” I guided him up the stairs and helped him undress. Every couple of minutes, another contraction came over him, and I began to get worried. The healer should have been here by now. What would I do if he didn’t make it?
But I couldn’t let the panic take over. I’d never been the type to do that, but watching my omega in pain? That was more than I could easily handle. I gripped my phone in one hand and my omega’s hand in the other, listening to his panting breaths, reminding him to relax.
“Joshua, you’ve got to hang on. The healer will be here any second.”
“I’d like to, really I would, but I have to push.” He shuddered. “I’m sorry, Corvus. Do you know what to do?”
Not at all. But saying that wasn’t going to help anyone. “Of course.” I had read a book on how these things worked. But I didn’t have a lot of faith in my ability to manage it on my own. I’d just have to get the faith. “No need to worry.”
When the healer came rushing in a half hour later, after a fender bender where the other party insisted on calling the police for a report, he found us on the bed, a bundle wrapped in a blanket in my omega’s arms.
“This is Denice,” Joshua said. “She was in too big a hurry to wait.”
Chapter Twenty
Joshua
“Are you ready for your walk, sweet girl?”
I just changed and fed Denice after her morning nap. It was one of my favorite times of day, time to go talk to the trees, a habit I wanted to pass on to our sweet girl.
“I’m back.” I ran my hand along the trunk of the first tree. “Denice is awake today.” Most of the time when I was out here, she fell asleep before I even made it all the way, but she was getting a little bit older now and was staying awake for longer.
I had not been prepared for how much a newborn slept. I always heard people complain about how they didn’t get any sleep when the baby arrived. And that was true, but it wasn’t because the baby was awake all night. It was that the baby woke up numerous times. As for their actual awake time, the first couple of weeks, there wasn’t a lot of it.
Orly let me know right away that it was normal. She’d become a de facto grandmother to our little one. She loved her grandbabies and hated that they were so far away, often taking extended trips to see them. She was thinking about having a relative move in so they could take over the B&B duties while she spent seasons with the little ones. Good for her. Life was too short to not have your happy.
“How are the late peaches coming?” I looked up. “Pretty much close to ready, it looks like.”
It was going to be an amazing harvest this year, and my mate and I decided to have the town over to pick them. Not to sell PYO or use free community labor, but to have people come and get peaches for themselves, to share them with everyone.
We’d keep some for ourselves, canning them, freezing them, eating them fresh, but it felt important to me, especially this first year, that Whisper Grove was able to enjoy them.
“We need to go. We’re meeting her daddy for lunch, but we’ll be back tomorrow.”
