Having My Baby Read Online Free Page B

wasn’t feeling okay, and she certainly didn’t look okay. It hadn’t been much over five minutes since her friends left. What the hell was going on ?
    With her eyes clamped shut and her teeth gritted, the veins in her neck and forehead looked ready to burst.
    His heart rate accelerated as he tried to think of something to say to comfort her and take her mind off of the pain. “Maybe we should do that breathing thing,” he said.
    She didn’t answer him, but her fingers squeezed tight about his hand, and damn, she had one powerful grip.
    The beeper on the monitor wouldn’t stop beeping. That worried him.
    Jill brought her knees to her chest, blankets and all.
    He leaned closer and rubbed her shoulder. “Is that helping?”
    Her eyes shot open, startling him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly turned her head full circle and spit out pea soup. Instead, she reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt along with a little skin and said, “Get your baby out of me!”
    He might have laughed if he wasn’t bleeding and in pain and if she wasn’t pinning him with the scariest look he’d ever seen in his life, which was saying a lot considering his mom had been the queen of scary faces back in her day.
    In the blink of an eye, Jill Garrison had transformed from a sweet young lady into a woman possessed by the devil.
    “If you don’t do something,” she said, “I’m going to scream.”
    “I think we should breathe instead.”
    “I think you should—” Her face turned scarlet, and she scrunched her nose as if she was chewing on sourballs. And then she did exactly what she said she was going to do. She screamed, an ear-piercing sound that set his teeth on edge and made his brain hurt.
    Where the hell was everybody ?
    Before he could reach for the red emergency button, the door shot open and two nurses surrounded the bed.
    “Who are you?” one of the nurses asked him as she checked the monitor and IV hookup.
    “The father of the baby,” he said.
    Jill looked pitiful. Her head was bent back, her neck extended, and she had a white-knuckle hold of his arm, her fingernails clawing into flesh.
    The nurses exchanged glances before the one at the end of the bed shrugged, pulled up the sheets and did a quick examination. “Ring for the doctor,” she said. “This baby is coming, ready or not.”
    Derrick would have made a quick exit if Jill didn’t have a death grip on his arm. He was pretty sure his chest was already bleeding, and if she kept it up, his arm wouldn’t fare much better.
    The door swung open again and Sandy and Chelsey rushed in behind the doctor.
    “I told you he’d still be here,” Sandy told Chelsey.
    “Is it a crime for a father to want to see his baby come into the world?” Chelsey asked.
    Derrick decided he liked Chelsey.
    “Donating sperm to a clinic for money,” Sandy added, “does not make him a father.”
    Satan…not so much.
    Chelsey stood close to Derrick’s side and leaned over the railing. “You’re doing great,” she told Jill. “Keep breathing. That’s right. You can do this.” Chelsey started doing her breathing exercise again and Jill followed along. The doctor and two nurses were taking care of business. Sandy grabbed a video camera and aimed it their way.
    He could hear Sandy talking into the camera, muttering words like “ass” and “idiot” every once in a while.
    Chelsey was perfectly calm, and she handed Derrick a cool rag and told him to wipe Jill’s brow. Glad to have something to do, he used his free hand to try and soothe her. Having no desire to see blood, he decided to focus on Jill’s face, which he noticed was heart-shaped. Disregarding the dark circles under her eyes, her skin was creamy and flawless. Although her lips were dry and cracked at the moment, they were also full and had a nice shape to them. She had beautiful eyes when they weren’t rolling to the back of her head, and she had high cheekbones and slender brows. There was