Falling in Love on Willow Creek by Debbie Mason
Chapter Three
Chase stopped to stare at the woman peering at him through the falling snow. He brushed the wet flakes from his eyes, positive they were messing with his vision. But no, the snow hadn’t fooled him into thinking the face belonged to Sadie Gray. It was her. The woman from the window. The sister of their prime suspect in the disappearance of Black’s friend. What were the odds of her showing up at the same time they searched the woods for Brodie?
Chase didn’t put much stock in coincidences, but for some reason, in this instance, he wished he did. Maybe he just didn’t want to believe that a pregnant woman who looked sweetly innocent wearing a unicorn headband could be involved in Brodie’s disappearance or that she’d followed Chase here to discover what he’d learned. If she was involved, she would have been on her guard, looking for any sign the police were onto them.
It wouldn’t have been a stretch for her to figure out that Chase was law enforcement. He might not have been flashing his badge around or making small talk with the locals while he was there, but he hadn’t hidden the fact he was surveilling the store. At that point, Black hadn’t warned him of the necessity of keeping this quiet.
The smell of cigarette smoke and the clatter of frozen branches suggested the other agent was coming his way. His eyes still locked with Sadie Gray’s, Chase pulled out his phone to warn Black. They couldn’t be seen together, especially by her. As Chase went to send a text, his eyes left her face. He noted the sizzle of steam through the falling snow, the crumpled front bumper, the tire hanging off the rim.
“Are you okay?” he yelled, slipping and sliding down the frozen incline to reach her. He didn’t care if she’d run into the guardrail because she was checking up on them for her brother. She was pregnant, and not just a little pregnant, as he’d clearly seen for himself.
She blinked several times as though coming out of a trance. “No. I’m not okay. I’m pretty sure I’m having my baby.” She groaned and pulled her head back inside the window to lean it against the headrest.
Chase froze with his foot halfway over the guardrail. “Now? You’re having your baby now?” Panic had raised his voice an octave, and he searched the long, winding road for a sign that help was on the way.
Except instead of sirens, all he heard was the creaking of branches and the crunch of snow. And instead of help on its way in the form of swirling lights and high beams, he saw Black creeping toward his jeep. The agent glanced his way. Even from this distance, Black’s fear for his friend was evident in his strained expression. They hadn’t found Brodie or any sign that he’d shown up for the meet. Black put the blame squarely on Elijah Gray.
Chase gestured for him to stay put anyway and then glanced at Sadie, who’d yet to respond. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips were pressed tight, and she was moaning low in her throat.
Good God, she really was having her baby. “Did you call 911? Just nod or shake your head.” Please nod.
“I—” She grimaced. “I can’t get a signal.”
He looked at his cell phone. No bars on the screen. Holding it up as he searched for a signal, he walked to the driver’s-side door.
“It’ll be all right,” he told her. He didn’t believe for a single second that it would be but reassuring her seemed to be what the situation required. “I’m calling 911,” he yelled for Black’s benefit, hoping against hope the other agent had a better service provider than Chase and Sadie.
Raising his phone higher, Chase walked carefully into the middle of the ice-slicked, desolate road. Nothing. Not even one bar.
The passenger-side window went down, and he brought the phone to his ear.
“Did you—” She whimpered, then took a couple seconds to catch her breath. “Did you get through?”
He held up a finger, pretending to talk to a dispatcher. “Yes. Definitely in labor. She’s…” He rested the phone on his shoulder. “She wants to know how far apart the contractions are.”
“Three min—”
What! “Her contractions are three minutes apart,” he yelled into his dead phone while looking in the direction of Black’s jeep. There was no sign of him. Chase ducked his head. There was no sign of him because he was in his jeep.
“I, um, I think I better lie down,” she said, her face drained of color.
“No, I don’t think you should. If you lie down, the baby might think it’s time to come out.”
“Trust me, this baby’s coming whether we want it to or not.”
“Not,” he said, in case she thought he was on board with delivering her baby.
Her eyes moved over his face, and then she bowed her head and groaned.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be here soon. Really soon,” he lied, his voice going in and out as he jumped up and down, waving his arms to get Black’s attention. If the other agent started up his engine, Chase would shoot out his tires. A door creaked open. He stopped jumping. He was just about to utter a thank God when he realized Sadie had opened the car door, not Black.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Chase sprinted around the back of the SUV. Ice. Crap. His feet went out from under him but he threw himself against the vehicle to keep himself upright.
Her arms wrapped around her stomach, Sadie gave him a raised-eyebrow look. “You didn’t get through to 911.”
“How did you know?” he asked, gingerly making his way to her side.
“Lots of practice with men not telling me the truth.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he was. “I didn’t want you to freak out.”
Her lips twitched, and her pretty hazel eyes smiled. “You’re freaked out enough for the both of us.” She winced and bent over. “My car’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I need a ride to the hospital.”
“Right, of course.” He mentally kicked his ass. He’d allowed panic to hijack his common sense. He didn’t have to deliver her baby; he just had to get her to the hospital on time. He thought about the files neatly piled on his front seat and the FBI jacket in the back.
She took a step, and he reached for her. “Careful, it’s icy.” He slid an arm around her waist, glancing from his car to hers. “I have a better idea.” He leaned around her to power up the windows and then he opened the back passenger-side door and helped her sit inside. “I’ll bring my car up alongside yours. That way we minimize the risk of you falling.”
“Okay.” She nodded, clenching her jaw as if to stop her teeth from chattering.
Delivering a baby might be completely out of his wheelhouse, but seeing to someone’s care and comfort wasn’t. This he could handle. “Do you have an emergency winter kit in your trunk?”
She gave him a blank look.
“Blankets, extra clothes, that sort of thing.” When his explanation didn’t appear to register, he said, “Don’t worry about it. I do.” The FBI’s motto was Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity, which he wholeheartedly subscribed to. But he had a motto of his own: Be Prepared. He looked down at his ruined shoes. In his defense, Black had told him they’d meet on Main Street. “I’ll be right back.”
She grabbed his arm. “Please, don’t go. I have baby blankets in my trunk.”
“We need something a little bigger than that. I promise. I won’t be long.” He gave her a reassuring smile and went to remove her hand from his arm but something in her eyes stopped him. He recognized the pure, unadulterated panic he saw there, and maybe because he did, the next words out of his mouth were calm and in control. “We won’t make it to the hospital, will we?”
“I’m new to this too, but I don’t think so.” She bit her lip, and her eyes filled with tears.
“It’ll be fine…honey,” he said instead of calling her by her name, which he very nearly did. “We can do this. Trust me.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “I…I had it all planned. Lights down low, spa-like music, and a lavender-scented…” She trailed off, hiccupping on a sob.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you planned.” He helped her lie down on the backseat, wedging himself inside to pull the door closed. “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me instead of your baby’s daddy. But I’ll—”
She shook her head as she struggled out of her puffy red jacket. “It’s better that he’s not here. I might tell him exactly what I think of him when I’m pushing out our sweet, innocent child, and the last thing I want my baby to hear is me cursing their father for putting me deeper in debt.”
He knew Drew was a piece of work from the cursory background check he’d done after discovering he lived with Sadie. Chase didn’t understand why someone like her would put up with a guy who had a drinking problem and couldn’t hold down a job. Then again, the man seemed to have a talent for attracting women to take care of him.
Still, she was getting agitated, and Chase figured she had more important things to concern herself with. “Don’t think about him then. You can deal with him later. Kick him to the curb. Get a restraining order so he doesn’t harass you. Change all your passwords and the locks on your door,” he said as he began removing her boots.
He stopped. She was staring at him. He’d said too much. Of course he had. Because once he started looking into something, he couldn’t stop. He’d looked into the other women Drew had been involved with in the past and knew it wouldn’t be easy for Sadie to get rid of him.
Her forehead creased. “Who are you?”
He knew what she meant but tried to distract her. “You’re right. We should probably introduce ourselves. I’m Michael Knight.” It wasn’t a complete lie. His middle name was Michael, and his maternal grandfather, Jonathan Knight, referred to by most as the judge, had adopted Chase and his little brother when they were eight and five.
Gritting her teeth, she held up a finger, then closed her eyes. He gently removed her jacket from her clenched fist and folded it, waiting for the contraction to subside before placing it beneath her head.
“Thanks. I’m Sadie. Sadie Gray. But that’s not what I meant. I saw you today on Main Street. You were there for a while. You were, uh, looking at me.”
“Watching you.” He corrected with a smile. “You were entertaining. I was going to buy something for a friend’s little girl. But when I ran the idea by her, she informed me her daughter was too old for unicorns.”
The trick to lying was to add some truth. Three months ago, he’d had a woman in his life. However, she no longer considered him a friend. She’d accused him of being emotionally unavailable and a workaholic. They’d been friends with benefits so he hadn’t met her daughter.
“You should have brought her with you. My grandmother would have enjoyed the challenge.” She looked at him from under her long lashes. “I’m sorry I flashed you. I didn’t realize I was standing in the window wearing a sweatshirt that said I was horny. I thought it said Hoping for a unicorn. Which I’m not. Hoping for a unicorn, I mean. My grandmother is the one who believes in unicorns, not me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry for babbling. I’m just embarrassed I flashed you.”
“Don’t worry about it. And feel free to babble. It’s better than having you go into shock. Besides, I’ll be seeing a lot more than your stomach…Oh, ah.” He scratched his head. “That wasn’t helpful, was it?”
Caught up in a contraction, she didn’t register his apology. Hopefully, she also hadn’t registered why he’d had to make one in the first place. He took off his coat, careful not to reveal the shoulder holster and gun beneath his suit jacket.
“Thank you,” she said when he laid it over her. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Then she opened them to reward him with a breath-stealing smile. “Your cologne smells amazing. It’s even better than lavender.”
“I’m glad you like it. And it looks like you’ll also get your wish for low light.” He nodded at the darkening sky out the window. “Now all that’s left is the music.” He opened the back passenger-side door. “I’ll take care of that now. Don’t worry, I’m not going further than the front seat,” he said as he got out and opened the driver’s-side door. He slid behind the wheel and started the engine, turning the heat to high. As he searched for a radio station that met her requirement, he glanced in the rearview mirror. Black had decided to grace them with his presence.
Before he did though, Chase had to ensure the agent was holding it together. The more they’d searched and the more they talked, the more obvious it became that Black was losing hope his friend was alive. Chase didn’t want him interrogating Sadie.
He found a station with some New Age music and figured it would work. “Sadie, a jeep pulled off the road around the same time as me, and it looks like the driver is coming to see if we need a hand. He looks a little rough, so I want to check him out first.”
She cast him a dubious glance.
He stopped with a foot out the door. “What? You don’t think I can handle myself?”
“Well, you’re pretty…” She rolled her eyes, presumably at herself, because he hadn’t said or done anything. “I mean beautiful.” She dragged in a deep breath through her nostrils. “You know what I mean.”
He really didn’t, which she must have noticed because she added, “You’re like a cross between Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black and Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy. Only when Jax got out of prison in the third season. Maybe it was season four. And don’t be offended, but I really wish you weren’t off-the-charts good-looking. I’d prefer an unattractive man to deliver my baby. Unattractive but kin—” A contraction cut her off.
He leaned over the seat to give her hand a squeeze, then grabbed his key fob from the pocket of his coat. “Relax and focus on your breathing. I’ll be back in two minutes. Right before your next contraction.”
She opened one eye. He probably shouldn’t have reminded her how close her contractions were. He’d been timing them.
Chase met Black a couple yards from Sadie’s SUV.
“What the hell’s taking you so long? Did you get anything out of her?”
“The only thing we’re getting out of her is a baby.” Chase took the other agent by the arm. “I need a couple things from my trunk. She doesn’t know I’m FBI, and we’re going to keep it that way.” He beeped the unlock button on his fob. “Do you have any blankets or bottles of water?”
“No. I mean, yeah. I’ve got both.” He looked from Sadie’s SUV to Chase. “Do you even have a clue what you’re doing?”
“No idea.” He cocked his head; there was something in Black’s voice that said he might. “Have you delivered a baby before?”
“I have five older sisters. They have a baseball team between them. Four of them wouldn’t have a baby at a hospital if you paid them, and they made sure, if I was in town, I was in on the action. No matter how much I did not want or need to see my sisters’ hoo-has.” He shuddered, then lifted a shoulder. “I wouldn’t have missed helping bring my nieces into the world though. I just block out that part.”
Chase smiled. He’d just found the answer to Sadie’s last wish—an unattractive man to deliver her baby. Under all that hair, Black was probably a good-looking guy, but right now, he qualified. “Great. You can deliver the baby. Do you have hand sanitizer?”
Five minutes later, when Chase opened the front passenger door, unloading blankets, a battery-operated lantern, and the baby stuff he’d gotten out of Sadie’s trunk, she half yelled, half sobbed at him, “You were gone for two contractions. I thought you weren’t coming back!”
“I’m here now, and I’ve got good news,” he said as Black opened the back door. “I found someone to deliver your baby, and he knows what he’s doing. Sadie, meet Eddie Taylor.”
Black gave Chase a look before smiling at Sadie. Eddie Taylor was the man who had been on top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list before Chase had apprehended him.
As Sadie and Black got acquainted, Chase got to work on the front passenger seat. He removed the two bolts at the back of the seat and on the front side rails and then disconnected the battery. He was half listening to Black and Sadie’s conversation, blocking out parts like transitioning and crowning. By the time he lifted the seat out and set it on the side of the road, Sadie was panting.
“Don’t push,” Black ordered.
Chase shut the car door and got situated on the floor. He turned on the lantern, adjusting the light to low. Then he turned up the music, the sounds of Enya’s “Watermark” filling the SUV.
Ignoring Black’s raised-eyebrow glance, Chase took Sadie’s hand between his. “Just breathe, honey. You’ve got—sweet mother of God.” She squeezed the life out of his fingers. She had the grip of a rock climber. A three-hundred-pound rock climber.
Black chuckled, then said, “Just a little longer, Sadie. You’ve got this, honey.”
Chase speared the agent with a look. Black grinned and then ducked his head under the blanket. Chase shuddered, and his legs went weak. Black might not be the type of partner Chase would have wished for, but he was sincerely glad he was here to help Sadie.
“Michael, if anything happens to me, there’s a letter in my bag. Please—”
His heart skipped a panicked beat, and he scootched closer to slide an arm beneath her neck and cradle her against his chest. He lowered his face to hers. “Listen to me. You’re going to be fine. Both you and the baby. So don’t talk—”
“Please, just promise me you won’t let Drew have custody of my child. I want my friend Abby or my cousin Ellie to take the baby. I’ve written it all—” The rest of what she was about to say was cut off by her anguished cry.
“Push, Sadie,” Black said, but she wasn’t listening to him. She was holding Chase’s gaze and breaking his hand.
“I promise. He won’t get near your baby.” Or Sadie. As soon as she and the baby were safe and in the hospital, Chase would ensure that Drew was out of their lives for good. “Now come on, push. Your baby is anxious to meet you.”
A grueling fifteen minutes later, they welcomed Sadie’s baby girl with shouts of joy.
“It’s not a unicorn,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion.
She looked at him and smiled. “Thank God, and thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you, Michael. Without either of you.”
Chase gently moved her sweat-dampened hair from her face. “You were incredible. She’s beautiful, and so are you.” His face warmed as the words rolled off his tongue. It was how he felt, but not something he should say to a woman he’d known for little more than an hour, a woman he was surveilling for a case. But in that moment, he felt close to Sadie, closer than he’d ever felt to a woman before.
Black handed Chase the red-faced, squalling infant. “Swaddle her in the blanket,” the agent directed.
Pulse racing, Chase stared down at the baby, who fit in his two hands. She squirmed, arching her spine as she howled at the top of her lungs, and he nearly lost his grip. His hands were sweaty, and she was slippery. Tiny too, with delicate little bones. Bones he could crush if he held her too tight, but he didn’t dare loosen his grip. If she fell, she’d break. He shot a panicked glance at Sadie and Black. What had the agent been thinking handing him the baby? Chase had no idea what to do.
Sadie met his eyes, a soft smile on her face. She was looking at him like he was her hero, and he didn’t want to disappoint her. All he needed was to look up advice on Google or a video to watch. He’d absorb the information in a nanosecond, and he could live up to Sadie’s expectations. But they were in the middle of nowhere, and none of them had service on their cell phones. He had to improvise. He couldn’t ask for Black’s advice or for Sadie’s. She might freak out if she knew she’d entrusted her precious child to a man who didn’t have a clue what to do with it. He couldn’t even keep a plant alive.
But he did have an IQ of 160 so surely he could figure out how to swaddle a baby in a blanket. He picked up the blanket and looked from it to the screaming child.
Black sighed and lifted his head. “Think of a burrito,” he said, then went back to doing whatever he was doing down there.
Chase nearly let his relief show and thanked Black, but then he remembered how Sadie had looked at him. “I know what swaddling means.” He glanced from the blanket to the passenger-side seat. “I was just working out how best to hold her and lay out the blanket at the same time.” Not bad. He might even buy the excuse. Then he caught Sadie’s eye. She looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Laugh, he decided when she pressed her lips together and they curved in a grin. “Hold her against your chest with one hand and use your other hand to lay out the blanket.”
“Right. Good idea.” As he ever so slowly brought the baby to his chest, he imagined what it must be like for her after spending so many months curled inside her mother’s warm, dark womb. No wonder she was screaming. He’d be screaming too. Feeling like he now had some insight into the problem, he used his hand and forearm to hold the baby against his chest, then reached for the white blanket with his other hand.
But instead of laying the blanket on the seat, he completely covered the baby with it—head and all—and held her tight. He thought of the sounds and motion she’d be familiar with and, next to her ear, made a low shushing sound while rocking her in his arms. Her screams subsided, and she made soft snuffling noises as she nestled against him. He smiled against the blanket and the side of her little head, as proud of comforting her as he’d been of bringing in Eddie Taylor.
His world shrank until it was just him and the baby sitting in the warm glow of the lantern. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this peaceful.
“Would you mind swaddling her now?” Sadie’s voice penetrated the bubble of contentment. “I mean, I’m grateful you got her to stop crying, but I’d really like to hold her.”
“Right. Of course.” As he moved the baby away from his chest and looked into that tiny, heart-shaped face, it felt like the hard shell around his heart quivered and then splintered, letting in an emotion he’d never felt before.
He wondered if it was love.