Forever Family (Forever #5) (2 page)

It was a great life, and I enjoyed it.

The drummer blasted the final three cymbal strikes for the end of the song, and Chance took a moment to introduce himself and the band. He picked at his guitar, strumming a few single notes that I recognized. Yes, he was going to slow it down now. I let out a long exhale in relief. He was going to play our special one.

“I wrote this little ditty a few months ago,” he said, “when that lovely lady agreed to be my wife.” He pointed at me and the crowd turned.

I saw with great satisfaction that the rude girl noticed and frowned. Ha.

“So, this here is an original of mine, called ‘Forever.’”

The opening chords flooded me with calmness. I held on tight to the top of the wall as Chance’s rich voice filled the arena.

There ain’t nothing you can say 
To make me turn away 
There ain’t nothing you can do 
To ever take my love away from you 
Because I said forever 
And that’s just what I’m gonna do 

I tried to always listen to the song like it was the first time I heard it. I wanted always to believe it. Corabelle squeezed my arm. She got it. She had found her forever too.

I swayed along with the music. The crowd didn’t know the words. It had never been released. Maybe it would someday, if Chance got a break. Right now, he could sing to a crowd like this, but if they searched for him later, they couldn’t get his work.

Soon. Hopefully. If this record deal worked out.

I wanted to revel in the music. It was so different in a huge arena than in a small bar or private party, where Chance played most of the time.

But my bladder wasn’t cooperating.

The pressure was low and heavy. I knew it well. I wouldn’t be able to hold it long, and now I was in the danger zone. If I sneezed or coughed or even laughed too hard, it would leak.

God, the stuff about pregnancy nobody told you.

Chance looked my direction, like he was singing to me. I knew he couldn’t see me easily, as the stage lights were blinding as you looked out. But he always knew where I was.

I tried to feel it, really let it sink in.

But my bladder. The pressure.

I felt a tickle in my throat from all the cheering. No no no. I was going to cough.

The urge was strong, but I clamped it down. I tried to gather spit so I could swallow and make my throat calm. It seemed to work. I thought I had it under control. Then it just burst out. My insides clamped down, and I coughed.

Crap. The pee was going to let go.

I felt the water come out. Then run down my legs. And keep coming.

Shit. Really? All of it? That bad?

My face flooded crimson. I was wearing a long skirt, thank God, so nobody could really see. But it was running down to my ankles and making my shoes squishy.

So gross.

I smiled at Chance and thought — let me get through this song and we’ll go. Forget the concert, the after-party. Just get home and get cleaned up.

Chance belted out the chorus, but I could barely hear him for the roar in my ears. Something was different. Wrong. I let go of the gate and clutched my belly.

I felt emptier. I couldn’t explain it. But I was less taut or something. Less full.

Then it hit.

The contraction rippled across my body like someone had wrung out a cloth. I felt squeezed. I forgot all about the concert and turned to Corabelle. “Something’s wrong,” I said, but my voice barely worked. It was like I didn’t have any breath.

“What?” Corabelle asked, leaning in. But then she turned to look at me and saw my face. “Oh my God,” she said. “Let’s go.”

I glanced back up at Chance. I knew he couldn’t make us out clearly, not with the lights. He wouldn’t see my expression or my fear. I waved at him. He could see the movement and nodded with a smile.

But I was panicked.

Corabelle pulled me through the crowd. I kept my eyes on Chance. He probably thought I had to pee. I had no way to tell him.

We made it through the throng to the backstage security guard to the left of the stage. By the time we got there, I was feeling worse, sick, and in pain.

“We need help,” Corabelle said. “Is there an ambulance here?”

“NO!” I told her. “Not without Chance!” But just that much talking made something happen, another strong cramp gripping me tight. I doubled over. Even without my trying, my body started a huffing sort of breath.

One of the stage managers, a broad teddy-bear-sized man named Todd, came up and wrapped his arm around me. “You okay?”

I tried to get words out. “I…think…my…water broke.”

“What?” Corabelle exclaimed. “When?”

“During…the song.” The contraction slowed down and I gasped for breath.

She looked down at my feet. “Get the EMTs,” she told Todd. “She’s not due for another five weeks.”

This made Todd move. He dashed over to the security guard and yanked a radio from his belt. He mashed a button and shouted into it. I didn’t pay a lot of attention, staring at the floor, trying to bring down my panic.

Corabelle gripped me, holding me up. “Can you walk?” she asked.

“In a second,” I managed to say. It was easing up. After a couple more breaths, I was able to stand up straight again. “Maybe it’s just those Braxton Hicks or whatever?”

Corabelle shook her head. “Not if your water broke.”

She was right. “Is it too soon?” I thought of Corabelle’s baby, born so early. He hadn’t made it, and died on his seventh day. Panic flooded me.

“You’re fine,” she said. “Finn had a heart condition, remember? That’s why he died, not being premature.”

But her eyes didn’t match her words. She was scared.

“Come this way,” Todd said, leading us away from the stage. He still held on to the guard’s radio. We took small steps toward the back hallway, where the dressing rooms were. I wasn’t sure what I wanted more, a sofa or an ambulance.

The guard followed us. “They always have EMTs at the arena for things like this,” he said. “They are coming down.”

But suddenly I felt fine, like really fine. I straightened my back, checked for cramps, pain, weirdness.

Nothing. The baby elbowed my belly as if to say, “Get over it.”

Now I was embarrassed.

“I think I’m okay,” I said. “Maybe it was something else?”

Todd stopped in his tracks. “Is this one of those false alarms? My brother’s wife dragged him to the hospital three times before she finally popped out my nephew.”

“Why don’t you go to the bathroom and check things?” Corabelle said. “Be sure.”

I nodded as Todd opened the door to Chance’s dressing room. It was small and empty, the holding area for the low men on the concert totem pole.

But it had a bathroom. I headed for it, pushing inside. I felt silly. Maybe I really had just peed myself.

I went inside and stared at myself in the mirror below the hot overhead lights, my face pale and washed out. The dull brown of my natural hair color showed through the pink chalk I’d been applying to cover the roots, since I couldn’t dye my hair anymore.

My mascara-heavy lashes were garish and sad. I’d bitten off my lipstick, leaving the plum liner standing out around the edges, like a coloring-book mouth nobody had bothered to fill in.

I looked like a tabloid train wreck.

And I’d peed myself.

I turned on the water and wet a paper towel, fixing the smudges of black beneath my eyes. Then I wet some more to take with me into the bathroom for the cleanup.

Maybe I would have to wear adult diapers.

I could borrow from the baby.

Tears sprang in my eyes at the thought. Nobody said pregnancy would be like this. Out in the arena, scantily clad girls were clamoring for Chance’s attention.

And I was a pee-soaked, bad-haired, pale-faced washout.

The toilet was inside a little stall even though it was the only one. I pushed the door inside and turned around to lift the long skirt. This was so awful. The lowest of lows.

I had just reached for my panties, soaked in all the wrong ways, when the next contraction hit. I cried out, gripping the sides of the stall.

The fullness hit me again, and I realized — that’s the baby.

The baby was coming.

“Corabelle!” I screamed.

She came instantly, crashing through the door. “Jenny?”

“Where are the EMTs?” My voice was starting to go, lost in the huffy breathing.

“They’re out here. Waiting for you.” She took my hand. “Can you walk at all?”

I forced my foot to take a step forward. It obeyed. I clutched at Corabelle, hanging on to her arm like a lifeline. We made a few more mincing steps toward the door.

“You’re seven minutes apart,” she said. “That’s not too bad. You’ll make it.”

I nodded, glad somebody knew what they were doing. We made it to the door and passed back into the main room. A man and a woman in navy uniforms were waiting, already wearing latex gloves. Behind them was a rolling stretcher. It looked like heaven.

I fixated on their hands in the beige rubber, imagining my baby getting caught by them. This calmed me, knowing they were prepped and ready. I had a place to lie down. They would take me where I needed to go. It would be okay.

I felt remarkably calm.

“How far along are you?” the man asked.

“She’s thirty-five weeks,” Corabelle said. “Her water broke.”

The man turned to me. “Let’s get you up on the stretcher,” he said. “We’re going to need to transport you.”

Suddenly my calm snapped. “No!” I shouted. “Not without Chance!”

“A chance for what?” the woman asked. She had come around to my other side and the two of them were leading me to the stretcher.

I planted my feet. “My fiancé! I want him!”

“Where is he?” the man asked.

Todd stepped forward. “He’s onstage. I’ve already ordered the crew to end his show.”

The contraction started to ease and I bent over, bracing my hands on my knees. “Thank you,” I told Todd. “Thank you so much.”

He patted my back. “You’re going to be fine.”

But Corabelle was in a fury. “Do you not realize the situation we’re in? This baby is NOT DUE. We have a PREMATURE INFANT. Get up there!” She pushed me toward the stretcher.

I dug in. I’d never seen her face so red, but I was not about to leave without Chance. “Back off, Cora,” I said. “Chance is coming with me.”

“Let’s get you ready to go,” the male EMT said. “We won’t leave until you say so.”

I didn’t trust any of them. I backed away, shaking my arms to get myself loose. “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me. I can refuse transport. I know how this works.”

“Ma’am, you do not want to have a baby in a concert arena,” the male EMT said. “Let’s get you up. We’ll collect your husband.”

Oh my God. He wasn’t my husband. Not yet.

“We have to get married!” I said. “Now!”

“You’re in labor!” Corabelle said. “There’s no time for that!”

The contraction was long gone, so I flailed like Kermit the Frog. “Like hell this baby is coming before I have a marriage certificate!”

Corabelle’s face was bright red now. “I really think you need to focus on the baby.”

“I really think you need to back off!” I was being mean and confrontational, but God, the pain. Even with the contraction gone, my back was killing me. My whole body was revolting against the onslaught of unfamiliar muscle clenching.

Todd whipped around to us, the radio to his cheek. “Chance is on his way. They cut the set short.”

“Will you get on the stretcher now?” Corabelle asked.

I didn’t think I had a choice. The pain rolled through me like a tsunami, taking all my strength with it. I listed forward and the two EMTs caught me in their expert arms, lifting me up and onto the gurney.

Lying down was bliss, pure bliss. With no contraction, and no need to stand, everything collapsed inward. I actually fought sleep for a second, like I was passing out.

The EMT strapped a blood pressure cuff to my arm. I stared at the white rectangles on the ceiling. I realized for the first time that the concert noise had stopped and piped-in music had taken over. Chance would be here any second.

As if on cue, the door slammed open, smashing against the wall. “Jenny!” Chance shouted, careening across the room to lunge against the stretcher. “What happened?”

“I think I got a little too excited,” I said.

“She’s in labor,” Corabelle said. “Seven minutes apart.”

His beautiful eyebrows shot up. I stared at him like he was a mirage. Everything seemed fuzzy on the edges.

“Blood pressure is 180 over 115,” the male EMT said. “That’s high. Let’s get her out the door.”

The stretcher began to roll. I kept my gaze on Chance, jogging alongside us. An earbud was still clipped to his back collar. I reached for it, but my arm was rubbery. I was so tired. I bumped along as they wheeled me down the empty backstage hallway.

But the minute we pushed out the back door and into the cool evening air, I was revived. All the color flooded back and the hard edges returned and I realized — I’M HAVING A BABY AND NOT A WEDDING.

I tried to sit up and realized I was strapped to the gurney. “Stop!” I shouted. “I’m not having this baby today!”

“Darling, I don’t think you have a say in the matter,” Chance said.

We continued rolling toward the boxy yellow and blue EMT vehicle.

“No!” I said again, trying to find the buckles that held the straps in place. “I’m getting married first!”

“Jenny,” Chance said, taking my hand to stop me from unlatching myself. “We didn’t exactly do things the old-fashioned way. We’ll have the wedding.”

“Nooo,” I said, imploring him with my eyes. “I know what happens in there. They’ll put my last name on the baby’s crib. For our whole lives, those pictures and documents will show that he was a Gillespie first and a McKenzie second.”

I didn’t cry much, but tears definitely spilled out of my eyes then. I meant it. I should never have waited so late to have the ceremony, but Chance and I had barely met when I got pregnant. We weren’t sure about the marriage part until a couple months ago. I’d done things as fast as I could.

“Can you call the JP we hired?” I asked Chance. “See if he can come now?” We’d arrived at the ambulance and the EMTs were opening the doors.