Her Best Christmas Ever

But it was too late now.

“Ready or not,” she said, “I’m having this baby. And I’m having it now.”

“Oh, damn,” he uttered.

Thank goodness he made no effort to leave, even though she could see the anxiety brewing in his eyes.

They were stuck—just the three of them, one man, one woman and one baby. Strangers thrown together by Fate on a lonely, stormy night.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Don’t let my baby die.”

Greg paled at her words, and his eyes watered. Then he blinked several times and seemed to rally. “Ah, Connie. Don’t worry. I can do this. Hell, so can you. Women have been having babies since the dawn of time. This is no big deal. We’ll handle it together. And we’ll probably laugh about it later.”

No way would she find anything funny about this later. But she appreciated his attempts to calm her, to provide some peace of mind in order to face the challenge ahead. But before she could thank him, her body again took charge, and she heeded another order to push—harder still.

After the urge finally passed, Greg removed the sheet that was covering her legs.

“Take off your panties,” Greg said.

“What?” Her expression, she suspected, had morphed into something sort of stupefied. But his comment had struck her as…odd. Under the circumstances, it just…sounded funny, that’s all.

“I can’t very well deliver the baby if you keep them on,” he said patiently.

As Connie worked to remove her underwear—as luck would have it, an extra-large matronly styled pair that Granny had purchased for her—she began to smile. Then a chuckle erupted. One of those nervous, stress-relieving giggles Connie sometimes made at the most unsuitable times and in the most inappropriate places.

“Lucky me,” she said. “I wonder how many women can say that Greg Clayton asked her to remove her panties.”

“Very funny.”

She suspected there had been quite a few—a legion of them, no doubt. She knew how many groupies had flocked around Ross and the other guys who played in the South Forty Band, and they weren’t anywhere near as handsome and popular as Greg was.

“Of course,” she added, “I suppose this particular experience is unique to the two of us.”

“You’ve got that right.” Greg chuffed.

“For what it’s worth, after what I’ve gone through tonight, I can assure you that I won’t ever agree to take off my panties for another man again. And if one even suggests it, I’ll crack him over the head with the first heavy object I can find.”

Greg tossed her a grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then he took a deep breath and reached for the cell phone on his belt clip and dialed the number Doc had given him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, feeling the urge to push again.

“Doc is going to have to coach me through this. Like you said, the baby’s coming whether we want her to or not.”

As Connie pushed until she was blue in the face, she had to agree. Apparently, she was one of those rare women destined for a speedy delivery. And the only one available to help her bring her child into the world was Greg.

She hoped the handsome singer was up for the task.

As Greg prepared to deliver Connie’s baby, his movements grew stiff and awkward. The sweat beaded upon his brow, and he used his arm to wipe it away.

Damn. The guys in the band were never going to believe this. Hell, he didn’t believe it. If his hands weren’t busy, he’d pinch himself.

His cell phone was lying beside him, set on speaker, as Doc Graham talked him through the scariest, most nerve-racking night of his life.

He glanced at Connie, her expression set in a grimace, her face red as she did her best to push her baby into the world.

Was this how Father Gregorio felt when Greg’s mother had been giving birth? Scared spitless? Completely out of his league?

The fact that his mom had died in childbirth was enough to spike his spinal fluid with ice water, but he shook off the nervous fear and focused on the task at hand. He had to help Connie have her baby whether he wanted to or not.

“The head is out,” Greg told both Doc and Connie, as he followed the directions of the experienced country doctor.

Moments later, the baby slid into his hands. His own breath held as he waited for it to cry, to breathe. As the tiny little girl let out a wail that pierced the silence and announced her arrival, he blew out a huge sigh of relief.

His movements were almost robotic, but he did everything Doc told him to do, step by scary step. And as the minutes ticked away, as everything proceeded the way Doc said that it would, wonder overcame the fear that had been dogging him since Connie’s labor had started and the birth became imminent.

After he cleaned up the screaming, flailing baby girl, he bundled her in flannel like a little burrito and handed her to her mother.

Connie, with tears streaming down her face, took the baby from him and cooed at her. “Hello, sweetheart.Welcome to the world.”

Asense of awewashed over Greg, and he found himself experiencing an unprecedented high, a mind-boggling sense of wonder.

“Oh, my God.” Connie looked up from the newborn long enough to latch onto Greg’s gaze. “Look at her.”

He had been looking. And while the tiny little newborn was scrawny and wrinkly and gooey and had an uncanny resemblance to E.T., the extra-terrestrial, he couldn’t help thinking she was the cutest little alien he’d ever seen.

“She’s beautiful,” he told Connie. “Are you still going to call her Amanda?”

“I don’t know. Does she look like an Isabella to you?”

She was asking him for an opinion? “It sounds like an awfully big name for a little baby, but I guess she’ll grow into it.”

“I could nickname her Bella. Or Izzy.”

Greg looked at the little flannel-wrapped cherub, at the rosebud mouth, the wispy dark hair.

“Not Izzy,” he said, thinking of a ton of rhyming words that kids might use to tease her, Dizzy or Frizzy or Lizzy Lizard. Kids could be thoughtless, he’d learned. And cruel. “But Belle or Bella suits her. Either one would make a good name for a little princess.”

Then he tore his gaze away from the mother and child, doing whatever he could to make Connie more comfortable.

Yet even when his job appeared to be nearly over, when he finally had an excuse to close the door and leave them to rest, he hadn’t been able to do so. Instead, he kept looking for reasons to stick around.

Had he really been the first human to touch that baby girl? The one to cut and tie the cord?

He sat in silence for the longest time, basking in a slew of emotions he couldn’t quite peg. Feelings he’d never experienced, never expected to.

As he got to his feet, he continued to watch them like some kind of voyeur. Or maybe he’d taken on a protector role. Either way, he couldn’t help feeling a bit envious.