opened his mouth to tell the clerk that “a few minutes” was completely unacceptable. He wanted Mary in the business end of that hospital and he wanted her there now.
But Mary tugged on his hand. “Gabe. No.” He glanced down into her upturned face. The look in her eyes made it more than clear that he was not allowed to ream the clerk a new one. “I’m fine,” she said firmly. “Okay? Fine.”
So he wheeled her back to the waiting area, figuring if they didn’t come get her good and soon, he’d be kicking some ass and taking some serious names—whether Mary wanted him to or not.
They did come a few minutes later, just as the clerk had promised, two women in scrubs. “Mrs. Hofstetter?” At Mary’s nod, the shorter of the two women took charge of the chair. “Let’s go, then.”
They wheeled her through the double steel doors and he went with them, carrying her suitcase, her purse and the diaper bag. No one seemed to question his right to be with her.
The taller of the two women took his arm as the other wheeled Mary on down the corridor. “Mr. Hofstetter?”
Since explaining the situation might get him kicked out, he simply answered, “Yeah?”
“We’ll take a brief history of your wife’s labor so far and Dr. Breitmann will examine her. After that, if he determines she is having the baby today, she’ll be moved to a labor room and you can stay with her there.”
He didn’t get the “if” part. It seemed pretty obvious to him that today was the day. But he didn’t ask questions. His job had been to get them to take care of her. Now that was accomplished, he was going with the theory that they knew what they were doing.
The nurse said, “Hold on to her things for now, why don’t you?” She indicated a row of chairs against the hallway wall to their left. “You can make yourself comfortable there until we come for you.”
“Uh. Right. Good enough…”
“Now’s the time to make a few calls if you need to. Let the family know what’s going on.”
For a moment, he flashed on his father’s face. Davis Bravo would be pretty damn surprised to know what was going on.
But of course, she didn’t mean his family. She meant Mary’s—about which he knew virtually nothing.
He faked it. “Good idea. I’ll make a few calls.”
So he sat in one of the chairs, with Mary’s stuff around him, and got out his BlackBerry, for lack of anything better to do. He checked messages. There were several, including one from his Dad and one from Carly.
He listened to the first one, left by his father.
“Gabe. I’m getting impatient here. Call me when you get this. I want details on how it went. I want you to tell me the widow has sold us that ranch. There’ll be no opportunity at lunch to—”
He clicked out of voice mail. He just didn’t want to hear it. And calling his dad back was out of the question. Davis would start right in with his twenty questions routine: How did it go? Is she on? Why not? Where are you now? You’re what?
Uh-uh. No, thanks. Not now. His father could wait. And he’d get back to Carly later, too. And the others. Right now, it all had to be about Mary, who was probably having a baby today, with no one from her family to be with her.
Ida, he thought. That was the mother-in-law’s name. Maybe he should try and get in touch with Ida Hofstetter and tell her what was going on.
If he only had a clue what Ida’s sister’s name was, he could call St. Louis information…
He opened Mary’s purse and felt around in there, feeling pretty creeped out about going through her personal stuff. But he did find a flip cell phone.
He checked her contacts. She had three numbers for her mother-in-law: Home, Store, Cell. He tried the cell and got sent to voice mail and left a message, giving his name and saying he’d driven Mary to the hospital, that Mary was fine, but that her mother-in-law should call Mary’s cell or his cell or the hospital as soon as possible. He rattled off his cell number then hung up.
Then he tried Ida Hofstetter’s home number, where he left a similar message. After that, he went ahead and tried the number called “Store.”
A woman answered. “Hofstetter’s Hardware. Donna Lynn speakin’.”
From Donna Lynn, who it turned out was a clerk at Ida’s store right there in Wulf Creek, he got Ida’s sister’s number in St. Louis and Donna Lynn’s promise that she would have Ida call the hospital if she heard from her.
“You give Mary a big congratulations from me, you hear?”
“Well, she hasn’t had the baby yet…”
“But when she does.”
“I will, Donna Lynn. I promise.”
“And I’ll come by, tomorrow—I mean, if the hospital says the baby’s arrived.”
“Great.”
“Uh. Who are you, now?”
A nurse was coming toward him. “Long story. Thanks, Donna Lynn.” He disconnected the call with a sigh of relief.
The nurse led him to a room with a hospital bed and a couple of easy chairs. There was a door to a bathroom and curtains on the windows. Mary lay in the bed, wearing a flower-print hospital gown.
She looked happy to see him. “Gabe.”
“How you doing?”
She blew out a slow breath. “Well, it’s official. Dr. Breitmann says today’s the day.”
He set her things on the floor by the door and went to her. “Everything’s okay, then?”
She nodded. “He says I’m in labor and everything is going well.”
“But you told me it was too early…”
“It’s okay. It’s earlier than expected, but Dr. Breitmann says it’s going to be all right, that the baby is capable of survival outside the womb.”
“Good.”
She waited until the nurse left to whisper, “They think you’re my husband. They seem to have no clue that I’m on my own.”
“Why would they? I didn’t see a space for ‘widow’ in all those reams of paperwork.” He took her hand and twined their fingers together. It seemed a totally appropriate thing to do at that moment. “And besides, you’re not on your own. I’m here. It’s not ideal, I know. But it’s better than nothing.”
“Gabe.” She tried to look stern. “Seriously. There is no reason that you have to—”
“Yeah, there is. You need a friend right now.”
A low laugh escaped her. “We’re not friends.”
“Sure we are.”
She squeezed his hand. “You’re really impressing me, you know that?”
“I do what I have to do.”
“You’re being amazing. But I have to say this right up front. No matter how wonderful you are today, you’ll never get me to sell my ranch.”
“Tell you what.” He still had her cell, so he opened her fingers and wrapped them around it.
She frowned down at it. “What?”
“Let’s forget about Bravo River. At least until your baby’s born.”
A shy smile curved her lips. “Deal—and what were you doing with my phone?”
“Stealing the numbers out of it. I called your mother-in-law at home and on her cell. Left messages. I also called her store,