SUSAN MEIER - Prince Baby

Lucy drew a quiet breath. “Okay.” Her voice shook. Her eyes stayed downcast. “I left Xavier Island when I realized I was pregnant. I needed to finish the mansion in Miami, but I also wanted time alone to decide what to do. In the end I couldn’t keep your baby from you.”

Seth snorted in disbelief as he picked up the receiver of the portable phone on the end table by the sofa. Eight months ago, she’d let her father’s representative end their marriage. Now she expected him to think she considered his feelings? His interests?

“Yeah. Sure. I believe that. I also have some swampland that would make a perfect retreat for your dad. Lots of alligators.”

“Seth,” she implored, grabbing his hand. “I know things ended badly between us.” She caught his gaze. “You also have a right to be skeptical. I wasn’t going to tell you about the baby because I thought it best that we never see each other again, but…”

She broke off with a gasp, then groaned loudly.

Seth’s knees turned to rubber again. “Lucy! Do not have this baby on my sofa!”

She squeezed his hand. “Seth, something is wrong. Everything’s happening too fast…I’m not even due for four weeks! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have risked this long trip!”

“I think your doctor may have miscalculated your due date.”

She closed her eyes and, between pants of air, she said, “That would mean I got pregnant the first night we made love…Aghghghgh!”

Ignoring the vivid images that assailed him when he thought of the heart-stopping passion that had propelled him and Lucy to the bed of his Miami hotel room before they’d even had their first date, Seth punched 911 on the phone’s keypad. When the dispatcher answered, he said, “I have a woman in my house who is in labor.”

“How far apart are her contractions?” the dispatcher calmly asked.

Seth faced Lucy. “How far apart are your contractions?”

Lucy panted a few times before she said, “I had one pain when I got out of the car. One when you opened the door. And now the pain is back. It hasn’t even been a minute. It’s almost like the contractions don’t stop!” She drew a quick breath then groaned again.

Seth said, “There doesn’t seem to be any time in between the pains.”

“Hold on, sir, while I fix your location…” Obviously tracing his address from his phone number, the cool, calm and collected dispatcher said, “I have you listed as Johnson Road. You’re not very far…”

Seth glanced at Lucy. When he saw she was gasping for breath, he said, “Just get someone here!”

“Sir, an ambulance is on its way. Stay on the line and I’ll guide you through…”

Lucy cried out in pain. Seth squeezed her hand. “Hold on, Lucy. An ambulance is on the way.”

“I can’t hold on.” She moaned in agony. “Oh, God!”

Seth fell to his knees beside the sofa. “Operator, things are not going well here.”

“Relax, sir, and tell me what’s happening.”

Before Seth could answer, Lucy said, “I’m going to have this baby right now!” She slid down on his sofa, with her feet flat on the cushion and her knees raised. Every inch of her shook, as if she’d been standing in the cold for hours. Her raincoat crackled and crunched from the nearly violent movement.

Seth said, “Operator, she just said she’s going to have this baby right now, and I believe her. I have two neighbors who are volunteer firemen.” He knew the volunteer firemen had paramedic training because he had considered joining the department himself. “So I think I’m going to hang up and see if I can get one of them to come over.”

He disconnected the call, and, phone in hand, ran to his office to get the number of the two brothers who lived down the street. Once he found it, he dialed quickly, then began running to the living room again.

“Mark,” he said when the older of the two brothers answered on the third ring. “This is Seth Bryant. I don’t have time to explain, but my ex-wife is having a baby in my living room. I need you right now! And I do mean right now!”

Without giving Mark a chance to answer, Seth clicked off the call and raced to the sofa again. Lucy lay groaning and Seth dropped the phone and started undoing the closures of her coat. “Let’s get this off.”

She nodded and he nimbly pushed the raincoat from her shoulders. When he began to ease it from beneath her, she caught his hand. “Don’t! Leave it for damage control.”

Seth laughed, but the laughter was more from nerves than humor. “Okay. Good thought.”

Lucy groaned again, digging her fingers into the edge of the sofa.

“Hang in there,” he said, straightening her coat beneath her. “Everything’s going to be okay. I called my neighbors who are paramedics.”

Lucy said, “Okay,” then panted a few breaths. Seth noticed that she hadn’t stopped squeezing the cushion and knew that what she had said was true. There was no time between the contractions.

“Mark and his brother live three houses down,” he said soothingly. “Nine chances out of ten they only have to jump into their shoes before they can jog up here. Any second now my doorbell will ring…”

She groaned again. Her knuckles whitened as she squeezed the sofa cushion more tightly. “Seth, I can feel the baby coming out.”

Not giving himself time to think, Seth reached under her skirt to remove her underpants. He heard the doorbell and prayed it was Mark. “In here,” he called, knowing he couldn’t leave Lucy to answer the door. But the wind howled, drowning out his voice.

He positioned himself between Lucy’s knees. “In here!” he yelled. “Come in!”

When he didn’t hear the sound of his front door opening he shouted, “In here!” as the child pushed free. Quickly, easily, the baby slid from Lucy and landed in Seth’s hands.

He just barely caught it. “Oh, my God!”

Mark and Ray ran into the room. Ray laughed. “Looks like we’re here just in time.”

Seth glanced down at the baby. His baby. His son.

A prince.

“Oh, my God.”

Seth watched the paramedics roll Lucy and the baby out of his house, down the sidewalk and to the driveway where the ambulance awaited. As they guided the gurney into the brightly lit vehicle, Seth closed his front door and started walking upstairs to get a shirt and shoes so he could join them at the hospital, but he had a quick second thought.

When he entered his bedroom, he grabbed the cell phone he had left on the cherrywood dresser with his wallet and change and dialed the home number for his personal attorney. As Pete Hauser’s phone rang, Seth walked to the window and pulled back the sheer curtain and saw the ambulance speed away in the rainy night.

“Pete?” he said. “This is Seth Bryant.”

“Seth? What are you doing calling at—” he paused and Seth assumed he’d glanced at a clock “—eleven-o’clock on a Friday night!”

Seth winced. “You were already in bed, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was! Tomorrow might be Saturday, but I still have clients.”

Seth winced again. “Sorry, but I have a big problem.”

“What’s up?” Pete asked, instantly alert at the mention of trouble.

“I have a son.”

“What?”

Seth took a quick breath. “Let me start at the beginning. Remember that I told you I had been married, but you didn’t need to worry because the marriage had been annulled and neither one of us wanted alimony or a settlement?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I was wrong when I said we didn’t need to worry. My ex-wife’s dad is a king…”

“Seth, is this one of your jokes?”

“No joke. The bottom line is that our marriage was annulled because Lucy was promised to someone else in a trade agreement…”