Caroline Cross - The Baby Blizzard

For an instant she looked blank. “What? I thought—are you sure?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Her lips began to tremble. “Is she okay?”

“She’s perfect.” Quickly he toweled off the baby, wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to her mother. “Honest. Ten fingers and ten toes.”

“Oh. Oh, my.” Tess looked down at the little red face and managed a shaky smile. “She’s...beautiful.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. The damn moisture was filling his eyes again, and he seemed to have something stuck in his throat. Nevertheless, there was something he had to say. “You...you did great.”

She glanced up in surprise. For a long moment, their gazes met. Until, with no warning, her face crumpled and she began to cry, great wrenching sobs of exhaustion, relief and joy.

For the second time that night, Jack didn’t stop to think.

He simply moved up the bed and gathered her and the baby into his arms.

Jack awoke slowly the next morning.

He was conscious first of the light. It was silvery-white against his eyelids, indicating that it was well past dawn, his usual time for rising. Perplexed, he started to stretch, only to be further disconcerted when he felt the chair at his back. Hell. Why wasn’t he in bed? He rolled his head, winced at the crick in his neck—and froze as his cheek brushed against an impossibly silky little head. In nearly the same instant, he registered the soft, slight weight resting against his chest.

The baby. Memory rushed back. The storm, the accident, Tess... And then later, the accelerated labor, the incredible moment of birth...

He raised his head and opened his eyes, forgetting to breathe as he took in Tess’s daughter’s serene, sleepy little face, so close to his. His gaze traced the fan of spidery black lashes that brushed the rose-petal cheeks, took in the button nose and the Cupid’s-bow lips parted to form a perfect O. Beneath his hand, he could feel each delicate bump of her spine, the steady ebb and flow of her breathing, the rhythmic flutter of her heart.

An odd pain squeezed his heart. He hadn’t lied last night. She was perfect.

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