Home > Hot for a Cop (The Single Moms of Seattle Book 2)(2)

Hot for a Cop (The Single Moms of Seattle Book 2)(2)
Author: Whitley Cox

“I’m going to time them,” Bianca said. “Let me know when the next one comes.”

Lauren nodded. “Guys, I can’t have my baby in my car in the middle of a traffic jam in the middle of a storm. I just can’t.”

“It’ll be okay,” Celeste said, her voice not the least reassuring.

“If you can talk through the contractions, they’re not that strong. The baby isn’t coming just yet,” Bianca said soothingly. “Remember the breathing from your prenatal class.”

“You mean the one I went to alone because I’m about to be a single mother?” Lauren blurted out, half laughing, half crying. “Because the guy I was seeing for three months, the guy who knocked me up, ran the moment I told him I was pregnant.”

“We offered to come to the classes with you,” Celeste said softly.

“You both have kids and lives. I need to be able to do things on my own. I’m on my own with this ki—” She squeezed her eyes shut and arched her back in her seat as another wave of nauseating pain hit her harder than the last. “Another—”

Fuck, she wasn’t able to speak through it. Did that mean the baby was coming now?

“They’re five minutes apart,” Bianca said, sounding worried.

Lauren slumped back in her seat, panting. “What’s the protocol?”

“Four-one-one,” Celeste said quietly. “Four minutes apart, lasting one minute each, for one hour.”

“That lasted just shy of a minute,” Bianca added.

“Yeah, but they need to last an hour at that length and interval,” Celeste said. “Her water just broke. Her contractions just started. She has time.”

Lauren didn’t feel like she had time. She’d been itching for this baby to make its debut for the last three weeks, and now that it was finally gearing up to do so, she didn’t feel prepared at all.

“Do you have the car seat installed?” Bianca asked.

Lauren nodded. “Yeah. Took it to the fire station and one of the firefighters did it for me.” And that man had fueled her rampant fantasies for a good two weeks afterward. Not that she could see her crotch anymore or get her fingers or a vibrator there. She’d resorted to showerhead, and it wasn’t nearly as effective as some of her toys.

“What about your hospital bag?” Celeste asked.

“In the back.”

“And towels or a blanket?”

“A few, yeah.” She always had at least one blanket in the back of her car and usually kept one or two towels in case she got caught in a rainstorm or decided to go for a swim in some random river or lake when she was out for a Sunday drive.

Having grown up in Nebraska and Utah, now that she lived on the west coast in gorgeous Seattle, she loved going for Sunday drives through the mountains. All the twists and turns to the road. The beauty of nature and the sound of birds chirping and water burbling. She loved her family back home in Utah, but she’d never move back, not when she had the Pacific Northwest to call home.

About to open her mouth and ask if she needed to find boiling water—obviously a joke—another contraction ripped through her. Each one was worse than the last. Each one lasted longer and seemed to be hitting her harder and more concentrated in her back and between her legs.

“Was that another one?” Bianca asked.

“Uh-huh.” She reached for her water bottle and took a long sip. Wasn’t she supposed to be chewing ice chips or something? Wasn’t that what women in labor on TV were always chomping on?

“Has traffic moved at all?” Celeste asked.

Not a fucking inch. “No,” she whined.

“I think you need to move into the back seat,” Bianca suggested. “Recline the seat to give yourself some space. You’ll be more comfortable that way too.”

“I … I can’t give birth in my car. I just can’t.” She’d always considered herself a strong person, an independent person, and yet right now, she felt helpless and weak and terrified of being alone.

“You might have to, honey,” Bianca whispered. “I’m really sorry. But those contractions are strong, close and long. That baby is coming.”

Tears sprang into Lauren’s eyes, and she shook her head violently. “No! No! No!” She poked her stomach. “You stay the fuck in there, you hear me? You are not coming into this world in the back of a Pathfinder in the middle of a storm. That’s not your story. That’s not our story.”

“Get into the back seat,” Celeste said gently. “You’ll be more comfortable there.”

With tears of fear, pain and utter frustration burning tracks down her cheeks, Lauren braced herself for the onslaught of rain, wind and another contraction.

She opened her door, but the wind caught it, flung it open and took Lauren with it.

 

 

Every fucking year. The closer to Christmas it got, the crazier people started to act. The more desperate they started to behave. Isaac Fox squeezed his eyes shut as he sat in his truck in the middle of the gridlocked bumper-to-bumper traffic in the plummeting rain and window-rattling wind. He was glad he’d decided to drive his truck today and not his motorcycle.

Even though his father had drilled into his brain since the day he was born that any other bike besides a Harley was for pussies, he loved his Ducati Enduro Pro and rode it to work whenever he could.

Fuck his old man.

Isaac was nothing like him and determined to keep it that way.

Right down to what rumbled between his legs.

Only now that winter had officially hooked her frigid claws into each and every day, he was grateful he had a vehicle to tuck into. He couldn’t even imagine being trapped in this fucking mess of a traffic jam on his bike.

Goodbye nuts and any chance of having children.

And because he was a cop—but off duty for the next two days—he couldn’t very well weave in between the cars on his bike. That was setting a bad example and showing his privilege. Though he knew countless other motorcycle-riding cops who would have swerved between the vehicles or ridden the shoulder to bypass the chaos.

But Isaac liked to stay aboveboard. He went into law enforcement for a reason. So he could uphold the law, not break it when it suited him.

Opening his eyes again, he checked to see if the traffic in front of him had moved.

Nope. Not a fucking inch.

Good thing he didn’t have a wife and kids to get home to.

Not even a damn cat.

Normally, he liked his life. He had nobody to answer to, nobody to give him grief or a hard time for working late or staying three hours at the gym and then going out for a beer with his buddy. Nobody to pick up after. He could leave the toilet seat up without having to worry about being bitched out for it or some kid throwing his keys and watch into the bowl.

Yeah, he liked his life.

Except sometimes.

Like Christmas.

Like now.

He hadn’t been home in … fuck, nearly ten years. Because there wasn’t really anything for him there anymore. He wasn’t sure he had a home, per se. Certainly not a childhood home he could return to with memories carved out in every corner. A treehouse in the backyard and height measurements in the doorjamb. He’d never had a home like that. The only reason he knew those homes existed was because of television.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)