Babies and Badges. Laura Altom Marie

her smell. Her perfume was a spicy, musky, sexy-hot Oriental blend that somehow matched the jade he remembered hiding behind her now closed eyes.

      “You’re gonna be just fine,” he murmured, stopping just short of instinctively kissing her forehead. Geez, he’d been in law for twelve years and had yet to kiss one of the Jane Q. Publics he’d sworn to protect. Further proof that he shouldn’t have come within three counties of Kelsey and Owen’s big day.

      His attraction meter was all screwed up.

      At the back of his truck, Noah placed his good knee on the floorboard, then eased her inside, covering her with a blanket she pushed away.

      “Hot—so hot,” she said, voice scratchy and weak.

      “Okay, um, let me see what I can do.”

      He’d just hopped down, planning to close up the truck and turn on the A/C, when she reached for him, locking her fingers around his black leather belt.

      “Please, stay,” she said, eyes welling with tears just before she squeezed them shut and started funny panting breathing that felt way too intimate for him to witness. “I—I thought I could do this alone.” She grimaced. “I do everything alone, but—” There she went with that breathing again. “Oh God, it hurts. Oh God, what am I going to do?” Somewhere in all of that, she’d raised her knees, then spread her legs wide, furrowing her lovely forehead with a grimace of what he could only guess was mind-numbing pain.

      He matched that with his own case of vertigo.

      Good Lord, she wasn’t gonna have this baby right now, was she? He’d seen training videos on this sort of thing, but…

      Suck it up, bud. This ain’t no drill and you ain’t no Boy Scout.

      Noah looked over his shoulder for the ambulance, but no such luck.

      “Okay, um, can you hold it?” he asked, taking yet another look.

      “Nooooooo!” Thrashing her head from side to side, she emitted an otherworldly scream that startled a flock of crows into noisy flight.

      Noah rolled up his sleeves and took a deep breath before assuming his usual professionalism. This was no longer about Kelsey, or his own fears, this was about saving this woman’s life, and the life of her child.

      “What’s your name?” he said, knowing they were about to get real close—real fast.

      “Cassandra—Cassie.”

      “Nice to meet you, Cassie. I’m Noah.”

      Though her beautiful face was all scrunched with pain, she nodded before cutting loose with another of her banshee wails. “It huuuuurts!” she cried.

      “I know,” he said, patting her knee. “I mean, obviously, I don’t know, but—oh, man…”

      I’ve gotta pull myself together.

      Latex gloves. Definitely need those. Too bad the box of them was in the back of his county-issued Blazer.

      Okay, so he had to somehow wash his hands. He was gonna need those towels, too.

      Shooting into action, he grabbed the box with the towels, unwrapped it, then, stopping just short of pulling them out, he ran back around to the rear of the truck to grab one of the gallons of fresh water he kept on hand for busted radiators or the occasional dehydrated lost hiker.

      In the first-aid kit, he fished out a couple of prepackaged alcohol wipes, ripped one open with his teeth and scrubbed his hands as best as he could. Next, he poured water over them before giving his hands another good scrub.

      Okay, now he was in business.

      Hands clean, he grabbed a couple of the new-smelling towels and spread them under Cass’s backside.

      Another of her wails hurried him along.

      She was now clutching at her dress, dragging it up lean, tan legs he had no business looking at, but had to. “My panties,” she said. “T-they have to come off.”

      He nodded, then reached for the first-aid kit’s scissors, and clinically snipped at robin’s-egg-blue silk.

      Oh boy—or girl!

      There—right there between her legs was the crown of her baby’s head!

      “Okay, Cass, you’re further into this than I thought.” Grabbing her hand, he said, “Squeeze, darlin’. Squeeze me as hard as you can and push!”

      Eyes wild, she did.

      “Again,” he said, keeping one eye on her and the other on the baby. Instinctively, he pushed her legs wider. “Push, Cassie, push. Come on, you can do it.”

      “Easy for you to say!” she snapped.

      “That’s right, darlin’—give me hell. Come on, I can take it! Give all men hell—especially your husband!”

      “I—I’m—arggghhh—not married! I d-don’t need a man!”

      “Great, then I’ll head back to town and grab a beer.”

      “No,” she said through another grimace. “I do need you.”

      “Good,” he said, eyes welling at the miracle unfolding before him. “Because a truckload of TNT couldn’t tear me away from this spot. Push, darlin’, push!”

      “I’m trying!”

      “Try harder!”

      “I am—arrrrgggghhhhh!”

      “Oh my God, I’m holding its head. Just a little more. A little mooorre. Got it. Oh my God,” he said laughing through his tears. “It’s a girl. You had a beautiful baby girl, Cassie!”

      With his pinkie finger, he cleared the baby’s mouth, and when the tiny, redheaded dream cut loose with a wail every bit as powerful as one of her momma’s, with his spare hand he managed to spread a towel across Cassie’s tummy before presenting her with her child—cord and all, which he planned on letting the paramedics cut.

      Cassie’s fiery hair hung in damp tendrils, and her complexion was misty with sweat, but never, in all of his days, had Noah seen a more beautiful, downright mesmerizing sight.

      Then that gorgeous face of hers once again scrunched with pain.

      “What’s wrong?” he asked. “The baby’s here.”

      “A-another one,” she said with more pants. “Twins. Oh God, help me, please help me,” she said, writhing her head from side to side, still clutching her baby girl. “Noooo, something’s not right. It hurts—oh, it hurts!”

      Heart hammering, Noah looked between her legs and not since seven years earlier on the night of that accident had he experienced such terror. Instead of a head, he saw a toe.

      Sweet, merciful Heaven, why?

      Okay, Noah…think.

      Growing up in rural Arkansas, he had a lot of friends who’d lived on farms. He’d seen breech births with cattle—even a horse, but…

      Okay, only difference is size. Sort of.

      “It hurts, Noah! It hurts…” Cassie’s agonized cries turned to racking sobs.

      No. Not again.

      Please Lord, don’t let this be another night like that one on Blue Springs Road. I couldn’t bear it. It wouldn’t be right. That woman hadn’t deserved to die, and You wouldn’t let me save her. Just like Cassie, she’d had kids—a family.

      Sure, Noah’s friends had told him a hundred times over he hadn’t been to blame, but by God, he’d been the one on the scene and he’d been the one holding her when she’d asked him to tell her husband and kids she loved them.

      Too many times in his life, he’d been unable to fix things. It happened