Cavanaugh's Secret Delivery. Marie Ferrarella

and she was alone. He couldn’t really blame her. “I’m a cop,” he added, hoping that would reassure her.

      She definitely didn’t believe him. “No...you’re... NOT!”

      The woman had one hell of a set of lungs on her, Dugan thought, opening the passenger door. Rather than argue with her, in the interest of expediency, he took out his badge and showed it to her.

      “See?” he asked her.

      She still wasn’t convinced. “You...could have...gotten...that...in any...toy store,” she bit off.

      “Fair enough.” He took out his ID next and held it up almost in front of her face. The woman was sweating profusely, he noted. This had to hurt like hell, he thought. “Okay?” he asked, nodding at his wallet.

      “O...kay,” she panted. Her eyes widened as she saw him get in and reach over to her seat belt, releasing it. She was wary again and there was nowhere to retreat. “What...are...you...doing?” she demanded with as much indignation as she could manage.

      Before he could answer, she shrieked again, pushing against the floor with her feet as she arched back in the seat now that she was no longer restricted by the seat belt.

      It didn’t help. Nothing helped. The pain just couldn’t be escaped.

      “I can’t help you from outside the car,” Dugan told the woman.

      “Get...away!” she ordered, panting so hard she was getting dizzy. It took everything she had to keep from passing out.

      “Don’t worry,” he told her, “neither one of us wants to be here, but you need help and I’m the only one around.” He weighed his options, then shook his head. “I don’t think I can get you to the hospital in time. If it’ll make you feel any better, my aunt drives an ambulance.”

      He was talking about Aunt Maeve and she actually owned the company at this point, but he didn’t think the pregnant woman was in any condition to listen to any lengthy explanations. Not the way she was screaming and certainly not the way she was arching her back and moving from side to side. The simplest explanation was the best one.

      “She taught all of us a few basic emergency procedures,” he told the pregnant woman in a calm, friendly voice. “One of which was what to do when a woman went into intense labor.”

      There was still skepticism in her eyes. “You...swear?” she demanded.

      He told himself that she was scared and that made him feel for her. “I swear,” he told her with all the solemnity he could manage.

      “O-KAY!” she screamed.

      Her contractions were coming closer and closer. There was hardly any time between them at this point. And this time, because he was close, she grabbed his hand and held on to it so hard Dugan thought his fingers were going to snap off.

      When the contraction passed and she breathed a little more regularly, she released his hand.

      Dugan flexed his fingers, surprised that he still could. “Hell of a grip you have there. What is your name, anyway?” he asked.

      He could tell by the way she was breathing that she was bracing herself. The next second, she was being seized by yet another massive contraction.

      “Scarlet,” she managed to say just before she was once again writhing in pain.

      She’d grabbed his hand again. This time he tried to go with it, waiting it out and hoping he still had use of his fingers when she finally let go. He felt really awful for her, and not too keen for himself, either.

      Dugan looked toward the backseat. It looked relatively empty. If he could just get this woman to go into the back, it would be better for both of them, given the situation.

      “Ideally, we should get you into the backseat. There’s a little more room to work with—”

      By the time the words were out of his mouth, she was arching her back again and definitely trying to get away from the pain, even as she tried not to scream at the top of her lungs.

      “I’ll take that as a no.” Dugan rethought the situation. He had to work with what he had. “Okay, I need you to lie on your back.”

      She was huffing, trying not to push. She didn’t want her baby born in a rental car. That wasn’t right. It was bad enough that it had been conceived in one. Her eyes shifted toward the cop.

      “That’s...how... I...got...this...WAY!” she ground out.

      He could tell that she wasn’t very happy with him. “You know, if this was just eight hours from now, that scream of yours would have brought a whole bunch of people running, but right now, I’m all you’ve got, so let’s see if we can get this done as painlessly as possible.”

      Too late Dugan realized what he’d said. “Sorry, wrong choice of words. Just lie back,” he told her again. “Please.”

      This time, she listened.

      He left the passenger door open so that he had some space to do what he needed to do. She didn’t even seem to notice.

      “Okay, I apologize ahead of time,” he told her.

      She was moaning loudly, trying her best not to scream, and he doubted if she’d really heard him, but that didn’t matter. He’d said it just to make sure he was covered.

      As swiftly as possible, he got rid of her underwear, pushed back the oversized blouse that was covering her swollen belly and took a closer look at what he was up against.

      “Good news, you’re crowning,” he told her.

      Her eyes felt wet and there was a ringing noise in her ears. She tried to concentrate on what he was telling her.

      “What’s...that?”

      He looked up and tried to smile encouragingly at her. “It means that you’re going to be a mama soon,” Dugan said.

      That wasn’t good enough. This pain was ripping her in half. “HOW... SOOON?”

      “Very soon,” he assured her. “As a matter of fact, it won’t be long now,” he said, feeling almost as amazed as he figured she probably was right about now. Hope you were right, Aunt Maeve. “Okay, Scarlet, when I tell you to push, I want you to push. Push!” he ordered.

      The woman grabbed on to part of the steering wheel with one hand and the back of the headrest with the other. Breathing hard, she arched and pushed down hard for all she was worth.

      Mentally, Dugan counted up to five.

      “Okay, stop. Stop!” he ordered her again when she didn’t. “Scarlet, I know this is hard, but you have to stop when I tell you to stop,” Dugan told the frazzled woman.

      The look she gave him said a lot more than she was able to at this point. It didn’t take him much to fill in the blanks.

      “Yes, I know, it’s your body, you’re in pain and I’m just the jerk issuing orders. But if you push too hard, you’re going to wind up tearing things I can’t repair here,” he warned her. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

      Her eyes were on him and then she finally nodded.

      “Okay, ready?” he asked. She looked at him with wide eyes and he told her, “Push!”

      “I...am!” she cried, squeezing her eyes closed as she pushed down for all she was worth.

      She fully expected this to be it—but it wasn’t.

      She fell back against the seat cushion, breathing hard and ready to give up.

      As if sensing what was going on through her head, Dugan told her, “You can do this, Scarlet. You know you can. C’mon, just one more time.”

      “I...don’t...believe...you,” she whimpered, panting and trying very hard to catch her breath.