Page 68 of Forbidden Cowboy

“Mr. West,” he panted as he skidded to a stop in front of me, “Miss Sierra—she—”

“What?!” I asked, immediately panicked.

“Um, she went into labor. Her water broke and Miss Anna had to call an ambulance, I’m so sorry, I came as fast as I could!”

I nodded, not really listening past the point he told me she was in labor. He hopped off Melisandre, seemingly understanding that I didn’t feel like finding Greg and our horses to ride back.

I flew through the valleys that made up my ranch, and tied Melisandre up at the house, thinking about how familiar it felt to be doing that again. I would text Greg or Joel to come get her, but she seemed happy enough to chew on the grass in the afternoon light, so I wasn’t worried about her being alone for thirty minutes.

I raced down the road, breaking speed laws and just praying I wouldn’t get pulled over. Someone must have been watching over me, because I made it to the hospital without being spotted by one speed trap.

Even with all of that, I was still too late. I wasn’t allowed to enter an operating room when the surgery was already underway. The OR was actually part of the birthing floor, so I could still look in from the little anteroom where a freshly-made bed was waiting for Sierra. She was in surgery without me there to support her. Anna had stuck to me like glue the moment I arrived in the hospital, and was clinging to my shirt while crying silently. I wanted to tell her that everything would be okay. I didn’t know that it would be, though, so I just held her close to me, taking comfort in her presence as I walked cautiously up to that window.

I was grateful that Anna couldn’t see in as soon as I could.

Something was wrong. Something was very, desperately wrong, and Sierra was freaking out. Her face was puffed up from crying, and beyond the drape, medical professionals gowned in blue moved around. I saw someone step away from the hidden area where they were presumably extracting our babies from Sierra, and they were holding something. They were holding something limp and a little bluer than a healthy baby should be, by my reckoning. I felt the blood drain from my face, and Sierra began thrashing around like she knew exactly what was wrong.

I was about two and a half seconds from bursting through the doors, rules be damned, when she finally turned her head and saw me.

* * *

The next two hours were the longest of my life.

Sierra had been returned to her room, stitched up and still numb from the spinal block they had given her before surgery. The nurse that had come to check on her had assured us that we would have an update on our children soon, but I couldn’t help but feel very ignored and left out of the conversation. If our children were somewhere else in the hospital dying, we deserved to know.

Sierra wouldn’t speak. Instead, she laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. The only sign that she was with me was the occasional squeeze of her hand in response to questions.

Anna sat in a chair in the corner and stared out the window, not bothering to try and speak to either of us.

I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed sitting, holding Sierra’s hand, and praying.

When a doctor finally walked in, a middle-aged woman with streaks of silver in her dark hair, I almost fainted in relief at the sight of her relaxed face.

“Hello,” she introduced herself, “I’m Dr. Martinez, and I’m one of the doctors working in the Neonatal ICU.”

“ICU?” I asked.

That couldn’t be good. Beau had been in the ICU because he wasdying. The ICU isn’t where healthy people stayed.

“All premature babies are placed in the NICU. It’s not quite the same as the regular one. Babies are just a lot more fragile, so we prefer to keep them under very close supervision and have everything to hand that they could possibly need. I came to update you on your triplets.”

Sierra was staring holes into this woman, but didn’t speak.

“The amniotic sacs burst from the two babies highest in the womb, and this led to premature labor. Thankfully, those two were absolutely fine at birth. The third baby had some issue with his lungs, but is now breathing as normally as can be expected of a baby as premature as these three. As I’m sure you can understand, thirty-one weeks is a little sooner than we would have wanted for them, but they have an excellent chance of growing into very healthy children.”

“When can we see them?” Sierra finally asked, and her grip tightened on my hand.

“As soon as you can wiggle your legs and sit in a wheelchair, we will have someone bring you to the nursery,” she said. “As for you, Mr. West, you are permitted to visit whenever you would like. You will need to be tagged, however. We don’t allow babies to be removed from the NICU, and you must wear an electronic tag to be allowed in. It’s a security measure, you understand.”

I nodded mutely, and with a well wish for the two of us and a goodbye, Dr. Martinez was gone.

“You should go,” Sierra said. “You should go see them.”

She looked away from me.

“I don’t want to go without you,” I said firmly.

It was true. I couldn’t imagine meeting our children without her there. She turned her head back to me, and there were tears in her eyes.