Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“I bet he hates that.” Walsh had inherited his locomotive drive from his father. Mr. Bennett would hate being hamstrung.
“I hate it, too, because I’m pulling double duty. I’m away from home even more. Not how I saw the last trimester of Kerris’s pregnancy going.”
Back to that…
“Cam, there’s no one else I’d trust in New York. Could you—”
“Man, I don’t think so.”
At Christmas he hadn’t even known Kerris was pregnant. They’d revealed it later, after he was back in Paris. Thank God. That would have made awkward impossible. And to see Kerris pregnant again…like she’d been with his daughter Amalie before the car accident. Too much. That wound, even two years later, was still too fresh. Still barely staunched by the things Cam busied himself doing to stay sane. The most beautiful thing to ever enter the world, and he had killed her himself. As if with his own hands. If Kerris hadn’t been chasing him that rainy night, Amalie would be alive.
No, he couldn’t see Kerris pregnant.
“Cam, I need you to do this. Something is off.”
“Walsh—”
“Please.” Walsh couldn’t or didn’t hide the desperate concern in his voice. “I know it’s awkward, but she’s my wife. They’re my babies. Please.”
Well, damn.
How was he supposed to say no to this version of his best friend? Not the one who had secretly nurtured feelings for his wife from the day he laid eyes on her. Not the one who’d kissed her in Cam’s own house. Not the one he’d fought until they both lay bloody on the floor. But the Walsh he’d grown up with. The one he’d trusted his darkest secrets to. Well, most of them anyway.
How could he say no to the Walsh who needed him now?
“Okay.”
“Cam, I owe you.”
“Oh, I know that.”
“There’s a lockbox against the wall on the front porch with a spare key. My birthday is the code.”
Twenty minutes and one cab ride later, Cam was punching in the lockbox code and wanting to punch himself in the face. What the hell was he doing? This was stupid, even for him. Who does this? Who checks on his ex-wife who is carrying his best friend’s babies?
He rang the doorbell three times. Waited. Rang again. Nothing.
“Maybe she’s just not home.” He spoke to the quiet cobbled street in their TriBeCa neighborhood, his back to the door. He didn’t want to use the key burning a hole in his palm.
A silver BMW X5 parked out front caught Cam’s eye. Unremarkable, really, except for the Walsh Foundation decal on the rear window. If Kerris’s car was here, and she wasn’t answering the door…He tried to ignore the anxious thoughts piling up in his head.
“Screw this.” Cam unlocked the door, noting that the alarm didn’t sound. Had Kerris forgotten to set it? Was she out for a walk?
Cam was about to call her name when he noticed two oranges just outside the entrance to the kitchen. Random. He knew from living with her that Kerris was a neat freak. Not a thing was ever out of place. He scooped the oranges up from the floor to put them in whatever dish or basket Kerris had designated for fruit. A small noise drew his attention to the floor.
Kerris lay on the floor in a puddle of water, groceries spilled all around her, arms wrapped around her swollen stomach, eyes squeezed tightly together, bottom lip between her teeth, tears running down her cheeks.
“Kerris!” Cam rushed over and squatted at her side.
She slitted her eyes open before closing them again.
“Cam.” His name was just a breath in the quiet kitchen. “I…something is wrong. Water broke. My babies…too soon.”
“What…I…okay.” Pull your shit together. “I’ll call nine-one-one.”
Her tiny hand shot out and grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. She widened her eyes and forced the next words past trembling lips.
“Don’t call Walsh.”
“What? Ker, he sent me over here. He’s already worried. We’ve got to—”
“Just wait.” Pain twisted her body and she balled her hand into a fist on the hardwood floor, her mouth gaping open to pant through the contraction. “He can’t do anything from there and he’ll just hate himself for not being here.”
Cam kind of hated Walsh for not being here right now, too. He nodded, not sure he’d keep his word on that but needing to move forward. He called 911, noticing how still Kerris had become on the floor.
“Yes, I’ve got a woman in labor, but it’s too soon.”
He answered the 911 operator’s questions as best he could, glad the address was so fresh in his mind from the cab ride.
“We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” the operator said with that balance of indifference and concern you had to be trained to strike. “Stay on the line for me until they arrive.”
“Okay, but I’m putting you on speaker because I need to make another call.”