The phone fell from numb fingers, but I didn’t care. All of my attention was on the little red-haired girl who’d put my friend’s wedding ring in her mouth and was now starting to cough and wheeze.

“Elise!” Panic flooded through me, and a fear that I’d never felt before nearly paralyzed me. “Spit it out, baby. Come on, Elise, spit it out.”

Her eyes, the same bright green as her mother’s, were wide, her chubby little hands flapping in the air as I dropped to the floor next to her. I grabbed her shoulders…and then realized that I had absolutely no clue what to do. I’d never spent time with kids. I hadn’t thought it mattered, but now I couldn’t help my daughter because I hadn’t done any babysitting, and I didn’t know what to do now that my baby was choking and–

“Sine!” I practically screamed my wife’s name. “Sine! Elise is choking!”

I started to put my finger in Elise’s mouth to see if I could pull the ring out, then jerked my hand back. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered hearing something about that being a bad idea because it could push the object farther into the throat.

What the fuck was I supposed to do?!

“Sine!”

I needed to call 911, but I couldn’t let go of Elise to grab my phone. She wouldn’t understand why I was leaving her, even if it was just to go a couple feet. But I needed my phone to call for an ambulance.

Where the hell was Sine? I’d yelled for her hours ago.

“Let her go, Alix.”

Sine’s voice was so calm that I knew she didn’t understand the severity of what was happening. She wouldn’t be so relaxed if she knew.

“We need to call an ambulance!”

Sine grabbed my wrist, her grip firm as she pulled my hand away. My heart was in my throat as I stared at her. I couldn’t even speak as she picked up Elise, flipped her upside-down, and smacked the heel of her hand between Elise’s tiny shoulder-blades.

Hard.

“What the f–?!” I was still aware enough to catch myself before I said something Elise would start repeating one day.

Sine didn’t even glance at me as she smacked our daughter’s back a second time.

I started to reach for Elise, ready to rush her out to the car and drive her to the hospital myself, but then she coughed, and something flew out of her mouth, falling to the floor in front of her. She wailed, and I could breathe again.

“Shh, mo grá,” Sine murmured the Irish endearments as she kissed the top of Elise’s head. “Alix, love, can you take her? I was on a call with Mam, and I don’t want to be running up her bill. She’ll want to be knowing Elise is safe.”

I nodded mutely, holding out my arms. Sine deposited Elise into them, then kissed my forehead before strolling out of the room like nothing at all had happened. Maybe it came from her having grown up with such a big family that she was used to spending time around kids. Maybe kids choked on wedding rings all the time in Ireland. Hell if I knew. But the way she’d handled things, all unruffled and collected, made me prouder than ever to call her my wife.

Damn, she was something.

And I intended to tell her just that as soon as I got Elise calmed down.

“It’s okay,” I said as I shifted her in my arms. “You’re okay.” I kissed her forehead and used my sleeve to wipe off her face. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault, leaving that ring on the table. I didn’t know you could reach it there.”

I doubted she could understand much of what I was saying, but I said it anyway because it was true. Sine had said we needed to baby-proof the house, but I’d told her that I thought we could wait until Elise started walking. I should have known to listen to my wife. Even though I knew she wouldn’t be one to say I told you so, I’d remember this in the future.

“Shh, honey,” I whispered again. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Mommy’s got you. Just go to sleep, and you’ll feel better when you wake up, I promise.”

I rocked her back and forth, humming one of Reb’s songs under my breath. I’d never been much of a singer, and I hadn’t been able to learn any of the Irish lullabies Sine sang to Elise, but I knew Reb’s songs, so they were what I used to put her to sleep. Fortunately, Sine found it charming.

Gradually, Elise’s breathing eased, and her cries faded away. Still, I kept rocking her, humming to her, telling her that everything was okay now. Her eyelids had drooped to half-mast by the time Sine came back into the room.

“Erik called. He was worried when your call ended, so I told him what happened. How is she?” Her voice was soft, concern on her face. “Mam’s rule always was that if we stopped cryin’ in a reasonable amount of time, there was no need to be going to the hospital.”

“How in the world did you do that?” I asked. “I completely froze. I couldn’t even figure out how to get back to my phone to call for help.”

She leaned against me, reaching over to brush her hand over Elise’s hair. “When you grow up in a family like mine, you learn a trick or two.” Her smile was full of love, both for her family back in Ireland, and the family we had here. “I was always havin’ to pop one thing or another out of my nieces’ and nephews’ mouths.”

“So, it comes from your side of the family, then?” I teased. I sobered a moment later. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

Sine nodded, her smile fading. “I knew what I had to do, but I was terrified it wouldn’t work. The thought that kept going ‘round in my head was that this would be the one time it wouldn’t work for me. That I’d fail her.” She glanced at me. “That I’d fail you.”

It only hit me then that Sine needed me to comfort her as much as our daughter had. As her Dom and her husband, I’d vowed to protect and cherish her. Now that Elise was sleeping, my responsibility was to my wife.