CHAPTER FIVE
The boys’ spring break was nearly over, and Adam, Ethan and Ryan had been run ragged keeping the boys entertained and out of Holly’s hair. Not that she minded the boys, but being eight months pregnant and trying to keep pace with three forces of nature had her worn out and her ankles swelling.
But now the men looked near to exhaustion and so Holly laughingly told them she was taking the boys on a picnic to the meadow so the dads could get a break.
If she had to guess, they’d be back in bed before she and the boys got five minutes from the house.
She packed the lunch that Ethan had prepared and listened to the boys’ excited chatter. Seth and Michael both had baseball gloves and a bat and couldn’t wait to practice hitting in the open field. Dillon scowled and told them baseball was for sissies. He tossed a football up and caught it as he watched Holly finish loading the food into the picnic hamper.
“Okay, guys, you ready to go? Everyone have all the stuff they want to play with?”
They all nodded and held out their toys.
“Do you have your book, Mama?” Seth asked.
She smiled. “Yes, thanks for thinking of me, though.” She’d put Shelly Laurenston’s latest book into her bag and couldn’t wait to dig into it once she had the boys all taken care of.
After calling to the guys that they were heading out, Holly herded her boys out of the house and down the path toward the meadow. The house probably sighed in relief.
It was spring, though, and the boys had more than their share of energy after being cooped up for most of the winter. Snow still capped the mountains and the streams were fuller as it began the spring thaw, but there was still a decided bite to the air.
She pulled her sweater tighter around her and led the way. A half hour later they picked the perfect spot alongside the bubbling creek, and she spread out the blanket. She shooed the boys off to play and stretched out on her side, one hand holding her bulging stomach and the other holding her book.
She loved the gentle contractions that squeezed her stomach. Preparation for the big day, the doctor had told her. In another week, despite her objections, the entire Colter family was packing up and moving to Denver for the last weeks of her pregnancy.
It wasn’t her preference, but she wasn’t about to argue. The guys had really been great throughout her pregnancy. Yeah, they’d hovered like anxious mother hens, and they’d waited on her hand and foot, but they’d eased off on the terror that something awful was going to happen as it had with Dillon’s birth.
She’d enjoy her last few days at home with her boys and then look forward to the time she’d return with another Colter baby.
Lost in her book, she wasn’t focused on how rhythmic the gentle squeezes were around her abdomen. When the boys came running over, complaining that they were starving, she shifted and leaned up. As she did, wetness poured down her leg, soaking her pants.
Her eyes widened as she watched the darkening stain grow larger. Oh hell, not again. She closed her eyes and would have sworn a blue streak if it weren’t for the fact that three boys stared at her with huge eyes.
Seth’s birth had been fast. Easy and fast. No painful contractions leading up to the big event. She hadn’t even known she was in labor until it was far too late.
But then Michael’s? Holy hell but that kid had wanted to make his appearance memorable. She’d been in labor for hours, each contraction like someone was setting fire to her insides. Dillon hadn’t been much better and was only preferable due to the alarming speed in which he was delivered.
She simply hadn’t imagined that she would progress through another labor with the ease in which she’d delivered Seth. And certainly not an entire month early!
“Mama, are you okay?” Seth asked anxiously.
“She peed on herself,” Dillon whispered to Michael.
Seth rounded ferociously on Dillon. “She did not!”
Holly held up her hands. “Boys, please. Let’s not argue. I need you to help me up. We have to get back to the house as soon as possible, okay?”
With their help, she got to her feet but then hunkered over when a stretching, burning sensation assailed her. Oh God, she knew what that was. It was unmistakable, which meant that the baby wasn’t going to wait for her to go anywhere to be born.
“The radio,” she gritted out as she sank back to the ground. They always carried two-way radios when they left the cabin, something Adam insisted on. “Call your fathers on the radio. Tell them to come quickly.”
Seth yanked out the radio but didn’t wait around. “I’ll be right back, Mama. I’ll get them.”
He took off running as fast as his legs would carry him, shouting into the radio the entire way.
Holly lay back for a moment to gather her breath and her strength. Then she smiled. It looked very much as if she’d get her own way after all. Dillon was the only one of her children to be born off the mountain. Somehow it was fitting that the new baby would be born right here in this meadow.
“Mama? Are you all right?” Michael asked anxiously.
She smiled. “Of course, sweetie. I’m going to have a baby. That’s all.”
Dillon’s eyes bugged out. “Right now?”
She nodded.
“Cool!”
“Help me get my shoes off,” she said. “Then I have to get these wet pants off.”
The boys each took a shoe and then started to remove her socks. “No, not the socks,” she said, remembering how cold her feet always got in the past.
Several minutes passed and the contractions grew stronger. She breathed with each one and just prayed that she could hold on until one of the guys got there.
“I think I hear them,” Michael said in an excited voice. “They’re on the horses!”
Sure enough, the ground rumbled and vibrated underneath her as the guys tore up on horseback. Adam got to her first and bent over her.
“How far?” he asked gently.
In that moment she loved him for not showing her the panic she knew he must be feeling. She was a little frightened but at peace with the idea of having her baby here. They’d delivered Seth and Michael. They could certainly handle this baby.
She grimaced. “Close. As close as I was with Seth.”
He swore softly and then gestured for Ethan and Ryan to bring over the stuff they’d carried with them.
“Call for a helicopter,” he told Ryan in a calm voice. “The baby is early and if there are any difficulties, we want to be able to get them to the hospital fast.”
Then he turned to Ethan. “Well, you ready to deliver another baby?”
Ethan leaned down and pressed a kiss to Holly’s forehead. “I swear I’m getting to be a regular midwife.”
She smiled up at him and squeezed his hand, so grateful that they could joke in a time they had to be losing their minds.
“The boys,” she whispered. “I don’t want them frightened.”
“Ryan’s taking care of them. He’s taking them aside while he calls for the chopper,” Ethan reassured her.
“Okay good,” she gritted out, “because this baby’s coming now.”
Adam efficiently stripped her out of her clothing, wrapped blankets around her to keep her warm and made sure she was comfortable. His head bobbed above her knees and he smiled ruefully at her.
“Yep, definitely coming now. Breathe in deep, take a rest and then push with the next contraction. One or two pushes should do the trick.”
With Ethan holding her shoulders and supporting her back, she leaned forward, took a huge cleansing breath, centered her focus and calm descended.
When the contraction began, she bore down with all her might.
“That’s it, baby. The head’s coming. Okay! Head’s out. Give me a minute. Rest and don’t push, okay?”
She heard the squeegee sound of the suction as Adam cleaned out the baby’s airway and then the sweet, earth shattering sound of her child’s first cry echoed through the valley.
“One more push,” Adam said excitedly.
Ryan and the boys had crowded around behind Adam, and the boys stared in awed fascination as Adam lifted the baby in his hands.
“A girl!” Adam exclaimed. “A girl!” He looked at Ethan and turned back to Ryan. “We have a daughter!”
Tears streaked down Holly’s cheeks as she watched Adam clamp the umbilical cord and tenderly wrap the baby in blankets. Then he handed her the baby and she got her first good look at her daughter.
Cloudy blue eyes stared back at Holly as she stared down into her baby’s face. Dark hair, nearly black, a whole mop of it stuck out over her head. Holly slipped the tip of her finger through the curled tiny hand and was instantly and fiercely in love.
“She looks like a troll,” Dillon complained.
Ryan chuckled, but Holly could hear the husky trace of tears in his voice. The men dropped to their knees and crowded around Holly as she put the tiny infant to her breast. Their sons, not to be outdone, hung over their dads’ shoulders and watched in fascination as their sister was welcomed to the world.
“She’s beautiful,” Holly whispered, overcome with emotion.
Ethan bent to kiss her. His lips trembled against her cheek. “Just like her mother.”
“What are we going to name her?” Ryan asked. “I just assumed we’d have another boy. Never did understand why Holly was so gung ho to not find out ahead of time.”
“Callie,” Holly said. Then she stared out over the land that was so beautiful it made her ache. She looked at her family and experienced a surge of love so strong, it burned. “Callie Colter. She’ll be the most loved little girl that ever was.”
“Then we should call this Callie’s Meadow,” Seth piped up.
Adam blinked in surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Holly stared back at her husbands and then they laughed.
“Callie’s Meadow it is,” Ryan agreed.
In the distance the sound of an approaching helicopter disturbed the peace and silence that had descended over the mountains.
Adam stood and then bent down to carefully gather Holly and their daughter in his arms. “I think she’s fine, just tiny,” he said in wonder as he stared at the bundle in Holly’s arms. “But you both should go to the hospital and get checked over to be sure.”
She raised her lips and kissed his jaw. Then she gazed at Ethan and Ryan and smiled. She was tired but so jubilant. “Thank you.”
Ethan cocked his head to the side. “For what, doll?”
“For our daughter. For loving me. For doing so much to keep us safe. She was born exactly where she needed to be born. She’ll grow up a part of the very land she breathed her first breath.”
Ethan and Ryan hovered close as Adam held her while they waited for the helicopter to land in the meadow. Callie’s Meadow.
And Holly was right. No little girl was ever loved more than Callie Colter. She grew up a free spirit, but she was always guided by the fierce love of her family and their unwavering loyalty.