“Are you comparing me to a cow?”
“Dammit, woman. You aren’t a cow. You’re the woman I love, and we need to do this.” The words hang in the air as Bull’s eyes leap up for mine, and he freezes, hovering over me.
“You love me?”
His eyes close, and a painful expression crosses his face. “I didn’t mean for that to come out like that.” His voice softens.
“So you don’t love me?” I whine as another contraction claws at my belly. I twist under pressure, and Bull stays quiet as I ride out the clenching.
“It’s not that I don’t love you—”
“You don’t have to make it sound like you’re doing me a favor. I get it. I asked you to be here at five, and you didn’t show.”
“I hadn’t seen your text until I got back from the tractor supply store, and don’t turn this around on me. What the hell were you doing up here?” he snaps again.
“I wanted to tell you I loved you,” I bark through another wave of pain. My head tips up as I yell at him, but it falls back as the wave crests, and I clutch at my belly. Tears rush from my eyes. A gush of warmth flows between my legs. I curse my weakened bladder. “Frick. I just wet myself.”
“Ah, Scarlett, sweetheart, your water broke.”
“No,” I yell. “That means the baby is coming.”
Risking a glance at Bull as I feel like I’m in the most vulnerable position I’ve ever been in, I find him smiling at me.
“What?” I snap, sticky and wet as the cold is catching up to me.
“The baby is coming,” Bull slowly repeats, his voice soft and sweet as his hand comes to my ankle. He’s unlacing my boots. “Maybe we should get you out of the wet things.”
“No,” I hiss again, but my body jackknives, and I clench my teeth as I groan through the pain.
“Okay, sweetheart. Breathe for me.” Bull repeats the breathing technique he used with me in the baby store when I had the panic attack last summer. Breathing with Bull calmed all my fears then. He was with me. I was safe. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I follow his lead as he shifts, looking over the front seat and finding the stack of blankets I brought.
He snags one and pulls it into the cramped space we occupy. Then he removes my boots and slips down my jeans. The cold rushes up my legs, but Bull has one thick sleeping bag under me and wrapped around my legs before another wallop of pain hits.
“What can I do?” Blade mutters from where he stands just outside the slightly open door.
“Get in here and close that door,” Bull commands.
“I’m not coming in there and listening to her scream.”
“Get in here and help me,” Bull demands, struggling as he keeps his hand on my knee while reaching over the front seat. “Thank God there are so many blankets in here. Ready to tell me why?”
My mouth opens, but another wave of pain hits me, and I turn for the back of the front seat, screaming through the pain.
“I’m out,” Blade states. “I’ll check on the ambulance status.” Blade slams the driver’s door closed, enveloping Bull and me in darkness minus the lights streaming through the back window from the Engagement Tree. That beautiful tree. My moment is ruined.
“I’m so sorry, Bull,” I whimper, tears leaking down my face.
“Why are you sorry, sweetheart?”
“I wanted to do it right. I wanted you to know I love you.”
“You love me?” he chokes.
“I do,” I groan as another wave hits me.
“Breathe,” he whispers to me, and I try, I really do, but the pain is more than anything I’ve ever felt. Bull stretches his body over the front seat before turning his head to look at me. “There’s a picnic basket on the floor.”
Yep. I had it all planned. The picnic in the bed of the truck. The warm blankets. The . . .
“What’s this?” Bull holds up the small black box and more tears blur my vision. I’ve messed this all up. Screwup Scarlett. It’s not going to get any worse than this.
“I wanted to— Ahhhhh.” I scream. Bull settles back to the seat as best he can. He barely fits where he’s wedged his body, and his hands come to my knees again, watching me through the pain. His fingers clutch at the box balanced on my knee.
“Scarlett, just hang on, sweetheart.” He encourages. “You’re doing great.”
“I screwed up,” I yell through the subsiding wave.
“Nothing’s screwed up,” Bull says.
“I had it all planned. The tree. The dinner. The ring.”
Bull stiffens.
“I just wanted to do this right.”
“Do what right?” he quietly asks.
“Ask you to marry me.”
Bull doesn’t move. I’m not certain he’s even breathing, but I’m huffing and puffing, trying to make it through the pain. “Bull, I need to push.”
My knees bend upward, and I shift my tired body. Bull slips the ring box into his coat pocket, and he loosens the sleeping bag around my legs.
Shifting up on my elbows, I bear down, screaming through the pain as the driver’s side door opens and just as quickly closes. When the pain stops for just a second, my head falls back.
“You’ve got this, Scarlett,” Bull says, lifting his arm and pounding his fist on the driver’s side window. Blade opens the door again.
“I’m not looking. I don’t see anything,” Blade yells.
“Where’s that fucking ambulance?”
“They’re struggling through the snow but still on their way.”
“The baby is coming,” Bull yells.
“So is winter,” Blade jokes.
“Are you referencing Game of Thrones?” I snap.
“Yeah, have you seen it?” Blade says, shifting so his head pops into view, but just as quickly, his face disappears again.
“Busy here,” Bull hisses.
“Never mind,” Blade states, closing the door once more.
“Bull, I don’t think I can do this,” I whimper.
“Marry me?” Bull questions, his voice full of incredulous hurt.
“Have the baby,” I cry, rolling my head side to side.
“You can, Scarlett. You’re strong. You can do this.” While I want to yell at him that I don’t need a fricking cheerleader, another wave hits me, and I sit upward, knees to my shoulders, clenching. I don’t even hear what Bull says to me. The next thing I know, my jacket is opening, and Bull is unbuttoning the cute new flannel shirt I bought for this occasion. The proposing occasion, not the birthing scene, which is happening in the back of a fricking pickup truck.
“When Sprout comes out, he’s going to need skin-to-skin contact, Scarlett. He’ll need your warmth until we get you to a hospital.”
While I agree, I shake my head because I’m so tired. It hurts so much. Another wave of pain rips through me. For a moment, I feel like I’m outside of myself. My eyes roll back. My heart races, flooding all sound in my ears.
A rush. A gush. And then the cry of a newborn.
“He’s so beautiful,” Bull says, his voice full of liquid, but I only nod as something warm and slimy is placed over my skin, and red lights filter through the steam-filled windows.