STARTING OVER by Kathy Clark Page B

wasn't able to sleep. Have you been here long?"
    "About half an hour. Did you eat dinner?"
    Kate couldn't keep from smiling; "Nag, nag, nag. Are you sure you're not my mother in disguise?"
    He braced his arms against the row of bricks that surrounded the pool and levered his body out of the water. The clear, glistening liquid streamed off his broad torso and down his long, athletic legs. "Do I look your mother? If I do, then she's one husky unattractive female," he said with a laugh.
    The thought registered that there was no way her petite, slightly plump mother could be hidden behind the firm, tanned flesh of his tall form. She opened her mouth to flash back a teasing response, but instead of words coming out, a sharp gasp sucked in. Another pain, more intense and longer than the last one, twisted through her, and she wrapped her arms around her stomach.
    "Kate? Are you okay?" Rusty crossed the last few feet of patio in record time and knelt in front of her.
    "I'm . . . I'm not sure," she answered breathlessly.
    "Oh my gosh, you're having the baby!" He leaped to his feet and paced in a tight circle as he muttered a string of curses she had never heard him use.
    "I don't . . . know why you're . . . so upset," she panted. "You're not the one who has to have . . . this baby."
    That didn't seem to calm him much. "Where's my watch?" he asked while reaching for his jeans and rummaging through the pockets.
    "Why? Do you have a late night dentist appointment?" The pain had eased, and she was able to sit up and breathe normally again.
    "Of course not. I thought maybe we should start timing the contractions or something."
    "I thought you didn't know anything about birthing babies, and here you are talking like a pro," she teased. Now that the cramp had stopped, she was amused at his flustered actions.
    He looked up and must have noticed the twinkle in her eye, because he flashed her a sheepish grin. "I don't have the faintest idea why I should time the contractions. But they always do that in the movies, so I assumed it was a necessary step."
    Kate bit her lip as her muscles tightened in response to another agonizing spasm. "No, I think the only absolutely necessary step I need to take right now is toward the hospital. Do you think you're capable of driving me there?"
    He jerked his clothes on over his wet swimsuit, helped her walk to his truck, then returned to the house for the suitcase she had prepared and her purse. As he backed the truck out of the driveway and screeched down the street toward the business section of town, he shouted, "Where the heck is the hospital? It's one of the places I haven't had an occasion to visit since I've been here."
    "My doctor isn't in this area. I'm preregistered at the Women's Hospital in Houston."
    "Houston! Good Lord, that's about fifty miles from here. I should have taken you in the helicopter. We could have landed on their roof, and—"
    "Calm down. I don't think there's any reason to hurry. I've always heard that first babies take their time coming into this world." She gritted her teeth, swallowing back a groan so he wouldn't notice that she was having another contraction. He seemed to be taking them worse than she was.
    For almost an hour they streaked through the darkness. At that time of night there was almost no traffic on the four-lane highway until they got close to Houston's city limits.
    "Oh no," Kate muttered. "I forgot to call my doctor. But I suppose he'll be able to make it to the hospital before the baby arrives if the nurse calls him as soon as we arrive...." In spite of her efforts to hide her pain, the sentence faded into a muffled moan.
    Rusty cast a worried glance in her direction and pushed a little harder on the accelerator.
    The nurse on duty at the emergency room desk took control of the situation from the instant Rusty and Kate walked into the hospital.
    "Don't worry about a thing. I'll call your doctor's answering service. He's out of town, but his associate will be