Fireball (Cheap Thrills #1)(10)

One of the saddest things about the whole thing had been – not once had she asked if her only daughter was ok, or even taken an interest in her grandchild. The woman’s stupidity, ignorance, and selfishness had blown my mind, so I could only imagine how it had left Jose feeling.

“I know it’s not ideal being pregnant and getting divorced like this, but it might just end up being the best thing that could happen. You and the baby can have your life together without the Larry-weight that was holding you down. Do you think he’ll want to even be in the baby’s life?”

Shrugging, she winced and rubbed her side as she shifted positions in the recliner. She was about to reply when someone knocked on the door, almost making me drop the plate I was still holding.

And that was when I asked that age old really flipping stupid question. “Who’s that?”

Shooting me a look, she rolled her eyes and snorted, “If I could see through things, I’d be a rich woman. I’d probably also be scarred, but I’d have enough money to afford a team of the best therapists to get me through it.” When I just looked at her blankly, she burst out laughing. “Which means I don’t have a clue, so you’ll have to go and answer it if you want to find out.”

Sticking my tongue out at her, I pivoted on my heel and walked quietly over to the door. After how things had gone down since I’d been here, I think my trepidation about opening it was warranted. Scanning the door for the peephole to spy through, I almost growled when I didn’t see one. Who had a door without something like that?

“Pssst,” Jose whispered. “You can get one of those camera thingy’s that attach to your phone later. It’s better than a spy hole and you can check it from your bed. It also means that if you don’t want to answer to that person they can’t see the shadow that your feet make when you stand in front of the door when they kneel down to look under it. A bit like yours are doing right now.”

Glancing down, I saw that there was indeed a shadow from my feet because the sun was shining in through the window behind me. If the person on the other side right now decided to be really nosy, all they’d have to do is hunker down on the other side and they’d see it. Wasn’t that just freaking magic.

On this occasion, that wasn’t what happened. No, apparently instead of looking under the door, all they had to do was walk around to my back porch and knock on the door we’d left open. Which is what happened at that moment, scaring the shit out of both of us.

“Knock, knock,” a deep voice rumbled from behind us, making both of us jump and screech. Spinning around, I saw Sheriff Bell standing there looking amused at both of us, before settling his gaze on me. “I was passing by and thought I’d drop in to see how things were going with the unpacking,” he muttered, shifting to look at the boxes surrounding us. “See you’ve gotten some furniture too. Beats lying on the floor, right?”

Jose started laughing before she let out a gasp and doubled over in the chair. Putting the plate back in the box, I ran over and got down on my knees. “What is it?”

The sheriff walked up behind us just as Jose truly scared the shit out of me – well, more shit out of me because the sheriff had taken the lead on that one a couple of minutes ago. “I think the baby’s coming.”

“What? But why? You’re not due for another three days. Why’s it coming now? I don’t have any boiling water. Hell, I don’t even have a bowl unpacked to put it in,” I stammered, trying to remember what I’d heard from movies and read in books. I stuck to just reading fiction too, so did that mean it wasn’t really what you were meant to do? Did they use artistic license with how they dealt with women giving birth too?

“You’re good, fireball,” the sheriff drawled, gently nudging me out of the way to get closer to Jose. “Right, doll. Let’s make sure we’ve got this right. You having pains?” When she nodded and squeezed her eyes shut, he looked down at his watch and kept looking at it as he continued. “We’ll time the space between them so we know how close you are. Just to make sure, have you been feeling them for a while?” When she just shook her head he continued, “Do you think your water has broken?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied, and I felt like a heartless bitch because of the amount of relief I felt hearing that.

I loved that recliner, it had been a bargain in a black Friday sale that had been priced incorrectly. It’s full price was in the region of two-thousand dollars, I’d paid just one-hundred-and-fifty because of a worker in the furniture store who couldn’t read the list he’d been handed correctly. It was comfortable, it looked freaking awesome, and I loved the level of bargain it had been. Then again, women needed to be comfortable when they gave birth, right? So maybe it was a good sacrifice.

Just then Jose groaned and her body tensed, presumably with the next pain, and I shifted so that I could hold her hand and rub her back with my free one.

“That’s roughly three minutes between them, so we should go in,” he announced, getting to his feet and starting to help Jose up.

Three minutes, was he high? It had been about twenty seconds by my count – not that I’d been counting, but still. Didn’t that mean the baby was about to pop out?

“Thanks, Sheriff,” Jose sniffled getting to her feet slowly. “I didn’t expect this to happen today, but I’m glad y’all are here with me for it.”