"Nora Roberts - [O'hurleys 01] - The Last Honest Woman [TXT]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

She wasn't a big woman, but her voice, even at a normal tone, reached
all corners of the room. It had a lilting, musical sound, though she had
to dig for the strength to use it. She'd been rushed into the hospital
by her husband only minutes before in the last stages of labor.

There'd been no time to prep her, no time for comforting words or
hand-holding. The obstetrician on call had taken one look and had her
rolled into the delivery room fully dressed.

Most women would have been afraid, surrounded by strangers in a strange
town, depending on them for her life and for the life of the baby that
was fighting its way into the world. She was. But she'd be damned if
she'd admit it.

"A tough one, are you?" The doctor signaled for a nurse to wipe his
brow. The heating in the delivery room was working overtime.

"All the O'Hurleys are tough." She managed to say, but she wanted to
yell. God, she wanted to as the pain screamed through her. The baby was
coining early. She could only pray it wasn't too early. The contractions
piled one on top of another, giving her no time to recharge for the
next.

"We can be grateful your train wasn't five minutes later, or you'd be
having this baby in the club car." She was fully dilated, and the baby
was crowning. "Don't bear down yet, pant."

She cursed him with all the expertise she'd developed in seven years of
living with her Francis and seven more of playing the clubs in every
grimy town from L.A. to the Catskills. He only clucked his tongue at her
as she breathed like a steam engine and glared.

"That's fine, that's fine now. And here we go. Push, Mrs. O'Hurley.
Let's bring this baby out with a bang."

"I'll give you a bang," she promised, and pushed through the last
dizzying pain. The baby came out with a wail that echoed off the walls
of the delivery room. Molly watched, tears streaming as the doctor
turned the small head, the shoulders, then the torso. "It's a girl."
Laughing, she fell back. A girl. She'd done it. And wouldn't Francis be
proud? Exhausted, Molly listened to her daughter's first cries of life.

"Didn't have to give this one a slap on the bottom," the doctor
commented. Small, he thought, maybe five pounds tops. "She's no
heavyweight, Mrs. O'Hurley, but she looks good as gold."

"Of course she is. Listen to those lungs. She'll knock them out of the
back row. A few weeks ahead of schedule, but… Oh, sweet God."

As the new contraction hit, Molly pushed herself up.