Free Choosing the Highlander by Jessi Gage Page B

in a sock.
    “Oh. Um.” She glanced at Terran, her hands trembling. “It’s happening. The baby is coming.”
    Terran was there with her less than a heartbeat later, looking between Aifric’s legs. Just then another contraction eased the baby a little further. The child’s closed eyes were just visible near the front of Aifric’s mound. Instinct told her it wouldn’t be long now.
    “That’s it, lass. Your bairn is coming.” Terran cupped his hands like a catcher in a baseball game.
    Connie laughed, oddly jubilant at witnessing this miracle. “Wash your hands first.”
    He blushed and obeyed.
    Ten minutes later, Terran delivered a pink, wrinkly little girl. She wasn’t moving.
    With tears in his eyes, he asked, “Is she…?”
    “No,” Connie said. “Here. Give her to me.”
    Terran placed her carefully on the bed between Aifric’s legs where Connie began rubbing the tiny, beautiful thing with a clean blanket. She used quick, firm strokes, remembering that babies needed to cry when they were born. Sure enough, the infant’s face got even redder and her little mouth opened. A distinctive newborn cry filled the room.
    “There you are, sweetheart,” she said to the baby. She wrapped the little girl in the blanket and transferred her to the arms of a shocked looking Terran. “You find something to tie off the cord while I check on mommy.”
    Giving commands came easily to her thanks to managing projects at her engineering firm. Sometimes confidence could even make up for lack of knowledge, if a gal got lucky. Hopefully, they’d all be lucky today, because unlike at work, she had no idea what to do with a newborn.
    Aifric was still breathing, and she didn’t seem to be bleeding badly. “I think she’s all right,” she said to Terran. “Probably just weak from not being able to eat?” She hoped that’s all that held Aifric unconscious and that they could get some sustenance into her now that the birth was over.
    A throat-clearing sound called her attention to the doorway. Anselm hovered there with a cautious smile on his face. “All is well?”
    “Aye,” Terran said, grinning like a fool as he looked up from the cord. He had double-knotted a length of twine-like rope around it. While she and Anselm watched, he sliced it clean through with a long-handled knife. “Look at the wee lass.” He held her up for Anselm to see. “A bonny sweet thing.” Her skin was pink and soft, and her face was scrunched up but somehow more beautiful than anything Connie had ever seen before. She wasn’t a chubby baby, but she wasn’t skinny either. Her mother had given her a good start, it seemed, despite her own poor health.
    “Aye,” Anselm agreed. “Would you like to be her da?”
    Terran didn’t miss a beat. “We’ll do it as soon as she can stand at my side for the vows.” He turned his attention to Aifric, who stirred and moaned, oblivious to the men. She was probably in a lot of pain and exhausted. Connie didn’t blame her one bit for losing consciousness.
    Terran tried to show her the baby, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Bring her mead,” he told Anselm.
    “No,” Connie said. “Water or tea, but nothing alcoholic while she’s breast feeding. And something to eat. Maybe she’ll be able to keep it down now that she’s delivered the baby.” After Anselm left, she told Terran, “Let’s see if we can get her to nurse.”
    She lowered the neckline of Aifric’s nightgown, and directed Terran to put the baby at one swollen breast. Nature took its course, and the baby attempted to suck. But the breast was too firm. The tiny mouth couldn’t seem to latch on.
    Connie did what felt natural. She grabbed Aifric’s breast none too gently and compressed just behind the nipple. This did the trick. The baby girl sucked the entire areola into her mouth and began nursing. Connie let go, and the baby continued without difficulty.
    How amazing! The little thing was born with an instinct to survive, and her