My phone ringing had me reaching into my pocket, and when the number flashing across the screen was an unknown California number, I hesitated for a second. California? I didn’t know anyone except Vanessa—

Oh shit.

I didn’t think I’d ever answered another call faster.

“Hello?”

“Diana,” the incredibly deep male voice on the other line replied.

I hadn’t heard it that many times in person, but I could put two and two together and guess who was calling me. “Aiden?” I wanted to make sure it was my best friend’s husband.

He skipped over my question but still confirmed it was him almost immediately. “Vanessa is going into labor. I’ll buy you the first ticket out.”

He didn’t ask if I could come, and he didn’t say she wanted me there. It was both those things that touched me the most.

Without thinking twice, I rattled off my e-mail address to him and said, “Get it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” There were plenty of people in the world that I wouldn’t take a handout from; Vanessa’s husband was not one of those people. He could afford to buy the plane if he wanted.

My best friend was having her baby.

I needed to find Josh and call the Larsens.

Chapter Sixteen

“Diana, you can come into the room now.”

Almost nine hours had passed from the moment that I’d gotten the phone call about my best friend going into labor. Nine damn hours I spent reading about all the horrible things that could happen to a woman when she was giving birth. I’d wanted to throw up seeing phrases like “stitching layer by layer,” “closing a uterus,” and “closing a belly.” If that wasn’t bad enough, there were paragraphs dedicated to clots and a dozen other horrific things that could happen during a pregnancy that had me clamping my legs shut in agony at the airport.

My best friend was giving birth, and I was the one sweating bullets.

Everything after I got off the flight from San Antonio to San Diego went by at the speed of light. I caught a cab to the hospital and found Vanessa’s husband pacing outside her room; this massive imposing figure who I called The Hulk had been wringing his hands. The stress of waiting around, only to be told she was going to have an emergency C-section was one of the longest hours of my life.

They had let her husband into the room for the procedure, but I’d had to wait. Not that I thought I could handle seeing her sliced up like a Thanksgiving turkey, but I would have done it for her. And only her.

Aiden had come out what felt like a year later, his face bright and eyes glassy, and said, “She’s fine and so is the baby. You can see her once they move her to a recovery room.”

It was getting to see her that seemed like another eternity. So when Aiden came by to get me, I started shaking again. It had been years since I’d been anywhere near as scared and upset as I’d been then, waiting to make sure this person who I’d loved almost my entire life was going to be okay. I hadn’t even let myself think that she wouldn’t.

It wasn’t even a little surprising that she was in a private room further away from the general population. If a hospital could be a five-star hotel, this one would have been it. My little Vanny, who had eaten dinner at my house almost every night while we were growing up, had come so far in life. Fancy bitch.

I thought I was okay as Aiden led me into the hospital room. It wasn’t like we hadn’t known for months she was pregnant. Obviously, it was going to happen. I had told myself I was going to keep it together for her; I wasn’t the one who’d had an emergency C-section.

But when the first thing I saw was a baby on a cart beside the bed, something in me was triggered. I sucked in a breath. Then the instant I found her on the bed, pale and looking more than a little high, all weak but somehow still smiling, I sucked in another breath.

And I blinked at her.

She blinked back at me.

I was woman enough to admit I was the one who started blubbering first.

“You have a baby!” I pretty much wailed, throwing my hands up to my face to palm my cheeks.

“I have a baby,” she agreed almost softly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she extended a hand toward me.

We both went into this crying that sounded a whole bunch like “buhuhuhu” as I walked over to her, torn between looking at my best friend and the little piece of her sleeping a foot away.

I had loved this bitch my entire life, and she was a mom. What I felt wasn’t unlike the emotions I had gone through the first time I saw my brother’s boys. It was the exact same, except this time, the reality that this was a new life seemed so much more precious than before.

“I can’t believe it,” I cried, squeezing in between the bed and the baby, aiming for her. One of her hands went around my back and the other to the back of my head as she led me forward. Pressing my cheek against hers, I tried to give her the best version of a hug I was capable of, not wanting to get anywhere near her stomach after the horror she’d just been through.

Her sniffles went right into my ear as she cried. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“I’m so happy I’m here, too,” I boo-hooed into her neck. “Someone had to come and make sure you survived that.” I gestured with one hand toward the cart, not sure she even saw me since we were hugging each other.

Vanessa’s laugh was right into my ear. “That is your nephew Sammy.”

I choked, pulling back just enough so that I could barely see her through my tears. “My nephew?” She was trying to kill me.