A Laird to Hold by Angeline Fortin (free children's ebooks online .TXT) 📕

The zealous crowd gushed forward, sensing weakness. More questions, shouted one over the other.

Laird held tight to her but pain made it impossible for her legs to cooperate. he swept her into his arms and plowed forward. “Enough of these bowfing louts. Rhys! To arms!”

With a bloodcurdling battle cry, Rhys pulled his dagger in one hand and unsheathed his sword with the other.

“Away wi’ ye, ye manky scut,” Rhys swung at the crowd. Under threat of the blade, they bowed backward long enough for their group to push through to the doors.

To the cool silence of the lobby.

It didn’t last long there either.

* * *

 “Everything’s looking good, Scarlett,” Emmy’s intonation was calm, soothing in the peace of the hospital room an hour later. The needle on the monitor signaled the rise of another contraction. “Breathe through. Excellent.”

Some of the chaos beyond the maternity ward had attempted to follow them in, but the staff and security in the hospital had done a superior job banishing both the paparazzi and the spectators. Whether their discretion was because of policy, Scarlett’s celebrity status, or the trio of volatile Scotsmen who had them all shaking in their boots, Scarlett wasn’t certain.

Whatever the case may be, she was feeling surprisingly serene for a woman in the final stages of labor. The systemic painkillers added to her IV drip probably had some influence on her mood. Scarlett didn’t even mind knowing the handful of reporters lingering outside had grown in numbers, waiting for news or affirmation of her surprise pregnancy.

“No need to be afraid anymore.” The phrase had become Emmy’s mantra since they’d arrived, though Scarlett wasn’t sure if it was she Emmy was trying to reassure at this point or herself.

Scarlett bit her lip against the now-muffled pain but chuckled beneath it. “I’m not afraid really. I did all this once before in a time when all they provided to cut the pain was a knife beneath the mattress. That was terrifying. Just the sight of all this modern technology has all the soothing effect of an epidural.”

“That’s the drugs, honey.” Emmy laughed and Scarlett joined her as the contraction passed. “They make me feel better, too. There isn’t a baby I’ve delivered I don’t wish for something to ease the pain. This will be a cakewalk for both of us, right?”

“I have faith in you, Emmy.”

“And I have faith in the staff here,” Emmy responded. “I’ve read about Dr. Patel in some medical journals. She’s an excellent neonatologist.”

Emmy stood and moved around the room, checking monitors and the IV bag. Scarlett thought it peculiar how Emmy seemed so at home yet out of place, her red woolen carriage gown and bustled skirts a sharp contrast to the modern medical equipment. At least Scarlett had been given a hospital gown to change into.

Hermione shadowed Emmy, clutching the picture book she’d been given to occupy her and asking questions one after another without breaking stride. Emmy answered them softly, before directing the toddler back to the chair next to the bed.

“Do you miss all this?” Scarlett asked Emmy.

Silence fell for a prolonged moment. “Sometimes.” Then after a lengthier pause, “You?”

“Given what we saw out there, what do you think?” she responded immediately. Another contraction built and ebbed. “But other things…yes, sometimes.”

“Hot showers that last forever.”

“Real coffee.”

Emmy nodded and smiled over her shoulder. “Heating.”

“Air-conditioning,” Scarlett countered.

“Yes.”

“Driving.”

Emmy exhaled with feeling. “God, yes. There’s nothing worse than carriages unless it’s the horses pulling them.”

“How long have you been gone?”

“Three months. You?”

“Five years,” Scarlett sighed.

Emmy’s shock showed in her rounded eyes. “Wow. That long?”

Scarlett nodded and turned her head to smile at her daughter, once again engrossed in the colorful pages. “It seemed so quick looking back, but now, here I feel like I’m out of my own skin somehow. This isn’t my home anymore, yet I’m already slipping back into the creature comforts.”

“It would be easy. It was easy,” Emmy corrected. “But my life in Baltimore never suited again without Connor.”

Scarlett bobbed her head again. She knew all too well what home meant to a woman who’d found a love that transcended time. It was unlike anything she’d known before.

Through the open door, they observed the two men standing together in the hall. One in full kilt, the other in a tailored, if somewhat old-fashioned suit. The sight was so striking, Scarlett scarcely registered the mounting contraction.

Both men were well over six feet, broad of build. Fierce in a way that couldn’t be defined by twenty-first century standards. Men who had suffered, fought for life in a way no one had to any longer. Laird more so than Connor obviously. He was battle worn, tested by life, and while comfortable by his own time’s standards, far more primitive than anyone in this day and age could imagine. He’d suffered from hunger, disease, and war. At just thirty-two, there was already an attractive touch of gray in his beard. While he was so handsome he could still—and already had—turned the heads of women and men alike in any era, the experience of his life was etched upon him in scars both visible and unseen.

He was magnetic. Irresistible. To Scarlett, at least. A pang of tenderness tugged at her heart.

Rhys joined the men with his usual swagger and cocky grin. To her surprise, he sported blue scrubs instead of his kilt. All three men had been agog since entering the hospital, wandering the halls and touching everything in sight. They’d all been firmly admonished to keep their hands to themselves. Either Rhys hadn’t listened or he’d sweet-talked someone into touching for him. Arms held out from his sides, he turned to model the garb to the other men.

“I’d like to get a set of those and get out of this dress and