aints and howling for their mother. It was late, and she was sure they were sleepy and scared. The baby—a girl—was closest to her, so she fumbled with the straps and buckles to take her out of the seat and cradle her soothingly as she hurried around to the other side of the car to comfort the little boy. The baby clung to her so tightly Jenny could hardly breathe. She patted the little back as she opened the second door to look in at the boy.
“It’s okay,” she assured him over the lessening wails of the baby in her arms. “My friend is a policeman and he’s helping your mommy. What’s your name?”
“M-Marcus,” he snuffled. “Can I get out?”
She wasn’t at all sure she could safely control two children in a parking lot this close to a street that, while mostly deserted at the moment, was often quite busy. The few cars that passed were driving too fast, and none bothered to stop to offer assistance. Unlike Gavin, most people didn’t instinctively leap to help strangers on the side of the road this late at night.
“Why don’t you stay in your seat just a little longer?” she suggested, bouncing the clinging baby, whose cries were down to a whimper now. “We’ll get you out just as soon as we can.”
The boy burst into shrieks of protest. “I want out. I want my mommy!”
The baby began to cry again, not as loud as before, but still sounding pitiful. She probably needed a diaper change, a bed and a familiar face, not necessarily in that order, and Jenny was helpless to comfort either of the unhappy siblings. Considering their mother was still crying loudly nearby, Jenny was close to bursting into tears of sympathy herself.
The sound of a rapidly approaching siren was the most beautiful music she had ever heard. Moments later, the ambulance was parked nearby and medics bustled around the woman in distress. Gavin appeared at the car door, giving Jenny an encouraging nod as he reached into the car to unbuckle the howling little boy much more easily than Jenny had freed the baby.
“Hey, buddy, I’m Gavin,” he said, lifting the boy easily into his arms. “You see those guys there? They’re medics and they are taking good care of your mom, okay? She’s going to be fine.”
Being out of the car seat was already having a positive effect on the boy’s mood. He swiped at his wet, runny-nosed face with one hand as he studied Gavin’s face somberly. “My name’s Marcus, not Buddy. You’re a p’liceman?”
“Yes, I am.” Tugging a handkerchief from his pocket, Gavin dealt with snot and tears with an efficiency that reminded Jenny that he had two young nephews.
“I got a badge,” Marcus informed him. “It’s at home. It’s a sheriff badge. Like Woody’s.”
“Yeah? That’s cool, Sheriff Marcus.”
The boy gave a watery giggle and rested his head trustingly on Gavin’s shoulder, sucking a finger and looking toward the activity by the ambulance. Alternately rocking and bouncing the baby, who’d quieted again and was starting to doze against her shoulder, Jenny looked at the strong, steady man and the frightened little boy and felt her heart turn a hard somersault. The sensation felt a lot like panic. Delayed reaction to the tense situation—or was it something else that was suddenly making her hands tremble against the little body she held?
Finally the mother was on her way to the nearest hospital, the children were handed off to anxious relatives who’d been called to the scene and Gavin’s blanket was returned to him, dirty and somewhat worse for wear. He stuffed it into his toolbox to deal with later and helped Jenny into the cab again. He sighed as he started the engine, and she could tell he was tired. It had been more than half an hour since he’d jumped out of the truck.
“Just another day in the life of a police officer, even when off duty?” she asked wryly.
He gave a weary chuckle. “Yeah, I guess.”
“How on earth did you realize what was going on? Before I could even see that someone was in trouble, you were already out there dealing with the situation.”
Driving onto the street toward her apartment, he shrugged. “I saw her car swerving a little when she was driving ahead of us. I thought she might be a drunk driver, and I was keeping an eye out in case I needed to call it in. Then she pulled over and climbed out of her car and started puking, and I could see she was pregnant. Thought she might need some help.”
She shook her head slowly in amazement. “You were so calm. I was a nervous wreck until the ambulance arrived. I thought you might have to deliver a baby right there in that parking lot.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time for that, either,” he said with a quick grin in her direction. “But I didn’t think it was that. Mike—one of the EMTs—said he thinks it’s a stomach virus.”
“I saw you talking with him. Another friend?”
“I’ve met him a time or two. He’s a friend of Rob’s.”
It suddenly occurred to her what he’d just said. “You’ve really delivered a baby?”
“Just once. Back when we had that ice storm five years ago, a woman gave birth on the side of I-30 when her panicky husband hit a slick patch and got stuck in the median. I happened to be close by, so I jumped out to help. The husband and I delivered the baby, though he wasn’t a whole lot of help, to be honest. They named the kid after me—well, the middle name, anyway.”
“They named him Gavin?”
He laughed shortly. “They named her Alexandria Gavin Smallwood. They send me photos on her birthday every year. She’s starting kindergarten this fall.”
She smiled in delight. “That’s a very sweet story.”
He grunted, typically uncomfortable with her description, then turned into the drive of her apartment complex. She gave him the entry code to the gate, and her amusement faded as he keyed it in. “I doubt that all your stories about your work have such happy endings.”
“No,” he said, his tone grim now. “Not all of them. But I like to think everything I do in the course of my job serves the community in some way.”