Read Just What I Need (The Bradfords) for Free Online Page A

their breaths, with huge smiles, waiting.
    The baby made a small mewling sound, but Ben muttered something under his breath. Then he said simply, “Need a shirt. Something.”
    Dooley and Sam shrugged out of their dress shirts, handing them over quickly. Ben wrapped the baby in one and put her on Dani’s chest. “Hold her close, Dani. Keep her warm.”
    “She’s so tiny,” Dani said, her hand, much smaller than Ben’s, covering her daughter’s entire back.
    “Yes, she is,” Ben agreed. “But we were expecting this.”
    Dani rubbed the baby and nodded.
    “We were expecting one to be tiny?” Sara asked, moving closer, a worried frown pulling her eyebrows together.
    Ben nodded. “It’s not uncommon in twins.”
    “She’ll be okay though?” Sara asked.
    “Sara, bring her here,” Dani said.
    Sara handed the first baby to Dani, who laid her beside her sister. Sam helped arrange the babies against one another and laid another shirt over both, keeping his hand over his wife’s.
    Ben started to lean back, but Sam grabbed his friend’s shoulder. “We okay until we get to St. A’s?”
    Ben huffed out a breath. “Not my area of expertise, Sam.”
    “Tell me what you think,” Sam said, his hand gentle on Dani’s hair, even as Dooley noticed it was shaking.
    Morgan slid closer to Dooley and he put his arm around her, the warmth of her body comforting him even as he ached to do something for his friends.
    “She’s breathing well, but she’s going to have trouble keeping her body temperature up,” Ben said, meeting Sam’s gaze directly. “She’s going to have to work to thrive, to gain weight and grow.”
    Ben was the unflappable one, the one used to calming chaos, the one they all trusted to be honest but gentle. He did it every day in the ER with the families of his patients.
    They all understood that Sam needed Ben to spell everything out because Sam wasn’t able to be unflappable or calm right now. Dooley was sure Ben had studied up on all of this the moment he knew there were twins coming into their family.
    “She’ll need the NICU for a few days, an incubator,” Ben said. “She’s likely anemic and they’ll have to monitor for apnea.”
    Dooley frowned at the list. Premature babies often spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit. That was a given, probably for both babies. The incubator would only be needed until she was big enough to regulate her own temperature. The anemia, the low number of red blood cells, might require a transfusion though, and the apnea, where she would periodically stop breathing, was also more serious, of course.
    And Sam knew all those things as well as Dooley did.
    Ben looked around at the group of friends. “We knew all of this was probably going to happen. There are no surprises here.”
    “What else?” Sam asked Ben.
    “There are no deformities. The labor wasn’t hard. Dani was healthy during her pregnancy, the only risk factor here was being a twin,” Ben said firmly.
    Sam pulled a breath in through his nose and looked down at his wife. Then his daughters. He nodded. “Okay.”
    Dooley felt Morgan tighten her arm around his waist and realized he’d started to move forward. “You can’t do anything,” she whispered.
    He knew that, of course. He didn’t have an incubator or a heart monitor in his back pocket. “But, I…” He trailed off, not even having words.
    Morgan leaned up and kissed his cheek. “I know.”
    Eve jerked the car door open. “The paramedics are here.”
    Ryan and Conner crowded into the doorway with equipment. Finally.
    Dooley sighed with relief.
    “So, this is how people feel when we show up,” he said in Morgan’s ear.
    She hugged him tight. “Yep.” Her voice was scratchy.
    Dooley kissed the top of her head.
    Ben filled the paramedics in on what had transpired with Dani and the births.
    They loaded Dani onto the gurney, both babies still in her arms. Within minutes they were in the ambulance on their way to St.