Page 1 of Our Pucking Secret (2-Hour Quickies #4)

It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m not opening gifts—I’m opening sterile gauze packs with bloody gloves and no backup.

Bellwood General isn’t built for chaos. It’s barely built for flu season. The nurses swap gloves and hall duty like trading cards. And tonight? We were already behind before the snow started falling.

I’ve been covering both triage and overflow since noon.

Bellwood’s maternity and emergency departments share a hallway and a storage closet. Always have. We’re supposed to call it “integrated care,” but really it just means babies and broken bones in shouting distance .

Maybe in ten years, hospitals won’t have to bunk maternity with the damn ER. But by then, I’ll be long gone. Retired. Somewhere warm, with a glass of wine and no overhead fluorescents.

I can’t wait.

“Catherine!” someone calls. “They’re bringing in that MVA now. Red tag, internal bleed.”

“I’m on it,” I say, pulling on gloves as I push through the double doors into chaos.

The hallway is full—again. The trauma bay is prepped but jammed. A nurse from maternity barrels by with a heated blanket, muttering, “Still no on-call OB. And the board’s lighting up like a freaking tree.”

The trauma team rolls in a man mid-thirties, soaked in blood, jaw slack. His leg’s at a wrong angle. EMTs shout vitals. I catch fragments—BP tanking, GCS low, possible spleen rupture.

I don’t know his name. I won’t forget his face.

I stabilize him as best I can, calling out orders, wishing I could grab supplies we don’t have. Behind me, monitors beep in dissonant rhythm. To my left, someone vomits. To my right, a baby cries from postpartum.

Just another Christmas Eve in Bellwood.

Ten minutes later, I’m back in the hallway, scrubbing a bloodstain off my shoe with a dry alcohol wipe that’s doing jack all.

The intercom crackles—’O Holy Night’ playing like it’s given up halfway through. Then a click. “Triage to L&D—two active laboring walk-ins. One minute out.”

I check the clock.

Midnight. Of course.

The first couple comes through windblown, breathless, and looking both terrified and completely happy .

“I’m Elizabeth Collins and this is my husband, John,” she says, voice tight. “It started about two hours ago. We didn’t want to come in too early—”

“Water broke in the truck,” her husband adds. “Old heater went out halfway through town, and we hit every red light on 6.”

I nod, already scanning their intake forms. “How far apart?”

“Three minutes, maybe less.”

“All right, let’s get you back.”

Her belly is low, her flannel coat soaked through at the hem, pajama pants tucked into old boots. She’s flushed, but not panicking. Her husband hovers protectively, one hand on her lower back, the other clutching a duffel bag.

“Room Four,” I say, passing her a gown and ID wristband. “We’re short tonight, so it might be me bouncing back and forth. But we’ll take good care of you.”

Mrs. Collins smiles faintly. “As long as someone catches the baby, we’re good.”

A few seconds later, the doors whoosh again.

This time, the cold that follows isn’t weather.

The woman who steps in is perfectly composed and visibly annoyed.

Sleek black maternity coat. Hair glossy under a cashmere beret.

Beside her, her husband holds a phone in one hand and a garment bag in the other. She doesn’t wait for me to speak.

“We were told this was the closest facility,” she says. “We didn’t anticipate labor during the holiday.”

“Name?” I ask, clipboard ready.

“Patricia LaRue,” she replies.

He steps forward. “Laurent LaRue. We were in Leiper’s Fork for Christmas. The roads iced over.”

Her expression sharpens. “We shouldn’t have left Nashville. This was irresponsible. ”

I grab a second gown and guide her to the only other available bay—right across the hall from the Collinses.

“I was told we were having a girl,” Patricia says, eyes on me. “We’re prepared for a girl.”

“No promises in this place,” I say under my breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, ma’am. Let’s get you settled.”

Mr. LaRue sets the luggage down with care. “Do you need anything from the car, darling?”

“There’s a monogrammed blanket in the left-hand case,” she says.

I hand her the gown and band.

I prep both rooms as fast as I can. Fetal monitors hum. Water breaks. Pressure rises. Screaming starts.

Overhead, a trauma code blares through the intercom. A single paramedic wheels in a teenager with head trauma and compound fractures. Blood smears across the floor. The ER lights stutter.

I wipe sweat from my forehead and reset the monitor for Mrs. Collins. Seven centimeters. Breathing steady. She grips her husband’s hand like she’s holding onto a rope.

Mrs. LaRue is at eight and climbing. She refuses to lie down. Her husband hovers silently while she paces, then demands the lights be dimmed, then brightened again. At first, she refuses the house anesthesiologist, but her husband steadies her with a touch to her wrist.

“I expect standards,” she snaps.

“We’re doing the best we can,” I say, and rush back across the hall.

Around 2:17 a.m., both babies are delivered—minutes apart—by the on-call resident and a floater from ICU.

The mothers don’t hold them right away. We’re understaffed, and things are moving too fast. Both infants are quickly wiped, wrapped, and taken to the nursery for monitoring. That’s standard when things are chaotic—or when more pressing emergencies are pulling staff in too many directions .

And right now, everything is pulling in too many directions.

I step out to find the nursery crowded. The janitor is mopping a spill from the trauma bay just outside the double doors. A gurney is halfway blocking the hallway. Jerry, one of our youngest techs, is prepping two bassinets.

“Which is which?” I ask.

“LaRue girl, Collins boy,” he says. “Based on ultrasound.”

“No,” I say, tired but firm. “Collins delivered first—a girl. LaRue had a boy. Maybe the ultrasounds were off.”

Jerry’s face goes pale. “Shit. I already printed bands.”

“Print new ones,” I say. “We’ll swap them before delivery.”

He prints two new bands fast, hands fumbling in the cramped space. His gloves are damp. One slips from his grip and skitters across the floor. The janitor pushes his mop forward, nudges it with the bucket wheel, and accidentally kicks it under the gurney.

“I got it,” Jerry mutters, scrambling to pick it up. The ink has smudged slightly. Serial number’s half blurred. The paper’s creased.

We’re both called at once—postpartum hemorrhage in Room Six. Baby in Seven not latching. Oxygen alarm in trauma bay.

“I’ve got the bands,” Jerry says. “Go—I’ll handle it.”

I hesitate. “Double-check them,” I say. “You hear me?”

“I will.”

I leave him there with two bassinets, two sets of swaddles, and one ruined band.

Fifteen minutes later, both babies are delivered to their mothers.

Mrs. Collins, Elizabeth, cradles hers like she’s never known another moment. Her eyes are glassy with joy and exhaustion. John kisses her forehead, then the baby’s.

“She’s beautiful,” he whispers.

She nods and pulls the baby closer.

Across the hall, Mrs. LaRue, Patricia, holds hers stiffly .

Laurent watches from the chair.

“Well?” he asks gently.

“He’s… a boy?” Patricia says slowly. “But the doctor said—”

“Ultrasounds aren’t gospel,” Laurent says gently. “He’s healthy. Thank God.”

She blinks. “I always wanted to raise a girl.”

He brushes her shoulder. “Then we’ll try again. For now? We’ve got a future hockey player.”

She adjusts the blanket with her fingertips. Smooths her thumb over the baby's cheek like she’s trying to convince herself.

At the nurse’s station, I pull up the logs. Room 4: Elizabeth Collins — Baby: 7 lbs 8 oz, Female. Room 5: Patricia LaRue — Baby: 7 lbs 11 oz, Male

I freeze.

That’s what I told Jerry to print—because Collins had the girl. Right?

I check the bands. Collins: Serial 438-22. LaRue: Serial 438-23

Wait.

I grab the backup stickers from the printer roll. 438-22: Male. 438-23: Female

No. No, that’s backward.

438-22 should have been the Collins girl. 438-23 the LaRue boy.

I look at the smudged band sitting at the corner of the charting desk. Sticky edge curled up. The name “LaRue” is faint but visible—the number underneath blurred.

Was that the original? Or the reprint? The other band’s still on the baby’s wrist. But… was it printed before delivery or after ?

Did Jerry switch them?

Did I check?

Or did I just think I did?

Or did we both assume the other one fixed this ?

I stand outside the two rooms and listen.

Elizabeth is humming softly. John is whispering something about Christmas morning.

Patricia is silent. The baby fusses once, then settles. Laurent is asking if she wants more pillows.

There’s no blood test logged yet. No second nurse on shift. No printed strip with gender assignment—just handwritten notes and one broken label printer.

I scan the chart. I’d filled it in myself, somewhere between contractions and codes.

I thought it was right. But now—now I’m not so sure.

I think about going in. Asking. But what would I even say?

And how do you ask a mother to give back the baby she’s got pulled to her chest?

At 3:08 a.m., I close the nursery door and sit at the charting station with my head in my hands.

I checked the vitals. I checked the monitors.

But not the bands. Not the second time.

What do I do now? Nothing. Not without tearing apart two families built on instinct and touch.

They’re named. Logged. Recorded. Being fed.

If I’m wrong, I’d interrupt something sacred. I hope I wasn’t wrong.

God, let me not have been wrong.

No, I can’t be wrong. Numbers can lie, but mothers’ arms don’t.