Page 86 of The Omega's Secret Baby

“It’s Uncle Griff. He wants to talk to you,” Jake said, handing me the phone. “He sounds scary.”

Scary? I held the phone to my ear. “What’s up, Griff?”

“Eli’s in labor,” Griff screeched. “I’m taking him to the hospital. You gotta get here.”

Oh for the love of…The one day I’d left town!

“I’ll be there as fast as I can.” I ended the call, took Jake by the hand, and hurried out of the museum.

“Where are we going?” Jake asked, rightfully confused. “I haven’t seen all the dinosaurs!”

“I’m sorry, but we need to get to the hospital.”

Jake tugged on my arm. “But you promised I could get something from the gift shop!”

“We really don’t have the time. The baby is coming.”

“The baby?” Jake made big eyes.

“Yes, you’re going to be a big brother today.”

“Cool!”

I smiled. “Do you see now why we have to hurry?”

“I’ll be quick!” And with that said, he dragged me in the direction of the gift shop. I groaned. As much as I was looking forward to the baby, it had the worst timing! And wasn’t it too early anyway? The doctor had said it would be another three weeks.

Should I be worried?

I bit my lower lip while Jake ran to one of the shelves and grabbed a red dinosaur plushie from it. “I want this one!”

“Fine.” I paid for it. At least he’d decided quickly.

Jake grabbed the plushie back from the lady working the register once I’d paid and took my hand. “C’mon, we have to hurry.”

I almost laughed. Almost. But he was right; we did have to get back to Oceanport quickly. Griff had sounded as if the baby would be there any second, and I didn’t want to miss the birth for anything. I knew that Eli had been in labor for a long time with Jake, but the second time was supposed to be faster, right?

In normal traffic conditions, it took nearly two hours from here to Oceanport. Innormaltraffic. But that day, traffic sucked. Of course it did.

It was all I could do not to start cursing every other driver while I had my son in the car with me.

“Can’t you go faster?” he asked.

But no, I could not. It seemed everybody wanted to get out of the city.

I let Jake sound the horn, though. Not that it did anything.

All in all, it took us the better part of an hour just to get out of the city, and then we still had to get back to town. It was around this time that I started getting agitated phone calls about what was taking me so long.

“I’m doing the best I can,” I told Eli on the cell.

“Yeah? So am I, but this baby isn’t going to wait forever so you better get your ass here.”

I grimaced. “Just so you know, I put you on speaker and Jake’s in the car.”

“Hi, Daddy!”

Eli groaned, but switched to a friendlier tone of voice. “Hey, kiddo. Tell Matt to hurry up, okay?”