"Push! I can see the head—one more!" the midwife shouted.
"Brooks, breathe!" Nathalie cried, gripping the bedpost with both hands.
"Push, Elyse, push," Camilo urged from the doorway, voice short and steady.
There was a hard, wet sound. The midwife wiped the child and held her up to the light from the small window.
"Look at that throat," the midwife said. "Good lungs. She's crying."
Brooks's knees gave. He sank to the floor and his fingers fumbled at his shirt, unable to wipe his eyes.
"She's perfect," he managed, voice breaking in pieces.
The midwife laid the warm, wailing bundle on Nathalie's breast. The newborn latched, knotting the room with a single, fierce hunger.
"What's her name?" Wesley asked, peeking from behind Camilo's leg.
Camden, wiping a hand on his trousers, answered before anyone could decide: "Elyse. We'll call her Elyse."
"Why Elyse?" Nathalie whispered, looking down at the small face that blinked and then stubbornly closed her eyes.
"Because she looks like someone who'll take care of a family," Brooks said, and his grin was half laugh, half plea.
"That's enough names for one night," the midwife said, but she smiled while she said it. "Elyse Dubois it is."
Hands reached in—Camilo's rough palm, Camden's quick fingers, Wesley's sticky ones—and each touch left a small trail of promise. The cottage smelled of straw, stew, and the iron tang of sweat from labor. No one
