Year One (Chronicles of The One, #1)

by Nora Roberts

So even as her light grew, the world died, in front of her eyes.

He didn’t see death, but life. Three lives. Three bright sparks. Comforting himself that he could kill himself later, he went to her.

Arlys straightened, stood by—now with the gun in her hand. She didn’t have to ask herself if she could aim it or fire it at another human being, not when she looked at what human beings had done to a boy who looked barely twenty. Damn right she could.

Love, the strong grip of it, steadied him.

Tears rose up, spilled out before she could stop them. Bill simply hugged her. “It’s all right, honey. Tears wash some of the worst away.”

He’d been in combat. He’d led men, lost men, killed men. Nothing had prepared him for the rigors of helping a laboring woman as she fought to push a child into the world.