A Place Called Home

by Elizabeth Grayson

  "Livi, please." In the candlelight he could see that her lips were red, as if she had been biting them.

  "The pains," she continued, drawing a shaky breath. "The pains are five minutes apart. I timed them with David's watch. The baby should be here by dawn, and there's no sense rousing Anne Logan from her bed when I'll have brought this child into the world long before you and she get back."

  Reid hesitated, weighing her assurances against the fear that was turning him cold inside.

  "Please, Reid. Don't make me do this alone," she whispered. "Don't make me ask my son to help me because you're gone."

  There wasn't anything he could say to that.

  "Well, then, what do you want me to do?"

  "I've got what we'll need gathered up over in my cabin, blankets and twine to tie the cord. And a knife to cut it. We'll need flannel pads to put under me and a basin to bathe the baby in. When you do, you'll need to make sure the water's not too hot. Test it with your elbow first."

  She sounded as if she knew exactly what to expect. She'd been through this before. Knowing that calmed his boiling anxiety to a simmer.

  Then one of the pains hit.

  He heard her gasp, saw her ball her fists. She started to sway. He caught her before she could fall, lifted her against his chest. Even with a baby inside her, she didn't weigh much. He could have carried her the six miles to the station. He carried her to his bed instead, laid her down on sheets that were mostly clean.

  He watched her stiffen and curl up as if she were battling some demon trapped inside her.

  Sweat popped out all over him.

  It took barely a minute for the pain to pass. It was the longest minute Reid had ever lived. He didn't belong here, but Livi was right. If he left her now, there wouldn't be anyone but a half-grown boy to see to her distress. And Tad would be even more scared by this than he was.

  She smiled up at him when it was over.

  "See," she said, "that wasn't so bad."

  Reid had to swallow before he could speak. "Well, now, where am I going to find those things?"

  Livi told him, and Reid tiptoed into her side of the cabin. She'd left a Betty lamp burning, and he checked on the children first. Cissy was asleep in the trundle bed. He could hear Tad's even breathing from the loft. The pile of damp linen on the bed and the pink-stained nightdress on the floor beside it gave him pause, but he gathered up the twine and the blanket and the other things Livi had left in a pile on the table. He took David's watch, too. Livi seemed to set such store by knowing how long it was between the pains, he figured they'd have need of it.

  He took a final look around the cabin before closing the door, considering whether he should send Tad off in spite of Livi's objections. But then, he didn't relish the idea of Tad picking his way through the woods in the dark, either. The forest was dangerous at night. With the weather so fair, there was no telling if there were Indians about or animals on the prowl. Something could spook the boy's horse, or he could lose his way. The consequences didn't bear thinking about. Besides, Reid preferred to face Livi with a clear conscience if she asked about the children.

  He could tell by the way the covers on his bed had been disturbed that she'd had another pain while he was gone.

  "Back so soon?" she asked brightly, though he could see deepening lines around her eyes. "Would you put one of those pads under me? I'm afraid giving birth gets messy sometimes."

  She leaned against the side of the bed while he spread the pad of flannel across his sheets. As he helped her lie back, he saw that her gown was wet and faintly pink where it dipped at the apex of her legs. Only then did he realize exactly what he'd agreed to do.

  Reid felt the air in his lungs evaporate. Christ Almighty! If he delivered this baby, he would have to touch her there!

  Reid Campbell had lain with more than his share of women since one of his stepmother's fancy friends had seduced him when he was thirteen. He'd held women and caressed them. He'd touched them and kissed them as intimately as any man could. He'd spent himself inside them. But, God help him, this was different.

  This was Livi Talbot he'd be looking at and touching in places and ways he couldn't even contemplate. He would be drawing a life from between her thighs.

  Oh, Jesus God! And she was David's wife!

  "Oh, Livi, I'm not sure—"

  "A-a-ah!" she gasped, stiffening.

  Oh, Lord! It was happening again! Reid swiveled his head around to where David's watch lay open on the writing desk. I couldn't have been five minutes since her last pain.

  She rode this one out like it was some ornery, half-broken horse. Twisting and arching. Panting ragged and low. When she breathed easier, so did he. When she smiled up at him, he smiled back—though he had never felt less like smiling in his life.

  She blew out a long, unsteady breath and promptly closed her eyes.

  He stood there wondering what to do.

  "Sit down, Reid," she said without so much as lifting her lashes. "Having a baby is a lot like fighting a battle. You get everything ready and then you wait."

  Waiting wasn't something Reid Campbell did well. He sat. He stood. He shifted on his feet. He wanted to pace, but there wasn't room.

  "For God's sake, Reid," Livi finally told him, "will you go outside!"

  He went, but it didn't help. He could still hear Livi gasp when a pain came on, hear her stir against the covers as it tightened its grip, hear her sigh when it subsided. Only then would he dare let out his breath and stand in the breezeway quivering.

  He went back inside. Another hour crawled by. The pains came harder and faster, in an increasingly steady rhythm. Livi rode the peaks and valleys, panting and lying back. She asked for water and he got it. She wanted her hair tied back in a braid and Reid helped her do it. She asked to be read to and he read.

  Sometime later, he looked up from the page of a book he would never remember reading and saw that the flannel pad beneath her and the front of her gown were stained with red. Reid's heart seized up inside his chest.

  "Jesus, Livi! You're bleeding to death!" he shouted and jumped to his feet.

  She had the effrontery to laugh.

  "No, no," she told him. "It's all right. That's part of what happens when a baby's born."

  "You're supposed to lose all that blood?" Reid glared down at her, unconvinced.

  "It's really not that much, and there's going to be more. Maybe it's time I told you what else is going to happen, so you're prepared."

  Livi told him.

  He tried very hard to listen, but words like "hemorrhage" and "stillborn" and "afterbirth" blared so loud in his head that he could barely make out the rest. He felt battered when she was done. Stunned and overwhelmed. He excused himself. He went outside and stood there trembling. He couldn't do this. And even if he could, how would he live with himself if something went wrong?

  It took everything he had not to balk and run, not to saddle his horse and head for Logan's Station. He couldn't think of anything he wanted more than he wanted Anne Logan there to see Livi safely through this—not unless it was a long, deep drink of Jake Prescott's home-brewed whiskey.

  Reid had almost convinced himself to go when everything that was happening to Livi started moving faster, getting worse. After that, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't leave.

  The pains seemed to come one on top of the other with no respite in between. Livi moaned instead of gasping. She demanded that he tie two lengths of cloth to the head of the bed, and she clung to them as if they were her lifelines.

  She quivered and jerked and shook. Savage, angry, out of control. She cursed him, the baby, and herself.

  More than once Reid had accused Livi of being weak, of having no spine, no courage. But as he watched the pains roll over her, he took all of it back. He couldn't have stood this agony, this relentless twisting in the guts. No man could stand what Livi was going through.

  The pains went on and on. Livi ran with sweat, and so did Reid. She crie
d out, and he shuddered, not knowing what to do. She writhed and squirmed and sobbed. He hovered, helpless and hating it.

  They had been locked in this room for a hundred years with no light, no air, no rest. It was torture for both of them, and he couldn't think of any way to make it stop.

  Then all at once the frenzy ceased.

  Livi lay back twisted, depleted, spent. She started to cry.

  Ruthless, icy fingers crushed his heart.

  Reid had never cared about his own mortality, but he cared about hers. He'd never understood what lay in the oily, impenetrable depths of fear, but he did now. He looked loss and pain and desolation square in the face and tried his best to stand against them.

  "Promise me," she demanded in a whisper, clutching his hand.

  "Don't do this, Livi," he warned her.

  "Promise me that if I die, you'll take the children."

  "Goddamn it, Livi! When you talked me into this, you didn't say anything about dying."

  She almost smiled. "You will take them, won't you?"

  She looked so fragile lying there in the middle of his big bed. Rumpled red hair escaping her braid. A face the color of paper. Slender arms and legs and a slackening belly that seemed to be squeezing the life from her.

  He would have promised her anything.

  "Of course I will."

  "I know I can trust you to be good to them."

  Reid felt words back up in his throat. Reassurances he needed to voice. Things he wanted to say about David. Praise for her courage and resourcefulness. Apologies—

  "And about David—"

  His heartbeat stumbled. "What about David?"

  "I wasn't a very good wife to him," she confessed, writhing again. "You saw and understood how badly I failed him."

  "I never—"

  "But even you didn't know the worst."

  "This isn't the time to tell me."

  "I was wicked, so wicked."

  "Oh, Livi, don't!"

  She couldn't seem to stop the words. "I kept getting pregnant, having babies to strengthen my hold on David. To keep him with me. To keep him from coming here. To keep him from you. I deliberately courted his passion to undermine his dream."

  Livi was trembling, weeping silently.

  Reid wanted to gather her up in his arms, but he was afraid. He wanted to take back all the bitterness and jealousy between them, but it was too late.

  "No, Livi, no! You weren't wicked. You were only afraid. You probably had a right to be. This is a hostile land. It did cost David his life." He ducked his head, not knowing how she would react. "And I knew very well what you were doing."

  Livi's sharp gasp of surprise seemed to stop her tears. "You did?"

  He tightened his fingers around her hand. "I'm just sorry I made you have to hang on to him so hard."

  "I'd do so much better if I had another chance."

  He looked down into her eyes, dark and wet with guilt and strain. Jesus, what had he done to her, fighting for David's time and attention the way he had? Pitting himself against her when they both loved David.

  "You loved him," he assured her, wishing he knew what else to say. "And David loved you with all his heart."

  "He did?"

  Reid nodded. He didn't tell her how threatened he had been by that. He didn't have to. Livi knew. He just wasn't sure she understood how much David's friendship meant when Reid was growing up, or how afraid he'd been to let it go once he'd become a man. But this wasn't the time to tell her.

  "Now, Livi, you have to try—" His voice frayed a little as he went on. "You have to try to get through the rest of this."

  "I will in a minute," she promised, moaning again. "All I need is a little rest."

  There wasn't any rest, and both of them knew it. He felt the pain rise in her again, merciless and cruel.

  "Ma?"

  "Tad?" She raised her frantic gaze to Reid. "Oh, please! Please don't let Tad—"

  Reid got to his feet and intercepted her son just short of the door.

  "The baby's coming," he said, realizing suddenly that it was getting light. "I need you to ride to Logan's Station. Bring Anne Logan back as fast as you can."

  "Is Ma all right?"

  "She's fine," Reid said in a way that made Tad believe him. "But she's uncomfortable—-and anxious to have another woman to help her with the birthing part."

  Tad nodded and spun away. Reid waited to see him ride out before he turned back into the cabin.

  Livi seemed different somehow when he got inside. She was sitting up a little straighter. There was a hint of color in her face.

  "It's coming," she said through gritted teeth.

  "What?"

  "It's coming. I'm going to push the baby out. This is the part I need you for."

  All Reid's blood drained toward his feet. He went tingly and light-headed, but stood his ground. "Just tell me what to do."

  They worked together. Reid braced Livi's trembling legs. She groaned and twisted and dragged down on her lifelines with all her strength. They fought their way through a score of contractions, flushed and panting and running with sweat.

  Then Reid saw a small ruddy dome emerge between her legs. "It's coming," he shouted. "I can see the top of its head!"

  Livi stretched down to touch where the baby was crowning, desperate for confirmation. Reid reached out his trembling hands in wonder. Their fingers brushed at the crest of that downy head.

  Reid felt the rush of connection to the marrow of his bones. The intensity of it shattered him, shattered everything he'd ever hoped, everything he'd ever feared. He and Livi and David were bound together by this new life, united by something so wondrous and mystical as this baby's birth.

  "Oh, Livi!" he cried out. "Oh, God, Livi!"

  She laughed and wept and pushed again. The head emerged, a tiny wrinkled face. She pushed, and shoulders came into view. A belly and hips and drawn-up legs.

  Reid caught the baby in his hands. Slippery and red and yelling. So small and so precious. Hands and feet and toes and fingers. So marvelously perfect.

  He held life and joy and elation in his grasp. He held David's child as if it were his own. A sense of belonging washed through him, so wondrous and sweet, so tangible and strong, it stole his breath.

  "It's a boy," he pronounced and laughed with the taste of tears on his tongue.

  Livi reached out for her child, and Reid laid him on her belly. She stroked the baby's fuzzy head, examined those tiny hands and fingers. She smiled up at Reid.

  "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for giving me this."

  His throat was too full to speak. He nodded. He smiled. Livi reached out and took his hand.

  By the time Tad and Anne Logan clattered into the yard, both mother and baby were bathed and swaddled and tucked up tight.

  Livi and Reid heard Anne stomp up the steps.

  "Might have known, Livi Talbot, that you'd wait until that harvest was in before you'd drop that child! Been holding that baby inside you with sheer will, now, haven't you, girl?"

  Anne took one look at mother and baby curled together in Reid Campbell's big bed. "Well," she harrumphed. "I came all this way and there's nothing left to do. He looks like a fine, strong baby, too. You got a name for him yet?"

  "David," Livi answered.

  It's fitting, Reid thought, stepping back, giving the women room.

  "I'm going to name him David Reid."

  Livi's words caught and nestled in Campbell's chest. Hot and aching and precious beyond all bearing. Reid felt her gaze on him and couldn't make himself look up. She'd see everything inside him if he did. He knew he had to get outside.

  He collided with Tad in the doorway.

  "Is Ma all right?" the boy demanded.

  "You've got a baby brother," Reid told him and kept on moving.

  He saw Cissy sitting forlorn and half dressed on the floor of the breezeway and knew someone else would have to tend to her. He needed to get away too much.

  Reid
scrambled up the ridge behind the house. His chest ached and his vision blurred as he made the climb. His heart was pounding when he reached the top. He stumbled out of the trees and past the Hadleys' deserted cabin. He ran into the wide gold-and-green meadow beyond.

  He managed to hold everything inside until he could see the sky.

  "David!" he shouted, tears running down his face. "David! David! We have a son!"

  Chapter 19

  A Methodist parson who was passing through Logan's Station baptized David Reid Talbot on the second Sunday in December. Reid stood up with Livi in David's place, watching and listening as the minister read from the Bible and dabbed the baby's forehead with water from a special cup. Campbell set no store by the Christian rite. His years with the Creeks had garbled whatever bits of the Anglican catechism had been drummed into his head at the school in Charles Town. But because Livi wanted her child baptized, Reid had made sure they got to the station while the minister was there.

  Livi had been in a state of anticipation all week, worrying that the weather might keep them home. But the sun had been shining strong and warm through the barren trees this morning, and Reid meant to see that they were tucked up tight in their cabin before the light dimmed behind the western hills.

  After the baptism, Anne and Ben Logan set out food and drink to celebrate. Many of the friends Livi had made during their stay at the fort and wandered in to eat and laugh and coo over the baby.

  Reid watched from across the room. After being holed up with only Livi and the children for more than six weeks, even the modest gathering rankled him. He'd been doing for her, too, and the way Anne Logan hovered over Livi made him feel churlish and vaguely displaced. Reid hid his frown in one of the pewter tankards Anne had brought out for the celebration and swallowed down a gulp of whiskey.

  Livi certainly did look fine today, with her hair brushed to a coppery sheen and tucked up beneath a lacy cap. The cream-colored bodice and deep green skirt showed off a figure that was quickly redeveloping every one of its dips and curves. It was the light in Livi's eyes and the glow on her face that gave him pause. She looked contented, really happy for the first time since before David died.

  Why is it she never seems to smile that carefree smile when she's with me? he wondered and stepped outside.