The Nightshift Before Christmas

by Annie O'Neil

  Katie had been in the helicopter loads of times over the past year—but tonight everything was blurring. Katie the control freak had...lost control.

  “Dr. McGann, we’re about four minutes out. How are your headsets working?”

  “I can hear you,” she confirmed to the young pilot. Jason. His name was Jason. She knew that. She knew him. All of this was familiar. Just not the part about going to help a woman give birth in a broken gondola, hanging who knew how many meters in the sky—?

  “Dr. West?”

  “I’m ready if you are.”

  Josh’s words were meant for the pilot, but Katie could feel his eyes all but lasering through her.

  “Jason, what’s the word from the crew who are working on the gondola? No chance of getting them down the normal route?”

  “’Fraid not, Doc. It’s midway between the resort and the valley—right over the Canyon. So we’re looking at maybe...” He paused to calculate. “We’re looking at a one-thousand-foot drop.”

  “Three hundred meters...ish. Not too far.” Josh’s eyes twinkled, making the number seem less horrifying.

  His face told a completely different story from the man who had given up speed thrills for yoga. This was the sort of rescue he was made for. During their residency he had all but wrestled his way to the roof every time there’d been a helicopter callout. Adrenaline junkie or not—he was the person she was going to have to put all her trust in today.

  Tomorrow? There wasn’t time to go there.

  She let Josh’s steadying voice trickle through her headphones and into her heart as he rattled out statistics and tips. It was obvious what he was doing and she wasn’t going to stop him. He was pulling out his “Calm Down Katie” arsenal.

  “Want to talk through scenarios?”

  “A lot of this is dependent upon that door being open, Doc,” Jason piped in.

  “Isn’t there an emergency release inside?” Katie’s heart rate spiked again.

  “Yes—but I’m not sure they would’ve figured it out. From the phone calls, they are sounding pretty stressed.”

  “How long has the mother been in labor?” Josh’s voice cut through to the quick of the matter.

  “They reckon she started about three, maybe four hours ago?”

  “Dilation?” Katie only just stopped herself from cringing as she waited for the answer.

  “Not a clue. We’re both going into this dark, Dr. McGann. Speaking of which—there are night-vision goggles. You both should put them on.”

  “What about once we lower Dr. McGann down? How will they work in the snow?”

  “Not good.” Jason didn’t mince his words. “There’s a couple of head torches. Better bring those down to work in the gondola.”

  “Hang on!” interjected Katie. “Aren’t we going to strap her into the stretcher and bring her straight up?”

  “All depends upon what you find, my love.”

  Josh leaned forward, elbows on knees, bright blue eyes glued to hers, his fingers making a lay-them-on-me gesture. She complied, slipping her hands across his broad palms, but part of her wanted to do nothing more than retreat. Trust a man who had pushed life so far he’d nearly died?

  His fingers wrapped round hers, heat shifting from his hands up into her body. And then the lightbulb pinged on with full wattage. She loved Josh. Heart and soul. The last few days had reawakened that knowledge in her beyond any reasonable doubt. But he was the same man who had tested her and tested her when she had been beyond fragile. Did loving him mean putting away her fears from the past and learning to trust again?

  “If you look up to your right, you can see the gondola— Wait. I think there are two. That might be the reason for the accident.”

  Katie and Josh shifted in their seats, craning to see what Jason was describing.

  “Is anyone talking to the couple?”

  “Someone at the hospital, I think. Want me to patch you in?”

  Katie nodded, before remembering she needed to confirm verbally. Josh had shifted across the helicopter floor and started organizing the winch clips.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting you clipped up and ready to go down.” Josh dropped her a fortifying wink. “You’ve got this, my little multitasker. You can listen and clip up at the same time.”

  And so she did. As her fingers busied themselves with the spring-gated hooks that would secure her rescue kit and the stretcher, she tuned in to the voice of a man describing his wife’s labor pains to— Who was that? Jorja? Jorja was on the other end of the line. Good. She was solid.

  Katie listened, methodically tugging her straps into place, checking and double-checking the hooks and clips, until she heard the words “I can see something—but I don’t think it’s the baby’s head. Is that all right?”

  “It sounds to me as if your baby is in the breech position, Mr. Penton.” Jorja confirmed Katie’s suspicion.

  “We’re just about there, Dr. McGann. You ready to go?”

  Her eyes met Josh’s. Heaven knew what he saw in there. Eight years of shared history? Three years of pain? Whatever it was, it spoke to him deeply. A sheen of emotion misted his eyes for a millisecond, and then just as quickly he was back to business.

  “I’ve got enough fuel to hold here for ten to fifteen. If you think you’re going to be any longer, let me know ASAP—so I can get back and refuel.”

  “Right.” Katie put on her medical tunnel vision. Fifteen minutes. Breech birth. In a gondola stuck over a canyon in the dead of winter. Piece of cake.

  She looked down at the gondola they were hovering over—high enough not to rock it, low enough to see the door was being jacked open, inch by painstaking inch. She needed to get down there—and fast. If the wind hit and the gondola started to tip—

  No. It wasn’t worth thinking about.

  “Let’s do this.” Katie nodded to Josh, who set the winch in motion.

  Being lowered to the gondola was half-surreal, half-ultra-real. The cold bit at her cheeks, and when she would have expected her heart rate to careen into the stratosphere...it slowed. Everything became a detail—as if she were in a film and watching her own life frame by frame. The silhouette of the mountain. The snowflakes. Her breath condensing on the lip of her winter jacket.

  She could hear Jorja offering Mr. Penton reassurances while his wife roared at the hit of another contraction in the background.

  It streamlined her focus. If ever there had been a time she needed to give herself a pep talk—this was it. This was what she knew. Medicine. She had this one. Never mind the fact she hadn’t assisted in a birth in three years. She’d gone to medical school for over a quarter of her life. This was the stuff legendary dinner party stories were made of! The day Katie West delivered a baby in a gondola!

  Josh’s voice crackled through the headphones to say Katie was nearly there. A sudden urge overtook her to climb right back up that winching cable and crawl into his arms. Seek the comfort she’d so longed for. She didn’t want to do this. Couldn’t. He was going to have to. She’d just stretcher the poor woman up, they’d winch her quickly into the helicopter and Josh could deliver the baby. He’d always been brilliant with obstetrics. He could be brilliant tonight.

  Another female bellow of strength and pain and the sound of impending motherhood filled her headphones.

  She couldn’t go back up. And yet...

  She looked down.

  Hmm...vast chasm courtesy of Mother Nature, or get into that gondola and conquer three years’ worth of fears?

  The winch cable continued lowering her, oblivious to the high-stakes tug-of-war occurring between her heart and her mind, bringing her to a smooth halt opposite the gondola door.

  All she had to do was unclip herself and...

  Katie lodged a boote
d foot in the small opening Mr. Penton had managed to cleave with his hands. Three years of fears it was.

  “Everything all right in here?”

  Nothing like starting off with a bit of small talk when you’re hanging outside a gondola!

  “Not exactly!” howled his wife from the floor, her hand on her husband’s ankle. “Mike, honey, we need to get this baby out of me before I rip your leg off!”

  The thirty-something husband threw Katie the pained expression she’d seen on many a father-to-be. Times ten.

  He was still straining to hold the doors open the handful of inches he’d managed. Katie braced her knee against the opposite door and took hold of the exterior handle. She wasn’t there yet.

  “Mrs. Penton? My name is Dr. McGann. You can call me Katie if you like. Or anything else that suits. But I need to borrow your husband for a few more seconds. We need the door open wide to get me and my gear in. If you could scooch yourself as far away from the door as possible...”

  Adrenaline took over. That and eight years of education and a residency that had made her one of the best.

  She locked eyes with Mike. “Fast and strong. Let’s get these doors open and your baby out. On three—I’m going to push with my foot and you push the opposite door. Okay?”

  She counted. They pushed. And with an awkward swing of her kit and the stretcher, Katie got the equipment in—only to have the doors snap shut behind her with her cable still attached. The roar of blood in her ears threatened to overwhelm her. Spots flickered across her eyes. She had maybe six to ten inches of cable between her and the door. The gondola rocked and Katie felt herself tugged and slammed against the glass-fronted door.

  Make that zero. And add a bloody nose to the mix.

  “I’m going to guess that wasn’t meant to happen.” Mike’s quiet voice was barely audible above his wife’s deep pants.

  “It’s okay.” No, it’s not!

  She flicked on her head torch. Please, please, please let the winch clip be on this side of the door!

  “Get. It. Out!”

  “Lisa, babe. It’s going to be fine. Just push a little harder,” Mike coached.

  “No!” Katie wrenched her head around, swiping the blood from her face. “Don’t push until we see what’s going on—all right?”

  “What would be all right is to be in a warm hospital bed—like someone promised me!”

  “Well, how did I know they were going to take so long to make the molten chocolate cake someone else insisted upon ordering?”

  “Whoa!” Katie interjected. “Time for everybody to take a deep breath.”

  Including me.

  “Everything okay down there?”

  Josh’s voice gave her a shot of Dutch courage.

  “In some ways. Others...not so good.”

  “But our baby’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Mike sent her a pleading look as his wife repositioned herself in between contractions.

  “I’m really sorry, Lisa, but this is going to take just a little bit longer than you’d like.”

  “Katie? What’s wrong?” Josh obviously had his mind-reading button on high alert.

  “Mike. I’m going to need you to pry the doors open again. They’re trapping the cable that has me linked to the helicopter.”

  “What the—?” She tuned out the expletives coming from the pilot’s microphone.

  “Katie—you have got to get that door open. The winds are picking up and we can’t hold her steady.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she ground out, taking in the fact that her release hook was inches away—on the other side of the door.

  “Get this baby out of me!”

  Short-circuit and potentially kill everyone on the helicopter and the gondola...or get a grip. Those were the options.

  “Katie, my love, you can do this.”

  Josh’s voice, soft and steady, trickled through her headphones.

  “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Her decision was made.

  “Mike. Your job is to get these doors open again, and I’m going to unclip myself the second you do.” Her eyes hooked his. “It’s vital we do this now. When I’m free I’m going to help your wife. If you need to use the stretcher to keep the doors pried apart—do it. If you need to rip one of these chairs out to keep them apart—do it. If I can’t get to your wife I cannot help your baby. Do you understand?”

  “Katie? Have him tie you to a chair before you do anything,” Josh directed.

  “Grab that rope. Tie me in and tie for yourself as well— Ow!” Her face hit the glass again.

  “Katie?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. Mike’s on the case. Aren’t you, Mike?”

  “For the love of Pete! Move, honey!”

  Lisa’s voice snapped Mike out of his daze, instantly shifting him into a man of strength and action. Ropes were taken from Katie’s kit and turned into lassos round the gondola’s chairs.

  “We’ve got maybe ten more minutes of fuel, Katie.”

  “On it. You should have the cable in less than a minute.”

  “How long do you think it’s going to take to get her stretchered?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “I need to push!”

  “Don’t push, Lisa. Whoa!” A rush of freezing air hit Katie’s face as Mike yanked open the door, the movement nearly tugging her out of the gondola but for the rope holding her to a chair. She shot a grateful look up to the helicopter holding her husband.

  “Just unclipping now, and then I’m going to have a look.”

  “You’re clear?” The pilot hardly waited for the confirmation to leave her lips before peeling off a few hundred meters.

  “Right. Lisa—mind if I take a look?” She received a nod as the poor woman tried to control her pain.

  “What’s it like, Katie? What are you seeing?”

  Josh’s voice took away the edge of postcrisis that was beginning to creep in now that life-and-death decisions were off the book.

  “We’ve got about eight more minutes of fuel, Katie.”

  “Can you see my baby?”

  For her anyway.

  Now that the focus was rightfully on Lisa, Katie could hear fear taking over the roars of the woman’s bravura.

  “Let’s take a look. I can see his— It is a he, right?” Katie received a pair of nods from the parents.

  Damn. A tiny baby’s buttock was just visible at the birth canal. A breech birth. At the hospital? Not a problem. Whip her into the ER and give her a C-section. In a freezing-cold gondola, hanging above one of the nation’s steepest canyons...

  “He’s not in the best of positions for a natural birth.”

  Thank heavens for understatement.

  “But everything will be all right, won’t it?”

  Katie froze. They were the words that had played through her mind again and again when the doctors had first told her they were having trouble finding her daughter’s heartbeat.

  “Will Huckleberry be all right?”

  Huckleberry?

  “Don’t promise them anything, Katie.”

  Josh’s voice appeared in her head. It was hard to tell if it was real or if she’d summoned up what he might say if he were there.

  “Just tell them you will do everything you can.”

  That’s what the doctors had said to her and Josh.

  Huckleberry?

  Apprehension was replaced by a need to fight the giggles. Inappropriate! You’re a doctor—act like a doctor!

  “What position is she in, Katie?”

  Josh was in her headset for real this time.

  “We’re going to do our best to turn this little guy round.”

  �
�That’s my girl,” Josh encouraged softly. “Are you all right getting the mother into the basket?”

  “I need to push!”

  Katie began raking through her medical supplies kit. “Fight it, Lisa. Fight it as hard as you can.”

  “Katie?” The pilot’s voice came through as she was tugging on a pair of gloves. “I’m sorry—we’re going to have to refuel. I don’t think we’re going to have enough time.”

  “I don’t think I can hold off much longer...” came Lisa’s strained voice.

  “Are you kidding me?” Katie demanded.

  “I thought you said you could help.” Lisa’s voice was little more than a whimper now.

  “Sorry. I was talking to the pilot.” Katie forced herself to speak calmly. “The helicopter needs to go back to Copper Canyon. It means we’ll most likely be delivering your baby here and then getting everyone back to the hospital. Mike, can you grab those heat blankets and lay them out on the floor here? We need to get a clean area for Lisa. Keep everyone warm.”

  “Back as soon as we can. We’ll switch to your cell phone if we lose contact,” Josh assured Katie. “I love you, Katiebird. You can do this.”

  She let Josh’s words swirl around her heart as the rest of her body prepared for action. The amount of complications that could stack up against them weren’t worth considering. There was only one good outcome here, and the growing fire in Katie’s belly told her to start fighting for it.

  “I’m going to massage your belly...see if we can shift the baby round.”

  “Huckleberry,” prompted Lisa.

  Katie managed a nod. Naming a baby before it came out was dangerous. Naming a baby something that gave your doctor the giggles...? Awkward!

  “I’m not feeling much of a shift here.” She racked her brain to try and remember as many variations as she could.

  “I need something for the pain!” Lisa panted. “I had it all planned out. An epidural, some lovely music, soft cozy blankets.”

  “I’ve got the music right here, honey. On my phone.”