“We’ll get to the bottom of it, Dale. Don’t you worry.” She forced a smile, and knelt next to Emily’s other side. “Hi there, girl. How are you feeling?”
“Something’s wrong, Helen,” Emily’s voice trembled. “None of the others were like this.”
Fear came in many forms. Some people shook. Others cried. Emily did both. Her shoulders rocked as sobs escaped her overused throat.
Tim slid into the tent with Helen’s bag. He placed it next to her, obviously trying not to make any noise. “How is she?”
Dale ran a hand over his whisker-covered chin. “The same.”
“Tim, why don’t you and Dale go outside and tend to the horses?”
“I’m not leaving my wife,” Dale growled.
“Just for a little while, Dale. Please?” Helen dug into her bag for her maternity stethoscope. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”
“Come on, Dale. Out we go.”
Dale stiffened. At first, Helen didn’t think he was going to leave, but something in his expression changed after a moment and he finally stood. “Take care of her, Helen. She is my whole life.”
“I will,” she answered, suddenly wishing Paul loved her that much. “I promise.”
Tim and Dale left her alone with Emily.
Emily followed them out with her eyes, then turned the wide, pain-filled orbs on Helen. “I don’t want to lose my baby.”
Helen nearly choked. The memory of uttering those same words to a ship’s doctor who was beside himself as to how to deal with a distraught young woman, traveling without escort, assailed her. She’d been so alone and unloved then. That had been the worst part.
“We’re going to help you through this, Emily. I need you to lie on your back.”
Emily groaned, sucking in a small breath with enormous effort. “I can’t. It hurts. It hurts so much.”
“I know it does, sweetheart. But I need to listen to your baby. Can you feel him moving about?”
Emily nodded. “Not as much as yesterday, but some,” she hiccuped.
Helen pressed the stethoscope to Emily’s enormous abdomen. She’d grown considerably in only the past week, her shape having changed size and distention since the baby had dropped in preparation for its birth. She hadn’t been expecting the baby to be born for another month, but her size indicated she was further along.
Listening intently, Helen shifted the stethoscope from one side of Emily’s belly to the other. She smiled. How had she not heard that before?
“What is it?”
“You’ve gone into early labor because you’re just too big. There isn’t any more room in there, Emily. Not for both of them.”
“Twins?”
“I’m pretty sure. That explains the early labor. Now, to figure out where they are. Take a deep breath, Emily. This might hurt a little.”
Helen probed Emily’s belly, feeling for any part of the babies she might recognize. Emily screeched, gritting her teeth and fisting her hands in the blankets. Slowly, Emily gained a mental picture of the infants. An arm, a head, a leg. The first baby, higher in her belly, was head down, curled in a tight ball. She felt lower, pressing as gently as she could, but with enough force to find the second baby. Feet. An arm? Helen frowned. A head higher than it should be.
Dale rushed into the tent, apparently in response to his wife’s cries of agony. “What are you doing? You’re hurting her!”
“I know. I’m sorry, Dale. If you’re going to insist on being here, I’ll need your help.”
“Oh God!” Emily screamed. “It’s starting again!”
Emily’s belly tightened beneath Helen’s fingers. “Don’t push, Emily. Dale, help her. Hold her down. No curling up, and absolutely no pushing!”
“What’s wrong?”
Helen examined Emily internally as quickly as she could, wincing when Emily inhaled a sharp breath at the pain. “You’re nearly there, Emily, but you can’t push quite yet.”
“I want them out!” she screamed, anger and pain contorting her voice.
“Them?” Dale asked.
“Yes, them. And one of them is breech. It’s too late to attempt turning him now. She can’t push until she’s completely dilated.”
Together, Dale and Helen kept Emily on her back. She struggled, writhing and trying to force herself into a curled position. Each scream lanced through Helen’s heart with the force of a battering ram. For the moment, she was helpless to do anything but watch her friend suffer. She could only imagine how much worse it was for Dale.
When the pain finally vanished, at least for a few minutes, Emily cried quietly. “I can’t do it anymore.”
Dale’s brows drew together. The love he shared with his wife was written in the etched lines around his eyes and mouth, and the fear filling his eyes. “What if the baby can’t come out?”
Helen took a deep, steadying breath, but she couldn’t say the words aloud. “We’ll deal with that if we have to. For now, keep her as calm as you can.”
“No. Tell me now. What is the worst?”
“You can’t think like that. You must believe that everything will be fine.”
“I’m not a child, and neither is my wife. Tell us,” he insisted.
Helen closed her eyes briefly. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a doctor, after all. She hated this part of the occupation. When she opened her eyes again, both Emily and Dale were staring at her with all of their fears making their eyes moist and shining. She couldn’t assuage those fears, and it broke her heart.
“If the baby won’t come out on its own, I can deliver it another way. But only if …”
“If what?” Dale prompted.
“Only if I’m going to die,” Emily whispered.
Helen nodded. “If we can’t save the babies and Emily, we can save the babies. I think. If I’d gotten here sooner, I could have performed a surgical procedure, but it’s too late now. One of the babies is too far into the birth canal. The surgery would most likely kill Emily at this point.”
“I can’t lose her,” Dale growled. “You do what you need to, Doc, but I will not lose the only part of myself worth anything. Do you hear me?”
Love that strong didn’t really exist, did it? Helen hadn’t believed it was possible, and the realization that two people could become one heart, one soul, one life, spread over her like a warm blanket. She loved Paul that much. It wasn’t fair that she’d come so close, only to have it torn away.
It wasn’t fair!
And it wasn’t fair that two people who had managed to find each other and build a perfect life together were on the cusp of losing the very thing that made them whole. Each other.
Emily clenched again, another pain ripping through her weak, exhausted body. Helen didn’t have time to think of what was and was not fair. Life just was.
When the pain finally eased, Helen checked Emily’s progress again. After three more contractions, she had finally reached a point where she could deliver.
“When the pain comes again, Emily, I want you to push. Dale, hold her shoulders up. Help her as best as you can. If the first baby isn’t born quickly …”
Dale swallowed hard, the muscles in his neck flexing with unspoken acknowledgment.
The pain came hard and sudden. Emily squeezed her eyes closed, her face contorting into a mask of rage, agony, and determination.
Helen prayed. A moment later, she saw the first hints of a child appear. With a few desperate maneuvers, a little luck, and the grace of God, a tiny baby slid into her hands.
Relief swelled her throat closed, and tears spilled over her cheeks. She immediately wrapped the baby in a blanket she pulled from Emily’s belongings, wiping the infant’s face clean while the baby howled its disapproval. She tore her gaze away from the tiny features, wrinkled and beautiful, to look at the new parents. Emily sobbed while Dale held her against his chest, tears streaming down his face in tandem with his wife.
“It’s a boy,” she finally managed. “Dale? Come here and tak
e him. We have one more to contend with.”
A second boy delivered within a couple of short, exciting minutes. In the normal position, he came easily. Helen cleaned the babies, wrapped them, and settled them with their mother. When she finished, she left the infants and their parents alone.
A happy ending.
Emily would still be in pain, but by the time Doc arrived with the wagon, she should be ready to travel. Dale sat with his wife while Tim slept in the back of the buckboard, exhausted from his long journey to and from Port Hedland.
Helen should sleep, too. The sun had already set, and the night loomed dark and long around her. But she wasn’t tired, at least not physically. Her entire body thrummed with the excitement of the past hour. Two perfect little boys, with lungs that already matched their siblings.
She tried not to think of her own child. She didn’t even know if it had been a boy or a girl, and the doctor onboard the ship had refused to tell her, stating that it would only make her grieving that much more difficult. What would he know? He was a man, unable to conceive of the loss a woman went through.
Suddenly she was more tired than she’d ever been. Not because of the past few hours. It went deeper than that. She was tired of trying so hard to live. She was tired of wishing and wanting and never having.
She made a bed beside the low fire, resting her head on a borrowed pillow. The stars filled the sky with winking lights that mocked her. In a few weeks, she’d be home. Paul would be able to go on with his life as though she’d never been a part of it. She wouldn’t. She would keep every second of their time together inside her heart. Wishing. Wanting. And never having.
Paul circled the road twice before making the decision to land. The road itself was smooth enough, but it wasn’t very long. Still, he had to see Helen. He had to tell her everything he’d decided the night before, sitting alone in a hotel in Perth, watching the water and missing her like he’d missed his own heart.
He couldn’t let her leave. Not now. Not ever.
By the time he’d landed, Dale and Tim had come from the campsite to meet him. Dale greeted him with a hearty handshake, beaming with obvious pride and happiness that couldn’t be measured in words.
“It’s good news, then?” Paul asked, tucking his cap beneath his arm and clapping his oldest friend on the back. Like he had each time Dale had become a father.
Damn it, Paul wanted that. He wanted to be a husband and a father and know that every time he walked through the front door, Helen would be waiting for him. Wearing a smile and very little else.
He wanted a daughter who looked exactly like her, with golden strands mixed in with her dark hair, alabaster skin that turned pink in the sun, and eyes that could see into his soul. He wanted strong sons who would inherit their mother’s inherent ability to heal and love. He wanted it all. And he wanted it with Helen, regardless of where she might think she belonged.
She belonged with him. He simply had to convince her of it before she could return to Port Hedland and board that damnable ship with her parents.
When he’d flown back from Perth a day early, he’d done so to find Helen before she sailed. He’d planned a completely romantic moment, sweeping her off her feet like the actors in the picture show he’d seen in Perth last year. What woman could resist that? He’d tell her how much she meant to him, how impossible his life would be without her.
If she couldn’t bring herself to stay with him, he’d offer to move to America with her. He could live in the big smoke if he had to, right? Wrestling crocs and drinking a belly full of piss had its good side, but it was nothing compared to Helen. He could live without Doc, and Blue, and Dale, and Tim, and the others. He could live without the falls and the river. He’d carry the old billabong in his heart. He’d carry the memories of Australia in his back pocket, but he couldn’t live without Helen.
Once Dale led the way into the campsite, Paul looked for Helen. For a moment, his heart stopped. She wasn’t there. Not by the fire, and not by the wagon.
He was about to ask Dale where she’d gone when she ducked through the tent flap with a tiny bundle in her arms. She cradled it next to her breast, and all of the dreams and desires he’d been experiencing since the day she walked into his life came rushing out. His legs were weak. His mind was a jumble of words that he couldn’t form into sound.
“Is that my son?” laughed Dale. “Which one?”
Helen’s eyes met his, wide with surprise. She held his gaze for longer than a blink before she took a sudden breath. “N-no,” she stammered. “Sorry, Dale. This is only bedding in need of washing. The babies are still too young to come out of the tent. We’ll … we’ll have to bundle them up for the trip into town, but for now, I’d like to keep them away from the dust for a little while longer.”
She hadn’t moved. She still stood in front of the tent as though her feet were rooted to the earth, like some willowy tree born a part of the world around her.
She belonged here. With him. She had to know that.
“I thought you’d left for Perth,” she finally said. Her bottom lip trembled slightly, but she squared her shoulders and finally stepped away from the tent.
He caught up with her halfway to the river’s edge. “I did.”
“You didn’t stay long.”
“I thought you were sailing for America today.”
“I was. But I couldn’t very well ignore a cry for help, could I?”
He was crying for help. Would she answer him, too?
“That’s my girl,” he quipped.
“Why did you come back, Paul?” She walked around him and continued to the river. When she reached it, she knelt beside the water and dunked the sheets beneath the surface.
“Why do you think I came back?”
She shrugged. “Any number of reasons. They have a new delivery of Swan’s beer at Grogg’s. Or there’s a wild croc in need of taming …”
“All good reasons, but not the right ones,” he replied, hoping he sounded more confident and friendly than he thought he did.
He knelt beside her, taking one of the sheets and helping her wash them.
“You do realize these sheets are covered in blood, afterbirth, and amniotic fluids from last night’s delivery.”
He dropped the sheet. He deserved that, he supposed. He’d left her with her parents. He hadn’t defended her, he hadn’t tried to convince her to stay with him. He’d abandoned her, and he should count himself lucky she was even speaking to him.
“I have some things I’d like to say to you, Helen, and I ask only that you listen.” For now. If she didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d have to think of something else, but he would not let her leave him. He couldn’t bear the thought.
“I’m listening.” She scrubbed the sheets harder, her knuckles white, and the hem of her new, longer dress splattered with water.
“I had a lot of time to think on the way to Perth. And I decided that you and I—”
She stood abruptly and started back to the camp. Paul followed her hurried steps. “I was thinking that you and I should make some—”
“Dale? Do you have anything I can hang these sheets from to dry?”
Tim shouted from the wagon. “I can run a line for you, Doc. I’ll be there in a second.”
“Thanks, Tim.” She tossed the soaking wet sheets over a low hanging branch, then made a beeline for the tent.
Paul ran a hand through his hair, groaning his frustration at her incessant desire to make him suffer. “Will you please be still for one bloody moment?!”
Her back ramrod straight, she froze at the entrance to the tent. Turning slowly, she glared at him. “Would you please keep your voice down? The babies are sleeping.”
She turned so quickly the hem of her skirt flew outward before she disappeared into the tent.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me, Helen.”
She reappeared, her mouth drawn into a disapproving line. “You made your feelings quite clear before you lef
t, Paul. And besides, you were right. My father’s offer is generous and makes a lot more sense than staying here where one person can’t make much of a difference.”
“That’s rubbish.” Paul approached her warily, like he would a frightened koala.
Still, she scooted away from him. She stopped at the fire, lifting a spoon and stirring the stew hanging in a pot over the flames.
“It’s pure rubbish,” he repeated. “And you know it.”
“I don’t know it. It makes perfect sense. I never belonged here, Paul. I was running away. Everyone knows that we can’t run away from our problems. We have to face them and conquer them. I can’t do that here.”
“But you are running away. You’re running away from me, and I can’t understand why.”
“Because you don’t want me anymore!” The last word broke on a strangled sigh.
From behind him, the sound of a buckboard rumbled and crashed into the clearing. Helen glanced over Paul’s shoulder and breathed what seemed to be a sign of relief. “Bully’s here with the wagon. Thank heaven.” She ran to the wagon, leaving Paul alone. Alone and more determined than ever to make her listen.
“What’s the matter with you, mate?” Dale asked, suddenly appearing at his side.
“What makes you think anything’s wrong?”
“You look like a man who’s just swallowed a whole lemon, that’s why.”
“Not a whole lemon. Just my pride, my sanity. Hell, she won’t even talk to me, Dale. Are all women this bull-headed?”
Dale glanced back to the tent. “I can’t speak about all women. But Emily is about the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.” His smile spoke of a trust and love that spanned any amount of stubbornness. “What is it Helen’s being so disagreeable about?”
“I’m trying to apologize. I thought women liked it when we lowered ourselves to groveling.”
“So apologize. What’s stopping you?”
He pointed. “She is. She won’t stand still long enough for me say three words.”
“So get her attention and make her listen.”
“Make her listen. Easier said than done, mate.”
“Oh, I don’t know. When Emily refuses to hear my piece, and she’s been known to show me a deaf ear a time or two, I take her someplace she can’t ignore me. If she has nothing to do but listen,” he shrugged, “she listens.”
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