"Just Paige is fine with me."
They spent the next hour cleaning up, heating up water, and then washing out the sheets from the birth and hanging them outside in the sunshine, picking and washing and cutting up carrots and turnips and potatoes from Clara's kitchen garden to make a hearty soup. Abigail would stay with the Fletchers until Clara was feeling stronger. Theo had offered to drive Paige back into town after lunch.
It was almost noon when the dog's frantic barking announced the arrival of a horse and rider.
Paige glanced out the window in time to see Myles swing down from his mount.
Theo hurried over and the men spoke, and then Myles smiled and shook Theo's hand, obviously congratulating him on his daughter.
A few moments later, they came in. Myles's high black boots and brown breeches were dusty from riding, and there were lines of weariness around his mouth and eyes.
He was smiling, however, and his broad shouldered, tall form suddenly made the small cabin seem even smaller.
"Good day, ladies." He swept his broad brimmed felt hat from his head and gave them each a courtly bow. "Theo tells me you did a fine job of delivering his daughter. My congratulations to you both." His remark was directed at the two of them, but his gray eyes lingered on Paige, and there was respect and admiration in his gaze.
There was the hint of something more as well, and she felt herself flush under his scrutiny.
In the weeks they'd worked together, a bond had formed between them, the bond of two doctors fighting a common cause, doing their best to safeguard the health of their patients.
At this moment, however, in the Fletchers' little cabin, Paige was suddenly and shockingly aware that what she was feeling for Myles Baldwin wasn't simply the camaraderie of one medical person for the other. Her heart was hammering, the blood pounding in her veins. She felt breathless, and she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from him.
She couldn't possibly be falling in love with Myles Baldwin, could she?
Now and Then: Chapter Eight
The seat of the buggy was so narrow Paige could feel Myles's strong thigh pressed against hers. Frequently, one of the large wheels hit a depression in the earth, and then the buggy tilted precariously to one side or the other, forcing even closer contact between the occupants.
When Myles offered to take Paige back to Battleford with him, Theo had insisted they borrow his buggy.
So she and Myles were bouncing across the uneven prairie in this small, unstable feeling conveyance, with an enormous lunch that Abigail Donald had insisted on packing them in a canvas bag at their feet.
Myles's saddle horse, Major, trotted along beside them, and Paige couldn't help but feel that the aristocratic animal looked at his master with an expression of contempt for riding in a lowly buggy.
In the pocket of Paige's skirt was the ten-dollar bill Theo had insisted she take as payment for the delivery. Paige had tried to refuse, but it was clear that to Theo it was a matter of pride to pay her, and so she'd gracefully accepted. As soon as they were away from the cabin, Myles had wanted to know the details of Clara's delivery. Paige, both exhausted and euphoric, told him about using hypnosis.
Myles's eyebrows shot up, and he turned to give her an astounded look. "I've heard of mesmerism," he said. "In a medical journal, I once read about a professor of neurology in Paris, Charcot is his name. He uses mesmerism to treat hysteria. But I've never heard of anyone using such a technique during childbirth."
"Oh, it's very common in my time," Paige explained. "There are drugs we use during childbirth as well, but hypnosis is noninvasive, which to me is wonderful. Whenever any of my patients expresses an interest, I use it. It usually takes more preparation than Clara had, It was just plain old luck that she was so responsive to it."
She went on to tell him about ultrasound, and fetal monitors, and birthing underwater, and the use of soft music and dim lights in some delivery rooms. She told him of difficult deliveries she'd made, and she even poured out the story of the last, tragic delivery she'd done in her own time, detailing the cesarean section and then the awful death of Dave and Liz Jackson's baby son. It seemed so long ago now, and to her surprise she could talk about it without reliving the nausea and guilt that she'd experienced at the time.
The trouble was, she couldn't seem to stop talking. She gave him an abbreviated history of medicine's major breakthroughs from 1883 to what she thought of as the present day, beginning with the development of X rays and antibiotics and finishing with organ transplants, genetic engineering, operations performed by laser.
"Surgeons have even begun operating on the fetus long before it's ready to be born, while it's in its mother's womb. In several cases they've removed tumors from the unborn baby's body that would kill the baby before it had a chance to be born. The child isn't removed from the mother's body—it's still partially inside the womb during the operation. Then it's put back inside, and with luck, it has a chance to heal and grow into a full size fetus before delivery."
Myles hadn't said anything during Paige's monologue. She knew he'd been listening closely because of the distracted way he managed the horse.
"Paige, please describe for me the exact steps in this cesarean operation you mentioned," he finally said, and Paige did, pretending in her mind she was actually performing the technique, describing for him every small detail of the procedure, painting a word picture of the modern operating room, the smells, the sounds, the reasons for the cesarean.
She described how she'd prepare the mother, why she preferred one anesthesiologist over another, the nurses she most enjoyed working with, the advanced technology of the instruments she would be using.
For a few enchanted moments she was there, in her mind's eye, back in the familiar surroundings of a modern hospital, doing what she did best. She described every minute detail, even adding a description of the type of sutures she'd use to close the incision, and the special attention the baby would receive from specialists in the operating room.
It took a long time, and when she finished, the only sound was the steady clop of the horses' hooves and the sound of the buggy's wheels. There was a constant humming and chirping, the melody of grasshoppers, gophers, and birds that surrounded them on the undulating prairie.
As if she were awakening from a dream, she looked around. The afternoon was hot, the air was still, the sky stretched like a blue tent from one horizon to another with only a few fluffy white clouds scudding across to die west. The rolling hills and scattered, sparse trees stretched around them, unbroken by any trace of civilization.
No planes, no power lines, no roads.
It was 1883, and even penicillin hadn't yet been invented, she reminded herself. The scene she'd just described was lost to her, perhaps forever.
The lack of sleep, the strain she'd been under delivering Clara's baby, all the difficult realities of her situation overwhelmed her quite suddenly, and without any warning, she started to sob.
"Paige, my dear. What is it?" Myles's concerned voice, the tender endearment, made her cry even harder.
Damn, she had no handkerchief. She mopped at her streaming eyes with her palms, sniffling, trying to control the sobs that seemed to originate in the toes of the high top boots she'd finally purchased.
Myles pulled the horse to a stop and dug in his pocket, producing a snowy square of white linen. He didn't give it to her; instead he turned on the narrow seat and, with gentle care, blotted her eyes and her cheeks until at last the storm of tears slowed. Finally he handed her the handkerchief. "Now blow your nose and tell me what brought that on," he instructed.
She blew, and then she said, "I just realized how much my life has changed, and how much I took for granted, before. Until a short while ago, I had money, I was good at my job, I had my own clinic and a small fortune in equipment." She gulped. "And last night, with Clara, I had to deliver a baby without so much as a stethoscope. It was the purest luck that everything went as well as it did, because I had not
hing to use if it didn't, no forceps, no anesthetic, nothing to stop Clara from hemorrhaging. I was scared to death."
She drew a shaky breath, trying to stop the new flood of tears that threatened. "Back in my own time, I had a lovely apartment, with a view of English Bay. By the end of the week here in Battleford, I won't even have a place to live. Lulu Leiberman's tossing me out on my ear."
Myles frowned. "Why's that?"
Paige felt a hysterical urge to giggle. "Thanks to Lulu's gossiping, I gather the local women think I'm a prostitute. Apparently, she hinted that's what I was doing at the fort during the fever epidemic. My God, I should give it some consideration, just think of how much money I'd have made during those weeks. As it is, all I ended up with was dishpan hands from that lousy carbolic of yours."
Myles was torn between the urge to laugh at her outrageous words and the desire to shake her hard for her suggestion that she should even consider becoming a prostitute. It embarrassed him to remember that he'd thought so himself in the beginning. The smartest thing to do, he decided, would be change the subject fast, before Paige remembered those first conversations they'd had and reminded him of them.
"You're tired, and probably hungry as well," he suggested. "Abigail packed us a substantial dinner." He squinted out across the rolling landscape. "There's a grove of willows over there; let's head over that way and eat." He clicked his tongue at the horse, and the buggy jolted its way toward the sparse shade.
He tethered the horses and Paige used the seat of the buggy to spread the food out on the clean cloth it was wrapped in. There were thick slabs of homemade bread, spread with butter Clara must have churned before her labor pains began. There were pieces of fried salt pork and rhubarb pickles to eat with the bread. There was water in Myles's canteen as well as a stone bottle of buttermilk, still cool and refreshing, and two generous slabs of the dried apple pie Mrs. Donald had made and served at lunch.
Myles was hungry, and for a while they chewed and swallowed without saying much. Paige perched on the running board of the buggy in what meager shade the conveyance provided, and Myles leaned against the side.
"You were right, I was starving. This food tastes wonderful," Paige said with a sigh, reaching for another slice of bread and piling it with pork and pickles. She'd casually hiked her long skirt up almost to her knees, and her legs were shapely and slender in their lisle stockings.
"You know," she went on, "that first day when Rob found me, we stopped for lunch and Clara put out what she had. I was used to such different food, I didn't appreciate what she served."
"Even the food is different where you come from?" Myles felt a combination of curiosity and ambivalence about this other world of hers.
She nodded. "Yup, it sure is. We have stuff like packaged lunchmeats, and turkey rolls that only contain white meat, and soda pop in cans. And microwaves to heat food in, and dishwashers to do the dishes afterward." She described them as well as she could and then thought for a moment." And then there's Pop Tarts, and TV dinners, and instant coffee, and containers of ice cream." She chewed on the bread for a moment. "God, sometimes I miss chocolate ice cream worse than anything else. Well, almost."
A feeling was slowly building inside of Myles as he listened to her talking about her other world, a confused mixture of anger and resentment and something he couldn't identify at first—he'd had little experience till now with jealousy. He didn't know yet if he believed absolutely in the things she spoke of; they were too farfetched to even imagine, some of them.
But he didn't disbelieve her either; he didn't think anyone, regardless of how disturbed they might be or how great their imagination, could possibly invent the incredible things Paige spoke of with such authority. He only knew he didn't want to hear any more about them just now. He wanted her instead to look around and really see the magnificent wide prairies, the blue sky, the autumn beauty of this wild and open land.
He wanted her to see him, to be here, now, not obsessed with these magic lantern slides of some other time and place that brought that expression of yearning to her lovely features.
They finished their meal with long drafts from Myles's canteen. As she'd done before the meal, Paige again used a small amount of the water to clean her hands. This time she washed her face as well, cleaning away the silver traces of dried tears, drying her face on a corner of her skirt.
She removed the straw hat Clara had insisted she borrow and, taking the brush he'd given her from the small bag she'd brought, did her best to smooth down her rebellious mop of coal dark curly hair. It shone in the sunshine, and the curls sprang back up the instant the brush had smoothed them, as if they had an obstinate life of their own.
He had an overwhelming urge to reach out and stroke those curls, learn their texture, bury his nose in them and memorize the faint perfume his nostrils detected as she leaned close to him.
Myles watched her fuss, intently aware that the two of them were totally alone out here.
Her cheeks and nose were sunburned despite the hat, and scattered with freckles. Her tall, lithe body beneath the long dark skirt and patterned cotton blouse was slender— naturally slender, without the artificial aid of whalebone. He'd noted long before that she didn't wear the constricting stays most other women did. It was a bold and sensual thing to do, to allow her body to fill out her clothing without barriers.
He remembered the red silken garments she'd worn when Cameron found her. He wondered now what had become of them.
She lifted her arms to settle the wide brimmed hat on her head. Her rounded breasts thrust against the fabric of the patterned blouse, and she was aware suddenly of his eyes on her.
She became still, her arms up for an instant, her clear green eyes startled. Then his hands were on her shoulders, drawing her toward him. He could feel her warm skin against his palms through the thin fabric of the blouse.
"Paige, come here to me. ..." His voice was a choked whisper.
She gasped aloud when he slid his hands down her back, pulling her into his arms, and then she tilted her head back so that she could look into his eyes, her own a deep and thrilling green against the tan of her skin. There was a question in those eyes, and a challenge.
Her hat fell off, and her arms went around him.
He found her mouth, the full lips soft and sensual beneath his own, and abandoning all restraint, he kissed her, exploring, experimenting, nipping, licking, parting her lips with his tongue and showing her with lips and tongue and teeth the near violence of the desire that raged in him.
And with each new caress, she answered in kind.
His hands stroked her back, then slid down to her buttocks, thrilling to the feel of her body, unrestricted and soft beneath his touch.
The kiss went on and on, and his body, hard as stone and screaming for fulfillment, surged against her. He pulled her even closer, spreading his legs slightly and urging her into the hollow.
She moaned and her hips rocked to the rhythm he'd begun.
He stroked her, his palms aching to touch naked flesh, moving restlessly from her hips up to her breasts, cupping their soft fullness, his thumbs flicking across hard nipples.
It had been so long, so long since he'd allowed himself to make love to a woman, and even then, it was a woman he'd bought and paid for.
He was more lonely than he could bear to admit. He wanted this woman; he'd wanted her since that very first night, when she'd worn his nightshirt and cursed at him for locking her up. But the habits of years, the hard won peace that had come from locking his emotions away and tossing out the key, were too deeply ingrained to overcome with just a kiss.
In some silent, simultaneous agreement, they moved apart, their breathing loud and uneven in the stillness of the afternoon.
He still held her, his hands lightly on her waist now, her fingers spread on his chest. He could see a pulse hammering in her throat, could feel with his palms the force of the heartbeat shaking her body.
"I apologize, Paige," he sa
id when he could speak at all. His voice was thick, barely in control. "This is not a good idea."
She drew back, her wide green gaze suddenly wary. "Oh? Why's that? It felt pretty darned good to me."
It had felt more than just good to him, but he had to explain somehow, make up an excuse that would allow her her dignity. It was difficult when all he wanted to do was tumble her to the grass, strip off her pantaloons ...
"Because it wouldn't stop just with today, Paige. It couldn't. For me, today would only be a beginning."
Her lips were swollen and bruised looking, and he rubbed a trembling finger across them, aware of their moistness, their warmth. He racked his brain for a reasonable explanation.
"The last thing I want is to cause still more trouble for you in Battleford," he finally said. "What you must do now is convince the town and its gossips that you're a talented medical doctor. In order to do that, you must safeguard your character. There are no secrets in a town that size, and becoming my mistress would destroy your reputation beyond redemption."
She'd pulled completely away now. She was straightening her clothing, not looking at him. "You're right, of course." She sounded almost flippant. "Besides, the last thing I want is to become emotionally involved with anyone from around here. From this era, I mean. I have to find a way back, sooner or later. To my own life, my own time."
It hurt more than he could have imagined, having her brush him off so lightly, as if—as if that blasted other life of hers was real, and here and now nothing more than a fantasy.
He harnessed the horse to the buggy and helped her in without a word. The remainder of the drive was made in almost total silence, and they each took care not to touch the other.
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 13